in the same part or locality. A mass of gold contains, in every atom, the concurring attributes that mark the substance—weight, hardness, color, lustre, incorrosibility, etc. An animal, besides having parts situated in place, has co-inhering functions in the same parts, exerted by the very same masses and molecules of its substance.... The Mind, which affords no Propositions of Order in Place, has co-inhering functions. We affirm mind to contain Feeling, Will, and Thought, not in local separation, but in commingling exercise. The concurring properties of minerals, of plants, and of the bodily and the mental structure of animals, are united in affirmations of co-inherence.”
The distinction is real and important. But, as has been seen, an Attribute, when it is any thing but a simple unanalyzable Resemblance between the subject and some other things, consists in causing impressions of some sort on consciousness. Consequently, the co-inherence of two attributes is but the co-existence of the two states of consciousness implied in their meaning: with the difference, however, that this co-existence is sometimes potential only, the attribute being considered as in existence, though the fact on which it is grounded may not be actually, but only potentially present. Snow, for instance, is, with great convenience, said to be white even in a state of total darkness, because, though we are not now conscious of the color, we shall be conscious of it as soon as morning breaks. Co-inherence of attributes is therefore still a case, though a complex one, of co-existence of states of consciousness; a totally different thing, however, from Order in Place. Being a part of simultaneity, it belongs not to Place but to Time.
We may therefore (and we shall sometimes find it a convenience) instead of Co-existence and Sequence, say, for greater particularity, Order in Place and Order in Time: Order in Place being a specific mode of co-existence, [pg 086] not necessary to be more particularly analyzed here; while the mere fact of co-existence, whether between actual sensations, or between the potentialities of causing them, known by the name of attributes, may be classed, together with Sequence, under the head of Order in Time.