It is very different, however, when the conception,-the one simple effect produced,-is made to depend, not merely on the tendency of the mind to exist in that state, at the particular moment at which the conception arises, but on some process of association, which may have operated at a considerable interval before; for in that case the process of association, which is supposed to have taken place at one period, must itself imply one power or function of the mind, and the actual suggestion, or rise of the conception, at an interval afterwards, some different power or function.

With respect to the supposed intellectual power of conception, then, as distinct from the intellectual power of association or suggestion, we may very safely conclude, that the belief of this is founded merely on a mistake as to the nature of association; that the power of suggestion and the power of conception are the same, both being only that particular susceptibility of the mind, from which, in certain circumstances, conceptions arise,-or, at least, that if the power of conception differs from the more general powers of suggestion, it differs from it only as a part differs from the whole,-as the power of taking a single step differs from the power of traversing a whole field, the power of drawing a single breath from the general power of respiration,-the moral susceptibility by which we are capable of forming one charitable purpose from that almost divine universality of benevolence, in a whole virtuous life, to which every moment is either some exertion for good, or some wish for good which comprehends within its sphere of ACTION,-that has no limits but physical impossibility,every being whom it can instruct or amend, or relieve or gladden; and, in its sphere of generous DESIRE, all that is beyond the limits of its power of benefitting.

The next supposed intellectual power to which I would call your attention, is the power of memory.

In treating of our suggestions, and consequently, as you have seen, of our conceptions, which are only parts of the suggested series, I have, at the same time, treated of our remembrances, or, at least, of the more important part of our remembrances, because our remembrances are nothing more than conceptions united with the notion of a certain relation of time. They are conceptions of the past, felt as conceptions of the past,that is to say, felt as having a certain relation of antecedence to our present feeling. The remembrance is not a simple but a complex state of mind; and all which is necessary to reduce a remembrance to a mere conception, is to separate from it a part of the complexity,-that part of it which constitutes the notion of a certain relation of antecedence. We are conVOL. II.-M

scious of our present feeling, whatever it may be; for this is, in truth, only another name for our consciousness itself. The moment of present time, at which we are thus conscious, is a bright point,-ever moving, and yet, as it were, ever fixed,— which divides the darkness of the future from the twilight of the past. It is, in short, what Cowley terms the whole of human life,

"A weak isthmus, that doth proudly rise
Up betwixt two eternities."*

The present moment, then, though ever fleeting, is to us, as it were, a fixed point; and it is a point which guides us in the most important of our measurements, in our retrospects of the past, and our hopes of the future. The particular feeling of any moment before the present, as it rises again in our mind, would be a simple conception, if we did not think of it, either immediately or indirectly, in relation to some other feeling earlier or later. It becomes a remembrance when we combine with it this feeling of relation, the relation which constitutes our notion of time;-for time, as far as we are capable of understanding it, or rather of feeling it, is nothing more than the varieties of this felt relation, which, in reference to one of the subjects of the relation, we distinguish by the word before,-in reference to the other, by the word after. It is a relation, I may remark, which we feel nearly in the same manner as we feel the relation which bodies bear to each other, as coexisting in space. We say of a house, that it is two miles from a particular village, half a mile from the river, a mile from the bridge, with a feeling of relation very similar to that with which we say of one event, that it occurred a month ago, of another event, that it occurred in the memorable year of our first going to school,-of another, that it happened in our infancy. There is some point to which, in estimating distance of space, we refer the objects which we measure, as there is a point of time in the present moment, or in some event which we have before learned to consider thus relatively, to which, directly or indirectly, we refer the events of which we speak as past or future, or more or less recent.

If we had been incapable of considering more than two events together, we probably never should have invented the word time, but should have contented ourselves with simpler words, expressive of the simple relation of the two. But we

• Cowley's Ode on Life and Fame, Stanza I. ver. 10, 11, slightly altered. "Vain weak-built Isthmus, that dost proudly rise

Up betwixt two eternities."-Orig.

are capable of considering a variety of events, all of which are felt by us to bear to the state of mind which constitutes our present consciousness, some relation of priority or subsequence, which they seem to us to bear also reciprocally to each other; and the varieties of this relation oblige us to invent a general term for expressing them all. This general word, invented by us for expressing all the varieties of priority and subsequence, is time,-a word, therefore, which expresses no actual reality, but only relations that are felt by us, in the objects of our conception. To think of time is not to think of any thing existing of itself, for time is not a thing but a relation; it is only to have some conceptions of objects, which we regard as prior and subsequent; and without the conception of objects of some kind, as subjects of the relation of priority and subsequence, it is as little possible for us to imagine any time, as to imagine brightness or dimness without a single ray of light,-proportional magnitude, without any dimensions,--or any other relation without any other subject. When the notion of time, then, is combined with any of our conceptions, as in memory, all which is combined with the simple conception is the feeling of a certain relation. To be capable of remembering, in short, we must have a capacity of the feelings which we term relations, and a capacity of the feelings which we term conceptions, that may be the subjects of the relations; but with these two powers no other is requisite no power of memory distinct from the conception and relation which that complex form denotes.

When I say that time, as far as we are capable of understanding it, is nothing more than a certain felt relation of certain conceptions of our own mind, I am sufficiently aware of the necessity of this qualifying clause with respect to the limits of our understanding, and of the truth of the very striking remark of St. Austin on this most obscure subject, that he knew well what time was till he was asked about it, and that then he knew nothing of it." Quid ergo est tempus? Quis hoc facile explicuerit? Si nemo a me quærat, scio. Si quærenti explicare velim, nescio."

It is truly one of those subjects, which, instead of growing clearer as we gaze upon it, grows more obscure beneath our very gaze. All of which we can be said to be conscious, is certainly the present moment alone. But of that complex state of mind, which forms to us the present moment, there are parts which impress us irresistibly, and beyond all the power of scepticism, with the relation, which, as I have already said, we term priority, in reference to the one, and succession or subsequence, in reference to the other; time, as felt by us, be

ing this relation of the two, and nothing more. It is not because we have a previous notion of time that we regard objects as prior and posterior, more than we regard objects as large or small, because we have a previous notion of magnitude; but time, as a general word, is significant to us merely of the felt varieties of the relation of priority and subsequence, as magnitude is a general word, expressive of the felt varieties of comparative dimensions.

But I have already dwelt too long on a point, which I may very probably have made darker to you than it was before; but which, impressed as I am with the truth of St. Austin's remark, I scarcely can venture to flatter myself with the hope of having made much more distinctly conceivable by you.

Obscure as the relation of priority and succession may be, however, which is all that mingles with conception in our remembrance, it is still only a certain relation; and the feeling of this relation does not imply any peculiar power, generically distinct from that which perceives other relations, whether clear or obscure; unless, indeed, we should be inclined to invent a separate name of some new faculty of the mind for every relation with which the mind can be impressed, in the almost infinite variety of these feelings. Memory, therefore, is not a distinct intellectual faculty, but is merely conception or suggestion combined with the feeling of a particular relation,--the relation to which we give the name of priority, a feeling that is not essential, indeed, to the accompanying conception itself, but that admits of being combined with it, in the same manner as the relation of place, or any other relation, admits of being combined with other conceptions or perceptions. It cannot be denied, for example, that in the darkness of the night, after an interval of many years, and at the distance probably of many thousand miles, we have the faculty of conceiv ing, or of beholding again, almost with the same vividness as when we trod its steep ascent, the mountain which we have been accustomed perhaps to ascend in our boyhood, for the pleasure of looking down, from its topmost rock, with a sort of pride at the height which we had mastered. To behold mentally this eminence again, without any feeling of the rela-tion of past time, is to have only a conception of the mountain. We cannot think of the mountain itself, however, even for a few moments, without thinking also of the scene which we have been accustomed to survey from it, the humbler hills around, that served only to make the valley between appear lower, than we should otherwise have conceived it to be, and to make us feel still more proudly the height which we had attained, the scattered villages, the woods,-the

streams, in various directions, mingling and resting in the motionless expanse of the lake. By comprehending gradually more of these objects in our mental view, we have widened our conception, indeed, but it is still a conception only; and we are not said to exercise any power distinct from that of conception or suggestion. Yet we cannot thus conceive the landscape as a whole, without feeling various relations which its parts bear to each other in space, as near or distant, high or low, the wood hanging over the village,-the spire gleaming through the trees,--the brook hurrying down to the mill, and the narrow path-way by its side. These relations, which give unity to the scene, are relations of space only, and they do not hinder our complex feeling from being denominated simply a conception. So far, then, no new power is said to be concerned. If, however, in addition to all these local relations, we introduce but a single relation of time, the thought of the most trifling circumstance which occurred when we last ascended the same mountain, and beheld the same scene,though this new part of the complex feeling have arisen, according to the same exact laws of suggestion, as the conception of the mere scene, the conception is then instantly said to indicate a new power, and what was before a conception is a conception no longer. In one sense, indeed, there is truly the operation of a new power, for there is a new relation most certainly felt; and every relation felt implies a power or susceptibility in the mind of feeling this relation. But the relations of coexistence in space are not less relations than those of succession in time; and both or neither, therefore, when coexisting with our conception, should be said to indicate a new intellectual faculty.

The state of mind, in memory, is, as I have already said, a complex one, a conception and a feeling of relation. But it admits of very easy analysis into these two parts, and, therefore, does not require the supposition of any new power to comprehend it, more than the complex state of mind, which results from the combination of the simple sensations of warmth and fragrance, requires the supposition of a new power to comprehend it, distinct from the separate senses to which the elementary feelings, if existing alone, would be referred. The conception, which forms one element of the remembrance, is referable to the capacity of simple suggestion, which we have been considering; the feeling of the relation of priority, which forms the other element of the remembrance, is referable, like our other feelings of relation, to the capacity of relative suggestion, which we are afterwards to consider. It is merely as this relation of priority is or is not felt, that the