wave, cataract and thunder-storm, but the sources of these displays are so obviously the result of nature's forces, and so entirely unconnected with sensible impressions received from without or the stirrings of a mental nature within, that all such fancies are felt at once to be fictions. The same analogy that enables us to ascribe a true mental constitution to the brute creation, does not exist between humanity and the forces of external nature.

The definition also excludes such animal functions as breathing, the circulation of the blood, and the movements of the intestines. These are in one sense actions, and serve a purpose; but they are not mental actions. We can conceive ourselves so constituted that these processes would have had to be prompted by inward emotions or desires, and to be controlled or arrested by feeling. They would then have been mental actions; as it is they rank with the circulation of the sap in a plant. They are awake when we are asleep.

There are certain other actions that would seem at first sight to be excluded by the definition, which, nevertheless, are always looked upon as of the kindred of mental actions. For example, it will be an object with us to show that there are in the human system movements and tendencies to movement independent of, and anterior to the stimulus of the outward world upon the senses. The eyes may open of themselves, the voice may break forth into utterance, the limbs may gesticulate, unprompted by any painful or pleasurable state. Yet those movements belong to the sphere of mind, and come to form part of its characteristic indications. It will be found, however, that these actions are not excluded, and for the following reason :—

These exertions as soon as made are conscious: though not preceded by feeling, they are accompanied by feeling and come under the control of that feeling. An energy not originating in consciousness may open the eyes or throw out the limbs, but the movement is a conscious one and is liable to be prolonged or arrested according as the feeling is pleasurable or the reverse.

Another case in which our definition may appear to

THOUGHT, OR INTELLIGENCE.

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exclude true mental phenomena, is that of the actions called habitual. These in some cases approach to the unconscious and automatic, like the movements of the heart and lungs; and almost appear to become independent of feeling either to originate or to control them. Notwithstanding, such actions cannot be held as excluded, when we consider that they had their rise in feelings, and merely, in virtue of a plastic operation truly mental in its nature, grow less and less the objects of consciousness. Although a musical performer should play an air with an almost entire absence of mind, we should still consider the performance as an effort of mind in the sense of the definition; for the power was acquired step by step under the prompting and guidance of sensations and emotions. The mental force that gives cohesiveness to the successive touches is not included either in the first or second parts of the definition; this belongs to the part next to be adverted to.

The term Volition, applies, as I conceive, to the entire range of mental or feeling-prompted actions; and it is proposed therefore to make constant use of this word for expressing the second attribute of mind.

(3). The concluding attribute of the definition is Thought, or Intelligence. Even in the lowest forms of mind some portion of Intelligence is found. The first fact implied in it is discrimination, with sense of agreement or of difference, as when of two things taken into the mouth the animal prefers the one to the other. If a honey-bee were to alight on one flower, try its quality, go to a second and then return to the first as the better of the two, such an act of deliberate preference would imply intelligence along with volition. The fact that one impression can remain in the mind when the original is gone so as to be compared with a second impression, implies the very essence of intelligence however limited the degree. To go back upon a former experience as preferable to the present is to act upon an idea, a thought; whenever this is clearly manifested we see an intelligent being.

Another fact of intelligence, also exhibited by the lower order of creatures, is the power of associating ends with means or instruments, so as to dictate intermediate actions. An

animal going to the water to quench its thirst performs an intelligent act; in order to this act the creature had to associate in its mind the feeling of thirst with the place and the appearance of water and the movements requisite to approach it. This is an acquisition, an effort of memory, of the very same nature as the stored-up experience of the wisest of men. For an animal to have a home, this kind of memory or intelligence is indispensable.

These two facts, discriminating with preference, and the performance of intermediate actions to attain an end, are the most universal aspects of intelligence, inasmuch as they pervade the whole of the animal creation. In the higher regions of mind, the attribute of thinking implies the storing up, reviving, and combining anew all the impressions constituting what we call knowledge, and principally derived from the outer world acting on the senses. It is this wider range of intellectual operations displayed by the human mind, that gives scope for exposition in a work like the present.

Although in the animal constitution, Thought is coupled and conjoined with Feeling and Volition, it does not follow that intelligence is a necessary part of either the one or the other. I have a difficulty in supposing volition to operate in the entire absence of an intellectual nature, nevertheless I cannot help looking upon the intellect as a distinct endowment, following laws of its own, being sometimes well developed and sometimes feeble, without regard to the force or degree of the two other attributes.

3. If we advert to the various classifications of the mental phenomena that have hitherto passed current, we shall find that the three attributes above specified have been more or less distinctly recognised.

In the division of mind into Understanding and Will, the element of Emotion would appear to be left out entirely. We shall find in fact, however, that the feelings are implied in, or placed under, the head of the Will. The same remark applies to Reid's classification, also twofold and substantially identical with the foregoing, namely into Intellectual Powers and Active Powers. The submerged department of Emotion

CLASSIFICATIONS OF MIND.

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will be found partly taken in among the Intellectual Powers, wherein are included the Senses and the Emotions of Taste, and partly treated of among the Active Powers, which comprise the discussion of the benevolent and malevolent Affections.

Dr. Thomas Brown, displeased with the mode of applying the term 'Active' in the above division, went into the other extreme, and brought forward a classification where Emotion seems entirely to overlie the region of Volition. He divides mental states into external affections and internal affections. By external affections he means the feelings we have by the Senses, in other words Sensation. The internal affections he subdivides into intellectual states of mind and emotions. His division therefore is tantamount to Sensation, Emotion, and Intellect. All the phenomena commonly recognised as of an active or volitional nature he classes as a part of Emotion.

Sir William Hamilton, in remarking on the arrangement followed in the writings of Professor Dugald Stewart, states his own view as follows:-'If we take the Mental to the exclusion of Material phoenomena, that is, the phænomena manifested through the medium of Self-consciousness or Reflection, they naturally divide themselves into three categories or primary genera;—the phænomena of Knowledge or Cognition, the phoenomena of Feeling or of Pleasure and Pain,and the phoenomena of Conation or of Will and Desire.'* Intelligence, Feeling, and Will are thus distinctively set forth.

Mr. Morell, in his Elements of Psychology, adopts the same triple division, and shows that it pervades the systems of many of the recent German expositors of Mind, for example, Beneke.

I may farther notice the mode of laying out the subject that has occurred to an able physiologist. I quote a passage intended as introductory to the Anatomy of the Nervous System.

Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Vol. II.: Advertisement by the

Editor.

'Of the functions performed through the agency of the nervous system, some are entirely corporeal, whilst others involve phenomena of a mental or psychical nature. In the latter and higher class of such functions are first to be reckoned those purely intellectual operations, carried on through the instrumentality of the brain, which do not immediately arise from an external stimulus, and do not manifest themselves in outward acts. To the same class also belong sensation and volition. In the exercise of sensation the mind becomes conscious, through the medium of the brain, of impressions conducted or propagated to that organ along the nerves from distant parts; and in voluntary motion a stimulus to action arises in the brain, and is carried outwards by the nerves from the central organ to the voluntary muscles. Lastly, emotion, which gives rise to gestures and movements, varying with the different mental affections which they express, is an involuntary state of the mind, connected with some part of the brain, and influencing the muscles through the medium of the nerves.'*

In this passage a quadruple partition is indicated,-Sensation, Intellect, Emotion, and Volition. Seeing, however, that Emotion, in a comprehensive definition, such as that given in the foregoing section, takes in Sensation; these four divisions are reducible to the three defining attributes above laid down.

4. In the plan of the present work, Book First, entitled Sense and Instinct, will include the discussion of both Feeling and Volition in their lower forms, that is, apart from Intellect, or so as to involve Intellect in the least possible degree; the Sensations of the different Senses will form a leading portion of the contents. This book will comprise all that is primitive or instinctive in the susceptibilities and impulses of the mental organization. The Second Book will propose to itself the full exposition of the intellectual phenomena.

Thus, while regarding Emotion, Volition, and Intellect, as

* Dr. Sharpey, in QUAIN'S Anatomy, 4th edition, p. clxxxvi.