Synopses & Reviews
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Representation. We have, then, for our starting-point, sensation. What is the first step in the evolution of consciousness? A consideration of the higher forms of consciousness, that is to say, of those which are more complex, and therefore evolved later, than sensation, proves that they all contain a common element. Let us first consider memory. Memory consists of two distinct faculties. In the first place, there is a faculty by which a consciousness faintly resembling a past consciousness is called up into present consciousness. We shall call this faculty the faculty of representation, and the faint resemblance itself we shall call a representation or idea of the past consciousness. It is manifest that this faculty by which past consciousness is represented in present consciousness is quite distinct from the faculty which assures us that this idea is a representation of a past consciousness. The mere recurrence of a past consciousness, although a necessary part of memory, is not, in itself, a memory at all any more than the annual recurrence of the blossoming and fruiting of a tree are of the nature of memories. That which constitutes the more essential part of memory is the conviction that is somehow or other produced in us by this representation?a present consciousness?that it represents a consciousness which we experienced in thepast. And not only does it represent to us a past consciousness, but it places that past consciousness more or less definitely in its proper position in the past. The latter faculty is the more essential part of memory. Thus memory is compounded of the two distinct faculties, representation and memory proper. Again, intelligence is the expectation of future consciousness. But in order that it may be possible to expect any kind ...
Synopsis
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