can conceive it without feeling it. THESE THINGS ARE SELF-EVIDENT."* It is worthy of remark, in passing, how exactly this observation of Dr. Reid's coincides with the opinions regarding sensation advanced in last chapter, a coincidence the more satisfactory because he seems not to have entertained any idea of these opinions.

Conception has been explained by another philosopher as synonymous with idea, with this difference only, that the former implies a combination or taking together of ideas. The composition of the term, from con and capio, might at first lead us to suppose that conception does imply such a combination of ideas. But I do not think that even its etymology requires such an explanation. Con in composition does not always imply an assemblage. Consciousness, for instance, does not signify the knowing of several things together, but the knowing of something within the mind. The use of the word conception by medical men justifies an analogous interpretation of it here, for by them it is not restricted to cases of twin children, but is applied indiscriminately; and the prefixed con has nearly the same signification which we attach to it in the word consciousness. But, whatever the term originally meant, its current use by writers both ancient and modern will

Essay IV. Ch. i.

fully justify my application of it to single ideas, as well as to combined. I apprehend that conception in its simplest exercise is not capable of being logically defined, or even even properly described. This, however, does not arise from any unintelligible confusion in my ideas of it; it arises from the perfect simplicity of the power which has been so denominated. Who can define sensation? Who can describe it otherwise than by appealing to every one's experience? But does this arise from any confusion in our ideas of sensation? Certainly not. We may indeed describe conception metaphorically by saying that it is the power of forming an exact transcript in the mind of some sensation or other feeling. But I prefer to appeal to every one's own experience to enable him to understand the sense in which the term 'conception' has been used in the preceding chapter. The manner in which I have applied it will afford a better explanation of my meaning than any definition.

The mind, by a process which involves the exercise of other faculties also, has the power of compounding its simple conceptions, and so forming a notion of an object with its various qualities and relations of colour, form, position, distance, magnitude, &c. It is to this that the name of conception is given in ordinary language. We may with perfect propriety retain this application. of the word also in philosophy; but it must be

remembered that this is not the simplest state of that faculty, although it is an operation directly depending on it.

The faculty of Memory falls to be considered as the second aspect under which the power of thought is known to us. It may be defined that faculty by which the mind revives conceptions which it has once formed, and recognizes them as having formerly existed. The revival of former conceptions is regulated by certain laws, called the laws of association. Thus our ideas do not follow one another at random, but in regular trains, according to certain real or supposed connections. The primary laws of association are founded on the relations of resemblance, contrast, cause and effect, contiguity. But as judgment is the faculty which discerns relations, it is manifest that the exercise of memory and judgment must be simultaneous. Without memory, we could not have materials for judgment: without judgment, we could have no laws of association; or if the conceptions of former sensations were revived at all, they must follow each other in the exact order in which they were originally formed. But it is useless to inquire what would be the consequence of the separation of two faculties, which may be considered as only different aspects of the same power of thought.

It were vain to attempt any lengthened dissertations on one of these faculties apart from the

others, since they are never exercised singly. We proceed, therefore, briefly to consider judgment, or the third aspect of the power of thought. The term judgment is used in ordinary discourse with that laxity which is to be expected in all popular phraseology. It is frequently employed to denote all the powers of the understanding: a sound judgment, and a sound intellect, are expressions which we use as perfectly synonymous. Even where its meaning is restricted to that faculty, to which philosophers have appropriated the name, it is seldom applied to its simplest operations, but usually to cases of its higher and more obvious exercises. We speak of the judgment of the truth or falsehood of a proposition, or of the propriety or impropriety of conduct. But we do not so frequently talk of judgments of blackness or whiteness. Yet it is the same discriminating faculty which enables us to distinguish varieties of colour, and varieties of conduct. In its simplest operations, judgment is the power of accurately perceiving the agreement or repugnance of any two conceptions compared together: and in its most exalted exercises, it performs nothing more than this office of discrimination. We have difficulty at first, in believing that all the lofty speculations of a Newton are reducible to so plain a process as that which we have described; but careful and minute attention to the workings of his own mind will convince any one that such is in reality the

case. The fact is in complete accordance with the other phenomena of nature. In all his works the Creator has effected his purposes by means the most simple. The complicated movements of the solar system, and indeed, we might have said, of the whole universe, proceed on the single principle of gravitation. It ought to increase our admiration of his infinite wisdom, that effects so multiplied, so various, and so vast, should be accomplished by means, which, at first, appear so inadequate.

The first operation of judgment is, to give distinctness to our simple conceptions. When distinct ideas are thus formed, the next operation of judgment is to perceive their agreement or disagreement with one another. Hence we form propositions. And by comparing these propositions with one another, and deciding on their agreement or disagreement, judgment advances a third step, and comes under the denomination of Reasoning.

Like the other faculties of the mind, judgment is in existence and in exercise from the very earliest. The child forms by it every idea which it has. The infant exerts it as busily, and to as much purpose as the philosopher. It is true that the subjects on which he employs it are not so elevated as those which engross the attention of the latter, but we may with safety assert, that they are of far greater utility. A man may live without any knowledge of the sciences; but, constituted as he is at present, he could not subsist