The Online Library of Liberty

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• Selections From the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense
• Introduction
• Thomas Reid
• I.—: Introduction to the Philosophy of Common Sense
• § 1.: The Importance of the Subject, and the Means of Prosecuting It
• § 2.: The Impediments to Our Knowledge of the Mind
• II.—: Analysis of a Typical Sensation
• § 1.: The Sensation Considered Abstractly
• § 2.: Sensation and Remembrance, Natural Principles of Belief
• § 3.: Judgment and Belief In Some Cases Precede Simple Apprehension
• § 4.: Two Theories of the Nature of Belief Refuted—conclusions From What Hath Been Said
• § 5.: Apology For Metaphysical Absurdities—sensation Without a Sentient, a Consequence of the Theory of Ideas—consequences of This Strange Opinion
• § 6.: The Conception and Belief of a Sentient Being Or Mind Is Suggested By Our Constitution—the Notion of Relations Not Always Got By Comparing the Related Ideas
• § 7.: There Is a Quality Or Virtue In Bodies, Which We Call Their Smell—how This Is Connected In the Imagination With the Sensation
• § 8.: That There Is a Principle In Human Nature, From Which the Notion of This, As Well As All Other Natural Virtues Or Causes, Is Derived
• § 9.: Whether In Sensation the Mind Is Active Or Passive?
• III.—: Knowledge and Reality
• § 1.: Of Hardness
• § 2.: Of Natural Signs
• § 3.: Of Extension
• § 4.: Of the Visible Appearances of Objects
• § 5.: Of Perception In General
• § 6.: Of the Process of Nature In Perception
• Appendix: of Cause and Power
• IV.—: The Operations of the Mind
• § 1.: Principles Taken For Granted
• § 2.: Of Hypotheses and Analogy
• § 3.: Of Perception
• § 4.: Of Sensation
• § 5.: Of Primary and Secondary Qualities
• § 6.: Of Conception
• § 7.: Of Judgment
• § 8.: Of Common Sense
• § 9.: The First Principles of Contingent Truths
• § 10.: First Principles of Necessary Truths
• V.—: Of Morals
• § 1.: Of Benevolent Affection In General
• § 2.: There Are Rational Principles of Action In Man
• § 3.: Of Regard to Our Good On the Whole
• § 4.: Of the Notion of Duty, Rectitude, Moral Obligation
• § 5.: Observations Concerning Conscience
• § 6.: That Moral Approbation Implies a Real Judgment
• Adam Ferguson
• Of Man’s Progressive Nature
• James Beattie
• Of the Perception of Truth In General
• Dugald Stewart
• I.—: Of the Object of Philosophy, and the Method of Prosecuting Philosophical Inquiries
• II.—: Of the Association of Ideas
• III.—: Of the Power Which the Mind Has Over the Train of Its Thoughts
• IV.—: Of the Influence of Association On Our Active Principles, and On Our Moral Judgments
• V.—: Of Certain Laws of Belief, Inseparably Connected With the Exercise of Consciousness, Memory, Perception, and Reasoning

§ 6.

Of Conception

Without attempting a definition of this operation of the mind, I shall endeavour to explain some of its properties; consider the theories about it; and take notice of some mistakes of philosophers concerning it.

It may be observed that conception enters as an ingredient in every operation of the mind. Our senses cannot give us the belief of any object, without giving some conception of it at the same time. No man can either remember or reason about things of which he hath no conception. When we will to exert any of our active powers, there must be some conception of what we will to do. There can be no desire nor aversion, love nor hatred, without some conception of the object. We cannot feel pain without conceiving it, though we can conceive it without feeling it. These things are self-evident.

In every operation of the mind, therefore, in everything we call thought, there must be conception. When we analyse the various operations either of the understanding or of the will, we shall always find this at the bottom, like the caput mortuum of the chemists, or the materia prima of the Peripatetics; but, though there is no operation of mind without conception, yet it may be found naked, detached from all others, and then it is called simple apprehension, or the bare conception of a thing.

As all the operations of our mind are expressed by language, every one knows that it is one thing to understand what is said, to conceive or apprehend its meaning, whether it be a word, a sentence, or a discourse; it is another thing to judge of it, to assent or dissent, to be persuaded or moved. The first is simple apprehension and may be without the last; but the last cannot be without the first.

In bare conception there can neither be truth nor falsehood, because it neither affirms nor denies. Every judgment, and every proposition by which judgment is expressed, must be true or false; and the qualities of true and false, in their proper sense, can belong to nothing but to judgments, or to propositions which express judgment. In the bare conception of a thing there is no judgment, opinion, or belief included, and therefore it cannot be either true or false.1

If one should ask, What is meant by conceiving a thing? we should very naturally answer, that it is having an image of it in the mind—and perhaps we could not explain the word better. This shews that conception, and the image of a thing in the mind, are synonymous expressions. The image in the mind, therefore, is not the object of conception, nor is it any effect produced by conception as a cause. It is conception itself. That very mode of thinking which we call conception, is by another name called an image in the mind.

Nothing more readily gives the conception of a thing than the seeing an image of it. Hence, by a figure common in language, conception is called an image of the thing conceived. But to shew that it is not a real but a metaphorical image, it is called an image in the mind. We know nothing that is properly in the mind but thought; and, when anything else is said to be in the mind, the expression must be figurative, and signify some kind of thought.1

Imagination, when it is distinguished from conception, seems to me to signify one species of conception—to wit, the conception of visible objects. Thus, in a mathematical proposition, I imagine the figure, and I conceive the demonstration; it would not, I think, be improper to say, I conceive both; but it would not be so proper to say, I imagine the demonstration.2

The last property I shall mention of this faculty, is that which essentially distinguishes it from every other power of the mind; and it is, that it is not employed solely about things which have existence. I can conceive a winged horse or a centaur, as easily and as distinctly as I can conceive a man whom I have seen. Nor does this distinct conception incline my judgment in the least to the belief that a winged horse or a centaur ever existed.

It is not so with the other operations of our minds. They are employed about real existences, and carry with them the belief of their objects. When I feel pain, I am compelled to believe that the pain that I feel has a real existence. When I perceive any external object, my belief of the real existence of the object is irresistible. When I distinctly remember any event, though that event may not now exist, I can have no doubt but it did exist. That consciousness which we have of the operations of our own minds, implies a belief of the real existence of those operations.

Thus we see, that the powers of sensation, of perception, of memory, and of consciousness, are all employed solely about objects that do exist, or have existed. But conception is often employed about objects that neither do, nor did, nor will exist. This is the very nature of this faculty, that its object, though distinctly conceived, may have no existence. Such an object we call a creature of imagination; but this creature never was created.1

[1 ]Ibid., pp. 360-361.

[1 ]Ibid., p. 363.

[2 ]Ibid., pp. 365-366.

[1 ]Ibid., p. 368.