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belief or knowledge of its existence, necessarily attendant on those operations.

125. Consciousness a ground or law of belief.

Consciousness, it may be remarked here, is to be regarded as 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.

Nor has the history of the human mind made known any instances that have even the appearance of being at variance with this view, except a few cases of undoubted insanity. A man may reason against Consciousness as a ground and law of belief, either for the sake of amusing himself or perplexing others; but when he not only reasons against it as such, but seriously and sincerely rejects it, it becomes quite another concern; and such a one has, by common consent, broken loose from the authority of his nature, and is truly and emphatically beside himself. It will be impossible to find a resting-place where such a mind can fix itself and repose; the best established truths, and the wildest and most extravagant notions, will stand nearly an equal chance of being either rejected or received; fancy and fact will be confounded and mingled together, and the whole mind will exhibit a scene of chaotic and irretrievable confusion.

§ 126. Instances of knowledge developed in consciousness.

It would be no easy task to point out the numerous states of mind, the ideas, and emotions, and desires, and volitions, which come within the range and cognizance of Consciousness; nor is there any special reason, connect

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ed with any object we have in view at present, why such full enumeration should be attempted. A few instances will suffice to show how fruitful a source of experience and of knowledge this is.

(1.) All the various degrees of belief are matters of Consciousness. We are so constituted that the mind necessarily yields its assent in a greater or less degree when evidence is presented. These degrees of assent are exceedingly various and multiplied, although only a few of them are expressed by select and appropriate names; nor does it appear to be necessary for the ends of society, or for any other purpose, that it should be otherwise. Some of them are as follows: doubting, assenting, presumption, believing, disbelieving, probability, certainty, &c.

(II.) The names of all other intellectual acts and operations (not the names of the intellectual Powers, which, like the mind itself, are made known to us by Suggestion, and are expressed by a different class of terms, but simply of acts and operations) are expressive of the subjects of our Consciousness. Among others, the terms perceiving, thinking, attending, conceiving, remembering, comparing, judging, abstracting, reasoning, imagining.

(III.) Consciousness, considered as a source of knowledge, includes likewise all our emotions and desires, (everything, in fact, which really and directly comes within the range of the SENSITIVE or SENTIENT part of our nature,) as the emotions of the beautiful, the grand, the sublime, the ludicrous; the feelings of pleasure, and pain, and aversion, of hope and joy, of despondency and sadness, and a multitude of others.

(IV.) Here also originates our acquaintance with the complex emotions or passions. A man bestows a benefit upon us, and we are conscious of a new complex feeling which we call GRATITUDE. Another person does us an injury; and we are conscious of another and distinct feeling, which we call ANGER. In other words, we feel, we know that the passion exists, and that it belongs to ourselves; and it is the same of jealousy, hatred, revenge, friendship, sympathy, the filial and parental affections, love, &c.

(V.) All the moral and religious emotions and affections, regarded as subjects of internal knowledge, belong

here; such as approval, disapproval, remorse, humility, repentance, religious faith, forgiveness, benevolence, the sense of dependence, adoration.-When we consider that the mind is constantly in action; that, in all our intercourse with our fellow-beings, friends, family, countrymen, and enemies, new and exceedingly diversified feelings are called forth; that every new scene in nature, and every new combination of events, have their appropriate results in the mind, it will be readily conjectured that this enumeration might be carried to a much greater extent. What has been said will serve to indicate some of the prominent sources for self-inquiry on this subject.

CHAPTER IV.

RELATIVE SUGGESTION OR JUDGMENT.

127. Of the susceptibility of perceiving or feeling relations. It is not inconsistent with the usage of our language to say, that the mind brings its thoughts together, and places them side by side, and compares them. Such are nearly the expressions of Mr. Locke, who speaks of the mind's bringing one thing to and setting it by another, and carrying its view from one to the other. And such is the imperfect nature of all arbitrary signs, that this phraseology will probably continue to be employed, although without some attention it will be likely to lead into error. Such expressions are evidently of material origin, and cannot be rightly interpreted in their application to the mind, without taking that circumstance into consideration. When it is said that our thoughts are brought together; that they are placed side by side, and the like, probably nothing more can be meant than this, 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 at 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.'

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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, or has immediately successive conceptions of any absent objects of perception, their mutual relations are immediately felt by it. 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.

§ 128. Occasions on which feelings of relation may arise.

The occasions on which feelings of relation may arise are almost innumerable. It would certainly be no easy task to specify them all. Any of the ideas which the mind is able to frame, may, either directly or indirectly, lay the foundation of other ideas of relation, since they may, in general, be compared together; or if they cannot themselves be readily placed side by side, may be made the means of bringing others into comparison. But those ideas which are of an external origin are representative of objects and their qualities; and hence we may speak of the relations of things no less than of the relations of thought. And such relations are everywhere discoverable.

We behold the flowers of the field, and one is fairer than another; we hear many voices, and one is louder or softer than another; we taste the fruits of the earth, and one flavour is more pleasant than another. But these differences of sound, and brightness, and taste, could never

be known to us without the power of perceiving relations. -Again, we see a fellow-being; and as we make him the subject of our thoughts, we at first think of him only as a man. But then he may, at the same time, be a father, a brother, a son, a citizen, a legislator; these terms express ideas of relation.

129. Of the use of correlative terms.

Correlative terms are such terms as are used to express corresponding ideas of relation. They suggest the relations with great readiness, and, by means of them, the mind can be more steadily, and longer, and with less pain, fixed upon the ideas of which they are expressive. The words father and son, legislator and constituent, brother and sister, husband and wife, and others of this class, as soon as they are named, at once carry our thoughts beyond the persons who are the subjects of these relations to the relations themselves. Wherever, therefore, there are correlative terms, the relations may be expected to be clear to the mind.

§ 130. Of relations of identity and diversity.

The number of relations is very great; so much so, that it is found difficult to reduce them to classes; and probably no classification of them which has been hitherto proposed, exhausts them in their full extent. The most of those which it will be necessary to notice may be brought into the seven classes of relations of IDENTITY and DIVERSITY, of DEGREE, of PROPORTION, of PLACE, of TIME, of POSSESSION, and of CAUSE and EFFECT.

The first class of ideas of relation which we shall pro ceed to consider, are those of IDENTITY and DIVERSITY.Such is the nature of our minds, that no two objects can be placed before us essentially unlike, without our having a perception of this difference. When, on the other hand, there is an actual sameness in the objects contemplated by us, the mind perceives or is sensible of their identity It is not meant by this that we are never liable to mistake; that the mind never confounds what is different, nor separates what is the same our object here is merely to state the general fact.

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