idea, or line of mental gravitation. In short, having surveyed our subject systematically, we shall go over it again chronologically; and call upon philosophy, when it has recited its creed, and revealed its wisdom, to finish all by writing its history.

In conclusion, I am not ignorant of the prejudices which a certain class of minds entertain against metaphysical studies, and to which the national character of England, so intent on the early production of practical and palpable fruits from every branch of human culture,-gives in this country a peculiar intensity. Complaints are often made of the uncertain and shadowy results from all speculative science; and certainly it will construct no docks; lay down no railways; weave no cotton; and, if civilization is to be measured exclusively by the scale and grandeur of its material elements, we can claim for our subject no large operation on human improvement. To use the words of Novalis (whose "Philosophy" included religion, natural and revealed) in one of his full and suggestive sentences, "Philosophy can bake no bread; but it can procure for us God, freedom, and immortality. Which, now, is more practical, philosophy or economy ?"* Indeed, a mere superficial glance over the course and eras of the history of man is enough to convince us, that there must be something wrong in the low estimate frequently made of the bearings of the higher speculation upon human life. It has always flourished, not in the most barren, but precisely in the most productive periods of every nation's development. And if its visible acquisitions of certain knowledge are few, it yet seems to have stimulated the activity and nurtured the creative faculties of the human mind to an extent which it is difficult to appreciate. What periods could be least well spared from the progress of civilization? Surely, the golden_ age of philosophy in Greece, and its revival in modern England, France, and Germany. What are the names, whose

* Novalis' Schriften, herausgeg, von L. Tieck u. Fr. Schlegel, 2r. Th. p. 124.

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loss from the annals of our race would introduce the most terrible and dreary changes in its subsequent advance? Those of Plato and Aristotle in the ancient world; of Bacon, Locke and Kant in more recent times: and it is surely easier to conceive what we should have been without Homer, than without Socrates. History, in every part, disowns this narrow-minded objection against the science of man, and scarcely acknowledges any exaggeration in that ancient praise which called it, "Philosophiam, illam matrem omnium benefactorum, beneque dictorum.”

SYLLABUS OF THE LECTURES ON MENTAL

PHILOSOPHY.

PROLEGOMENA OF METHOD AND DEFINITION.

I. Definition of the Science. Difficulty and value of precise definition of the several departments of knowledge. Influence of Locke's Essay on the Idea of the Science prevalent in England Modern injustice to Locke. Idea of the Science entertained by successive Scotch philosophers; by German writers. True relation between Physical and Mental Science: the scope of each defined.

II. Assumptions of the Science. Existence of myself: distinction between Thought (predicate) and Thinker (subject): Mill's account of the idea of Self. Unity and Identity of self: opinions of Locke; Reid; Brown; Tucker. Existence of something not-myself. Idealism; its fundamental principle; imperfect refutations of it. Principle on which the belief in external realities rests. Incorporeality of self. Attempts to identify thought with physical processes.

III. Limits of the Science. Exclusion of hypotheses respecting the Essence of Matter or of Mind. Problems of Natural Religion, how far included. Exclusion of all physiological hypothesis, and study of organization. Phrenology; its relation to Mental Philosophy determined. Phenomena of individual character; their place in the Science assigned.

IV. Procedure of the Science. i. Development of phenomena; or notice of their first appearance. Instances of disputes determinable by this method. ii. Analysis of phenomena. Meaning of the word Analysis; its modifications pursued through the Sciences; Chemistry; Geometry; Physics; Psychology. 1. Empirical analysis; applied

to simultaneous experience; to successive experience. 2. Psychical analysis; separation of experience-ideas from a priori conceptions. Kant's criteria for effecting this. iii. Laws of phenomena; discovery of a principle of order in the several trains: Memory; Imagination; Reasoning.

Comparison of he foregoing psychological method, with other modes of procedure. Great undetermined questions to which reference should be had throughout the study. Intellectual and moral habits favourable to success in the study.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE SUBJECT.

Principles of possible classification. Notice of the classifications adopted by different philosophical schools, ancient and modern. Subjective and objective differences in phenomena: use made of both in the following distribution of the former, in the principal divisions of the latter, in the subordinate.

:

I. APPREHENSIVE STATES. Exposition and defence of the word Apprehensive. Essential distinction denoted by it; general characters of all Apprehensive States. Arrangement of them, as they arise, i. From our relations to Matter. Importance and difficulty of insulating these in our analysis.

1. Sensation. Theories of Perception, ancient and modern. Attention fixed on the real phenomena, divested of hypothetical description. Sensations connected with the functions of the Organic life; of the Animal life. Taste. Smell. Touch. The muscles; peculiar office of their sensations. Hearing; the mind of the deaf. Sight; the mind of the blind: theory of vision; difficulties created by confounding organic with mental phenomena. Education of the Senses. Senses of the inferior animals.

Conceptions of Time and Space, how related to sensible experience; whether as its condition or as its consequence. 2. Ideas. History and present meaning of the word. Its use in Locke's Essay; and by Bishop Berkeley. Controversy respecting the "Ideal Theory." Ideas, how far similar to sensations.

A. Representations; of one-sense Sensations; of Sensations from more than one sense. Ideas of sensible qualities; how related to the idea of substance. Laws regulating the succession of Ideas. Association, and its principles: history of the discovery and application of this Law. Memory; how far dependent on Association; its dis

tinguishing elements.

Varieties of natural Memory.

Estimate of Mnemonic Arts. Imagination; its characteristic element; its varieties; its application in scientific invention and discovery; in the creations of Art. Notice of theories of individual intellectual differences.

B. General Ideas. Whether referable to mere convenience of speech. Plato's doctrine of Ideas. Aristotle's. The Stoical doctrine. History of the Nominalist and Realist controversy. Conceptualist doctrine. Analysis of the process of Classification. Rules of Generalization and Division.

C. Abstract Ideas. How far dependent upon language. Precise relation between Abstraction and Generalization. Analysis of the process of Abstraction. Predicables. Whether any criteria for distinguishing a priori conceptions from abstract and general ideas, growing out of concrete experience. Tables of Categories: Aristotle's ; Kant's. Examination of certain important intellectual conceptions. Idea of Causation; its analysis by Hume and Brown examined. How far their doctrine affects the principles of Natural Religion.

ii. From our relations to Mind. Magnitude of the mental development arising from Society.

1. Self-consciousness. How far it could be given by solitary pain and difficulty alone. First distinction between 'I' and 'THOσ'; and discernment of one's own mental states in the mirror of others'. Belief in the existence of other minds.

A. Representations; now first distinguished from Sensations.
Phenomena of Dreams; how accepted as realities at the
time, and treated as illusions afterwards. Locke's
"Ideas of Reflection"; simple and complex. Trains
of consciousness, how related to the idea of Time.
B. General Ideas. Classification applied to mental objects.
Memory, Judgment, Feeling, &c. considered as Class

terms.

C. Abstract Ideas. Abstraction applied to mental objects, and furnishing notices of mental qualities. Memory, &c., considered as abstract terms. Origin and progress of psychological language; its general similarity, and particular varieties, in civilized nations.