l'ideé d'espace nous est donneé, à l'occasion de l'idee de corps, par la penseé, l'entendement, l'esprit, la raison, enfin par une puissance autre que la sensation." It remains to be added, that, while we cannot directly refer the notion in question to the senses, we cannot even state with certainty any particular occasion on which it arises, for we have the notion at a period further back than we can remember. On this point, however, it is undoubtedly true, that we may advance opinions more or less probable. It is, for instance, a supposition not altogether worthless, that motion may have been the original occasion of the rise of this idea. At an early period we moved the hand, either to grasp something removed at a little distance, or in the mere playful exercise of the muscles, or perhaps we transferred the whole body from one position to another; and it is at least no impossibility, that on such an occasion the idea of space may have been called forth in the soul. But there is another supposition still more entitled to notice, the one referred to in the above quotation from Cousin. Our acquaintance with external bodies by means of the senses may have been the occasion of its rise, although the senses themselves are not its direct source. It is certain that we cannot contemplate any body whatever, an apple, a rose, a tree, a house, without always finding the idea of space a ready and necessary concomitant. We cannot conceive of a body which is nowhere. So that we may at least date the origin of the idea of space as early as our acquaintance with any external body whatever. In other words, it is a gift of the mind, made simultaneously with its earliest external perceptions. § 189. Characteristic marks of the notion of space. What has been said has prepared the way for the better understanding of the characteristic marks of space, as it exists in the mind's view of it. Of these marks there are four which will help to distinguish it.-(1.) Like duration or time, space is not capable of being visibly represented. The remarks which have already been made clearly evince this. Nothing can be visibly represented * L'Histoire de la Philosophie, tome ii., Dix-septieme Leçon. which does not come within the direct range and cognizance of the senses, as space does not.-(2.) It has no form nor limits. This might, perhaps, be considered as naturally resulting from the characteristic first mentioned. And, besides, we may safely appeal here to general experience, and assert without hesitation that no man limits space in his conception of it, nor is it even in his power so to do. (3.) It is absolute and necessary. We speak of a thing as absolute which is not dependant on another, and is unalterable. This is not the case with anything whatever which we become acquainted with by means of the direct agency of the senses. All such bodies are constantly changing, and there is no difficulty in the supposition that they may all be struck out of existence. But it is impossible for us to associate the idea of non-existence with space. It is unalterably the same. But there is evidently nothing unalterable which is not naturally and necessarily so. It is on this ground, therefore, that we assign to space the characteristic of being absolute and necessary. -(4.) A fourth characteristic is, that it is the condition of the existence of all bodies; that is to say, it is impossible for us to conceive of a body without associating the notion of space with it. We are so constituted that what we understand by space is utterly inseparable from everything outward which has outlines and form. So that we may truly say of space that it is the condition of the existence of all bodies, at least relatively to ourselves. And hence, as it is internally conceived of, it becomes a great law of the mind, modifying and limiting all its outward perceptions. We cannot conceive of objects out of space any more than we can conceive of events out of time. It is true, the poet Gray represents Milton as having, in his Paradise Lost, scaled the limits which time and space impose on human conceptions; the flaming bounds, as he calls them. But this is only the license and fiction of a poet. If that should ever happen which he has so sublimely imagined, and men should ever break through those great and unalterable barriers which God has erected between himself and inferior intelligences, we might well anticipate the result which the same glowing fancy has indicated: "They saw, but, blasted with excess of light, 190. Of the origin of the idea of power. Under the head of Suggestion the idea of POWER properly belongs. Every man has this notion; every one feels, too, that there is a corresponding reality; in other words, power is not only is not only a mere subject of thought, but has, in some important sense, a real existence. And we may add that every one knows, although there is somewhere a great original fountain of power, independent of all created beings, that he has a portion (small indeed it may be, but yet a portion) of the element of power in his own mind and in his own person. There is indeed a Power, unexplored and invisible, which has reared the mountains, which rolls the ocean, and which propels the sun in his course; but it is nevertheless true, that man, humble as he is in the scale of rational and accountable beings, possesses, as an attribute of his own nature, an amount of real efficiency suited to the limited sphere which Providence has allotted him. This is a simple statement of the fact. Power goes hand in hand with existence, intelligence, and accountability. There is no existence, either intelligent or unintelligent, without power, either in the thing itself, or in something else which sustains it. There is no accountable existence without power, existing in and participating in such existence, and constituting the basis of its accountability. But the principal question here is, not what power is in itself, nor whether man possesses power in fact, but under what circumstances the notion or idea of power arises in the human mind. The occasions of the origin of this idea, so far as we are able to judge, appear to be threefold. (1.) All cases of antecedence and sequence in the natural world. We are so constituted that, in connexion with such cases of antecedence and sequence, we are led, at a very early period of life, to frame the proposition and to receive it as an undeniable truth, that there can be no beginning or change of existence without a cause. This proposition involves the idea of efficiency or power.-(2.) The control of the will over the muscu lar action. We are so constituted that, whenever we will to put a part of the body in motion, and the motion follows the volition, we have the idea of power.-(3.) The control of the will over the other mental powers. Within certain limits and to a certain extent there seems to be ground for supposing that the will is capable of exercising a directing control over the mental as well as over the bodily powers. And whenever we are conscious of such control being exercised, whether it be greater or less, occasion is furnished for the origin of this idea. It is then called forth or SUGGESTED. It is not seen by the material eye, nor reached by the sense of touch; but, emerging of itself from the mind, like a star from the depths of the firmament, it reveals itself distinctly and brightly to the intellectual vision. ◊ 191. Origin of the idea of the first or primitive. The mind, satisfied with nothing short of the elements and foundations of knowledge, seeks, in its inquiry into the origin and causation of things, not only for the element of Power, but also for the FIRST cause, the antecedent which has no other antecedent, the PRIMITIVE. Whenever we see a thing, we are naturally led to think of, and to inquire for the beginning of that thing. There is at sort of natural consanguinity of events, an unalterable tie, which binds the present with the past, and the past with that which is still further back in the depths of time. The thing, the event, the fact (whatever exists or takes place), calls for that to which it is related, the antecedent and basis of its own existence, in the language of Scripture, as "deep calls to deep." Hence the idea of the Primitive. This important notion (which we variously express by the words FIRST, ORIGINAL, BEGINNING, and the like) originates in the Intellect rather than in Sense, and in that particular form of intellectual activity which we denominate Suggestion. It is obvious, while we can see, or hear, or touch anything which is an object of the outward senses, we cannot, with strict propriety and truth of speech, be said to touch or see its antecedence or primitiveness. In fact, there is only one object, and that no other than the Supreme Being himself, to whom this idea, with absolute truth or strictness, will apply at all. We look at the works of man and the works of nature; everything which has form or activity; the sun, the moon, the stars, the ocean, the forests. But the mind, not satisfied with the perception of the thing, looks still further for its cause, its effective antecedent, the foundation of its existence. It inquires, who reared the forest, who rolls the ocean, who made the sun? The mind itself, therefore, suggests the notion of something which goes before, of PRIORITY; and, advancing under the impulses of its own nature, it proceeds from step to step, from star to star, from existence to existence, till it finds the absolute Primitive in that great Being, who involves in the fact of his Supremacy not only the subordination, but the subsequence of all things else. And it is to be kept in mind, that it is found there, not as a matter of outward, but of inward perception; revealed, not to the understanding, perceiving through the restricted instrumentality of the senses, but to the understanding, perceiving in the intuitive light of its own spontaneous action. 192. Of the ideas of right and wrong. Right and Wrong also are conceptions of the pure Understanding; that is, of the Understanding operating in virtue of its own interior nature, and not as dependant on the senses. We are constituted intellectually in such a manner, that, whenever occasions of actual right or wrong occur, whenever objects fitted to excite a moral approval or disapproval are presented to our notice, the ideas of RIGHT and WRONG naturally and necessarily arise within us. In respect to these ideas or intellections (if we choose to employ an expressive term partially fallen into disuse), Cudworth, Stewart, Cousin, and other writers of acknowledged discernment and weight, appear to agree in placing the origin of them here. And this arrangement of them is understood to be important in connexion with the theory of Morals. If these ideas originate in the pure intellect, and are simple, as they obviously are, then each of them necessarily has its distinctive nature; each of them is an entity by itself; and it is impossible to conceive of them as identical or interchangeable with each |