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STEWART'S LECTURES.

LECTURE II.

The subject of my next and second Lecture will be the Discipline of Thought as distinguished from the powers of mind called Faculties. In which I shall demonstrate the instructive and important difference between the mere actions of thought and the real objects of thought, to annihilate the doctrine of metaphysics, and to prove that all conceiveable existence must be physics, or matter modifying itself into power.

ON THE DISCIPLINE OF THOUGHT AS DISTINGUISHED FROM

THE FACULTIES.

THE great purpose of these Lectures is to explode the fanciful doctrines of metaphysics, and to detect those silly subtleties of distinctions without differences, upon which all its moods and systems are constructed. This important purpose will be a strong pledge that I shall not copy the generality of learned systemmongers, whether physical or metaphysical, to present you with a display of modes and distinctions which have no difference but in their words, and in those fanciful relations which they bear in the imaginary systems of their authors. To avoid this disgusting error, which has brought the philosophy of the mind into such general neglect and abandonment, I shall appeal all the distinctions of my discipline in the progressive order of its construction to the test of common experience. All science is formed on the classification of subjects and their powers, as constituent parts of a whole or identified system. The science of astronomy was established upon the discovery of the distinct characters of the luminous bodies into stars, comets, planets, satellites, and sun, with their distinct attributes of motion, light, heat, revolution, &c. The science of mathematics was discovered when the various relations of quantity and magnitude were arranged into classes and character, so as to form correspondent parts of an harmonious whole, or science of measurement. In this manner, I shall attempt to classify the various modifications of intellectual power into classes and characters, void of all sophistical subtleties, and unmeaning distinctions of scholastic logic, in order to establish 'certain rules of harmony between their relative powers, so as to form a science of mind. It will be necessary, in this place, to take notice, that the appellation science does not imply an uninterrupted harmony of rules, but only that rules exist in any system superior in number to exceptions. There is a great difference between the moral and physical sciences, in their precision of rule, or stability of harmony. In the physical sciences, No. 7. Vol. XIII.

causes and their effects being once discovered, they follow incessantly an uninterrupted harmony of system. Fluids and solids follow their indeviable laws; and when their influence is established as a cause, we can, at all times, predict their effects, from this axiom, that similar causes will have similar effects.

The moral science, though it is governed by laws whose rules exceed their exceptions, yet the quality of perfectibility in man producing extreme vicissitude in human action, renders this science very anomalous. The leading and clear axiom of similar causes producing similar effects in the physical sciences, avails but little in the moral science, whose fluctuating anomalies in human condition and human action demand the greatest exertion of sagacity in the discipline of the understanding, to approximate a probable, and not definite similitude of causes to a doubtful und indefinite calculation of effects.

There does not exist an individual, or body of individuals called nations, that can discover a precedent, or exemplar of precise action, in private or public conduct, in all the annals of human history. Hence, we may observe, that the moral parallax can be estimated only by the inventive powers of sagacity, and not the fixed and imitative judgment of science. The word parallax is used by astronomers to distinguish the true from the apparent position of the celestial bodies.

This physical parallax is determined by the existing relations of other bodies at the same instant of time; but the parallaxes of moral relations have their existing circumstances of the same instant of time affected by the eventual circumstances of futurity, and reduce the moral parallax to the incertitude of the nautical longitude.

The wise or sagacious opposed to the scientific man must imitate the condnet of the mariner; confident, bold, decided, he advances in the course of practical life, and yet continues his day's work of deliberation in the new departure of changeable circumstances of human life on the double and doubtful scale of theory and practice.

The physical laws of nature having no perceptible change, the rules of system or science have but few exceptions. The laws of mind, or the moral science, are thrown into a state of perpetual vicissitude, through the influence of the characteristic quality of man's perfectibility. This makes the rules of vice in one age, the rules of virtue in another, and disturbs the harmony of actual good in the advancement of perfectible good. This moral vicissitude, notwithstanding it multiplies exceptions, does not, however, overcome rules whose preponderancy will still remain to support a system, or science of moral truth; subject, indeed, to considerable doubt, called moral certitude, to characterize its defect in precision when compared with the certitude of physical

science.

This incessant vicissitude of the moral science, in its rules and exceptions, does not, however, affect or influence the science of mind in its rules of action and power, but only in their application to the discovery of moral truth. As the nautical longitude, in its incertitude, does not at all affect the mariner's compass in its rules and powers of mechanism, but only in its application to the discovery of longitude. I now proceed to develope the science of mind in the same palpable, substantial, and experimental mode of any other physical art or science, to reduce all its actions and powers to a demonstrable scale of rule, order, and discipline, which may increase its energy.

I shall abstain from examining its application to doctrines, because I will not alarm prejudice, and diminish thereby that liberal and universal patronage which these Lectures have so much claim to and, because, if it should be made appear clear to your experience; that the rules of my discipline will improve the powers of mind, you will then be satisfied, like the mariner, with an improved compass and quadrant, whose application to nautical knowledge belongs to himself, and not to the artist who improved them, as the application of my rules in the discipline of reason belongs to your experience.

I have already observed, that the actions or modifications of thought, have three distinct classes or character. The first class are called ideas, or copies of actually existent things, and their actually existent relations which constitute the system called science or knowledge. The second class of the modifications, or actions of thought, are called sentiments, by means of which we project our ideas of existing things, or actual knowledge into eventual things, or improvable knowledge to be ascertained by experience.

Sentiments are distinguished into two classes, viz. experimental and influential. The first governed by observation and experience; the latter by observation and conceivability projected in the rules of analogy beyond experience, by the faculty of imagination. The third class of the mind's action in the modification of thought are called phantoms, produced by the faculty of fancy causing motion and action in the organ of the brain without any object of sensation, perception, or conceivability.

OF IDEAS.

The word idea, in its Greek etymology, denotes image, or copy of any thing. When impressions are made upon the sixth sense, either through the medium of the other five, or by its own reflection, the perception of such action is called an idea, or copy of such impressions; and when the action of such impression ceases, the idea is recorded in the memory. Under this definition of idea, we comprehend the notions of all existing things, with their relations, whether arranged in arts or sciences, or

insulated under the general appellation of knowledge. I shall illustrate these observations on the character and nature of an idea, by a few clear and simple examples. When the object, sun, impresses its body, and qualities of heat, light, figure, distance, motion, &c. upon the mind, thought, through its faculty of perception, takes a copy of those prototypes, and forms several ideas of sensation, combined in the notion or knowledge of the object, sun, and its relations. The action of reflection, as distinguished from sensation, may be clearly illustrated, in considering the relation of the distance of the sun to ascertain its precise measure. This action of thought cannot be effected by any of the five external senses separately. We cannot see; we cannot feel this precise measure, but we arrive at it by what are called the deductions of reason formed on the sensible idea, distance, and acquire the reflective idea, eighty-one millions of miles, of the precise object, distance. This action of reflection being remotely and indirectly performed with the imperceptible aid of sensational ideas, has excited all the vulgar admiration and veneration for mind, that has paralyzed the enquiries of reason, and generated the silly doctrine of metaphysics.

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If we examine this wonderful action of the sixth sense, we shall discover, like the philosophers of old, that an eclipse was not caused by a dragon swallowing the sun; and that the neral mechanism of mind, with all its powers of reflection, cannot be put in operation without the simultaneous action of all the six senses, and that no dragon or spirit can assist it.

If we investigate the operation of mind, called reflection upon the discovery of distance, we shall observe, that the mathematical process is all conducted by visual diagrams, or algebraic quantities, generated by the lesser mensuration of distance in sight and touch. What proportion of action the optic or tangent nerves may have in the reflective action of the brain on the idea of distance of the sun is not easy to be ascertained.

I have already proved, in my lecture on the nature of mind, that no action of thought is confined wholly to the brain, and that what is called the sensorium must necessarily extend itself to all parts of the nervous system, exemplified in the following manner. When we reflect on the beauty of a woman, once the object of sight, we are obliged to call to the aid of the sensorium a certain proportion of the optic nerves, to restore the idea, or regulate its precision. Again: when we reflect on the pain of any part of the body by a wound, the sensorium must extend its action from the brain to the sensible nerves in the extreme parts once reflected. In the action of reflection the most apparently remote from sensational action, such as moral propositions of truth and falsehood, even these are nothing but the result of sensational experience. If we reflect upon the moral relations of sympathy, sincerity, benevolence, and fortitude, how can we re

cal their ideas without an appeal to the sensations of desire, and to those relations of our species which are generated by our senses. I hope I have said enough to drive away the metaphysical dragon from swallowing our reason as it was said to swallow the sun in an eclipse, and to demonstrate that all ideas of reflection are identified with those of sensation; and that the two discriminate words are but different modes of action of the same power-the sixth sense of thought in its substantial organ, the brain, in its double action of impressive and reflective sensation. This organ of thought is identified with the organs of the five external senses, which cannot exist separately. If the organ of sight is wanting, the brain can have no ideas of vision and vice versâ; if the organ of brain were wanting, or suspended by pres sure, there could be no visual power in the organs of sight; and so it would be with all the rest of the senses as experienced by the ligature of the nerves. With these premises on the nature and character of ideas, you will be convinced that the mind can have no action of intelligence in the absence of objects of sense, that is, it can form no idea (which means copy) without an original or prototype in existent things, and their relations, comprehended under the universal word nature; and it can form no conjecture or influential sentiment of analogy in imagination, without some object of sense for a basis, and the criterion of conceivability for the limits of its conjectural conclusions. I shall now consider the great advantages the mind will derive from this discriminating mode of discipline, or character of thought called idea.

It appears to me, to proffer the same advantages to intellectual power, that the discovery of an alphabet does to language in its hieroglyphic state; by alphabetic signs or characters we give new powers to speech, to expand to the extremities of all intelligible existence. By the discrimination of the action of thought into ideas, we form, as it were, the primary signs or alphabet of intelligence, which, like that of language, facilitates intellectual intercourse, by accompanying all its modifications with signs and characters of true knowledge.

The present state of intellectual intercourse in language conducted through theological, metaphysical, and syllogistical polemics, I think far inferior in intelligibility to the painted letters of the Mexicans upon the arrival of the Spanish butchers and Holy Christians in the New World.

Should my discipline of ideas, after the rigorous ordeal of universal experience, prove to possess the important influence I have calculated on mental energy, these essays will have conferred a greater benefaction on the human species than all the labours of an historic world. I shall now consider how this energy of mind, generated by the discipline of ideas, may be increased and improved. The scale of intellectual energy progresses upon the

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