perhaps also of the sublime; Wit, or a sense of the ludicrous; and Imitation, of which we have already spoken. To these simple or primitive sentiments, in connection with the propensities and reasoning powers, and with the influence of external causes, we think all other sentiments, so called, may be traced. Thus, Energy and Cheerfulness arise from good health, uprightness, and prosperity; but Languor, and Melancholy, from ill health, and adversity, or sometimes from vicious conduct. Joy and Sorrow, Gratification and Regret, Pleasure and Pain, are produced by various causes, physical, intellectual, or moral; their nature and intensity varying with the cause. Sympathy, Friendship, and Love, arise from benevolence, adhesiveness, or personal congruities; but Antipathy, or Dislike, and Hatred, from personal incongruities, with excessive combativeness, or want of benevolence. Anger, results from personal injuries; and Gratitude, from personal favours. Pride is an excess, and Humility, a deficiency, of self-esteem; the latter conjoined perhaps with veneration. Vanity is an excessive manifestation of approbativeness; Misanthropy, a want of benevolence; Remorse, a reflective action of conscientiousness; and Despair, is the absence or inactivity of hope, in depressing circumstances. It may be doubted whether Moral Approbation, or the "sympathetic emotion of virtue" should be reckoned as a primitive sentiment, or as one derived from conscientiousness. The distinction, given by Lord Kames, between emotions, and passions, is, that the latter excite desire; while the former do not: but both these results, we think, may belong to the same sentiment, at different times or stages. §3. The Perceptive Powers, are those which enable us to form ideas of external objects, through the medium of the senses; that is, by means of sensation. Sensation is an effect produced by material objects upon the organs of sense, and by them, through the nervous system and the brain, upon the mind; causing that mental operation which is called Perception. The different modes of sensation, are the five senses; Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Feeling. By these we derive the simple ideas of Color, Form, Size, Tone or Sound, Smell, Taste, Weight or Resistance, Temperature, and Physical Pleasure or Pain. Dr. Darwin regarded the sensations of heat and of pain as primitive; ranking them with the five senses above named. The ideas of Number, Order, Time, Motion, Action or Eventuality, and Position or Locality, we regard as complex, and dependent in part on the reasoning powers. Ideas of shape, and size, may be acquired either by seeing, or feeling; but ideas of color, sound, smell, taste, and resistance, can only be acquired each by a single mode of sensation. The enumeration of simple and of complex ideas above given, differs somewhat from the assignment of organs by the Phrenologists, and is offered with diffidence, though derived from high authorities. (Plate III). We may here add, that the senses cannot always be implicitly depended upon; even when the most acute. The eye is often deceived, in the distance of objects, and the ear, in the direction of sounds. We may sometimes imagine that we see or hear, when influenced only by mental excitement; or on the other hand, our H organs of sense may receive impressions, and the mind remain insensible to them, from inactivity or pre-engagement. Hence the importance of Attention, to insure correct perceptions. The eye and the ear, or the senses of seeing and hearing, are the sources of nearly all those ideas which are connected with the Fine Arts; and from which the Intellectual sentiments are chiefly derived. Hence, they are the senses chiefly concerned in the cultivation of taste; though subordinate to the intellectual powers. Wonderful is the adaptation of our senses to the world in which we live. Were the whole body as sensible to light as the eye, or to sound as the ear, we should be in continual torture; and were the eye and ear less sensible to these agents, they would no longer serve their purpose, to put the mind in communication with the external world. This admirable harmony of our being, is one among many proofs of the existence and benevolence of the Deity. § 4. The Reflective Powers, of which we are lastly to treat, are the highest class of intellectual powers; by the action of which, all the others are, or should be regulated. They are developed later than most of the preceding powers; on which they are primarily dependent for ideas and motives. Ideas being once acquired by Perception, may be recalled by Memory, prompted by their previous relations; and may be variously modified or combined by the Imagination or Fancy. Memory, and Imagination, have been termed reflex perception; and though not reasoning powers, they are mental exercises auxiliary to them, as furnishing the materials on which these are employed. That cognisance which the mind takes of its own operations may be called internal perception, or reflection; and this likewise, furnishes materials for reasoning. Habit, or the formation of habits, we regard as depending on Memory, and the Will, influenced by the Association of ideas. The writers on Phrenology, rank Language with the perceptive powers; but it seems to us to belong rather to the reflective powers, and is be intimately connected with the Association of ideas; which we regard as the basis of all reasoning. The process of reasoning, including Conception, Comparison, and Inference or Causality, has already been alluded to, under the branch of Logic. By Conception, we recall ideas, not necessarily as matters of feeling or fact, but simply as objects of thought: by the faculty of Individuality, we consider several ideas belonging to a complex object, as a whole, or generalize them: and by Abstraction, we consider the simple or component ideas separately, or analyze them. By Comparison, we examine two ideas in connection, and form a Judgment; and by Inference or Causality, we combine two or more judgments or propositions, to deduce a Conclusion; or we seek a cause of some effect, or an effect of some cause. Analogy, and Induction, or rather analogical and inductive reasoning, which we have referred to, under Logic, may, we think, be considered as distinct processes, if not distinct mental powers. In describing the mental powers, we must carefully guard against the idea that these powers collectively constitute the mind; as an assemblage of Senators may compose a Senate. They are to be regarded only as affections or faculties, with which the soul is endowed; and for the right use of which, it will be held responsible, by its Creator. It remains to speak of the Will, or Volition; which we conceive to be the final decision of the mind; or if regarded as a mental power, it is the power to act, sometimes called the power of agency. Our actions depend on our thoughts; and these are influenced not only by passing events, but by their own associations, previously existing,-from resemblance, proximity, contrast, or other causes; whereby one idea suggests another, often involuntarily. Hence the great importance of correct associations of ideas, to prompt the memory, and aid the reason. That the Will is so often opposed to reason; and reason itself ehfeebled by the affections; clearly evinces a fall, or deterioration, from the primeval perfection of our nature. CHAPTER IV. ETHICS. : ETHICS, or Moral Philosophy, is that branch of knowledge which treats of our duties, to ourselves, to our fellow-men, and to our Maker; and the reasons by which those duties are enforced. Its name is from the Greek 2005, morals and it is also termed Morality, Casuistry, or the study of Natural or Moral Law: but we think that Morality refers rather to the performance of duty, than to the study of it; and that the term Casuistry is the least appropriate of them all. The great object of Ethics, is to promote the cause of virtue; by showing its reasonableness, its excellence, and beauty; and the melancholy consequences of neglecting or forsaking it. Virtue, consists in the performance of our duty, from a sense of obligation; and Vice, is the neglect or violation of our duty, where it should reasonably be known: for to learn what is our duty, is one part of that duty itself. Socrates comprehended all virtue under two heads; temperance, or the duty which man owes to himself: and justice, or that which he owes to his fellow-men. The obligation to virtue he derived from the will of the Supreme Being. Zeno the stoic, and Seneca, of the stoic school in philosophy, adopted the same views. Plato, copying Pythagoras, enumerated four cardinal virtues, temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice, which have since been called philosophical virtues; while faith, hope, and charity, have been termed Christian virtues; though Christianity includes them all. Modern writers have differed much concerning the obligation, or foundation, of virtue. Hobbes places it in political enactment; Mandeville, in the love of praise; Dr. Clarke, in the fitness of things; Adam Smith, in sympathy for our race; Grotius, and Puffendorf, in the duty of improvement; Hume and Paley, in personal utility; while Hutcheson, Cudworth, Butler, Reid, Stewart, and others, derive it from a Moral Sense, or natural impulse to do right, implanted by our Creator. |