Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/277

222 the pain I feel from the prick or scratch of the pin is that particular pain only. It is not another case of pain either similar to or different from the pain which I am actually feeling. No, it is that pain alone, and nothing but that pain. Reflect carefully on this matter; examine your own sensations, and I think you will be convinced of the truth of what I say. When you feel a pain or a pleasure you do not feel any pain or any pleasure; but only that pain or that pleasure which occupies you at the time. You do not even feel any pain or any pleasure of some particular kind, but only that single pain or that single pleasure. Again: when you feel the prick or scratch of a pin, you do not feel it as my pain or as any other person's pain, but only as your own pain. Further, you do not feel it as taking place to-morrow or yesterday; but only as taking place in the present time. Further still you do not feel it as taking place in Edinburgh or in London, but only as taking place in St Andrews, and only in one spot in St Andrews, namely, in that particular part of your own body which is impinged upon. It is the character, then, of each sensation to be precisely the sensation which it is. When we feel merely, we are limited, strictly and literally limited, to the single feeling which engages us, to the single time and to the single place in which the feeling occurs. Feeling or sensation is, in the strictest sense of the word, a singular. That is its characteristic, and this we must suppose to be the condition in which the lower animals are placed.