principle, those who wish to acquire the capacity of judging promptly and accurately on common affairs, must accustom themselves to frequent and accurate reasoning on these subjects. Some persons reason much more, and with much more accuracy and precision, on the objects with which they are conversant in business or pleasure, than others, and attain by that means, proportionably greater capacities for reasonings of this kind.

In order to form correct judgments, it is necessary to obtain distinct and accurate ideas of the object concerning which our judgment is to be formed. Having obtained this, we ought next to consider and compare the legitimate grounds of different conceivable judgments, carefully excluding from the premises every foreign element. On the proper consideration and comparison of the grounds of different conceivable judgments, and the careful exclusion of foreign elements from the premises, very much depends. If we do not take all the legitimate grounds of judgment into consideration, we shall be liable to judge incorrectly, on account of that deficiency in the premises; if we take them all into consideration, but do not consider some of them with sufficient attention to ascertain their due weight, we shall be liable to judge erroneously, on account of that deficiency of consideration; if we admit in our premises one or more foreign elements, which do not legitimately relate to the case in hand, and which ought not to have any influence in determining our judgments, we shall be liable to judge erroneously, on that account. By either of the causes above mentioned, our reasonings may be embarrassed, and the formation of our judgments retarded in cases where we are not prevented from ultimately forming them correctly.

§413. The capacity to reason on moral subjects, is usually distinguished from the general faculty of reason, under the title of conscience. Moral reasoning embraces a part only of the wide field of knowledge; and conscience denotes the faculty of judgment, considered only with respect to those exercises which relate to moral actions. The same mind judges actions to be voluntary and involuntary, useful and injurious, and right and wrong. Considered merely as mental exercises, these different judgments are similar, and consist of inferences deduced from grounds of inference, or conclusions from premises. The qualities of moral actions

are as legitimate objects of reasoning, as those of actions which have no moral character.

Common sense embraces some capacity to reason on moral subjects. Persons of mature age, who are incapable of distinguishing between actions as right or wrong, and of reasoning upon them as such, are not endued with common sense. Brutes are destitute of those higher capacities of judgment which are common to the great mass of mankind. They have the capacities of reasoning to some extent, on quantity, time, number, and causality; but have no ideas of voluntary actions, considered as right or wrong, and no capacities to reason on moral subjects. Conscience is not co-ordinate with reason, but is included under it, and is co-ordinate with the faculties of reasoning on quantity, number, and causality, just as each of those faculties is co-ordinate with the others; all together constituting the generic faculty of reasoning, which is a general endowment of the human

race.

§ 414. Original philosophical discoveries, which are at first attained with difficulty, and only by minds of the highest order, may often be communicated and established with ease, to the conviction of ordinary minds. Mathematical reasoning may subserve, in many ways, the discovery of philosophical truth. This is particularly the case in Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Geography, and many other branches of science.

Philosophical genius denotes a superior capacity for philosophical reasoning, and may be either general or particular. One may have a genius for mechanical reasoning; another for the observation and classification of physical phenomena and their subjective causes; another for the observation and analysis of the phenomena of the mind; and others for philosophical discovery generally. All sane minds are capable of indefinite improvement in respect to this class of mental exercises, especially in the early part of their lives.

Mechanical inventions are a distinct and numerous class of philosophical discoveries, and are among the most valuable daily accumulating trophies of reason.

Written language is an important instrument of philosophical reasoning, and is indispensable to the preservation and communication of knowledge.

PART THIRD.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE EMOTIONS, AFFECTIONS, AND WILL

CHAPTER I.

/ ORIGIN, NATURE, AND OFFICE OF THE EMOTIONS.

The emo

§ 415. THE next order of mental exercises after ideas is that of the emotions, affections, and will. tions are simple states of pleasure or pain, produced by ideas. They are called by the general names of pleasure, delight, happiness, gladness, displeasure, sorrow, misery, regret, and so on; and several of those names are applied in common to the emotions, and corresponding pleasurable or painful sensations. The emotions are similar to sensations, in being pleasurable or painful, and also in being intensive; but differ from them, in being conditioned on ideas, while sensations are conditioned on organic impressions. The office of ideas in producing emotions, is perfectly similar to that of organic impressions, in producing sensations, and the laws of their operation are substantially the same; so that the whole theory of the production of sensations by organic impressions, may be transferred to the production of emotions, by substituting ideas for organic impressions and states; and emotions for sensations.

416. Besides being pleasurable and painful, emotions differ from each other in respect to the nature of the objects by which they are excited. Some are excited by the objects of our perceptions and consciousness, and regard those objects only in their direct relations to sensations and ideas. Of this description are emotions, in view of the beautiful and sublime.

We contemplate an object as it stands related to our senses, and feel emotions from it as beautiful or sublime. But having considered a beautiful object, and having felt its

beanty, we modify our complex ideas of it, and add the element of beauty to the other elements which awakened in our minds a sense of beauty, and this more complex idea produces a higher emotion called love. Certain qualities in objects excite emotions; we then estimate those objects, and incorporate into our conceptions of them the idea of their emotion-producing power; then contemplate them as having the qualities by which they produce these emotions; and in view of them, as possessing these qualities, we love or hate them, and regard them with desire or aversion, hop or fear.

§417. The primary emotions occupy the same place in the mental constitution which sensations do, and perform the same offices in giving us ideas of emotion-producing objects. Without sensations we could obtain no ideas of sensible objects, and without emotions, we could obtain none of emotion-producing objects. From emotions of beauty, we form ideas of objects as beautiful; from those of sublimity, we form ideas of objects as sublime; and so of all other primary emotions; just as from sensations of touch, we form ideas of objects as resisting; from those of sight, we form ideas of objects as colored; and from those of taste, we form ideas of objects as sweet or bitter, and so on.

§ 418. On comparing the affections and desires with the emotions, we find that the emotions are first, and the affections and desires secondary to them, and also to sensations. We contemplate a flower and experience emotions of delight from its colors, form, structure, and fragrance. We estimate the flower with respect to these emotions, as having beauty of color, form, and structure, and an agreeable odor, and love it. Our emotions were excited by the perceptions of the color, form, structure, and fragrance of the object; our love is excited by the perception of the flower, considered as the objective cause of those sensations and emotions. Our estimates of the flower as possessing beauty of color, form, and structure, and an agreeable odor, are based on our capacities of emotion, from the perception of certain colors, forms, structures, and odors. If our constitution was reversed, so that what now excites agreeable emotions should excite disagreeable ones; and what now excites disagreeable emotions should excite agreeable ones, our estimates of objects as beautiful and agreeable, would undergo a corresponding reversion. There is no such thing as abso