those of matter. In both cases we have direct knowledge; that is to say, knowledge without the necessary intervention of other facts. In the case of Sensation, whenever an object is presented to us, we have a new state of mind at once, and necessarily. So in Consciousness, whenever a new state of mind exists, we recognise its existence at once, without any accessory aid. We cannot help doing it.

Consciousness is a ground or law of BELIEF. And the belief attendant on the exercise of it, like that which accompanies the exercise of Original Suggestion, is of the highest kind. It appears to be utterly out of our power to avoid believing, beyond a doubt, that the mind experiences certain sensations, or has certain thoughts, or puts forth particular intellectual operations, whenever, in point of fact, that is the case. We may be asked for the reason of this belief, but we have none to give, except that it is the result of an ultimate and controlling principle of our nature; and hence, that nothing can ever prevent the convictions resulting from this source, and nothing can divest us of them.

In the course of this Work we shall have occasion

to bring forward some instances where the power of consciousness (whether we call it the power, or, as some would prefer, the mere fact of consciousness, is not, perhaps, in the present discussions, very essential) appears to be disordered. The examination of Insanity, as it presents itself under this particular head, will furnish some cases, which are interesting in a high degree.

§ 12. Of Relative Suggestion or Judgment.

III. Another of those powers, coming under the general head of the Internal Intellect, is Relative Suggestion. It is well known that the mind has the power, as we commonly express it, of bringing its thoughts together, of placing them side by side, of comparing them. These expressions, although they are for the most part of material origin, indicate nevertheless an important fact in the mental action. When it is said that our thoughts are brought together, that they are placed side by side, and the like, the meaning undoubtedly is, that they are immediately successive to each other. And when it is further said that we compare them, the meaning is, that we perceive or feel their relation to each other in certain respects.

The mind, therefore, has an original susceptibility or power corresponding to this result; in other words, by which this result is brought about; which is sometimes known as its power of RELATIVE SUGGESTION, and at other times the same thing is expressed by the term JUDGMENT, although the latter term is sometimes employed with other shades of meaning. "With the susceptibility of relative suggestion" (says Dr. Brown, Lect. 51), "the faculty of judgment, as that term is commonly employed, may be considered as nearly synonymous; and I have accordingly used it as synonymous in treating of the different relations that have come under our review." Degerando, in his Treatise on the Origin of Human

Knowledge (pt. ii., chap. ii.), has a remark nearly to the same effect.

We arrive here, therefore, at an ultimate fact in our mental nature; in other words, we reach a principle so thoroughly elementary that it cannot be resolved into any other. The human intellect is so made, so constituted, that, when it perceives different objects together, it immediately and necessarily has a knowledge of some of the mutual relations of those objects. It considers them as equal or unequal, like or unlike, as being the same or different in respect to place and time, as having the same or different causes and ends, and in various other respects.

§ 13. Of the Nature of the Reasoning Power. IV. Another of the internal powers is REASON

ING.

An expression by which we are to understand the mental process or operation, by means of which we deduce conclusions from two or more propositions premised. For our knowledge of the operations of the reasoning power we are indebted to consciousness, which gives us our direct knowledge, not only of this, but of all other mental processes. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to add, that reasoning is not identical with, or involved in, consciousness. If consciousness gives us a knowledge of the act of reasoning, the reasoning power, operating within its own limits and in its own right, gives us a knowledge of other things. It is a source of perceptions and knowledge, which we probably could not possess in any other way.

Considered as sources of knowledge, none of the forms of intellectual action which have been mentioned are identical with each other. Each occu

pies its appropriate sphere, and has its specific and appropriate results. Without the aid of Original Suggestion, it does not appear how we could have a knowledge of our existence; without Consciousness we should not have knowledge of our mental operations; without Relative Suggestion or Judgment, which is also a distinct source of knowledge, there would be no Reasoning; and, unassisted by Reasoning, we could have no knowledge of the relations of those things which cannot be compared without the aid of intermediate propositions. The reasoning power, accordingly, is to be regarded as a new and distinct fountain of thought, which, as compared with the other sources of knowledge just mentioned, opens itself still farther in the recesses of the internal intellect; and as it is later in its developement, so it comes forth with proportionally greater efficiency. It not only discloses to us those separate relations, which are so complicated and remote, that relative suggestion, or judgment in its elementary form, cannot reach them; but sustains the higher office of bringing to light the great principles and hidden truths of nature; revealing to the inquisitive and delighted mind a multitude of fruitful and comprehensive views, which could not otherwise be obtained.

This power too, pre-eminent and important as it is acknowledged to be, is not exempt from an impairment and alienation of its action. Indeed, Cul

len and Locke, and we know not how many other leading writers, seem to have regarded it as the great seat of mental disorder.

14. Remarks on the Imagination.

V. Another leading power which, when we accurately consider its nature, seems properly to be arranged under the general head of the Intellect, is the Imagination. We shall have occasion hereafter to recur again to the nature and intellectual process of imaginative action, when it comes in place to consider the disorders to which this important faculty is subject. All we propose to do here is ↑ briefly to point out the relation existing between the imagination and the reasoning power. D'Alembert somewhere intimates very distinctly, that this relation is a very close one; and suggests farther, in illustration of his views, that Archimedes, the geometrician, of all the great men of antiquity, is best entitled to be placed by the side of Homer. If such a relation exists, it furnishes one reason at least in support of the classification, which arranges the imagination, in connexion with the reasoning power, under the general head of the Intellect.

Some of the particulars, in which the imaginative and deductive powers are closely related, are these. They both imply the antecedent exercise of the power of abstraction; they are both employed in framing new combinations of thought from the elements already in possession; they both put in requisition, and in precisely the same way, the powers of association and relative suggestion.

Nevertheless, they