other. If we attempt to listen to both, we can understand neither. The fact seems to be, that when we attend constantly to one of the speakers, the words spoken by the other make no impression on the mind, in consequence of our not attending to them; and affect us as little as if they had not been uttered. This power, however, of the mind, to attend to either speaker at pleasure, supposes that it is, at one and the same time, conscious of the sensations which both produce. And the power of reflection, in like manner, turns the mind inward, to view and observe its own actions and operations; but art and pains are requisite to set it at a distance, as it were, from itself, and make it an object of its own scrutiny. Yet art and pains will daily diminish this difficulty, and thereby enable us to think with precision and accuracy on many important subjects, wherein others must blindly follow a leader.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE DIFFICULTY OF ATTENDING TO THE OPERATIONS OF OUR OWN MINDS, INTERSPERSED WITH OBSERVATIONS WHICH MAY ASSIST US IN OVERCOMING THIS DIFFICULTY.

89. THE difficulty of attending to our mental operations ought to be well understood, and justly estimated, by those who would make any progress in the art of logic; that they may neither, on the one hand, expect success without labor and application of thought, nor, on the other, be discouraged, by conceiving that the obstacles which lie in the way are insuperable, and that there is no certainty to be attained in the science of intellectual philosophy.

Obs. The following development of the causes of this difficulty, and the effects which have arisen from it, will enable us to form a true judgment of these causes and effects.

90. The number and quick succession of the operations of the mind make it difficult to give due attention to them. It is well known, that if a number of objects be presented even to the eye (in quick succession) they are confounded in the mind and imagination. We retain a confused notion of the whole, and a more confused one of the several parts, especially if they are objects to which we have never before given particular attention. No succession can be more quick than that of thought. The mind is busy while we are awake, continually passing from one thought and one operation to another. The scene is constantly shifting. You

will be instantly sensible of this, if you try but for one minute to keep the same thought in your imagination without addition or variation.

Illus. Think, for illustration, on Daniel cast into the lions' den; and you will find it impossible to keep the scene of your imagination fixed. Other objects will intrude without being called: the machinations of his enemies to get a royal statute established, that whosoever should ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of king Darius, should be cast into the den of lions-the immutability of the laws of the Medes and Persians-the king's command -the remarkable presentiment of Darius, that the God whom Daniel served would deliver him-the king's disquietude over nighthis going early to the den on the following morning, and crying with a lamentable voice, O.Danicl, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?-the reply of Daniel, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me "-the reason of this, "forasmuch as before him innocence was found in me "-the appeal to Darius," and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt" -the punishment of the men who accused Daniel-of their wives and children—and, finally, the decree of the king, "that in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel "-these, all these objects will intrude, without being called; and all you can do is to reject the intruders as quickly as possible, and return to the principal object, if you would picture to yourself only Daniel shut up in the lions' den.

91. We proceed in this examination, contrary to habits which have been early acquired, and confirmed by long, unvaried practice. From infancy we are accustomed to attend to objects of sense, and to them only; and, when. sensible objects have acquired such strong hold of the attention by confirmed habit, it is not easy to dispossess them. When we grow up, a variety of external objects solicits our attention, excites our curiosity, engages our affections, or touches our passions; and the constant round of employment about external objects, draws off the mind from attending to itself.

Illus. Yet here much may be done by experience, and nothing will contribute so much to form this talent of reflection, as that study which has the operations of the mind for its object. By habituating us to reflect on the subjects of our consciousness, it enables us to retard, in a considerable degree, the current of thought; to arrest many of those ideas, which would otherwise escape our notice; and to render the arguments, which we would employ for the conviction of others, an exact transcript of those trains of inquiry and reasoning, which originally led us to form our opinions.

92. Mental operations, from their very nature, lead the mind to give its attention to some other object. Our sensa

tions are natural signs, and turn our attention to the things signified by them. In perception, memory, judgment, imagination, and reasoning, there is an object distinct from the mind itself; and, while we are led by a strong impulse to attend to the object, the operation escapes our notice. Our passions, affections, and all our active powers, have, in like manner, their objects, which engross our attention, and divert it from the powers themselves.

93. When the mind is agitated by any passion, as soon as we turn our attention from the object of the passion to the passion itself, the passion subsides or vanishes, and by that means escapes our inquiry.

Illus. Thus, when a man is angry, he is conscious of his passion; yet he attends not to it, but to an external object; his attention is turned to the person who offended him, and the circumstances of the offence, while the passion of anger is not in the least the object of his attention. This, indeed, is common to almost every operation of the mind. When it is exerted, we are conscious of it; but then we do not attend to the operation, but to its object. When the mind is drawn off from the object, to attend to its own operation, that operation ceases, and escapes our notice.

94. In what relates to the operations of the mind, it is not enough that we be able to give attention to them; we must, by exercise and habit, acquire the ability of distinguishing accurately their minute differences, of resolving and analyzing complex operations into their simple ingredients, of unfolding the ambiguity of words, which in this science is greater than in any other, and of giving them the accuracy and precision of mathematical language. For, doubtless, the same precision in the use of words; the same cool attention to the minute differences of things; the same talent for abstraction and analyzing, which fit one for the study of mathematics, are no less necessary in the science of mind.

CHAPTER VII.

DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND.

95. THE powers of the human mind, and the science of intellectual philosophy, furnish the proper basis upon which every other science rests, because the human faculties are

the instruments by which alone invention in all the sciences can be accomplished. But the powers of the human mind are so many and so various, and so connected and complicated, in almost all its operations, that the most general division, which is also the most common of them, into the powers of understanding, and those of the will, is perhaps the least liable to objection.

96. The UNDERSTANDING comprehends our contemplative powers, by which we perceive objects, by which we conceive or remember them, by which we analyze or compound them, and by which we judge and reason concerning them. Under the WILL we arrange our active powers, and all that lead to action, or influence the mind to act; such as appetites, passions, affections.

Illus. 1. Although this general division may be of use in order to our proceeding more methodically in our subject, we are not to understand that, in those operations which are ascribed to the understanding, there is no exertion of will, or activity, or that the understanding is not employed in the operations of the will; for we conceive that there is no operation of the understanding wherein the mind is not also active in some degree.

2. We have some command over our thoughts, and can attend to this or to that, of many objects which present themselves to our senses, to our memory, to our imagination. We can survey an object on this side or that, superficially or accurately, for a longer or a shorter time; so that our contemplative powers are under the guidance and direction of the active; and the former never pursue their object without being led and directed, urged or restrained, by the latter. And because the understanding is always more or less directed by the will, mankind have ascribed some degree of activity to the mind in its intellectual operations, as well as in those which belong to the will, and have expressed them by active verbs, such as seeing, hearing, judging, reasoning, and the like.

3. And as the mind exerts some degree of activity even in the operations of understanding, so it is certain, that there can be no act of will which is not accompanied with some act of understanding. The will must have an object, and that object must be apprehended or conceived in the understanding.

Corol. It is therefore to be remembered, that in most, if not all operations of the mind, both faculties concur; and we range the operation under that faculty which we conceive to have the largest share in it.

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97. In conducting our analysis of the intellectual powers, it is proposed to adopt the following arrangement:

I. To treat of CONSCIOUSNESS, or that faculty or mode of thinking, by which the various powers of our minds are made known to us.

II. SENSATION, or the faculty whereby we experience

pleasing or painful effects from various objects, through the medium of the senses.

III. PERCEPTION, or the faculty by which we are informed of the properties of external objects, in consequence of the impressions which they make on the organs of sense.

IV. ATTENTION, or the faculty which detains, for our examination, ideas or perceptions in the mind, and excludes other objects that solicit its notice.

V. CONCEPTION, or the faculty by which we represent to our minds the objects of any other of our faculties variously modified.

VI. ABSTRACTION, or the faculty by which we analyze objects of consciousness, sensation, perception, &c., and contemplate their various properties apart from each other.

VII. ASSOCIATION, or combination of ideas, the faculty by which we connect together these objects, according to various relations, essential or accidental, so that they are suggested to us, the one by the other.

VIII. MEMORY, or the faculty by which the mind has `a knowledge of what it had formerly perceived, felt, or thought.

IX. IMAGINATION, or the faculty which makes a selection of qualities and circumstances from a variety of different objects, and by combining and disposing these, forms new creations of its own.

X. Judgment, or the faculty by which the mind comes to determinations concerning the truth or falsehood of any thing that is affirmed or denied.

XI. REASON, or the faculty by which we are made acquainted with abstract or necessary truth; and enabled to discover the essential relations of things.

XII. MORAL PERCEPTION, or the faculty which determines the choice of a rational being, as to what is good for him upon the whole, and what appears to be duty.