Chapter XVII: Section I: Dr. Brown

DR. THOMAS BROWN¹ was a native of the parish of Kirkmabreck, in the south of Scotland, where his father was minister; but he died shortly after the birth of the future philosopher, and the family then removed to Edinburgh. There he received the rudiments of his education from his mother, and at the age of seven he was sent by his relatives to school in England. At the age of fourteen he returned, entered the University of Edinburgh, attended the logic class and Stewart’s courses of lectures. But in 1798 he was studying law, which, however, he soon relinquished for medicine. He attended the medical classes from 1798 to 1803, when he graduated M.A., having been over ten years a student in the University. Thus Brown had the advantage of the instruction of several eminent professors who then illumined this school.

¹ Born in 1778; died in 1820.

In 1805, he ventured into what has been called the Leslie controversy, touching the heterodoxy of John Leslie, whom the clergy wished to exclude from the chair of mathematics, on the ground that he had enounced views on causation similar to David Hume’s; and in reference to this, Brown published his _Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect_, defending Hume’s theory that this relation is merely one of constant antecedence and sequence. He was for some time assistant to Dr. James Gregory; but a wider field for the exercise of his genius awaited him.

It was in the summer of 1810, with the full approval of Stewart himself, that Brown was appointed his colleague and successor in the chair of moral philosophy. He was an interesting, cultured man, with a glowing poetical fancy, combined with other qualities of mind of a rarer form, and he soon became popular. Those who had the good fortune to listen to his lectures were delighted with them; and his career as a professor, though comparatively short, was a brilliant success. His lectures were published shortly after his death in 1820, and attained a remarkable popularity; for before 1852 eighteen editions had been issued in great Britain, and more in America.¹

¹ His lectures extend to one hundred, and, with his unfinished
text-book, contain all that he wrote on the philosophy of
the mind.

They contain a systematic exposition of the philosophy of the human mind. In his introductory lectures he explains the scope and limits of the subject, the relation of the philosophy of the mind to the sciences in general, and to the mental sciences, arts, and moral culture in particular; and he did this in an interesting and attractive manner, well suited to arrest the attention of a youthful audience. He told his class:――“Though I shall endeavour to give as full a view as my limits will permit of all the objects of inquiry which are to come before us, it will be my chief wish to awake in you, or to cherish, a love of those sublime inquiries themselves. There is a philosophic spirit which is far more valuable than any limited acquirements of philosophy; and the cultivation of which, therefore, is the most precious advantage that can be derived from the lessons and studies of many academic years――a spirit which is quick to pursue whatever is within the reach of human intellect, but which is not less quick to discern the bounds that limit every human inquiry, and which, therefore, in seeking much, seeks only what man may learn――which knows how to distinguish what is just in itself from what is merely accredited by illustrious names; adopting a truth which no one has sanctioned, and rejecting an error of which all approve, with the same calmness as if no judgment were opposed to its own.”¹

¹ Volume I., pages 14‒15, 18‒20.

He devotes several lectures to an explanation of the methods of inquiry in physical science in general, of power, cause and effect, hypothesis and theory; and in these he manifested considerable powers of exposition. He insisted strongly that the method of inquiry in physical science, should also be followed in mental science.

The chief features of Brown’s psychology may be briefly indicated thus:――Fundamentally, it is a simple form of idealism, which recognises primary beliefs, while its conception of method is two-fold――(1) The mental phenomena may be viewed as successive, and so susceptible of arrangement in the order of their succession, as causes and effects; (2) viewed as complex, and consequently susceptible of analysis; and it was chiefly in the latter relation that he conceived the philosophy of the mind to be a science of progressive discovery. In this relation it still presented an inexhaustible field of inquiry, since the mind is continually forming new combinations, which modify its subsequent thoughts and emotions, the results of which it is the end of mental analysis to reduce to their original elements. In accordance with this conception, he divided the whole phenomena of the mind into two classes――the internal and external affections; the second class is simple and requires few sub-divisions, but the first, as it comprehends the far greater part of the mental phenomena, admits of many sub-divisions, as aids to arrangement and exposition. The first great sub-division of the intellectual class, is into the intellectual states of mind and emotions. But our external affections have their causes in external objects, while the internal affections arise from the previous feelings or emotions of the mind itself; both classes co-exist, and cannot always be considered as arising separately. Hence the different views which have been taken of perception and the existence of the external world.

Brown treated sensation at length, minutely analysing the different tribes of our sensations, as he called them, through all the external senses. After some explanation of the physical side of the process, he follows the same order as Reid in discussing the first four external senses, and he avers that none of our sensations arising through smelling, taste, or hearing afford us any original knowledge of the existence of external things, though we seem to act on such an assumption. He dwells long and interestingly on the early sensations of touch, and rightly assigns to them a priority over all our other sensations. Those qualities of bodies supposed to be made known to us by touch he reduced to two――resistance and extension; and he endeavoured to show that our muscular frame is the organ through which these external qualities are originally felt. He illustrated this view in various ways.¹

¹ Volume I., pages 481, 483, 484.

He minutely explained the points touching perception wherein he differed from Reid. In the preceding account of Reid’s doctrines, it was shown that he held to an intuitive knowledge of the primary qualities of bodies; Brown maintained that we have no such intuitive knowledge of bodies. Speaking of perception in reference to the primary and secondary qualities of bodies, he says:――“In both, it is the effect of the pressure of an external cause, and in both it must be relative only, to that particular cause which produced it; the knowledge of which cause, in the case of extension, as much as in the case of fragrance, is nothing more than the knowledge that there is within us something which is not our mind itself, but which exists, as we cannot but believe, permanently and independent of our mind.... What it is, as it exists in absolute independence of our perceptions, we who become acquainted with it, only by those very perceptions, know not in either case.... We must still believe our perceptions themselves to be altogether different and distinct from the external causes, whatever they may be, which have produced them; to be, in short, phenomena purely mental, and to be this equally, whether they relate to the primary or the secondary qualities of matter; our notion of extension, in whatever way the Deity may have connected it with the presence of external things, being as much a state of the mind as our notion of sweetness or sound.”¹

¹ Volume I., page 582, _et seq._

He occupies two lectures with a criticism of Dr. Reid’s claims in regard to the ideal system of perception. He argues that Reid misunderstood the real opinions of philosophers; that many of them held a view of perception similar to his own; that the supposed difference arose from Reid’s having imagined as real “what was merely intended as metaphorical, and overthrown opinions which the authors, to whom he ascribes them, would themselves have been equally eager to overthrow.” His attack upon Reid’s claims is remarkably virulent.¹ But it should be observed that neither Reid nor Brown himself was strong in the history of philosophical opinions; in the case of both their knowledge of systems and theories of recorded thought was limited and inaccurate. The natural result was that both of them have sometimes fallen into mistakes concerning the views of preceding philosophers and schools. In short, Brown had a stronger passion for quoting poetry than for making wise and accurate references to the doctrines of prior philosophers.

¹ Volume II., page 51; _Lectures_, 26, 27, 28.

In so far as Brown’s psychology is not the issue of his own analytic powers, it is indebted to Reid, to those British thinkers who had given prominence to the principles of associations in explaining mental phenomena, to Condillac, and a few other French philosophers of the latter part of last century. He was naturally attracted towards those thinkers who had carried analysis to the farthest limits.

He classified the intellectual states of the mind (or cognition) into what he called two generic capacities――(1) simple suggestion and (2) relative suggestion. Simple suggestion meant what is usually termed the laws of association. But he intended to give these a wider application, and therefore adopted a classification which he conceived to be most in accordance with the associative principle. As the influence of this principle itself extends not merely to ideas but to every affection of the mind, all our emotions may be revived in a certain degree by its influence, or may become blended with the ideas or other feelings which awaken them, in the same way as our conceptions of external objects.¹

¹ Volume II., pages 189, 197‒199, _et seq._

His primary laws of simple suggestion are――(1) Resemblance, (2) Contrast, (3) Contiguity; and he reduced what he called the supposed mental faculties of memory, conception, and imagination to simple suggestion. In his exposition of these principles of association, he exhibited great analytic powers and an amazing fertility of illustration. He was also masterly in summarising; and the following quotation, touching his reduction of conception and memory to the principle of suggestion, though abridged, will afford an indication of his powers in this particular:――

“Gentlemen, the inquiries which have occupied us with respect to the phenomena of the principle of suggestion have, I hope, shown you what that principle is, as distinguished from other principles of our mental constitution. It becomes necessary, however, in justification of that simple arrangement which I ventured to propose to you, to consider this principle, not merely in relation to the phenomena which I have included under it, but also in relation to other arrangements, and to show that this one general tendency of the mind is sufficient to account for a variety of phenomena which have been referred to peculiar powers of the understanding. This I endeavoured to prove in my last lecture, with respect to two of these supposed intellectual powers――conception and memory.

“In the first place, I showed that conception, far from being distinguished from suggestion, is only a particular operation of that very principle; what are called the laws of association in relation to our mere ideas, being nothing more than the general circumstances according to which conceptions follow conceptions in our trains of thought.... The power of suggestion is the capacity of the mind by which we are sensible of the varieties of light; and we might as well speak of a power of seeing a particular colour, distinct from vision, as of a power of conceiving the same particular colour, distinct from the general power of the mind that is termed by us suggestion. When I hear the sound of my friend’s name, and the conception of my friend immediately arises, there is not in the production of this one mental state the operation both of a power of association and a power of conception, but there is a development of the single capacity of the mind, in consequence of which certain other conceptions arise after certain other conceptions or perceptions....

“After showing our conceptions to be only particular modifications of the general power of suggestion, I proceeded to consider our remembrances, analysing these into two distinct parts――a particular conception of some object or feeling remembered, and the accompanying feeling of a certain relation of priority to our consciousness. The simple conception which forms one of the elements of the remembrance, and differs in no respect from the conceptions that are unaccompanied with the notion of a relation, is of course reducible to the power of simple suggestion, to which all our conceptions are to be referred; the feeling of the relation of priority, which forms its other element, is, like our feeling of every other relation, an effort of that general susceptibility of relation suggested, which we are to consider afterwards. The remembrance, therefore, being a complex feeling, is a proof of these two susceptibilities of the mind, to which we owe the constituent elementary feelings; but it is not a proof of any third power.... What we term memory, then, in distinction from mere conception, is not a new power, but merely a complex result of different mental capacities.”¹

¹ Volume II., pages 384‒388.

He also classified and explained the secondary laws of suggestion. He enumerated nine of these which he regarded as indispensable to account for the variety in the effects of the primary laws. Thus, suggestions are as various as the original feelings have been――(1) of longer or shorter continuance; (2) more or less lively; (3) more or less frequently present; (4) more or less recent; (5) more or less free from mixture; (6) that they vary according to the difference of original constitution; (7) according to differences of temporary emotion; (8) according to changes produced in the state of the body; (9) according to general tendencies produced by prior habits. The first four touch rather the momentary feelings themselves than any particular state of the mind of an individual, and have, as it were, a double operation. But each one of these secondary laws alone may be sufficient to change the suggestion, which would otherwise have arisen from the operation of the primary laws; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that when many of them, as they usually do, concur in one joint effect, the result in different individuals should be so various.¹

¹ Volume II., pages 282‒285, _et seq._

Under his second sub-division of mental phenomena he included all feelings of relation. He employed the term relative suggestion as nearly equivalent to comparison; and whether the relation was of two or many external objects, or of two or many affections of the mind, the feeling of this, arising in consequence of certain preceding states of mind, is what he called relative suggestion. He classified relations under two heads――(1) those of co-existence, and (2) those of succession. To the first belong the relations of position, resemblance, proportion, degree, and comprehension; to the second, as the word imports, all those which stand to each other as prior in the order of time. History is merely a succession of facts and events, together with their causes and effects, in the order of time. Thus relations ♦of succession are either of a casual or of invariable antecedence and consequence.¹

♦ duplicate word “of” removed

¹ Volume II., pages 458, 459, 470‒472.

Concerning the general terms and the early stage of generalisation, Brown sees no reason to doubt that man can reason without language; though it is equally true that, without general terms, reasoning must be very limited and imperfect. He explains the early process of generalisation thus:――“The perception of objects,――the feeling of their resemblance in certain respects,――the invention of a name for these circumstances of felt resemblance,――what can be more truly and readily conceivable than this process?” He repeats this many times in varied words.¹

¹ Volume II., pages 478, 495, 504.

He also endeavoured to reduce the supposed faculties of judgment, reason, and abstraction to relative suggestion, and his reasoning assumed this form:――Relative suggestions are the relations of co-existence and those of succession; and we can easily separate the feeling of relation from the perceptions or conceptions themselves. We perceive or conceive objects, and feel them to be variously related; now, with this capacity of relative suggestion, the faculty of judgment may be considered as almost synonymous. Accordingly, he treated it in that light. But reasoning itself is nothing more than a series of judgments――that is, feelings of relations, which are all referable to the capacity of relative suggestion. Abstraction, in like manner, is only a feeling of resemblance, of partial similarity among objects. His classification of the mind may be tabulated thus:――

{ I. External { 1. Sensation.
{ Affections. { 2. Organic States.
{
{ II. Internal { 1. Simple Suggestion = Laws of Association.
Mind. { Affections. { 2. Relative Suggestion.
{
{ { Emotions. { = Taste.
{ { { = Moral Philosophy.
{
{ III. Results. { Existence of God.
{ { Immortality of the Soul.

Brown treats the emotions in detail, under three divisions――1. Immediate, excited by present objects; 2. Retrospective; 3. Prospective. In the first division he includes cheerfulness and melancholy, wonder, languor, beauty, sublimity, the ludicrous, moral feeling, love and hate, sympathy, pride, and humility; in the second, anger, gratitude, simple regret and gladness, remorse and its opposite; in the third, desires of continued existence, pleasure, action, society, knowledge, power, affection, glory, the happiness of others, evil to others, fear, hope, expectation, and anticipation.

His treatment and analysis of the emotions is pretty satisfactory. In this division of mental phenomena, as in his treatment of the cognitive side of the mind, the influence of Hume may occasionally be traced; but his own emotional powers were of a warmer and keener cast than Hume’s.

In the ethical department of his system Brown partly follows Stewart and Hutcheson, but applies the principle of association more than his predecessors. He contended for a moral faculty――an innate sentiment, and the following will afford an idea of his views:――

“When we think within ourselves,――Is this what we ought to do? we do not make two inquiries,――first, Whether the action be right? and then, Whether we should have merit in doing wrong; or demerit in doing what is right for us to do? We only consider whether doing it shall excite in others approbation or disapprobation, and in ourselves a corresponding emotion of complacency or remorse. According to the answer which we give in our hearts, in this respect――an answer which relates to a single feeling of moral approbation,――we shall conceive that we are doing what we ought to do, or what we ought not to do,――and knowing this, we can have no farther moral inquiry to make as to the merit or demerit of doing what is previously felt by us to be right or wrong.

“To have merit, to be virtuous, to have done our duty, to have acted in conformity with obligation,――all have reference to one feeling of the merit,――that feeling of approbation, which attends the contemplation of virtuous actions.... To this simple proposition, therefore, we must always come in our moral estimate, whatever division, or varied reference, we may afterwards make. Persons acting in a certain manner, excite in us a feeling of approval; persons acting in a manner opposite to this, cannot be considered by us, without an emotion equally vivid of a different kind.... Why does it seem to us virtue to act in this way? Why have we a feeling of obligation or duty, when we think of acting in this way? The only answer which we can give to these questions is the same in all,――that it is impossible for us to consider the action, without feeling that by acting in this way, we should look upon ourselves, and others would look upon us, with approving regard; and that if we were to act in a different way, we should look upon ourselves, and others would look upon us, with abhorrence, or at least with disapprobation.... Why do we consider certain actions as morally right,――certain actions as morally wrong? Why do we consider ourselves as morally bound to perform certain actions,――to abstain from certain other actions? Why do we feel moral approbation of those who perform certain actions,――moral disapprobation of those who perform certain other actions? For an answer to all these, I would refer to the simple emotion, as that on which alone the moral distinction is formed.”¹

¹ Volume III., pages 568‒573, 581, _et seq._

This is the most definite statement on the moral faculty in his lectures. He seldom uses the term conscience, but leaves his meaning to be gathered from such sentences as these:――“There is then, in the mind of each individual, a principle which leads him to divide actions into two classes, virtuous and vicious.” “There is in our breast a susceptibility of moral emotion; and the principle which thus approves or condemns in us, is the noblest of the ties that connect us with the universal community of mankind.” “All our moral sentiments then, of obligation, virtue, merit, are, in themselves, as we have seen, nothing more than one single feeling, variously referred to actions, as future, present, and past. With the loss of the susceptibility of this one peculiar species of emotion, all practical morality would instantly cease.”¹

¹ Volume IV., pages 152, 158.

He gives an exposition of practical morals under the most common heads――(1) Duties to our fellow men; (2) Duties to ourselves; (3) Duties which we owe to the Supreme Being. He treats the family and parental duties with much insight and judgment, and with elevated feeling.

His lectures on the existence of God exhibit fine moral feeling and good intention; but they lack metaphysical grasp and range of intellect. He dwells chiefly upon the design argument, on which he worked wonderfully well. But it is, at best, only a creeping mode of proving the existence of a Supreme Being; and if a belief in God is to continue among men, it must be placed upon higher grounds and arguments than the evidence of mere mechanical design.

Brown also treated at length on the immortality of the human soul; and on this subject his arguments are well worked out, and worthy of attention. On this his psychological theory of the mind was available, and he made a good use of it. His closing lectures are devoted to an exposition of duty of cultivating our moral sentiments, our religious and intellectual nature, in order to render ourselves happy and glorious; and he expatiated eloquently on these themes.

In forming an estimate of Brown’s philosophy, we should recall attention to his position, and the aims which he immediately had in view. He was only thirty-two years of age when appointed to teach the moral philosophy class, and ten years after he died in the midst of his work. His lectures were hastily prepared for oral delivery, and many things might be quite appropriately introduced, as merely spoken to the students, with the object of interesting them in the subjects of the course, but which would be out of character in a work deliberately composed and revised for publication. His lectures, as we have them, appear with all the imperfections of being prepared for oral delivery to a class of students; and it may fairly be assumed that if he had himself prepared them for publication, he would have weeded out most of the poetical quotations, the repetitions, and other blemishes.

His reduction of all the special faculties of cognition to simple and relative suggestion are unfortunate attempts. Conception, memory, and imagination are reduced to simple suggestion; and judgment, reason, and abstraction, to relative suggestion.

He possessed several of the qualities of a good expositor. His conception of method was clear, his analytic power conspicuous; and he had the command of a great store of illustrations. His style is florid, and brilliant to excess; though some fine touches of pathos and eloquent passages occur in his lectures. His choice of words and phrases is sometimes ridiculously inappropriate; such as these――“tribes of our sensations,” “nameless tribes of sensations.” In truth, he had not a great command of subjective language; in this respect he fell far behind Adam Smith. His lectures, however, have furnished many hints to the association school of psychologists; and in this direction his influence has been considerable.