date

1819 May 11 Jug. Util […?] & Sub Rev
1819 May 11

Jug. Util […?] & Sub Rev in gross

II Verity in gross

§ 7 Mind fictitious entity

A moments reflection would suffice to assure us that this is not – can not be – the case: for if so, we should have /possess/ and not have but exercise an unlimited power of creation: by every word newly made or newly applied a new being would be created.

Hence in regard to those words that are employed as names – nouns substantive they are called in grammar – hence the necessity of the distinction between such as are names of real entities and such as are names of fictitious entities. Names of real entities are names of those objects of which through the medium of the senses the existence is made known to us by experience or observation: names of fictitious entities are names of all objects of which the existence is not made known to us through experience or observation: For the most part though the existence of these is in this way asserted, it is not in truth so much as supposed. We make these assertions because though they are neither true nor so much as supposed to be true, discourse could not be carried on without them: and though they are so clearly untrue, and the objects which are the subjects of them are therefore in this sense not real but fictitious objects, the offspring of fiction, yet in this instance fiction is without blame or regret: why without blame or regret? because deception is neither the object endeavoured to be produced nor the effect actually produced.
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  • Title: [1819 May 11 Jug. Util Sine & Sub Rev]
    Description: 1819 May 11

    Jug. Util Sine & Sub Rev. in gross

    II Verity in gross

    § 7 Mind fictitious entity

    Of no objects but bodies is the reality the existence made known to us by experience or observation – and known to us by the impressions made by them is the reality – the existence made known to us: of no objects but individual objects such as this man, that dog, that horse: and one and the same mass of matter is considered as being but one body or as consisting of a number of bodies according to the occasion which we have to speak of it. Thus even the whole earth is frequently considered as but one body: the whole earth with all that therein is.

    In the whole field of discourse not a step can we take without a fiction of this kind. He is in motion we say of such or such a horse. But by saying he is in motion what do we do but speak of motion as being a body big enough to contain a horse, and of the horse as being in that body. He is at rest we say again suppose of a horse: he is at rest: in so saying we speak of rest as if it were a post or pillar, and the horse standing close to it.

    In this way we come to speak of motion as if it were a real thing separate and distinct from any thing /object/ that ever is in motion: and so real that we have /make/ sorts of motions as we make sorts of men, and dogs and horses. We speak of action which is but motion considered in a particular point of view. We speak of activity: the quality of activity: and thus we have a fictitious entity of another sort, still further from reality. we speak of activity as a quality which is in this or that man: we speak of laziness which is the absence of activity or the aversion /averseness/ to action: thus we form the fictitious entities called qualities: we speak of dispositions a class of fictitious entities still further removed from real ones: disposition to possess or manifest qualities: to posses or manifest for example activity or laziness.
  • Title: [7 Aug. 1814 Logic Ch. │ │ Methodization]
    Description: 7 Aug. 1814

    Logic

    Ch. │ │ Methodization

    '. │ │ Subjects of Denominant

    4

    Fictitious entities, viz. the objects for the designation of which throughout the whole course of the present work this appellative is meant to be employed, are such of which, in a very ample proportion, the mention and consequent fiction requires to be introduced for the purpose of discourse, for the common purposes of every discourse. Their names being employed in the same manner as names of substances are employed, hence the character in which they present themselves is that of so many names of substances. But these names of fictitious entities do not, as do the abovementioned names of fabulous entities, raise up in the mind any correspondent images.

    Follows a sort of commenced catalogue of these fictitious entities of these names of fictitious entities: from which the common nature in which as above they all participate will presently become perceptible. Like the names of real and those of fabulous entities, all these words, it will be seen are, in the language of Grammarians, noun substantives. All these fictitious entities are accordingly so many fictitious substances. The properties which for the purposes of discourse are attributed to them are so many properties of substances - so many properties of all substances.

    That the properties belonging to substances, to bodies in general, are attributed to them - that they are spoken of as if possessed of such properties, appears from the prepositions by which the import of their respective names is put in connexion with the import of the other words of which the sentence, [by which] the grammatical sentence is composed.

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  • Title: [1819 May 11 Jug. Util Verity in gross]
    Description: 1819 May 11

    Jug. Util Verity in gross

    Ch. 1 Verity in gross

    § 7 Mind a fictitious entity

    §. 2. Cause of the supposition of the distinctness.

    Considered in respect of the seat of it, all pleasure is either pleasure of the body or pleasure of the mind.

    Pleasure of the mind is not itself pleasure of the body, but for its existence it requires the existence of that which is.

    Ideas are the furniture of the mind. All ideas /No ideas have/ (so /as/ Locke has shewn) but what are derived more or less immediately from sense: from those organs of the body called the senses. Take away body, you take away mind: take away all pleasure of the body you take away all pleasure of the mind.

    By no experience of our own by no observation of our own is the existence of mind without body made known to us: by the experience and observation of every one of us the existence of body without mind is made known to us. So long as /Wherever/ sleep without dreaming has place, there is body without mind. The state of the body resembles that of a clock when after having gone down it has not yet been wound up: or when though going, it indicates no time, the hour and minute hands being taken off.

    A circumstance which contributes perhaps more than any other to cause the mind to be considered as a thing existing of itself and without a body as a real object as real as the body, capable of existing of itself and without body, and thus in a state altogether separate, is its having just as body has, a separate name. As to individual persons of all the things in whose existence individually considered we take an interest there are names which in consequence of that interest we have given to them , hence so intimate is the association formed between the object itself – the really existing object – and the name that has been given to it, that by mere habit without reasoning wherever we see a name we are led to take for granted there must be an object – a really existing object of which that is the name.