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Of the accidents which have since occurred to retard my progress, it is unnecessary to take any notice here. I allude to them, merely as an apology for those defects of method, which are the natural, and perhaps the unavoidable consequences of the frequent interruptions by which the train of my thoughts has been diverted to other pursuits. Such of my readers as are able to judge how very large a proportion of my materials has been the fruit of my own meditations; and who are aware of the fugitive nature of our reasonings concerning phenomena so far removed from the perceptions of Sense, will easily conceive the difficulty I must occasionally have experienced, in decyphering the short and slight hints on these topics, which I had committed to writing at remote periods of my life; and still more, in recovering the thread which had at first connected them together in the order of my researches.

I have repeatedly had occasion to regret the tendency of this intermitted and irregular mode of composition, to deprive my speculations of those advantages in point of continuity, which, to the utmost of my power, I have endeavoured to give them. But I would willingly indulge the hope, that this is a blemish more likely to meet the eye of the author than of the reader; and I am confident that the critic who shall honour me with a sufficient degree of attention to detect it where it may occur, will not be inclined to treat it with an undue severity.

A Third Volume (of which the chief materials are already prepared) will comprehend all that I mean to publish under the title of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. The principal subjects allotted for it are Language; Imitation; the Varieties of Intellectual Character; and the Faculties by which Man is distinguished from the lower animals. The first two of these articles belong in strict propriety to this second part of my

work, but the size of the volume has prevented me from entering on the consideration of them at present.*

The circumstances which have so long delayed the publication of these volumes on the Intellectual Powers, have not operated, in an equal degree, to prevent the prosecution of my inquiries into those principles of Human Nature, to which my attention was for many years statedly and forcibly called by my official duty. Much, indeed, still remains to be done in maturing, digesting, and arranging many of the doctrines which I was accustomed to introduce into my lectures; but if I shall be blessed, for a few years longer, with a moderate share of health and of mental vigour, I do not altogether despair of yet contributing something in the form of Essays,† to fill up the outline which the sanguine imagination of youth encouraged me to conceive, before I had duly measured the magnitude of my undertaking with the time or with the abilities which I could devote to the execution.

The volume which I now publish is more particularly intended for the use of Academical Students; and is offered to them as a guide or assistant, at that important stage of their progress when, the usual course of discipline being completed, an inquisitive mind is naturally led to review its past attainments, and to form plans for its future improvement. In the prosecution of this design, I have not aimed at the establishment of new theories; far less have I aspired to the invention of any new organ for the discovery of truth. My principal object is to aid my readers in unlearning the scholastic crrors which, in a greater or less degree, still maintain their ground in our most celebrated seats of learning; and by subjecting to free, but I trust not sceptical discussion, the more enlightened

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though discordant systems of modern logicians, to accustom the understanding to the unfettered exercise of its native capacities. That several of the views opened in the following pages appear to myself original, and of some importance, I will not deny; but the reception these may meet with, I shall regard as a matter of comparative indifference, if my labours be found useful in training the mind to those habits of reflection on its own operations, which may enable it to superadd to the instructions of the schools, that higher education which no schools can bestow.

KINNEIL HOUSE,

22d November 1813.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND.

PART SECOND, FIRST DIVISION.

OF REASON, OR THE UNDERSTANDING PROPERLY SO CALLED; AND THE VARIOUS FACULTIES AND OPERATIONS MORE IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED WITH IT.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE VAGUENESS AND AMBIGUITY OF THE COMMON PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE RELATIVE TO THIS PART OF OUR CONSTITUTION-REASON AND REASONING-UNDERSTANDING

INTELLECT—JUDGMENT, ETC.

THE power of Reason, of which I am now to treat, is unquestionably the most important by far of those which are comprehended under the general title of Intellectual. It is on the right use of this power that our success in the pursuit both of knowledge and of happiness depends; and it is by the exclusive possession of it that man is distinguished, in the most essential respects, from the lower animals. It is, indeed, from their subserviency to its operations, that the other faculties, which have been hitherto under our consideration, derive their chief value.

In proportion to the peculiar importance of this subject are its extent and its difficulty;-both of them such as to lay me under a necessity, now that I am to enter on the discussion, to contract, in various instances, those designs in which I was accustomed to indulge myself, when I looked forward to it from a distance. The execution of them at present, even if I were

more competent to the task, appears to me, on a closer examination, to be altogether incompatible with the comprehensiveness of the general plan which was sketched out in the advertisement prefixed to the former volume; and to the accomplishment of which I am anxious, in the first instance, to direct my efforts. If that undertaking should ever be completed, I may perhaps be able afterwards to offer additional illustrations of certain articles, which the limits of this part of my work prevent me from considering with the attention which. they deserve. I should wish, in particular, to contribute something more than I can here introduce, towards a rational and practical system of Logic, adapted to the present state of human knowledge, and to the real business of human life.

"What subject," says Burke, "does not branch out to infinity! It is the nature of our particular scheme, and the single point of view in which we consider it, which ought to put a stop to our researches." How forcibly does the remark apply to all those speculations which relate to the principles of the Human Mind!

I have frequently had occasion, in the course of the foregoing disquisitions, to regret the obscurity in which this department of philosophy is involved, by the vagueness and ambiguity of words; and I have mentioned, at the same time, my unwillingness to attempt verbal innovations, wherever I could possibly avoid them, without essential injury to my argument. The rule which I have adopted in my own practice, is, to give to every faculty and operation of the mind its own appropriate name; following, in the selection of this name, the prevalent use of our best writers; and endeavouring afterwards, as far as I have been able, to employ each word exclusively in that acceptation in which it has hitherto been used most generally. In the judgments which I have formed on points of this sort, it is more than probable that I may sometimes have been mistaken; but the mistake is of little consequence, if I myself have invariably annexed the same meaning to the same phrase; -an accuracy which I am not so presumptuous as to imagine. 1 Conclusion of the Inquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful.

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