I have now, then, brought to a conclusion my analysis of the intellectual phenomena; and have shown, I flatter myself, or, at least, have endeavoured to show, that all these phenomena, which are commonly ascribed to many distinct faculties, are truly referable only to two-the capacity of simple suggestion, which gives to us conceptions of external objects formerly perceived, and of all the variety of our past internal feelings, as mere conceptions, or fainter images of the past; and the capacity of relative suggestion, by which the objects of our perception or conception, that are themselves separate, no longer appear to us separate, but are instantly invested by us with various relations that seem to bind them to each other, as if our mind could give its own unity to the innumerable objects which it comprehends, and, like that mighty Spirit which once hovered over the confusion of unformed nature, convert into a universe what was only chaos before.

We have a capacity of conceiving objects,—a capacity of feeling the relations of objects, and to those capacities all that is intellectual in our nature is reducible. In treating of the phenomena of these two powers, I have not merely examined them, as I would have done if no previous arrangements of the same phenomena had been made by philosophers, but I have examined, afterwards, those arrangements also; not omitting, as far as I know, any one of the faculties of which those writers speak. If it has appeared, therefore, in this review, that the distinctions which they have made have been founded on errors, which we have been able to trace ; and that the faculties of which they speak are all, not merely reducible, but easily reducible, to the two classes of the intellectual phenomena, which I have ventured to form,-this coincidence, or facility of corresponding reduction, must be allowed to furnish a very powerful argument in support of my arrangement, since the authors who have formed systems essentially different, cannot be supposed to have accommodated the phenomena of which they treated to a system which was not their own; though a theorist himself may, in some cases, perhaps with reason, be suspected of an intentional accommodation of this sort, for the honour of his system, and in many more cases, without any intention of distorting a single fact, or omitting a single circumstance unfavourable to his own opinions, may, by the influence of those opinions, as a more habitual form of his thoughts, perceive every thing in a stronger light, which coincides with them, and scarcely perceive those objects with which they do not harmonize.

That two simple capacities of the mind should be sufficient to explain all the variety of intellectual phenomena, which disVOL. II.-Ii

tinguish man from man, in every tribe of savage and civilized life, may indeed seem wonderful. But of such wonders, all science is nothing more than the development-reducing, and bringing as it were, under a single glance, the innumerable objects that seemed to mock by their infinity, the very attempt of minute arrangement. The splendid profusion of apparent diversities, in that earth which we inhabit, are reduced by us chemically, to a few elements, that in their separate classes, are all similar to each other. The motions, which it would be vain for us to think of numbering, of every mass, and of every particle of every mass, have been reduced to a few laws of motion still more simple; and if we regard the universe itself in the noblest light in which it can be viewed-that which connects it with its Omnipotent Creator,-its whole infinity of wonders are to be considered as the effect but of one simple volition. At the will of God, the world arose, and when it arose, what innumerable relations were present, as it were, and involved in that creative will; the feeling of a single instant comprehending at once, what was afterwards to Occupy and to fill, the whole immensity of space, and the whole eternity of time!

251

LECTURE LII.

RETROSPECT OF THE ORDERS OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND, ALREADY CONSIDERED,—OF EMOTIONS,-CLASSIFICATION OF THEM, AS IMMEDIATE, RETROSPECTIVE, OR PROSPECTIVE,AND EACH OF THESE SUBDIVIDED, AS IT INVOLVES, OR DOES NOT INVOLVE SOME MORAL AFFECTION.-I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, INVOLVING NO MORAL AFFECTION.-II. CHEERFULNESS

-MELANCHOLY.

GENTLEMEN, after the attention which we have paid to the class of external affections of the mind, and to that great order of its internal affections, which I have denominated intellectual, the only remaining phenomena, which, according to our original division, remain to be considered by us, are our emotions.

This order of our internal feelings, is distinguished from the external class, by the circumstances which I have already pointed out, as the basis of the arrangement,-that they are not the immediate consequences of the presence of external objects; but, when excited by objects without, are excited only indirectly, through the medium of those direct feelings, which are commonly termed sensations or perceptions. They differ from the other order of the same internal class,-from the intellectual states of mind, which constitute our simple or relative suggestions of memory or judgment,—by that peculiar vividness of feeling, which every one understands, but which it is impossible to express, by any verbal definition; as truly impossible, as to define sweetness, or bitterness, a sound or a smell, in any other way, than by a statement of the circumstances in which they arise. There is no reason to fear, however, from this impossibility of verbal definition, that any one, who has tasted what is sweet or bitter, or enjoyed the pleasures of melody and fragrance, will be at all in danger of confounding these terms; and, as little reason is there to fear, that our emotions will be confounded with our intellectual states of mind, by those who have simply remembered and compared, and have also loved, or hated, desired, or feared.

Before we proceed to consider the order of emotions, it may be interesting to cast a short glance over the other orders of the phenomena of mind, before considered by us.

In the view which we have taken of the external or sensitive affections of the mind, we have traced those laws, so simple and so efficacious, which give to the humblest individual, by the medium of his corporeal organs, the possession of that almost celestial scene, in which he is placed, till he arrives at that nobler abode which awaits him,-connecting him not merely with the earth which he treads, but indirectly, also with those other minds, which are journeying with him in the same career, and that enjoy at once, by the same medium of the senses, the same beauties and glories that are shed around them, with a profusion so divine, as almost to indicate, of themselves, that a path so magnificent is the path to Heaven. A few rays of light thus revealed to us, not forms and colours only, which are obviously visible, but latent thoughts, which no eye can see; a few particles of vibrating air, enable mind to communicate to mind, its most spiritual feelings, to awake and be awakened mutually to science and benevolent exertion, as if truths, and generous wishes, and happiness itself, could be diffused in the very voice that scarcely floats upon the ear.

Such are our mere sensitive feelings, resulting from the influence of external things, on our corresponding organs, which are themselves external. The view of the intellectual states of the mind, to which we next proceeded, laid open to us phenomena still more astonishing-those capacities, by which we are enabled to discover in nature more than the causes of those brief separate sensations which follow the affections of our nerves, to perceive in it proportion and design, and all those relations of parts to parts, by which it becomes to us a demonstration of the wisdom that formed it,-capacities, by which, in a single moment, we pass again over all the busiest adventures of all the years of our life, or, with a still more unlimited range of thoughts, are present, as it were, in that remote infinity of space, where no earthly form has ever been, or, in the still more mysterious infinity of time,-in ages, when the universe was not, nor any thing, but that Eternal One, whose immutable existence is all which we conceive of eternity.

Such are the wonders, of which we acquire the knowledge, in those phenomena of the mind, which have been already reviewed by us. The order of feelings, which we are next to consider, are not less important-nor important only in themselves, but also in their relation to those other phenomena which have been the subjects of our inquiry; since they com

prehend all the higher delights which attend the exercise of our sensitive and intellectual functions. The mere pleasures of sense, indeed, as direct and simple pleasures, we do not owe to them; but we owe to them every thing which confers on those pleasures a more ennobling value, by the enjoyments of social affection which are mingled with them, or the gratitude which, in the enjoyment of them, looks to their Divine Author. We might, perhaps, in like manner, have been so constituted, with respect to our intellectual states of mind, as to have had all the varieties of these, our remembrances, judgments, and creations of fancy, without our emotions. But without the emotions which accompany them, of how little value would the mere intellectual functions have been? It is to our vivid feelings of this class, we must look for those tender regards, which make our remembrances sacred-for that love of truth and glory, and mankind, without which, to animate and reward us, in our discovery and diffusion of knowledge, the continued exercise of judgment would be a fatigue rather than a satisfaction-and for all that delightful wonder which we feel, when we contemplate the admirable creations of fancy, or the still more admirable beauties of the unfading model-that model which is ever before us, and the imitation of which, as has been truly said, is the only imitation that is itself originality. By our other mental functions, we are mere spectators of the machinery of the universe, living and inanimate; by our emotions, we are admirers of nature, lovers of man, adorers of God. The earth, without them, would be only a field of colour, inhabited by beings who may contribute, indeed, more permanently, to our means of physical comfort, than any one of the inanimate forms which we behold, but who, beyond the moment in which they are capable of affecting us with pain or pleasure, would be only like the other forms and colours, which would meet us whenever we turned our weary and listless eyes; and God himself, the source of all good, and the object of all worship, would be only the Being by whom the world was made.

In the picture which I have now given of our emotions, however, I have presented them to you in their fairest aspects; there are aspects, which they assume, as terrible as these are attractive; but even, terrible as they are, they are not the less interesting objects of our contemplation. They are the enemies with which our moral combat, in the warfare of life, is to be carried on; and, if there be enemies that are to assail us, it is good for us to know all the arms and all the arts with which we are to be assailed; as it is good for us to know all the misery which would await our defeat, as much as all the