some means, without investigating the relation of its thinking powers to any part of its corporeal system.

$56. Another remarkable theory of the Faculty of Ideas is that Emmanuel Kant, a distinguished German philosopher, who was born in 1724, and died in 1804. Dissatisfied with the prevailing systems of his time, he discarded them all as essentially false or defective, and substituted in their place one entirely new. He divided intellectual states of mind into intuitions, conceptions, and ideas. Ideas of perception and consciousness, he denominated intuitions; Ideas deduced form intuitions as thus defined and having relation to contingent objects, he denominated conceptions; and those formed from intuitions and conceptions by an exercise of reason embracing ideas of objects which are universal and necessary, he denominated ideas. Agreeably to this arrangement, he resolved the faculty of ideas into three supposed faculties, of Intuition, Understanding and Reason. Intuition, according to him, is the faculty of forming intuitions from objects of sense and consciousness; the understanding is the faculty of forming conceptions of all contingent objects, and reason is the faculty of forming ideas of things which are absolute and unconditional, and of comprehending the objects of intuition and conception under more general ideas derived from this source.

§ 57. Besides the essential errors of this system, it is extremely metaphysical, difficult to be understood, and still more difficult to be applied to useful purposes. It was invented to combat the skepticism of Hume and others, and to show the precise nature and limits of human knowledge. It demonstrated that knowledge was possible, and distributed cognitions into two classes, Empyrical and Rational. All knowledge derived from sensations and consciousness, and having direct relation to the objects of sensation and consciousness, was denominated empyrical; and all knowledge of other and more remote objects, such as time, space, causality, and the like, were denominated rational, and referred to reason alone. Rational ideas were considered as ideas of pure reason, and others were regarded as of a mixed nature and inferior order, belonging to the supposed inferior facualty of the understanding.

§ 58. The distinctions made by Kant between intuition, understanding, and reason; and his mode of applying his assumed principles to the exposition of the complex phe

nomena of the mind, are to a great extent fanciful, and serve only to bewilder and mislead inquirers. The same faculty which exercises intuitions, performs all the other acts of the understanding and reasoning. These acts may be different in other respects, but they all agree in being acts of the same kind considered with respect to the objects of thought. The highest species of reasoning may be resolved into intuitions, proving that the faculty of intuition is the reasoning faculty. The entire system of Kant is artificial, and depends on three erroneous elementary conceptions, respecting the nature and offices of intuition, understanding and reason. Having misconceived these things, he proceeds to draw his conclusions from those false conceptions, and by an unparalleled energy and fertilty of intellect, builds up an entire system of delusion, the parts of which are supposed to prove the truth of the whole, by their consistency with each other. The consistency of a system with itself, proves that the parts are all legitimate deductions from the elementary conceptions on which the whole is founded, but does not prove that those conceptions are correct. Had Kant not been mistaken in a few of his fundamental conceptions, he might have enriched Mental Philosophy with many valuable discoveries, and have contributed greatly to the perfection of mental science. A mightier or bolder intellect never grappled with the mysteries of metaphysics. But the boldness of his aims and the independence and energy of his grasp on the objects of thought, were the occasion of the entire misdirection of his extraordinary powers, starting with arbitrary and artificial distinctions, and erroneous conceptions, the entire labors of his life, have been nearly lost. Some have tried to follow him, and to draw the sober judgment of the world after him ; but they have signally failed; and his abstruse speculations, which confounded and astonished mankind for a time, are at length being consigned to deserved neglect, or occasionally examined as a literary curiosity.

§ 59. Having obtained sensations, the mind makes use of them as the conditions of thinking. Sensations make the first ideas possible. Ideas give rise to other ideas, and so on. Thinking commences where sensation ends, and in the development of its powers roams over the illimitable universe, goes back through the unnumbered ages of a past eternity, and advances forward through the unnumbered ages of an eternity to come.

The principal office of the body is to serve as an organ of Sensations. For this purpose it is necessary. The mind reasons from sensations in forming ideas. How it reasons, in what mode it acts, by what modification of its substance it is affected in ideas, we cannot determine. We generally call thinking acting, and ideas mental acts. But ideas are capable of being prolonged indefinitely, and in the Divine mind are supposed to be eternal and unchangeable. This cannot be true of acts properly so called, but only of states. The ideas of the Divine mind, therefore, are states of mind, not acts; and we infer from analogy, that ideas entertained by human minds, are of the same character. If ideas are states of mind, then the faculty of having ideas is the faculty of being in particular states, and the occasions and conditions of thinking are the occasions and conditions of particular states of the thinking substance.

§ 60. The dependence of the mind on the general health for the power of thinking, is a matter of common observation. When the body becomes reduced by sickness, the mind becomes proportionably weak. Slight indispositions often cloud the mind, and impede the successful prosecution of every kind of studies. These effects are probably produced through the brain. They deserve attention, however, in a practical point of view. As thinking is one of the main objects of existence, and as our destinies, to a great extent, both here and hereafter, depend upon our thoughts, and the success and wisdom with which we exercise our powers of thought, we ought to take the greatest pains to secure those physical conditions of the body, which are most favorable to clear and powerful thinking. This will require us to avoid, as far as possible, all debilitating excesses, and all depressing passions, and whatever else is injurious to our health and happiness.

§ 61. Other important conditions of thinking are the voluntary exercise of our powers to accomplish this object. Men can hardly avoid having some thoughts; but if they would turn the faculty of ideas to the greatest account; if they would think to the best purpose, they must apply them-selves to it as a business, and prosecute it with determined resolution and by judicious means. To think accurately, profoundly and powerfully, is not an easy attainment. It requires earnestness and effort on the part of the thinker, directed to the attainment of valuable thoughts.

CHAPTER III.

ATTENTION.

§ 62. ATTENTION denotes the voluntary direction of the mind to some object of thought. Men attend to sensible objects by voluntary acts of consciousness, directed towards the sensations which they excite; they attend to thoughts by voluntarily thinking of thoughts, and to all the objects of thought, both immediate and remote, by voluntarily thinking of those objects. Attention, therefore, is the voluntary exercise of the faculty of ideas on any of its legitimate objects. The subjection of this faculty in some degree to the control of the will, is one of our most important endowments. It is by this means chiefly that our destinies are put in our own power. Our emotions, affections and desires depend chiefly on our ideas; our acts of will depend on our emotions, affections and desires; and our ideas depend, to a great extent, on our will directing the exercise of the thinking power by attention. Thus we have a complete circle of mutual and reciprocal influences, contributing to form our characters and to determine our destinies.

We cannot create ideas by attention; but we can exercise and use those which already exist in our minds, in such a manner as to obtain others. We cannot create sensations or affections by attention, but by excluding irrelevant objects, we can bring ourselves under the full influence of such as are relevant to our purposes and pursuits, and determine the entire character of our mental exercises.

§ 63. The simplest acts of attention are those which relate to sensible objects. Various objects of sight are before our eyes, we attend to one or another, or all, by voluntary acts of consciousness having reference to their impressions on our organs of sight. During the first instant, we obtain an idea of the general outline of a visible object; we observe longer and become sensible of other impressions, from which we fill up that outline; we continue our observations, and make new discoveries still for some considerable time. Observation of external objects through the medium of the other senses, is prosecuted in the same way. When objects pro

duce their effects on our organs of sensation, we attend to them by a voluntary direction of the mind towards them, through the sensations which they produce. Through the medium of sensations we observe and distinguish first one of their properties, then another, thinking of each for the time to the exclusion of others, and so on.

Persons attend to objects of thought which are not perceptible by the senses, through the medium of symbols adapted to suggest them; or else by purely mental processes. Every species of language is made use of to suggest objects of thought, and to assist the mind in gaining conceptions of them. By observing words and expressions, we obtain conceptions of ideas; having obtained an idea, we can pause and retain it, and compare the object of it with other objects, and consider it in various relations and in diffent points of view.

§ 64. The exercise of attention consists mainly in two things:

1. Voluntarily exercising particular thoughts in preference to others which may co-exist in the mind at the time. 2. Exercising its chosen thoughts to the exclusion of others.

The more we attend to one object, the less consciousness can we have of others. Several thoughts may co-exist in the mind, but they will be vague and indefinite. In proportion as we concentrate our attention on one object, our conceptions of it will be distinct and perfect.

In all our trains of thought, the course of our thinking and the character of our thoughts are determined, to a great extent, by the attention which we pay to some objects, exclusive of others. The exercise of attention, in some degree, is almost unremitted. The moment we awake in the morning, we begin to attend to some objects to the exclusion of others; we come to the table to take our morning meal, and continue our distinguishing attentions; then we go to our business, and prosecute that on the same principle. Study is a continual attention to particular objects, to the greater or less perfect exclusion of others. The power of attention is the power of voluntary thinking. Some possess this power to a much greater extent than others. In many it is feeble and imperfect. If several objects are before the mind at the time that one is selected to be the object of particular attention, they continue there;