new succeeds, a process by which, under the influence of the ideas of resemblance and difference, the particular elements which enter into the conception are separated from one another, and each contemplated apart by itself. Here we have what is called the process of abstraction. When also one notion present in the Intelligence, suggests another of a similar character, by a similar process, to the one last stated, the qualities common to the two are separated. These the Understanding then combines into a general notion, a notion representing a class or classes of individuals. This notion being given by the process under consideration, the particular conceptions referred to, are subsumed, or classed under the general. Now this process differs entirely from the action of the notion-forming power. To combine intuitions into notions, particular and general, and in view of the ideas of resemblance and difference, to separate the elements of a given conception from one another, or in view of the same ideas, to separate the elements common to two or more conceptions, and finally when the Understanding has combined the elements thus separated into a general notion, to subsume the particular under the general, are intellectual processes certainly entirely distinct from each other. The power to abstract and classify is not implied in the power simply to combine intuitions into notions, either particular or general. This function of the Intelligence, the power which separates things that differ, and ranges together under some common designation those that are alike, we denominate the Judgment. This is the faculty also chiefly employed in processes of reasoning. Reason furnishes principles, the Understanding terms, and the Judgment affirms, in the light of the principles of Reason, the agreement, or disagreement of the terms. If the student will attentively reflect upon what is passing in his own mind, he will clearly recognize the distinction above made between the Understanding and Judgment. Who ever confounds the formation of a conception of an object, with that action of the Intelligence which judges that such and such elements in the conception resemble, or are unlike each other? Who ever confounded the formation of general notions, such as are designated by the terms man, horse, &c., with that action of the Intelligence which affirms of individuals, This is a man; that is a horse? Such intellectual operations differ not in degree, but in kind, and suppose two functions of the Intelligence entirely distinct from each other.

The Associating Principle.

That principle of the Intelligence by which the presence of one thought in the mind recalls another which has formerly existed there, is so manifestly distinct from all other intellectual functions, that no philosopher has ever confounded it with any of them. As the object of the present recapitulation is to give the grounds of the distinctions made in this Treatise between the different intellectual faculties, a simple allusion to the principle of Association is all that is requisite in this department of our subject. It remains only to speak of the

Imagination.

A reference to a distinction made in a preceding Chapter, between the ideas of Reason, as primary and secondary, will enable us to explain very distinctly our own conception of the nature of this function of the Intelligence. With the former class of ideas, such as those of time, space, substance, and cause, objects exist in full and perfect harmony. The sphere of the Understanding, therefore, is actualities as they are. With most of the secondary ideas of Reason, however, such as those of the right, the just, the good, the beautiful, the grand, and sublime, relalities may or may not exist in correspondence. Now we find a power of the Intelligence which is perpetually laboring to combine, in thought, the endlessly diversified elements of objects given by the other faculties into harmony with those ideas last named, especially those of the beautiful, the grand, and sublime. This function of the Intelligence we denominate the Imagination. The Ideal generated by this faculty, incomparably superior as it is to what the Understanding conceives in the sphere of realities, finds an external embodiment in poetry, sculpture, painting, and in all the varied endowments of art. The peculiar sphere, as well as phenomena of the Imagination thus clearly distinguish it from all other intellectual faculties.

Such is the classification of the intellectual faculties presented in this Treatise. Of two things pertaining to it, the author himself is fully pursuaded-That the distinction here made between the intellectual faculties is real, being sustained by fundamental phenomena—and that the classification is complete, inasmuch as there is no intellectual operation actual or conceivable which may not be resolved into the appropriate action of one or more of these faculties.

CHAPTER XIV.

SPONTANEOUS AND REFLECTIVE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE INTELLIGENCE.

HAVING Completed our analysis of the intellectual powers, other important questions pertaining to the action of the Intelligence next demand our attention. We are all aware, that objects of observation and reflection are distinctly apprehended on one condition only, to wit, that we give attention to them. But we observe and reflect upon that, and that only, which has been given in the Intelligence prior to all acts of attention. When we give attention, it is to some definite thing, as this or that particular object. Now the object must have been given prior to the act of attention; else the direction of the act would be wholly indefinite, and without respect to any particular object. The inquiry which will occupy our attention in the present Chapter is this: What is the state of the Intelligence, what are the characteristics of its affirmations relative to objects of knowledge, prior to observation and reflection? and what are the relations of such affirmations to the state of the Intelligence, in observation and reflection? The former we denominate the spontaneous, and the latter the reflective developments of the Intelligence.

General Characteristics of all Objects of Knowledge, and of our Knowledge of the same.

Before proceeding further, I would invite special attention to two or three preliminary observations :

1. All objects of thought are finite or infinite, and each of these bears the respective characteristics of contingency or necessity.

2. All finite substances comprehend ourselves, and that

which is not ourselves. The infinite sustains the relation to each of unconditioned and absolute cause.

3. Consequently, all our knowledge consists in apprehending the nature of the finite and of the infinite, together with the relations of the finite to the finite, and of the finite to the infinite. The Intelligence can never go beyond these; because these comprehend all possible existences, and all the modes and relations of existence.

Distinct Apprehension conditioned on Attention.

But these things, as I have remarked, we distinctly know only on one condition-that we attend to them; in other words, observe and reflect upon them. Yet they must, in some sense, have been apprehended before observation and reflection, because the objects of observation and reflection must have been previously given in Sense, Consciousness, Reason.

Spontaneous Development of the Intelligence.

or

For

The question again returns upon us, What is the state of the Intelligence, as developed, previous to attention, i. e. previous to observation and reflection? To attend, to observe, and reflect, are acts of the Will, directing the action of the Intelligence. But, as before observed, the objects must have been in some sense apprehended previous to attention. when we will to attend to anything, the act implies that the thing itself was in some sense in the mind, as an object of thought. How came this thought here? Certain conditions. are requisite to its existence. But when these conditions are fulfilled, how does this thought arise? I answer, by a spontaneous action of the Intelligence, a spontaneity previous to all acts of the Will. "When Intelligence manifested itself for the first time," says Cousin, to whom I am indebted for almost everything I now say, "it is evident that its manifestation could not have been a voluntary act. It manifested itself, nevertheless, and you possess a consciousness of it, more or less vivid. Endeavor to take your thought unawares, in the act of thinking without having wished to think; and you will find yourself at that point which the Intelligence takes as its point of departure; and thus you may at the present moment observe, with more or less accuracy, that which did occur, and must necessarily have occurred, in the first act of your Intelligence, at a time which is no more, and

which can never return." Now what is contained in this primitive intuition, this spontaneity of human intelligence? All that will subsequently be found in observation and reflection; but, as Cousin observes, "If all is there, all is there on certain conditions."

Characteristics of this Spontaneity.

The next inquiry demanding attention is the characteristics of this spontaneity. The most important are the two following:

1. It is in all instances a positive affirmation, and not a negation. "To think," says Cousin, "is to affirm. The first affirmation into which nothing of volition has entered, and by consequence, nothing of reflection, cannot be an affirmation mingled with negation; for our first acts are not denials. It must therefore have been an affirmation without negation, an instinctive perception of truth, an entirely instinctive development of thought."

2. The other characteristic of this primitive intuition is, that although it contains all that is subsequently found in observation and reflection, it contains them obscurely. In observation and reflection, and there only, all things are distinct, because that there, and there only, do we find not only affirmations, but negations.

Characteristics illustrated.

I have said, that in this primitive spontaneity there is contained all that is subsequently found in observation and reflection, but somewhat obscurely. Consequently, there was a time when indeed mind was, and the universe also; but to itself, as an object of knowledge, neither the mind, nor the universe, nor God existed. At the next moment, by a spontaneous development of the Intelligence, the mind was revealed to itself. At the same moment that which is not itself, and the cause of itself, and of that which it perceived as not itself, was also revealed. In other words, the mind apprehends but obscurely the finite and the infinite, with a mysterious consciousness of the relation of the one to the other. "We do not commence," says Cousin, again, "with seeking ourselves, for this would imply that we already know that we exist, but on a certain day, at a certain hour, at a certain moment, a moment solemn in existence-without having sought ourselves, we find ourselves; thought, in its