Zoonomia Volume I Part 4

OF a.s.sOCIATE MOTIONS.

I. 1. _Many muscular motions excited by irritations in trains or tribes become a.s.sociated._ 2. _And many ideas._ II. 1. _Many sensitive muscular motions become a.s.sociated._ 2. _And many sensitive ideas._ III. 1. _Many voluntary muscular motions become a.s.sociated._ 2. _And then become obedient to sensation or irritation._ 3. _And many voluntary ideas become a.s.sociated._

All the fibrous motions, whether muscular or sensual, which are frequently brought into action together, either in combined tribes, or in successive trains, become so connected by habit, that when one of them is reproduced the others have a tendency to succeed or accompany it.

I. 1. Many of our muscular motions were originally excited in successive trains, as the contractions of the auricles and of the ventricles of the heart; and others in combined tribes, as the various divisions of the muscles which compose the calf of the leg, which were originally irritated into synchronous action by the taedium or irksomeness of a continued posture. By frequent repet.i.tions these motions acquire a.s.sociations, which continue during our lives, and even after the destruction of the greatest part of the sensorium; for the heart of a viper or frog will continue to pulsate long after it is taken from the body; and when it has entirely ceased to move, if any part of it is goaded with a pin, the whole heart will again renew its pulsations. This kind of connection we shall term irritative a.s.sociation, to distinguish it from sensitive and voluntary a.s.sociations.

2. In like manner many of our ideas are originally excited in tribes; as all the objects of sight, after we become so well acquainted with the laws of vision, as to distinguish figure and distance as well as colour; or in trains, as while we pa.s.s along the objects that surround us. The tribes thus received by irritation become a.s.sociated by habit, and have been termed complex ideas by the writers of metaphysics, as this book, or that orange. The trains have received no particular name, but these are alike a.s.sociations of ideas, and frequently continue during our lives. So the taste of a pine-apple, though we eat it blindfold, recalls the colour and shape of it; and we can scarcely think on solidity without figure.

II. 1. By the various efforts of our sensations to acquire or avoid their objects, many muscles are daily brought into successive or synchronous actions; these become a.s.sociated by habit, and are then excited together with great facility, and in many instances gain indissoluble connections.

So the play of puppies and kittens is a representation of their mode of fighting or of taking their prey; and the motions of the muscles necessary for those purposes become a.s.sociated by habit, and gain a great adroitness of action by these early repet.i.tions: so the motions of the abdominal muscles, which were originally brought into concurrent action, with the protrusive motion of the r.e.c.t.u.m or bladder by sensation, become so conjoined with them by habit, that they not only easily obey these sensations occasioned by the stimulus of the excrement and urine, but are brought into violent and unrestrainable action in the strangury and tenesmus. This kind of connection we shall term sensitive a.s.sociation.

2. So many of our ideas, that have been excited together or in succession by our sensations, gain synchronous or successive a.s.sociations, that are sometimes indissoluble but with life. Hence the idea of an inhuman or dishonourable action perpetually calls up before us the idea of the wretch that was guilty of it. And hence those unconquerable antipathies are formed, which some people have to the sight of peculiar kinds of food, of which in their infancy they have eaten to excess or by constraint.

III. 1. In learning any mechanic art, as music, dancing, or the use of the sword, we teach many of our muscles to act together or in succession by repeated voluntary efforts; which by habit become formed into tribes or trains of a.s.sociation, and serve all our purposes with great facility, and in some instances acquire an indissoluble union. These motions are gradually formed into a habit of acting together by a mult.i.tude of repet.i.tions, whilst they are yet separately causable by the will, as is evident from the long time that is taken up by children in learning to walk and to speak; and is experienced by every one, when he first attempts to skate upon the ice or to swim: these we shall term voluntary a.s.sociations.

2. All these muscular movements, when they are thus a.s.sociated into tribes or trains, become afterwards not only obedient to volition, but to the sensations and irritations; and the same movement composes a part of many different tribes or trains of motion. Thus a single muscle, when it acts in consort with its neighbours on one side, a.s.sists to move the limb in one direction; and in another, when, it acts with those in its neighbourhood on the other side; and in other directions, when it acts separately or jointly with those that lie immediately under or above it; and all these with equal facility after their a.s.sociations have been well established.

The facility, with which each muscle changes from one a.s.sociated tribe to another, and that either backwards or forwards, is well observable in the muscles of the arm in moving the windla.s.s of an air-pump; and the slowness of those muscular movements, that have not been a.s.sociated by habit, may be experienced by any one, who shall attempt to saw the air quick perpendicularly with one hand, and horizontally with the other at the same time.

3. In learning every kind of science we voluntarily a.s.sociate many tribes and trains of ideas, which afterwards are ready for all the purposes either of volition, sensation, or irritation; and in some instances acquire indissoluble habits of acting together, so as to affect our reasoning, and influence our actions. Hence the necessity of a good education.

These a.s.sociate ideas are gradually formed into habits of acting together by frequent repet.i.tion, while they are yet separately obedient to the will; as is evident from the difficulty we experience in gaining so exact an idea of the front of St. Paul's church, as to be able to delineate it with accuracy, or in recollecting a poem of a few pages.

And these ideas, thus a.s.sociated into tribes, not only make up the parts of the trains of volition, sensation, and irritation; but the same idea composes a part of many different tribes and trains of ideas. So the simple idea of whiteness composes a part of the complex idea of snow, milk, ivory; and the complex idea of the letter A composes a part of the several a.s.sociated trains of ideas that make up the variety of words, in which this letter enters.

The numerous trains of these a.s.sociated ideas are divided by Mr. Hume into three cla.s.ses, which he has termed contiguity, causation, and resemblance.

Nor should we wonder to find them thus connected together, since it is the business of our lives to dispose them into those three cla.s.ses; and we become valuable to ourselves and our friends, as we succeed in it. Those who have combined an extensive cla.s.s of ideas by the contiguity of time or place, are men learned in the history of mankind, and of the sciences they have cultivated. Those who have connected a great cla.s.s of ideas of resemblances, possess the source of the ornaments of poetry and oratory, and of all rational a.n.a.logy. While those who have connected great cla.s.ses of ideas of causation, are furnished with the powers of producing effects.

These are the men of active wisdom, who lead armies to victory, and kingdoms to prosperity; or discover and improve the sciences, which meliorate and adorn the condition of humanity.

SECT. XI.

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SENSORIAL POWERS.

I. _Stimulation is of various kinds adapted to the organs of sense, to the muscles, to hollow membranes, and glands. Some objects irritate our senses by repeated impulses._ II. 1. _Sensation and volition frequently affect the whole sensorium._ 2. _Emotions, pa.s.sions, appet.i.tes._ 3.

_Origin of desire and aversion. Criterion of voluntary actions, difference of brutes and men._ 4. _Sensibility and voluntarity._ III.

_a.s.sociations formed before nativity, irritative motions mistaken for officiated ones._

_Irritation._

I. The various organs of sense require various kinds of stimulation to excite them into action; the particles of light penetrate the cornea and humours of the eye, and then irritate the naked retina; rapid particles, dissolved or diffused in water or saliva, and odorous ones, mixed or combined with the air, irritate the extremities of the nerves of taste and smell; which either penetrate, or are expanded on the membranes of the tongue and nostrils; the auditory nerves are stimulated by the vibrations of the atmosphere communicated by means of the tympanum and of the fluid, whether of air or of water, behind it; and the nerves of touch by the hardness of surrounding bodies, though the cuticle is interposed between these bodies and the medulla of the nerve.

As the nerves of the senses have each their appropriated objects, which stimulate them into activity; so the muscular fibres, which are the terminations of other sets of nerves, have their peculiar objects, which excite them into action; the longitudinal muscles are stimulated into contraction by extension, whence the stretching or pandiculation after a long continued posture, during which they have been kept in a state of extension; and the hollow muscles are excited into action by distention, as those of the r.e.c.t.u.m and bladder are induced to protrude their contents from their sense of the distention rather than of the acrimony of those contents.

There are other objects adapted to stimulate the nerves, which terminate in variety of membranes, and those especially which form the terminations of ca.n.a.ls; thus the preparations of mercury particularly affect the salivary glands, ipecacuanha the stomach, aloe the sphincter of the a.n.u.s, cantharides that of the bladder, and lastly every gland of the body appears to be indued with a kind of taste, by which it selects or forms each its peculiar fluid from the blood; and by which it is irritated into activity.

Many of these external properties of bodies, which stimulate our organs of sense, do not seem to effect this by a single impulse, but by repeated impulses; as the nerve of the ear is probably not excitable by a single vibration of air, nor the optic nerve by a single particle of light; which circ.u.mstance produces some a.n.a.logy between those two senses, at the same time the solidity of bodies is perceived by a single application of a solid body to the nerves of touch, and that even through the cuticle; and we are probably possessed of a peculiar sense to distinguish the nice degrees of heat and cold.

The senses of touch and of hearing acquaint us with the mechanical impact and vibration of bodies, those of smell and taste seem to acquaint us with some of their chemical properties, while the sense of vision and of heat acquaint us with the existence of their peculiar fluids.

_Sensation and Volition._

II. Many motions are produced by pleasure or pain, and that even in contradiction to the power of volition, as in laughing, or in the strangury; but as no name has been given to pleasure or pain, at the time it is exerted so as to cause fibrous motions, we have used the term sensation for this purpose; and mean it to bear the same a.n.a.logy to pleasure and pain, that the word volition does to desire and aversion.

1. It was mentioned in the fifth Section, that, what we have termed sensation is a motion of the central parts, or of the whole sensorium, _beginning_ at some of the extremities of it. This appears first, because our pains and pleasures are always caused by our ideas or muscular motions, which are the motions of the extremities of the sensorium. And, secondly, because the sensation of pleasure or pain frequently continues some time after the ideas or muscular motions which excited it have ceased: for we often feel a glow of pleasure from an agreeable reverie, for many minutes after the ideas, that were the subject of it, have escaped our memory; and frequently experience a dejection of spirits without being able to a.s.sign the cause of it but by much recollection.

When the sensorial faculty of desire or aversion is exerted so as to cause fibrous motions, it is termed volition; which is said in Sect. V. to be a motion of the central parts, or of the whole sensorium, _terminating_ in some of the extremities of it. This appears, first, because our desires and aversions always terminate in recollecting and comparing our ideas, or in exerting our muscles; which are the motions of the extremities of the sensorium. And, secondly, because desire or aversion begins, and frequently continues for a time in the central parts of the sensorium, before it is peculiarly exerted at the extremities of it; for we sometimes feel desire or aversion without immediately knowing their objects, and in consequence without immediately exerting any of our muscular or sensual motions to attain them: as in the beginning of the pa.s.sion of love, and perhaps of hunger, or in the ennui of indolent people.

Though sensation and volition begin or terminate at the extremities or central parts of the sensorium, yet the whole of it is frequently influenced by the exertion of these faculties, as appears from their effects on the external habit: for the whole skin is reddened by shame, and an universal trembling is produced by fear: and every muscle of the body is agitated in angry people by the desire of revenge.

There is another very curious circ.u.mstance, which shews that sensation and volition are movements of the sensorium in contrary directions; that is, that volition begins at the central parts of it, and proceeds to the extremities; and that sensation begins at the extremities, and proceeds to the central parts: I mean that these two sensorial faculties cannot be strongly exerted at the same time; for when we exert our volition strongly, we do not attend to pleasure or pain; and conversely, when we are strongly affected with the sensation of pleasure or pain, we use no volition. As will be further explained in Section XVIII. on sleep, and Section x.x.xIV. on volition.

2. All our emotions and pa.s.sions seem to arise out of the exertions of these two faculties of the animal sensorium. Pride, hope, joy, are the names of particular pleasures: shame, despair, sorrow, are the names of peculiar pains: and love, ambition, avarice, of particular desires: hatred, disgust, fear, anxiety, of particular aversions. Whilst the pa.s.sion of anger includes the pain from a recent injury, and the aversion to the adversary that occasioned it. And compa.s.sion is the pain we experience at the sight of misery, and the desire of relieving it.

There is another tribe of desires, which are commonly termed appet.i.tes, and are the immediate consequences of the absence of some irritative motions.

Those, which arise from defect of internal irritations, have proper names conferred upon them, as hunger, thirst, l.u.s.t, and the desire of air, when our respiration is impaired by noxious vapours; and of warmth, when we are exposed to too great a degree of cold. But those, whose stimuli are external to the body, are named from the objects, which are by nature const.i.tuted to excite them; these desires originate from our past experience of the pleasurable sensations they occasion, as the smell of an hyacinth, or the taste of a pine-apple.

Whence it appears, that our pleasures and pains are at least as various and as numerous as our irritations; and that our desires and aversions must be as numerous as our pleasures and pains. And that as sensation is here used as a general term for our numerous pleasures and pains, when they produce the contractions of our fibres; so volition is the general name for our desires and aversions, when they produce fibrous contractions. Thus when a motion of the central parts, or of the whole sensorium, terminates in the exertion of our muscles, it is generally called voluntary action; when it terminates in the exertion of our ideas, it is termed recollection, reasoning, determining.

3. As the sensations of pleasure and pain are originally introduced by the irritations of external objects: so our desires and aversions are originally introduced by those sensations; for when the objects of our pleasures or pains are at a distance, and we cannot instantaneously possess the one, or avoid the other, then desire or aversion is produced, and a voluntary exertion of our ideas or muscles succeeds.

The pain of hunger excites you to look out for food, the tree, that shades you, presents its odoriferous fruit before your eyes, you approach, pluck, and eat.

The various movements of walking to the tree, gathering the fruit, and masticating it, are a.s.sociated motions introduced by their connection with sensation; but if from the uncommon height of the tree, the fruit be inaccessible, and you are prevented from quickly possessing the intended pleasure, desire is produced. The consequence of this desire is, first, a deliberation about the means to gain the object of pleasure in process of time, as it cannot be procured immediately; and, secondly, the muscular action necessary for this purpose.

You voluntarily call up all your ideas of causation, that are related to the effect you desire, and voluntarily examine and compare them, and at length determine whether to ascend the tree, or to gather stones from the neighbouring brook, is easier to practise, or more promising of success; and, finally, you gather the stones, and repeatedly fling them to dislodge the fruit.

Hence then we gain a criterion to distinguish voluntary acts or thoughts from those caused by sensation. As the former are always employed about the _means_ to acquire pleasurable objects, or the _means_ to avoid painful ones; while the latter are employed in the possession of those, which are already in our power.

Hence the activity of this power of volition produces the great difference between the human and the brute creation. The ideas and the actions of brutes are almost perpetually employed about their present pleasures, or their present pains; and, except in the few instances which are mentioned in Section XVI, on instinct, they seldom busy themselves about the means of procuring future bliss, or of avoiding future misery; so that the acquiring of languages, the making of tools, and labouring for money, which are all only the means to procure pleasures; and the praying to the Deity, as another means to procure happiness, are characteristic of human nature.

4. As there are many diseases produced by the quant.i.ty of the sensation of pain or pleasure being too great or too little; so are there diseases produced by the susceptibility of the const.i.tution to motions causable by these sensations being too dull or too vivid. This susceptibility of the system to sensitive motions is termed sensibility, to distinguish it from sensation, which is the actual existence or exertion of pain or pleasure.

Other cla.s.ses of diseases are owing to the excessive prompt.i.tude, or sluggishness of the const.i.tution to voluntary exertions, as well as to the quant.i.ty of desire or of aversion. This susceptibility of the system to voluntary motions is termed voluntarity, to distinguish it from volition, which is the exertion of desire or aversion; these diseases will be treated of at length in the progress of the work.

_a.s.sociation._

III. 1. It is not easy to a.s.sign a cause, why those animal movements, that have once occurred in succession, or in combination, should afterwards have a tendency to succeed or accompany each other. It is a property of animation, and distinguishes this order of being from the other productions of nature.

When a child first wrote the word man, it was distinguished in his mind into three letters, and those letters into many parts of letters; but by repeated use the word man becomes to his hand in writing it, as to his organs of speech in p.r.o.nouncing it, but one movement without any deliberation, or sensation, or irritation, interposed between the parts of it. And as many separate motions of our muscles thus become united, and form, as it were, one motion; so each separate motion before such union may be conceived to consist of many parts or s.p.a.ces moved through; and perhaps even the individual fibres of our muscles have thus gradually been brought to act in concert, which habits began to be acquired as early as the very formation of the moving organs, long before the nativity of the animal; as explained in the Section XVI. 2. on instinct.

2. There are many motions of the body, belonging to the irritative cla.s.s, which might by a hasty observer be mistaken for a.s.sociated ones; as the peristaltic motion of the stomach and intestines, and the contractions of the heart and arteries, might be supposed to be a.s.sociated with the irritative motions of their nerves of sense, rather than to be excited by the irritation of their muscular fibres by the distention, acrimony, or momentum of the blood. So the distention or elongation of muscles by objects external to them irritates them into contraction, though the cuticle or other parts may intervene between the stimulating body and the contracting muscle. Thus a horse voids his excrement when its weight or bulk irritates the r.e.c.t.u.m or sphincter ani. These muscles act from the irritation of distention, when he excludes his excrement, but the muscles of the abdomen and diaphragm are brought into motion by a.s.sociation with those of the sphincter and r.e.c.t.u.m.

SECT. XII.