DIVISION FIRST.

THE INTELLECT OR UNDERSTANDING.

INTELLECTIVE OR INTELLECTUAL STATES OF THE MIND.

PART SECOND.

INTELLECTUAL STATES OF INTERNAL ORIGIN.

28

CHAPTER FIRST.

INTERNAL ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE.

§. 168. The soul has fountains of knowledge within.

We have traced the history of the mind thus far with continued and increased satisfaction, because we have been guided solely by well known facts, without any desire of exciting wonder by exaggeration, and with no other feeling than that of knowing the truth. With cautious endeavors not to trespass upon those limits, which the Creator himself has set to our inquiries, we have seen the mind placed in the position of a necessary connection with the material world through the medium of the senses, and in this way awakened into life, activity, and power. Inanimate matter seems to have been designed and appointed by Providence as the handmaid and nurse of the mind in the days of its infancy; and for that purpose to have been endued with form, fragrance, and color. Material eyes were given to the soul, (not made a part of its nature, but assigned to it as an instrumental and auxiliary agent,) that it might see; and material hands, that it might handle; and hearing, that it might hear. By means of these and other senses we become acquainted with whatever is visible and tangible, and has outline and form; but there are also inward powers of perception, hidden fountains of knowledge, which open themselves and flow up in the remote and secret places of the soul. ́ In other words, the soul finds knowledge in itself, which neither sight, nor touch, nor hearing, nor any other sense, nor any outward forms of matter could give.

"The natural progress of all true learning, (says the au

thor of Hermes,) is from sense to intellect." Having begun with the senses, and first considered the sensations and ideas which we there receive, we are next to enter more exclusively into the mind itself, and to explore the fruitful sources of knowledge, which are internal. And in thus doing, it is a satisfaction to know, that we are treading essentially in the steps of Mr. Locke, whose general doctrine, undoubtedly is, that a part of our ideas only may be traced to the senses, and that the origin of others is to be sought wholly in the intellect itself.

§ 169. Declaration of Locke that the soul has knowledge in itself.

After alluding to the senses, as one great source of knowledge, "the other fountain, (saith Locke,) from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operation of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without, and such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which, we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings ideas as distinct, as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly within himself. And though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with EXTERNAL objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called INTERNAL SENSE. But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this Reflection; the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself."

It is perhaps necessary to remark here, that we introduce this passage from Mr. Locke, merely in support of the general doctrine, without wishing to intimate a full approbation of the manner, in which he has applied it in its details. What we say now concerns the general question; and in reference to that question, the passage just referred to is undoubtedly weighty in itself, as well as in consequence of the great reputation and acknowledged discernment of its author. It is undoubtedly the doctrine of Mr. Locke, that our knowledge

begins with Sensation; in other words, that impressions, made on the bodily system, are the first occasions, so far as we are able to judge, of bringing the mind into action. But it does not follow from this, (and the passage just quoted shows, that Mr. Locke did not suppose it thus to follow,) that sensation is the only source of knowledge. There is undeniably something distinct from sensation; thoughts, which have an interior origin, and cannot be represented by anything external; ideas, which are based upon the succession, relation, and infinite of things, and not upon what is fixed, tangible,. and measurable; or which are the representatives and ex-ponents of what is mental, rather than of what is material.

§. 170. Opinions of Cudworth on the subject of internal knowledge.

We may properly introduce here a quotation or two from another great authority, nearly contemporaneous with Mr. Locke, that of Dr. Cudworth, a name which is acknowledged to rank deservedly high among those, that are most closely associated with exalted wisdom and virtue. Let us however be again reminded, that our whole object here is to establish the general position, that there is knowledge of a purely internal, as well as of an external origin; and that, therefore, a reference to writers for that purpose does not necessarily involve an approbation of, or a responsibility for their opinions any farther than they relate to the particular object in view.The posthumous work, from which these extracts are made, is understood to have been written in reply to Mr. Hobbes, who held the opinion, that all our thoughts of whatever kind are only either direct, or transformed and modified sensations. And, therefore, the statements made in it, being called forth under such circumstances, must be supposed to have been carefully meditated, and on that ground, among others, are entitled to much weight.

"That oftentimes, (says Cudworth,)* there is more taken notice of and perceived by the mind, both in the sensible objects themselves, and by occasion of them, than was impressed from them, or passively received by sense; which therefore must needs proceed from some inward active principle in that which perceives, I shall make it further appear by some other instances.

* Immutable Morality, Book IV, Chap. II, §. 14.