of memory includes an idea of the past; conception implies no idea of time whatever." No fallacy can be more glaring than that which is contained in this statement, when the subject is studied and rightly understood. "The power of conception," says the professor, " enables him to make the features of his friend an object of thought, so as to copy the resemblance." Now, in what manner can he make the features of his friend an object of thought, but by recollecting what he had formerly known of them, or in other words recalling the perceptions he, then, had of them? Is it not the office of that act of memory denominated recollection, to place before the view of the mind all those objects which it before perceived? In the professor's view of the matter, conception is made the herald to communicate to the mind intelligence of the past, while the sole office of the memory, is to determine that the mind had previous knowledge of this intelligence. Now, as I humbly conceive, this is entirely a new distribution of the powers of the mind, as much unknown to nature as to the researches of philosophy. Mr. Locke's views on this point also are much more just and profound. In his chapter upon retention, he defines memory, to be that power which the mind has to revive perceptions, which it has once had, with this additional perception annexed to them, that it has had them before. Mr. Locke, therefore, makes that perception, which we have in an act of memory, that we have received the same intelligence before, a mere accompaniment of that act, while Mr. Stewart would confine the whole complex act of memory to that single perception alone. Upon his principles, in short, it is not memory but conception which renews in the mind all our past knowledge, while to memory is left the discovery that it is past. Thus to alter at our pleasure, the meaning of terms long settled. and distinctly understood, would be introducing strange confusion into the philosophy of the mind.

But why should I spend time in correcting the errors of an author, who himself so soon saves his readers from being misled by them, and after groping for a time in the dark, rises again into light. In his disquisition upon the memory, we find the professor, after defining it to be always "some modification of that faculty which enables us to treasure up and preserve for future use the knowledge we acquire, proceeding to make that distinction among its acts which is as old as Aristotle, and divides them into those of remembrance and recollection. "This faculty, (memory)" says he, "implies two things, a capacity of retaining knowledge; and a power of recalling it to our thoughts when we have occasion to apply it to use, The word memory is sometimes employed to express the capacity, and sometimes the power." Here we find the professor advanced into the regions of truth; but how does his doctrine here accord with that which he had held above? Let us state the case distinctly that the inconsistency may be evident.

"When a painter," says he, " makes a picture of a friend, who is absent or dead, the power of conception enables him to make the features of his friend an object of thought, so as to copy the resemblance; the power of memory, recognises these features as a former object of perception." Now, what can be meant by making the features of his friend an object of thought, but recollecting them? And yet in this case this is said to be done by conception, while in what he says of memory, the professor recognises recollection as one of the acts of memory.

Again" The power of memory recognises these features as a former object of perception." Here memory is made that power which simply gives us notice that the knowledge. which is recalled by us by means of conception, was before in our possession. But when speaking of memory, he defines it to be that power which treasures up and preserves for future use, the knowledge we acquire; and maintains that this

faculty implies two things, a capacity of retaining knowledge, and a power of recalling it to our thoughts when we have occasion to apply it to use." That is to say: in the one case, memory is described as the power which simply informs us of any part of our knowledge, when it is revived by conception, that we have had it before; in the other case, it is made the power both of retaining that knowledge and recalling it at our pleasure. Now, by conception only, we are said to recall our past perceptions; and, then, by recollection or meWhen are we to have an end of such confusion and contradiction! Could this writer have expected, that in such abstruse speculations his readers would lose all their faculties of judging and discrimination, and receive, without examination, his indigested and incoherent views?

mory.

I pass by the minor errors with which the professor's essay upon Conception abounds, as for instance, when he maintains, "that it may reasonably be doubted, if a person would not write a happier description of an object from the conception than from the actual perception of it;" and again, when he asserts, that "in the power of conceiving colours, there are striking differences among individuals, and that, in the greater number of instances, the supposed defects of sight in this respect ought rather to be ascribed to a defect in the power of conception; and again, “if it were possible for us, with our eyes shut, to keep up for a length of time the conception of any sensible object, we should, as long as this effort continued, believe that the object was present to our senses, &c. &c. and proceed, immediately, to that strange and absurd opinion advanced by him in this section, that "the exercise both of conception and imagination, is always accompanied with a belief that their objects exist. When a painter, for example, conceives the face and figure of an absent friend, in order to draw his picture, he believes, for the moment, that his friend is before him." Here, we see, that that which is above the highest effect of the histrionic art, with all its ap

paratus of actors, scenery and costume, together with every other circumstance calculated to affect the imagination, and awake illusion of the wondering and captivated senses, is ascribed to the ordinary conceptions of men. If the professor's doctrine were true, and every time we form a conception of a dead or absent friend we really believed him to be present, should we not find ourselves as fatally haunted by frightful apparitions as was M. Nicolai, the German philosopher before mentioned, during the diseased action of his brain? Nay, the condition of ordinary persons would be infinitely more deplorable than was his. For he, after the first discomposure of mind occasioned by the appearance of these phantoms subsided, had sufficient philosophic coolness and fortitude, not merely to discredit their real existence, but even to convert them into an object of curiosity and amusement. Here, although his perceptive powers were operated upon in the same manner as if outward objects were really present, and it be, moreover, a law of nature that we have an invincible belief of the existence of the things which those powers exhibit to us; yet, from the very outset of that singular train of delusions, he disbelieved the evidence which they gave him. Although he could not avoid being disconcerted, and even agitated and alarmed by the pearances which presented themselves, yet, he moment, believed them to be real existences. case like this, the German philosopher did not even believe in the real existence of those objects which his very senses seemed to display to him, is it to be credited, that any persons, but those who are insane, asleep, or in some way disordered in mind, would believe in the existence and presence of the things which they barely conceived? As in perception there always accompanies the mind during its waking hours, a conviction that the things perceived have real existence, so in imagination or conception there as invariably attends it a consciousness, that these are merely its own acts,

singular ap

never, for a Now, if in a

which do not at all imply the present being or existence of the things.

We may, therefore, safely leave it to every judicious and reflecting man to decide from his own experience and consciousness, whether he ever in a sound state of mind, supposes the objects of his conception and imagination, to be immediately present.

We hear of no one, however sharp may be the "hungry edge of appetite," attempting to "cloy it" by catching at the "feast which he has imagined," or aiming to extinguish the "fire in his hand," by casting it upon the "frosty Caucasus," which he has only thought upon. One of the great distinctions between sleeping and waking men, between madmen and the sane, seems to be the power of discerning the difference in all cases between what Mr. Locke denominates their primary and secondary perceptions. Children and superstitious persons, indeed, sometimes mistake the phantoms which their fears have conjured up for realities, and believe themselves haunted by apparitions that have no real subsistence, but these are phenomena which are to be explained from the operation of other principles of the human constitution, and are very different from their ordinary thoughts and conceptions. Such persons are no more inclined to believe that their ordinary conceptions have objects that are immediately present with them, than the philosopher of most sober reflection and phlegmatic temperament. The idle phantoms, just mentioned, are the product of a timid imagination operating upon ignorance and credulity. Strong passions, as those of fear, resentment, love, revenge, and jealousy, throw the mind into tumult and wild disorder, and if under such influences it should in some cases, mistake its fancies for realities, it is not extraordinary: nothing can be more natural, than that Macbeth, during the perturbed state of his mind, should seem to see a dagger in the air; but from such instances we are not to expect to draw just conclusions about