holds in the heavens above him, worlds without number, and without limit to their glory, in the earth, on which he treads, systems upon systems "wheel within wheel involved" of order, and beauty and power, surpassing, in regularity and wonderful arrangement, the utmost reach of his imagination. All these things are open to man alone-to the rest of animated nature they are as a sealed book, as they had never been.

Who then would deny to man the existence of a soul-of that within him which depends not on the organization of the body? If the great first cause of all things be mind, wholly independent of, and overruling, throughout all the varieties of their forms, the elements of matter; if the creator of matter, be mind and mind alone; then is mind in its highest form selfexistent, and therefore eternal. For what contains within itself the independent and underived principle of its own existence can never perish-that principle itself being a part of its nature. If then, mind not only can but does actually exist wholly independent of any of the forms of matter, and wholly unconnected with it, but as its creator, why deny this attribute to the human mind? All we know of the sethings is but through that mind-knowledge is of the mind alone. This is the only possible power by which we could arrive at the very existence of him

To deny the possible existence of mind, independent of matter, would be to deny the existence of a God. But if mind can exist independent of the body, then have we every reason to believe that such is the nature of the mind of man. All that we know of any mind is by analogy with his. We cannot conceive of any mind that is not of like nature with what we so call. We cannot conceive of will or design, that is not analogous to our own will or design, and it is only by this analogy that we recognize their existence.

"Nec enim tu es quem forma ista declarat, sed mens cuiusque is est quisque;" non ea figura, quæ digito demonstrari potest. Deum te igitur scito esse: siquidem Deus est qui uiget, qui sentit, qui meminit, qui prouidet, qui tam regit et moderatur et mouet id corpus, cui præpositus est, quam hunc mundum ille princeps Deus: et ut mundum ex quadam parte mortalem ipse Deus aeternus, sic fragile corpus animus sempiternus mouet."-Cic de Rep. lib. vi. p. 140.

But it is not with the immortality of the soul, moral elements, that we find ourselves employed.

but with its

And this is

also a subject on which the sublime heathen above quoted would shame the reasoning of many a Christian philosopher. It is with the doctrine of our duties-the "knowledge of good and evil"-the "physiology of the passions"—with our sympathies and antipathies-our joys and our sorrows. What subject can be more interesting to man or of more difficult analysis?

"Man [says our author] is manifestly affected by two orders of intellectual phenomena.. The first operate through the medium of our sensations, the others are derived from the inmost recesses of the soul, the true source of our purest enjoyments; the sphere of the one kind is the exterior world, of the other what we would call our interior life. There are two kinds of ideas in our nature, ideas acquired and ideas inspired. Those which appertain to our corporeal preservation, and those which lead us to the general order established by the creation.-Prel. Con. vol. i. p. 17.

Of the exterior life, (as our author calls it) of the sensible system, the attributes are three-Curiosity, Attention and Perception. Curiosity, he considers the first intellectual attribute of the sensible system, and resulting altogether from an involuntary impulse. But not so with Attention; this we direct at will in taking cognizance of any object that interests us; it is through this faculty alone that we appreciate the difference or' agreement of things. With regard to Perception, he remarks, it is that act of the mind which enables us (as it were) to appropriate the objects subjected to the action of our senses, in the sphere of the exterior world. It is more or less active in proportion to the intensity of attention. Nothing exists for us in nature but so far as we perceive it.

To desire to seek-to fix in our attention-to perceive, these are the intellectual attributes of the "sensible system,' considered in relation to the world without us.

But the most

Man often re

important phenomena pass altogether within us. tires within himself, within the secret chambers of the soul, to contemplate its movements, tranquil or agitated. The better to commune with it, he divests himself of his physical impressions-he analyses his perceptions, and recognizes their relations to each other. He retains within his memory what he has thus acquired. It is when he is alone with his reason, that he tastes the true pleasures of contemplative philosophy, and identifies himself with all places, times and people. He delights to take refuge within himself. He loves to find himself face to face with the undying principle which animates him, when all the external world is but as a dream that is past.

It requires but little study (our author thinks) to see that man has capabilities and inclinations altogether natural and inde

pendent of experience or the ministry of the sensations. He is endued internally with a sense moral and sublime, by virtue of which, he judges his actions, good or bad, with just as much certainty as the palate judges of flavours, or the ear of sounds. And this innate disposition has nothing in common with the will, no more than the beating of the heart or the circulation of the blood. It developes itself spontaneously, and without previous reflection.

"The interior life of animals presents phenomena not less worthy of the attention of the physiologist. The abuse of theories has involved. in confusion, even at this day, the operations of this instinct, which is evidently coercive. Thus, at its birth, and before it has tried its beak or its webbed feet, the swan already has inclinations which are proper to its kind. The young duck darts into the water to the great astonishment of the hen which has bred it, which yet could not be induced to trust itself to the same element. It is absurd to pretend to explain these inclinations by the mechanical conformation of the body." Prel. Con. vol. i. p. 49.

It must be remembered that our author ranks among the first physicians of France. He appears to have turned his attention particularly to the study of the affections of the mind as they appear in madmen and idiots, as well as sane subjects. His opinions, it must be presumed, are formed from actual, personal experience and observation; and his illustrations drawn often from subjects under his immediate care.

Reflection is the first of the faculties which belong to the interior life of the sensible system. It is nearly the same operation within us, that "attention" is, in relation to external objects. Order, says a profound thinker, is the necessary end of reflection. It has no need of the organs which belong to any kind of external impression, nor yet of light, sound or taste; it knows no locality, it fills no space: it acts altogether in the interior of the understanding, according to the results acquired by previous perception. Animals have the faculty of reflection; they must have an idea, more or less confused, of time, or why should they quicken their pace that they may arrive earlier at an object? They have, beyond question, the idea of space. We see them daily make use of reflection to shorten their route over the fields, and they measure, with astonishing precision, the length of a leap in reference to their strength.

The next of the interior faculties, is "reverie," which, in common language, is nothing more than "wandering reflection." In this peculiar state of the sensible system, many ideas, in a manner, pass over the mind, and frequently no traces of

them remain. Reverie, generally, is more agreeable than reflection, because it requires no effort of mind; it imposes neither fetters nor restraint. It is one of the usual phenomena of a contemplative life.

But one of the most extraordinary faculties of the sensible system, is "memory"-that faculty by which we recal at pleasure the ideas which have, at previous times, been subjected to the action of the mind. This faculty recalls them either individually or in groupes, and almost always in the same order in which they were originally perceived. Memory appertains to the mind alone. It is an act of the animating principle of our nature more or less distinctly reproduced. It is the recalling of a perception, or rather of an intellectualised (intellectualisée) impression, if we may so express ourselves. Memory is a representative faculty; it is the living mirror of intelligence, where often, at our will, the past is recalled; it is the treasury of genius. History is but a record of memory; and what men call renown, is nothing but memory reaching through ages. This faculty is not always subject to the will.

"It would require a chapter to lay before our readers, all the theories of our physiologists upon the pretended mechanism of memory. Some allege physical traces of objects, which, they pretend, are preserved in the pulpous substance of the brain. But what can we learn from the scalpel of anatomists? What have our doctrines of dissection in common with an organ, merely destined to give play (faire valoir) to the energies of the mind? It is as though to comprehend the theory of light, we contented ourselves with examining the material structure of the glass which condensed or reflected its rays." Vol. i. p. 74.—Prel. Con.

Imagination is the next of these faculties. It is not, says our author, always easily distinguished from memory. Memory recalls words, signs; renews ideas, judgments, &c. But imagination creates new combinations of these ideas, and new images. There is always something inventive in this intellectual attribute, which gives a very remarkable superiority over other animals.

In spite of all the evils which we charge on the imagination, its pleasures are indispensable to civilized life. We are in need of her deceptions, and are ever delighted to wander in the sphere of her visionary allurements. Some author has said "that Euclid was the first of sovereigns; that demonstration can govern men infallibly." He who advanced this strange maxim, could never have felt the deeper passions of our nature. To an indifferent man or one void of imagination, the right line VOL. V.NO. 11.

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is "sans doute" the shortest; but there is no certainty that it would prove so to him, who prefers a longer.

The fifth of these intellectual attributes is Conscience; it has been remarked that the term which expresses this attribute, is found in all languages. Our author thinks this faculty innate, "le nom qu'on donne a la conscience, exprime d'ailleurs tres bien qu'elle est innée." Through all antiquity the positive knowledge of good and evil has existed; in every country, among all people we find this guide to our actions. This faculty, which is never inactive, judges after the same manner with all men; we have the sublime faculty of distinguishing within ourselves that which belongs to conscience, and that which appertains to the world without us. It requires no effort of combination, no reasoning to make this distinction; our mind makes it from the earliest period of our life.

"Our soul is originally endued with the elements of the just and the unjust; conscience is that which constitutes more especially the interior man. It is through her that we arrive at conviction, that we judge of beauty or deformity, of all the perfections and all the vices of our nature. Conscience is, properly speaking, the sense of the heart, it is the most worthy spring of the fleeting will of man. We learn to perceive by conscience as we learn to see with the eye. But when we faithfully follow the dictates of moral impulses, we soon become convinced that justice is innate in the heart of man.-Prel, Con. p. 87.

The empire over the noblest portion of man is confided by the Creator to himself. Subject to the action of his sixth intellectual attribute the Will-man becomes a moral agent. He cannot alter the plan and the mechanism of his material organs; he cannot suspend or quicken the throbbings of his heart; but he can modify and change at pleasure his determinations; and it is this which constitutes him a moral being. God has endued him with a will independent of himself, and hence flows the merit and demerit of his actions. If man had not this independent will, this free choice of good and evil, he could not be a responsible agent. The will, as Bossuet has said, is not attached to our organs, it presides over their actions; "but who would believe," says M. Alibert, "that it is perhaps, one of the least active of our faculties. It is a power almost always subject to some passion. When these cease to urge it, and it retires under the dominion of reason alone, the will is generally weak, and often at the mercy of the least obstacle. Without a love of glory how much would heroes accomplish?"

Among the intellectual attributes of the sensible system, few distinguish man so much from other animals, that have but ephemeral and fugitive wills. The effects of man's will