Natural philosophy remained in its infant state near two thousand years after geometry had attained to its manly form: for natural philosophy seems not to have been built on a stable foundation, nor carried to any degree of maturity, till the last century. The system of Des Cartes, which was all hypothesis, prevailed in the most enlightened part of Europe till towards the end of the last century. Sir Isaac Newton has the merit of giving the form of a science to this branch of philosophy; and it need not appear surprising, if the philosophy of the human mind should be a century or two later in being brought to maturity.

It has received great accessions from the labours of several modern authors; and perhaps wants little more to entitle it to the name of a science, but to be purged of certain hypotheses, which have imposed on some of the most acute writers on this subject, and led them into downright scepticism.

What the ancients have delivered to us concerning the mind and its operations, is almost entirely drawn, not from accurate reflection, but from some conceived analogy between body and mind. And although the modern authors I formerly named have given more attention to the operations of their own minds, and by that means have made important discoveries, yet, by retaining some of the ancient analogical notions, their discoveries have been less useful than they might have been, and have led to scepticism.

It may happen in science, as in building, that an error in the foundation shall weaken the whole; and the farther the building is carried on, this weakness shall become the more apparent and the more threatening. Something of this kind seems to have happened in our systems concerning the mind. The accession they have received by modern discoveries, though very important in itself, has thrown darkness and obscurity upon the whole, and has led men rather to scepticism than to knowledge. This must be owing to some fundamental errors that have not been observed; and when these are corrected, it is to be hoped, that the improvements that have been made will have their due effect.

The last effect I observe of the difficulty of inquiries into the powers of the mind is, that there is no other part of human knowledge, in which ingenious authors have been so apt to run into strange paradoxes, and even into gross absurdities.

When we find philosophers maintaining, that there is no heat in the fire, nor colour in the rainbow: when we find the gravest philosophers, from Des Cartes down to Bishop Berkeley, mustering up arguments to prove the existence of a material world, and unable to find any that will bear examination; when we find Bishop Berkeley and Mr. Hume, the acutest metaphysicians of the age, maintaining that there is no such thing as matter in the universe; that sun, moon, and stars, the earth which we inhabit, our own bodies, and those of our friends, are only ideas in our minds, and have no existence but in thought; when we find the last maintaining, that there is neither body nor mind, nothing in nature but ideas and impressions, without any substance on which they are impressed: that there is no certainty, nor indeed probability, even in mathematical axioms; I say, when we consider such extravagancies of many of the most acute writers on this subject, we may be apt to think the whole to be only a dream of fanciful men, who have entangled themselves in cobwebs spun out of their own brain. But we ought to consider, that the more closely and ingeniously men reason from false principles, the more absurdities they will be led into; and when such absurdities help to bring to light the false principles from which they are drawn, they may be the more easily forgiven.

CHAPTER VII.

DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND.

THE powers of the mind are so many, so various, and so connected and complicated in most of its operations, that there never has been any division of them proposed which is not liable to considerable objections. We shall therefore take that general division which is the most common, into the powers of understanding and those of will. Under the will we comprehend our active powers, and all that lead to action, or influence the mind to act; such as appetites, passions, affections. The understanding comprehends our contemplative powers, by which we perceive objects, by which we conceive or remember them, by which we analyse or compound them, and by which we judge and reason concerning them.

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

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

The intellectual powers are commonly divided into simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning. As this division has in its favour the authority of antiquity, and of a very general reception, it would be improper to set it aside without giving any reason; I shall therefore explain it briefly, and give the reasons why I choose to follow another.

It may be observed, that without apprehension of the objects concerning which we judge, there can be no judgment; as little can there be reasoning without both apprehension and judgment: these three operations, therefore, are not independent of each other. The second includes the first, and the third includes both the first and second; but the first may be exercised without either of the two. It is on that account called simple apprehension; that is, apprehension unaccompanied with any judgment about the object apprehended. This simple apprehension of an object is, in common language, called having a notion, or having a conception of the ob

ject, and by late authors is called having an idea of it. In speaking, it is expressed by a word, or by a part of a proposition, without that composition and structure which makes a complete sentence; as a man, a man of fortune. Such words, taken by themselves, signify simple apprehensions. They neither affirm nor deny; they imply no judgment or opinion of the thing signified by them, and therefore cannot be said to be either true or false.

The second operation in this division is judgment; in which, say the philosophers, there must be two objects of thought compared, and some agreement or disagreement, or, in general, some relation discerned between them; in consequence of which, there is an opinion or belief of that relation which we discern. This operation is expressed in speech by a proposition, in which some relation between the things compared is affirmed or denied: as when we say, All men are fallible.

Truth and falsehood are qualities which belong to judgment only; or to propositions by which judgment is expressed. Every judgment, every opinion, and every proposition, is either true or false. But words which neither affirm nor deny any thing can have neither of those qualities; and the same may be said of simple apprehensions, which are signified by such words.

The third operation is reasoning; in which, from two or more judgments, we draw a conclusion.

The division of our intellectual powers corresponds perfectly with the account commonly given by philosophers, of the successive steps by which the mind proceeds in the acquisition of its knowledge; which are these three: First, by the senses, or by other means, it is furnished with various simple apprehensions, notions, or ideas. These are the materials which nature gives it to work upon; and from the simple ideas it is furnished with by nature, it forms various others more complex. Secondly, by comparing its ideas, and by perceiving their agreements and disagreements, it forms its judgments. And, lastly, from two or more judgments, it deduces conclusions of reasoning.

Now, if all our knowledge is got by a procedure of this kind, certainly the threefold division of the powers of understanding, into simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning, is the most natural, and the most proper that can be devised. This theory and that division are so closely connected, that it is difficult to judge which of them has given rise to the other; and they must stand or fall together. But if all our knowledge is not got by a process of this kind; if there are other avenues of knowledge besides the comparing our ideas, and peceiving their agreements and disagreements, it is probable that there may be operations of the understanding which cannot be properly reduced under any of the three that have been explained. Let us consider some of the most familiar operations of our minds, and see to which of the three they belong. I begin with consciousness. I know that I think, and this of all knowledge is the most certain. Is that operation of my mind, which gives me this certain knowledge, to be called simple apprehension? No, surely. Simple apprehension neither affirms nor denies. It will not be said, that it is by reasoning that I know that I think. It remains, therefore, that it must be by judgment, that is, according to the account given of judgment, by comparing two ideas, and perceiving the agreement between them. But what are the ideas compared? they must be the idea of myself, and the idea of thought, for they are the terms of the proposition I think. According to this account then,

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first, I have the idea of myself, and the idea of thought: then, by comparing these two ideas, I perceive that I think.

Let any man who is capable of reflection judge for himself, whether it is by an operation of this kind that he comes to be convinced that he thinks. To me it appears evident, that the conviction I have that I think, is not got in this way; and therefore I conclude, either that consciousness is not judgment, or that judgment is not rightly defined to be the perception of some agreement or disagreement between two ideas.

The perception of an object by my senses is another operation of the understanding. I would know whether it be simple apprehension, or judgment, or reasoning. It is not simple apprehension, because I am persuaded of the existence of the object as much as I could be by demonstration. It is not judgment, if by judgment be meant the comparing ideas, and perceiving their agreements or disagreements. It is not reasoning, because those who cannot reason can perceive.

I find the same difficulty in classing memory under any of the operations mentioned.

There is not a more fruitful source of error in this branch of philosophy, than divisions of things which are taken to be complete when they are not really so. To make a perfect division of any class of things, a man ought to have the whole under his view at once. But the greatest capacity very often is not sufficient for this. Something is left out which did not come under the philosopher's view when he made his division: and to suit this to the division, it must be made what nature never made it. This has been so common a fault of philosophers, that one who would avoid error ought to be suspicious of divisions, though long received, and of great authority, especially when they are grounded on a theory that may be called in question. In a subject imperfectly known, we ought not to pretend to perfect divisions, but to leave room for such additions or alterations as a more perfect view of the subject may afterwards suggest.

I shall not, therefore, attempt a complete enumeration of the powers of the human understanding. I shall only mention those which I propose to explain, and they are the following:

1st, The powers we have by means of our external senses. 2dly, Memory. 3dly, Conception. 4thly, The powers of resolving and analysing complex objects, and compounding those that are more simple. 5thly, Judging. 6thly, Reasoning. 7thly, Taste. 8thly, Moral Perception. And, last of all, Consciousness.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF SOCIAL OPERATIONS OF MIND.

THERE is another division of the powers of the mind, which, though it has been, ought not to be overlooked by writers on this subject, because it has a real foundation in nature. Some operations of our minds, from their very nature, are social, others are solitary.

By the first, I understand such operations as necessarily suppose an intercourse with some other intelligent being. A man may understand and will: he may apprehend, and judge, and reason, though he should know of no intelligent being in the universe besides himself. But, when he asks information, or receives it; when he bears testimony, or receives the tes

timony of another; when he asks a favour, or accepts one; when he gives a command to his servant, or receives one from a superior; when he plights his faith in a promise or contract; these are acts of social intercourse between intelligent beings, and can have no place in solitude. They suppose understanding and will; but they suppose something more, which is neither understanding nor will; that is, society with other intelligent beings. They may be called intellectual, because they can only be in intellectual beings: but they are neither simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor reasoning, nor are they any combination of these operations.

To ask a question, is as simple an operation as to judge or to reason; yet it is neither judgment, nor simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor reasoning. Testimony is neither simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor reasoning. The same may be said of a promise, or of a contract. These acts of mind are perfectly understood by every man of common understanding; but, when philosophers attempt to bring them within the pale of their divisions, by analysing them, they find inexplicable mysteries, and even contradictions, in them. One may see an instance of this, of many that might be mentioned, in Mr. Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, sect. 3, part 2, note, near the end.

The attempts of philosophers to reduce the social operations under the common philosophical divisions, resemble very much the attempts of some philosophers to reduce all our social affections to certain modifications of self-love. The Author of our being intended us to be social beings, and has, for that end, given us social intellectual powers, as well as social affections. Both are original parts of our constitution, and the exertions of both no less natural than the exertions of those powers that are solitary and selfish.

Our social intellectual operations, as well as our social affections, appear very early in life, before we are capable of reasoning; yet both suppose a conviction of the existence of other intelligent beings. When a child asks a question of his nurse, this act of his mind supposes, not only a desire to know what he asks; it supposes likewise a conviction that the nurse is an intelligent being, to whom he can communicate his thoughts, and who can communicate her thoughts to him. How he came by this conviction so early, is a question of some importance in the knowledge of the human mind, and therefore worthy of the consideration of philosophers. But they seem to have given no attention either to this early conviction, or to those operations of mind which suppose it. Of this we shall have occasion to treat afterwards.

All languages are fitted to express the social as well as the solitary operations of the mind. It may indeed be affirmed, that, to express the former, is the primary and direct intention of language. A man, who had no intercourse with any other intelligent being, would never think of language. He would be as mute as the beasts of the field; even more so, because they have some degree of social intercourse with one another, and some of them with man. When language is once learned, it may be useful even in our solitary meditations; and, by clothing our thoughts with words, we may have a firmer hold of them. But this was not its first intention; and the structure of every language shows that it is not intended solely for this purpose.

In every language, a question, a command, a promise, which are social acts, can be expressed as easily and as properly as judgment, which is a solitary act. The expression of the last has been honoured with a particular name; it is called a proposition; it has been an object of great at