JB_102_347.xml

Title: [23 Feb. 1815 Didacologia 1]

Description: 23 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

1

Ch. Art & Science division

Generals or Particulars - Abstractions or Concretions which first -

In the field of Eudaemonics and Pantognosy the field of abstractions or the field of concretions - to which of these two compartments shall the surveying eye apply itself ?

In the whole human race considered at all periods of its history the knowledge of particulars has preceded that of generals. Abstraction, a branch of Logic, is an art that has been learned by slow degrees.

But, when general conceptions have once been attained, the communication of them is performed with much more despatch, even to the most unfurnished and uninformed minds, than that of particulars; i.e. in a given time, much more knowledge may be communicated by the use of more general terms in company with less general terms, than by the use of less general terms alone.

True it is, without the use of particular terms, and even according to the nature of the subject, i.e. as it belongs to somatics or psychology, no clear knowledge can be conveyed by general ones, but by a single individual or species, exhibited in the character of a specimen or sample, for the explanation and illustration of a generic term, the exhibition of all the other individuals or particulars contained in the genus of which it is the name, may be saved.

1

JB_101_454.xml

Title: [19 Feb. 1815 Didacologia Ch]

Description: 19 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

Ch. Art & Science Division

30

Pleasure and pain being the only objects possessed of intrinsic and independent value, simple perceptions, perceptions, if any such there were, altogether unconnected with either pleasure or pain, would have no claim to attention, would not, in fact, engage attention, would not be comprehended within any part of the field of art and science.

In general pathematic feelings, i.e. pleasure or pain, and apathematic feelings, i.e. simple perceptions considered in so far as separable from pleasures and pains, are experienced together - are simultaneously concomitant. But although instances are not wanting in which as on the one hand perceptions might be found unaccompanied with pleasure or pain, so also, on the other hand, if not pleasure, pain at any rate, unaccompanied with any perception distinguishable from itself.

But abundant are the instances in which a simple perception, which has neither pleasure nor pain for its contemporary adjunct, may, through the medium of attention, reflection, volition and transitive action, reckon feelings of both sorts in abundance among its consequences; and hence it is that, except for clearness of intellection, the distinction between pathematic and apathematic perception becomes void of practical use.

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JB_101_455.xml

Title: [21 Feb. 1815 Didacologia 1]

Description: 21 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

1

Ch. Art & Science Division

Thelematology or thelematognosy has pathematology for its basis. It is by the eventual expectation of pleasure or pain that in every case the will, and thereby the agency, internal only, or internal and external together, are determined. It is by the idea of pleasure or of exemption from pain, considered as about to result from the proposed act, that the volition in pursuance of which the act is performed, and consequently the act itself is produced.

In the character of ends and in the character of means in that double character it is that pleasures and pains or their respective negatives are continually presenting themselves, not pain itself, but its negative, i.e. exemption from pain is the end; but in the character of a means, pain itself operates, as well as its negative - pain itself as well as pleasure.

What dynamics is to somatology, the practical branch of thelematology, or the art of giving direction to volition, and thereby to action, is to psychognosy or psychology - it may be termed psychological dynamics.

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