find ourselves to the approval or the condemnation of our own mind, and the happiness or misery dispensed in our own bosom, lead us to think of the government and will of Him to whom we and all our destinies are subject. In short, the experience of our being amenable to the punishment or reward of our Conscience lifts our thoughts to the distributions of a higher judgment-seat; and the little tribunal which is in our own bosom serves as a stepping-stone from which we descry the throne of the Eternal. "The sense of a governing principle within begets in all men the sentiment of a living governor above them; and it does so with all the speed of an instantaneous feeling; yet it is not an impression, it is an inference.”Chalmers, Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 78.

Conscience, as giving the knowledge of Right and Wrong, carries with it authority and obligation. But this Internal Obligation carries us out of ourselves and above ourselves, to the Obligation which arises from the authority and will of God. It is this latter which gives to the former ground of Obligation much of its clearness and strength. The dictates of Conscience derive much of their power from being regarded as intimations of the will of God, and from their pointing forwards to a farther manifestation of that will. For, it has been said (Whewell, Sermons on the Foundation of Morals, pp. 26, 70), "It is impossible for us to conceive that the Creator of the world, having placed in us a faculty which, duly developed and faithfully consulted, condemns and loathes all that is base and vile and unjust and wicked, is Himself an indifferent spectator of good and bad, of vice and virtue, of pollution and purity, of the highest and most degraded impulses of our nature. Man's nature thus compelling him to refer to a law of rectitude and purity, he is irresistibly led onwards to believe his Maker to be a God infinitely righteous and holy, so that our recognition of the supreme authority of Conscience within, is so far from being inconsistent with our obedience to God above, that these two habits of the soul are closely connected in their origin, and strongly confirm each other; so that the hope of the favour of God, who is Holy, Just, and Pure, is so far from being inconsistent with the love of Goodness, for its own sake, that the two affections, as we advance in our moral and Christian condition, tend to coalesce, and finally flow on together in one bright and glowing stream."

By some philosophers, however, this stream of living waters has ted. They have grounded Obligation altogether on the will

of God, and have overlooked or made light of the Obligation which arises from our perception of rectitude. Language to this effect has been ascribed to Mr. Locke, (Life, by Lord King, vol. ii. p. 129. See also Essay on Hum. Understand., book ii. ch. 26, sect. 6; and Dr. Gastrell, Of Religion, p. 94.) And both Warburton and Horsley, as well as Paley and his followers, have given too much, if not an exclusive prominence to the rewards and punishments of a future life, as prompting to the practice of virtue. But, although God, in accommodation to the weakness of our nature and the perils of our condition, has condescended to quicken us, in the discharge of our duty, by appealing to our hopes and fears, both in regard to the life that now is and that which is to come, it does not follow that selflove, or a concern for our own happiness, should be the only, or even the chief spring of our obedience. On the contrary, obedience to the Divine will may spring from veneration and love to the Divine character, arising from the most thorough conviction of the rectitude, wisdom, and goodness of the divine arrangements. And that this, more than a regard to the rewards of everlasting life, is the proper spring of virtuous conduct, is as plain as it is important to remark. To do what is Right, even for the sake of everlasting life, is evidently acting from a motive far inferior, in purity and power, to love and veneration for the character and commands of Him who is Just and Good, in a sense and to an extent to which our most elevated conceptions are inadequate. That which should bind us to the throne of the Eternal is not the iron chain of selfishness, but the golden links of a love to all that is Right; and our aspirations to the realms of bliss should be breathings after the prevalence of universal purity, rather than desires of our own individual happiness. Self and its little circle is too narrow to hold the heart of man, when it is touched with a sense of its true dignity, and enlightened with the knowledge of its lofty destination. It swells with generous admiration of all that is Right and Good; and expands with a love which refuses to acknowledge any limits but the limits of life and the capacities of enjoyment. In the nature and will of Him from whom all being and all happiness proceed, it acknowledges the only proper object of its adoration and submission; and, in surrendering itself to His authority, is purified from all the dross of selfishness, and cheered by the light of a calm and unquenchable love to all that is Right and Good.

BOOK III.

OF THE WILL.

"By the term Will I do not mean to express a more or less highly developed faculty of Desiring; but that innate intellectual energy which, unfolding itself from all the other forces of the mind, like a flower from its petals, radiates through the whole sphere of our activity-a faculty which we are better able to feel than to define, and which we might, perhaps, most appropriately designate as the purely practical faculty of man. This force con

stitutes man's individuality, gives the first impulse to reason and imagination, aud reveals the wonders of our spiritual life. It is on this faculty that the Moralist, the Legislator, the Schoolmaster, the Physician, must act-above all others, he who would regimen his own mind, in order that he may acquire dominion over it."-FEUCHTERSLEBEN, Dietetics of the Soul, p. 53.

SOME modern philosophers have employed the term Activity as synonymous with Will. But the former is of wider signification than the latter. Activity is the power of producing change—whatever the change may be. Will is the power of producing acts of willing. Active power may be predicated of the body as well as of the mind; and there are other operations of mind, beside those of the Will, in which Active power is manifested.

CHAPTER I.

OF WILLING.

IN the Peripatetic philosophy the powers of the mind were distinruished into the Gnostic or Cognitive, and the Orectic or Appetent; hence the common division of them into powers of Understand

ing and powers of Will. In this use of it, the term Will not only denoted the power of willing, but comprehended all the modes of appetence which might move or incite it to act. It is here used to denote merely the power by which we determine to do or not to do i something which we conceive to be in our power. "Every man is conscious of a power to determine," says Dr. Reid (Act. Pow., Essay ii. ch. 1), “in things which he conceives to depend upon his determination. To this power we give the name of Will."

An act or exercise of this power is called a Volition. Volition, being a simple state of mind, does not admit of a logical definition. The nature of it may be explained by the following remarks.

1. Every volition or act of will must have an object. "He that wills," says Dr. Reid (Act. Pow., Essay ii. ch. 1), “must will something; and that which he wills is called the object of his volition. As a man cannot think without thinking of something, nor remember without remembering something, so, neither can he will without willing something. Every act of will, therefore, must have an object, and the person who wills must have some conception, more or less distinct, of what he wills." By this remark Dr. Reid meant to distinguish between things done in consequence of a volition, and things done from the force of instinct or from the power of habit; in which cases there may be no conception of an object, or end, nor of the means of accomplishing it.

2. The object of our volition is always something which we conceive to be in our power. It is in our power to walk, or to stand still, or to sit down; and we may determine, by a volition, to do any one of these things. But it is not in our power to move through the air like a bird; and we never determine or will to do so. We may determine to do what turns out to be beyond our power to do. But, at the time we make the volition, we believe that the object of it is in our power.

3. The object of a volition is always something future. "A volition," it has been said by Mr. Upham (On the Will, pt. i. ch. 4, sect. 42), "is futuritive in its very nature. An intellective or perceptive act rests in itself. As soon as it assumes the form of a cognition or knowledge, it accomplishes, so far as its own nature is concerned, the mission for which it was sent." It may be called un fait accompli. But volition has reference to an act yet to be done. It is true that some of our emotional states, such as hope and fear, have reference to things distant and future. But, when

these feelings are very lively, the objects of them acquire a present existence and exert a present influence; whereas a volition may remain long quiescent; and, even when fondly cherished, it still has reference to something yet to be done.

4. When the time for accomplishing the object of our volition is come, the volition is accompanied by a proportionate exertion of active power. Consciousness testifies, that when we have a volition or purpose, we make an effort to accomplish it. There is a corresponding nisus, or a directing of the energy, or active power, which belongs to us, to do what we have determined to do. "This effort we are conscious of," says Dr. Reid, "if we will but give attention to it; and there is nothing in which we are in a more strict sense active."

CHAPTER II.

OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DESIRING AND WILLING.

WILLING and desiring are acts of mind which have often been confounded. The former use of the term Will, to denote not merely the power of willing, but also the various Desires and Feelings which may influence it, may have led to this confounding. And, in the ordinary actions of daily life, we so frequently do what we desire to do, that the separate and successive states of Desiring, and Willing, and Doing, are not distinctly marked.

"But he that shall turn his thoughts inwards upon what passes in his mind when he wills," says Mr. Locke (Essay on Hum. Understand., book ii. ch. 21), “shall see that the Will or power of volition is conversant about nothing but that particular determination of mind whereby, barely by a thought, the mind endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it takes to be in its power. This, well considered, plainly shows that the Will is per fectly distinguished from Desire; which, in the very same action, may have a quite contrary tendency from that which our Will sets us upon."

According to Mr. Stewart (Act. and Mor. Pow., App., p. 471), he substance of Mr. Locke's remarks on the appropriate meaning