PHENOMENA OF THOUGHT.

Every object in the external world, is sufficient to excite our wonder. If we proceed to examine the elements of any body, we are soon obliged to abandon our enquiries, without ascertaining its real essence. If we institute a new examination respecting its susceptibilities, or how it affects other bodies, and is affected by them, here again, we have forced upon us a most humbling conviction of the limited extent of our capacities and knowledge, for until we know how that infinitude of substances of which the material universe is composed, affects a particular body, and how this particular body affects this infinitude of substances in every possible combination, our knowledge even of the minutest atom of matter that can be presented us through the aid of microscopic power, must be imperfect. Such are some of the wonders of the universe that surrounds us. Let us leave this outer court, and enter the inner temple, the universe of thought and feeling within us. Necessity confines the attention of men during the first periods of their existence to external objects, and it is not till their wants can be easily supplied, and leisure is furnished for speculation, that they begin to direct their attention to the wonders of their intellectual frame, if frame it may be called, which frame has none. But men, whose thoughts and emotions of pleasure are awakened only by sensible objects, are like those who have chosen a little spot in a desert, whilst an Egypt of plenty was within their reach, or like those who traffic on some creek or bay, and never dream that there is an ocean whitened with the commerce of a world. And hence it is, that those phenomena of thought, which are worthy of their sublimest contemplations, fail to excite their wonder and their admiration. But what is thought? has it length, and breadth and thickness? what has that to do with extension, which is absolutely one and indivisible? where does it reside? is it in the centre of the nervous system? why fix the throne of its empire here, whilst it is on the Alps, the Andes, or tracing the course of the Amazon, the Danube, or the beauties of some Arcadian landscape; and then again as though it possessed the attribute of ubiquity, glancing to those bright orbs which rule the day and the night, or those glowing sapphires which gild the firmament. It is circumscribed only by that circle, whose centre is every where, and whose circumference is nowhere. The universe of matter and mind is its home. Through this, it darts, and plays, and ranges. What is it that absorbs the lonesome mariner, whilst stiffened with cold, he careers in his frail bark on polar seas?

In an instant, quicker than the light, he in thought crosses the

fathomless deep; revisits his native village; its green pastures and grazing herds; its lakes; its vales; meets his neighbors; receives the embraces of his children, and wipes the tears of joy from his Helen's beaming eye, till he forgets that he is in a region illuminated only by those streams of light, which occasionally flash from the pole, and whose minstrelsy is the winds and the waves. Again trace those streams of thought that are sent forth from the gushing fountain of maternal love. Whilst the fond mother watches the couch of her infant beauty, and the image of its manly sire is reflected on her vision, how do her thoughts stretch forward to its future fame, and worth, and filial love, the sunshine of which is to enlighten and cheer her descent to the tomb, and when the green mound shall rise, that points out the place of her slumbers, how does she fancy him visiting it with a tear, and thinking of all the solicitude and care with which she has blessed him. Thought is a vigil in a mother's breast, it paints its bow of promise on the prospects of the infant slumberer, before it has learned to lisp a name. But it will be said that there is nothing strange or wonderful in these processes or phenomena, and that it is owing to the peculiar state of the inclinations.

We acknowledge that it is the inclinations which put in operation these trains of thought, but our enquiry is into the nature of that principle which is susceptible of such operations, into the structure of that intellectual machine that is capable of producing such astonishing results, not into the cause or power that puts this machine in motion. And tell us ye who fabricate the web of metaphysics, what are the parts of this machine? Has it joints and tenons, and mortices? how is it put together? how does it operate to make a thought? or does it resemble in structure the corporeal frame? has it bones, and muscles, and arteries, and veins ? show them to us. Can inert matter think? prove it if it does. But if it does not, and you still forbear to satisfy our enquiries, quarrel not with our philosophy, if we pronounce these phenomena of thought wonderful. Quarrel not with our philosophy, if we pronounce strange, yea and passing strange, that the, sunny hills and plains that were trodden by the feet of our childhood, and streams that made the heart leap as they rolled sparkling in sunshine, should after a long lapse of years be arrayed in an instant with all their fascinations before the mind. It was the opinion of the illustrious Bacon, that the mind possesses in itself principles, which inseparably connect it with the whole series of its past operations. This seems to be corroborated by facts. For occurrences are often happening, which bring to our recollection circumstances and events which have not been before the mind perhaps for years. And in our dreams thought ranging among the numberless series of our past affections, recalls things which have escaped, and probably would have escaped us forever. The same phenomena have also occurred in fevers and in nervous excitements. And the state

ments of those who have narrowly escaped a watery tomb, tend to confirm the credibility of this opinion. For they testify that whilst actually suffering the agonies of dissolution, their mental operations were powerfully quickened, and that the incidents of their whole past lives have come rushing simultaneously on the field of their intellectual vision, in the minuteness with which they were originally observed. And why may not some enlivening or quickening process be employed to bring every thought and feeling of our past lives before the mind with a fearful distinctness at that final revision of our characters which revelation teaches us to expect. And may we not enquire whether the prominent distinction between the finite and infinite mind, be not this, that while the former can recall only a few of its past operations, the latter is capable of embracing its own and the operations of all other minds through the whole range of eternity, and of concentrating the whole, the past, the present, and the future, in one fixed point constituting the eternal now of him, who is, and was, and is to come. O, what is this invisible, intangible, and immaterial something called thought? how do we come by the thought of a landscape? the rays of light, it is said, are reflected from it, so that they enter the eye, and undergoing several refractions by the lenses, they finally paint a picture of the landscape inverted on the retina. But what resemblance is there between the picture of a landscape and the thought of a landscape? How then do we come by the thought of a landscape? It is said that the retina, which is an expansion of the optic nerve connecting the back part of the eye with the brain, conveys an impression of it to the brain. But who knows. that there is an impression of it conveyed thither, and supposing there be, who has ever ascertained how it is disposed of, after it has reached the brain? What is this retina? It is a substance precisely the same with the nerves which are diffused throughout the system, some of which form the organs of hearing others of touch, taste, and smell. But if the organs of sensation are all composed of the same material, why do not the rays of light when they come in contact with the organ of touch, or any of the other organs of sense produce in the mind the sensation of vision? Why are we not all eyes, like the living ones in the apocalypse? Why are we not all hearing, all feeling, all smelling, all tasting? How then do we come by thought, O, ye! who have searched the penetration of the intellectual temple, tell us. But poetry and oratory furnish us with the most happy and surprising exhibitions of thought. Indeed all the arts and sciences are only different modes of it. The trains of thought in every mind are under the influence of two or three primary laws, denominated the laws of association or suggestion. The most important of these are analogy, and contiguity in time and place, according as the influence of the former or the latter of these laws predominates the character or quality of the thoughts is varied. Analogy is the principle that governs the trains of thought, in the mind of the original poet, and contiguity

of time and place in that of the mere originator. The latter, after all his efforts to reach some Parnassian summit, will only add one name more to the long catalogue of those who have fluttered and fallen in their attempts to soar to these giddy heights, whilst the former when he sweeps the harp, fills every bosom with the har mony of his notes. Like Milton, he visits creation's early dawn, when the morning stars tuned their first anthems, soars over the Aonian mount, through chaos and the world unborn; asserts eternal Providence, and justifies the ways of God to men; or like Pollock, he rolls his harmonious numbers down the tide of time; or like Byron, he treads on an empire's dust, muses on torn ocean's roar, on Leman's placid bosom, and listens to the grasshopper singing near; and then again, leaps with the live thunder among the Alpine crags. But how is it, or why is it, that we find all this difference in these unaccountable phenomena of thought? Why it is said, that it must be attributed to nature, which means simply that we know nothing about it. Witness again the orator charming every thought of the crowds that surround him to some particular sentiment. He speaks and he melts them into pity, enkindles their indignation, or by the strength and vividness of his description, fills them with all the pleasing emotions of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity. He speaks and conviction flashes from every sentence whilst the goddess of persuasion follows with her golden fetters. But how is it that thought possesses the wonderful power or susceptibility of being concentrated, or concentrating itself so as to produce the effects that result from the efforts of the orator. Who can tell? Another of the peculiarities of thought is the power which it possesses of tracing analogies as means in reference to a particular end, which power is the foundation of all that is denominated science. All the great truths or propositions in any science, are evolved by a process of thought, called reasoning; which process is nothing but a series of felt analogies or relations. Certain data are taken, and the relations traced among these data to some final result, which is still nothing but a felt relation, which when logically expressed, is called a proposition. In a series of propositions which constitute reasoning, there is a relation felt throughout, and this relation is that of a part to a comprehending whole, since the predicate in each preceding proposition of the series, is made the subject of the following. The predicate of the last proposition in the series, therefore, must be some property or quality of the subject of the first. And the first proposition in the series must be an axiom, or a proposition that can ultimately be reduced to one. This is that process of thought which has presented to our ravished views so many fields of science, and is destined to enlarge not only those now before us, but to open still new fields, not a glimmer of which has yet reached our intellectual kin. It is this process of thought that constitutes a genius for scientific investigations. It was with this that Bacon was familiar, who by the fire of his intellect consumed those veils which so long hung

before the temples of truth, and lighted up the avenues which conduct to it, so that the devotee who now wishes, may enter and worship before her burnished throne. It was this, that urged Newton, that priest of nature, onward in those investigations, the results of which have contributed so much to enlarge the bounds of thought. How interesting was that single effort of his in which he went from link to link in a chain of reasoning, till he arrived at the sublime conclusion that the planets were stayed in their orbits by the same force that confines a pebble to the shore. He has, as it were, filled all space with suns and worlds, so that you may enlarge your perceptions, till you have embraced all which the telescopic tube will bring within your reach, and imagine ocean on ocean of suns and worlds beside, and all these will be no more in comparison with the countless oceans, which still roll on the bosom of infinity beyond, than a grain of sand to the numberless atoms that constitute the globe. O, what have been the achievements of thought! how unfettered in its range! how inconceivable in its rapidity! It fixes upon all that is dreary, wild, and waste in nature, all that is beautiful, grand, and sublime. Mountains, plains, deserts, solitudes, rivers and oceans, winds and tempests, are its home. It finds a companion in every star, dwells on infinity itself, then rises to that Being who sits upon a throne that is high and lifted up, and whose brightness fills the heaven of heavens. O, what is thought! Something that baffles expression, an immortal principle, an emanation of the Deity, a celestial fire destined to burn and to glow forever!

POEMS BY AMELIA.

Third edition enlarged. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The poetical genius of Amelia B. Welby is not unknown to the literary world. The productions of her gifted pen have already enriched the pages of our youthful literature. Occasional effusions have been published, from time to time, in the Louisville Journal, and the fashionable magazines of the day, and thus have been widely copied and universally admired. We do not remember to have seen before, the collected poems of Amelia; and we rejoice that they are now given to the world, in a form so elegant, and so highly creditable to the publishers, as the book before us. It is an evidence of a correct taste, and an increasing demand on the part of the people for a purer literature and a higher standard than that which we have heretofore enjoyed, that this charming book has already reached its third edition. In addition to the strictly