Items related to Lectures on metaphysics
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861 Excerpt: ...by desire, tt'j"?of which, though involuntary, may be resisted by our Encu" tne third, an act determined by a deliberate vo lition. An act of attention,--that is, an act of concentration,--seems thus necessary to every exertion of consciousness, as a certain contraction of the pupil is requisite to every exercise of vision. We have formerly noticed, that discrimination is a condition of consciousness; and a discrimination is only possible by a concentrative act, or act of attention. This, however, which corresponds to the lowest degree,--to the mere vital or automatic act of attention, has been refused the name; and attention, in contradistinction to this mere automatic contraction, given to the two other degrees, of which, however, Reid only recognises the third. Nature and Attention, then, is to consciousness, what the conoTauention. traction of the pupil is to sight; or to the eye of the mind, what the microscope or telescope is to the bodily eye. The faculty of attention is not, therefore, a special faculty, but merely consciousness acting under the law of limitation to which it is subjected. But whatever be its relations to the special faculties, attention doubles all their efficiency, and affords them a power of which they would otherwise be destitute. It is, in fact, as we are at present constituted, the primary condition of their activity. Can we at-Having thus concluded the discussion of the ques tend to more j' xl i, n,i than a single tion regarding the relation 01 consciousness to the. once?at other cognitive faculties, I proceeded to consider various questions which, as not peculiar to any of the special faculties, fall to be discussed under the head of consciousness, and I commenced with the curious problem, Whether we can attend to m...
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- PublisherRareBooksClub.com
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1236182804
- ISBN 13 9781236182807
- BindingPaperback
- LanguageEnglish
- Number of pages152
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