we learn entirely from what is and what has been. God is, and is to be for ever. God has caused what has been and what is, and may be expected to act on the same principles which he has heretofore acted upon, in causing what is to be.

Our knowledge of this world comprehends the several sciences of geography, chemistry, natural and civil history, embracing politics, ethics, and religion. All that we know of other parts of the visible universe, is comprehended in astronomy. Of the immeasurable regions of space, the objects of which are too remote to be visible, we know nothing.

§ 141. The sphere of our knowledge is not coincident with that of our thoughts at any one time. All actual cognitions are within the sphere of our knowledge, but not necessarily on its extreme limits. Conceptions may transcend the sphere of our knowledge. We imagine when we do not know. In thinking of the objects of our knowledge, we form different ideas of them, and those more or less specific and complete, according to our habits of thought, the purposes we have in view, and other circumstances. Thus, we

think of a particular man at and one time as having a particular form and complexion, at another time, as having a particular disposition, at another, as engaged in particular pursuits; at one time, as mortal; at another, as immortal; and at another, as religious.

We cannot think of all the qualities and relations of the most simple objects at one and the same time. Our ideas of the known qualities of objects, are to a great extent successive. Persons most unlike, in respect to the extent of their knowledge on particular subjects, and in relation to particular objects of thought, may, in particular circumstances, have the same ideas of those objects. Thus the most illiterate and the most profound chemists and philosophers may, in given circumstances, form the same ideas of a piece of gold, or any other natural body.

In thinking of particular objects we form ideas of them, having reference to one or more of their properties and relations, to the exclusion of others, according to the nature of the series to which our thoughts belong, and the objects we have in view. In this way, our ideas of the same objects may be indefinitely varied, without being contradictory, and

the trains of thought which they compose, be indefinitely diversified.

§ 142. The sphere of knowledge is within that of ideas. We can have no knowledge without ideas, because cognitions are a class of ideas. Considered with reference to its subjective conditions, the sphere of knowledge depends entirely on those mental phenomena which are objects of consciousness, of which, in the case of men and animals, sensations take the lead. Human and animal knowledge originates in human and animal consciousness; and the Divine knowledge in states which are objects of the Divine consciousness. Neither God, man, nor animals, can have the sphere of their knowledge extended beyond the objects of their respective conscious exercises, and such other objects as may be inferred immediately or remotely from them.

In the Divine mind, the spheres of actual and possible knowledge are the same. All knowledge that is possible to God, is in actual exercise by him. In human and animal minds, these spheres are widely different; and those of actual, far less extended than those of possible knowledge. Men and animals do not, in any instance, know all that they are capable of knowing. The sphere of man's actual knowledge embraces but a small fraction of that which is possible. It is capable of indefinite extension, but is contained within narrow limits.

The wisest and most learned know but little of what the human mind is capable of knowing, and the unwise and ignorant know incomparably less than they. The sphere of man's actual knowledge is capable of being indefinitely extended by observation and reasoning. The more extensively and accurately we observe and reason, and the farther we pursue our observations and reasonings, the more we learn. Observation is first, then reasoning, and lastly, conclusions, which, when repeated, and tested till we obtain a perfect conviction of their correctness, and a capacity of repeating them indefinitely, constitute knowledge.

CHAPTER IX.

SUGGESTION, ABSTRACTION, AND COMPARISON.

Suggestion.

§ 143. The power of individualizing and generalizing the objects of thought, has already been distinctly recognized as among the essential attributes of reason. Do these powers admit of a farther analysis? Viewed as objects of thought are they the last and simplest elements which the mind can grasp? Or can they be resolved into simpler elements? Is there any common element in the process of individualization and generalization? Or have they nothing in common? To determine this question with precision, let us take an example. We individualize a particular object, as a man, our neighbor, our friend, bearing a particular name, occupying a particular position in society, engaged in particular pursuits, of a particular descent, holding particular principles respecting religion, morals, and civil government, and the subject of particular virtues. In thinking of this man we pursue a continual process of individualization, adding element to element, and object to object, for the purpose of completing our conception of him. We consider the man as an individual, and we comprehend under our conception of him, his generic properties as a man, his inferior generic properties as our neighbor, his still more restricted generic properties as our friend, and so on till we have collected a large aggregate of objects, and comprehended them all under the more general conception of this man.

§ 144. What then does this individualization of a particular man amount to? And what does it involve? It amounts to this. It comprehends thinking of a particular man as the subject both of particular and general properties, and referring these properties to all their generic orders and species. It is a combination, therefore, of individualization and generalization, and every thought by which we regard him as an individual possessing more or less general properties, has its twofold relation as an element of individualization, and an element of generalization. The individual man is a man; the individual neighbor is a neighbor; the indi

vidual friend is a friend, and so on. In every property, therefore, which we ascribe to him, there is a combination of individuality and generality. Individuality is the limitation of the thought on the one hand, generality its limitation on the other; and each implies the union of the two. This brings us to the same conclusion at which we arrived in a former argument, that thought consists essentially in the combination of unities of different orders, and that all ideas of objects relate to them exclusively as units or single things of certain orders, having properties which are units or single things of other orders; resolving every thing into unities, and comprehending every thing under unities. Individualization, therefore, implies generalization, and individualizing and generalizing are one and the same thing considered in different points of view.

§ 145. The succession of elementary and complex con ceptions, is a phenomenon which has attracted the particular attention of philosophers, and is usually comprehended under the title of suggestion. We meet our friend, and think of him as such; we observe his looks of cheerfulness and joy, and judge him to be cheerful and joyful; and we observe looks of sadness and dejection, and judge him to be sad and dejected From ideas of joy and sorrow we immediately think of some possible causes of these emotions, and are led off from object to object, to an indefinite extent. The occurrence of these thoughts in series after series, and thought after thought, is individualized as a single object of conception, and called suggestion; and the production of thought is reduced to a single problem of suggestion. This, therefore, is substantially the same problem which under the titles of ideas and of judgments, has already been resolved. The laws of suggestion are the laws of reason, and the principles of suggestion are the principles of reason. As the whole subject, however, is one of great interest and difficulty, it may not be amiss to resume the consideration of it, to some extent, under this head.

Some philosophers divide suggestion in simple and relative; and refer to simple suggestion, all ideas of memory and imagination; and to relative suggestion, all those of judgment. This implies that we judge according to one set of laws, and remember and imagine according to others; it also implies that memory and imagination are different co-ordinate faculties from judgments, and not departments

of the same faculty; neither of which is true. In remembering, we repeat our judgments and imaginations. But the same faculty by which we form judgments at first, must be exercised in every subsequent formation of them; and imaginations are a species of judgments, which belong to the category of possibility.

The natural antitheses of simple suggestion, would be complex suggestion; and that of relative suggestion, would be absolute suggestion. As a matter of fact, however, all suggestion is relative in respect to the objects of thought suggested; and is conditional in respect to the mode of the suggestion. All objects are relative in their nature, and in the essential elements of quality, reality, quantity, and modality, to which thought corresponds. Our conceptions of the absolute do not preclude relation, but dependence and limitation. We conclude, therefore, that the laws of suggestion are the laws of thought, and that the principles of suggestion are the conditions of thought.

Abstraction.

§ 146. Two principal modes of thinking which contribute to a great extent to control our suggestions, and to determine the nature, objects, and succession of our thoughts, are abstraction and comparison.

To abstract, means to separate or draw off; and to take one object away from others with which it was connected; and abstraction means separation of a part from a complex object, so as to make it a distinct object. To apply this to intellectual processes we perform abstraction, when we individualize any part of a complex object, and view it not as a part, but as a whole. Thus in thinking of a man, we regard him as a being possessing body, soul, reason, affections, form, size, complexion, age, moral character, and so on. These different qualities, with many others, are objects of our complex notion of any particular man. Ideas of them arise in our minds to some extent contemporaneously, and to some extent successively. They cannot all exist, and be objects of contemporaneous conception, nor are they entirely successive. They are partly contemporaneous and partly successive. When we fix our attention on any one of these complex objects, and think of it to the exclusion of the rest, it becomes the complex object of other