then become the laws of thought, under the influence and guidance of which all our knowledge of objects is derivedthat is, all our experience, using the term in the sense of understanding objects.

Now if we understand the word experience as mere Sense and Consciousness, then, I repeat, it is the chronological condition or ground of all ideas in the mind. In this sense of the term Locke is, no doubt, right in the affirmation, that all our knowledge is derived from experience. But this is evidently not the sense in which the term was understood by him. But if experience be understood, as designating the notions (contingent and relative) formed in the mind, of objects of Sense and Consciousness, then I affirm that such notions, instead of being either the logical or chronological antecedents of necessary ideas, are themselves both the logical and chronological CONSEQUENTS of such ideas.

TRUE EXPLANATION.

Intuitions.

The question in respect to the origin of our knowledge, together with its progress from its commencement to its development in its present form, now admits of a ready explanation. Knowledge, in all instance, commences (certain conditions being fulfilled) with the intuitions of Sense and Consciousness. Reason then intervenes, and affirms the logical antecedents of each empirical intuition, as it is given.

Notions.

The next class of phenomena that appears is Understanding-conceptions, in which the intuitions referred to are combined into notions of particular things. At first all such notions are concrete and particular. The elements of the abstract, the general, and the universal exist, but they exist only in the concrete.

The Judgment.

The Judgment now intervenes, and under the influence of the ideas of resemblance and difference, separates the elements of the abstract, general, and universal, from the concrete and particular. Then notions, abstract and general, and ideas of Reason in their abstract and universal form, appear on the theatre of Consciousness. A new action of

the Judgment now takes place an action in which the particular is subsumed under the abstract, the general, and the universal.

Associating Principle and the Imagination.

In the midst of all this movement, the associating principle is perpetually active, and over all the great deep of thought thus set in motion, the Imagination then hovers, and blends the endlessly diversified elements of mental conception, feeling, and action, into forms more perfectly harmonizing with the ideas of the just, the good, the beautiful, the sublime.

Scientific Movement.

The last movement of Mind is the scientific movementa movement in which the properties and relations of the varied objects of thought are systematically evolved in the light of fundamental ideas and principles of Reason. Such is the origin of knowledge. Such, too, is the movement of Mind from the beginning, as it rolls on towards its final consummation in pure and universal science. In beauty, grandeur, and sublimity, nothing can be compared with the movement of Mind. All that is external and visible but feebly reflects it.

MANNER IN WHICH THE GENERAL, ABSTRACT, AND UNIVERSAL ARE ELIMINATED FROM THE CONCRETE AND PARTICULAR.

But one additional topic, connected with the present subject, requires elucidation, to wit: The manner in which notions, general and abstract, and ideas and principles, universal and necessary, are eliminated from notions and judgments, concrete and particular.

General Notions.

In answering this inquiry, I begin with general notions. We will take for example and illustration, the notion designated by the word mountain. It is admitted, that in the first development of the Intelligence, there was no such general notion in the mind. The Intelligence began not with the general notion, but with the conception of some particular mountain which had before been an object of perception. How then is the general eliminated from the particular? Another

mountain becomes an object of perception. Under the influence of the associating principle, the first notion is recalled. The Judgment, as these perceptions are present on the theatre of Consciousness, separates the elements common to the two. The Understanding now combines these common elements into a new conception, under which the Judgment subsumes the two particulars. On the perception of a third mountain, the general notion, in a manner like that just described, undergoes a new modification, by which it embraces those elements only common to the three particulars, while each particular is again classed under the general. Thus the process goes on, till the notion under consideration assumes its most general form. This is the process by which general notions are, in all instances formed, a process so particularly elucidated in a former Chapter, that nothing further need be said upon it here.

Abstract Notions.

We will now consider the origin and genesis of abstract notions such as are designated by such such terms as redness, sweetness. These are distinguished from general notions, and also from necessary and universal ideas, by this characteristic. They designate some single quality of particular substances without reference to those substances.

To form general notions, more than one object must_be given. To form abstract notions but one is required. Example: This apple is red. When we have separated the quality designated by the term red, from the subject to which it belongs, we then have the abstract notion designated by the term redness. The same holds in all other instances.

Universal and Necessary Ideas.

In explaining the origin and genesis of universal and necessary ideas, in their abstract and universal form, we will take as the basis of our explanation and illustration the principle of causality, to wit: Every event has a cause.

It is admitted, that originally, this principle is not given in this form. What is given? Some particular event, and the affirmation of the Reason, This particular event had a cause. It is also admitted and affirmed, that the universal principle is not here, as is true of contingent general principles, given by the succession of particulars. For if you suppose the

event repeated a thousand or a million times, all that you have in each instance is the particular event, and the particular affirmation, This event had a cause. How then shall we account for the formation of the idea or principle under consideration? Let us recur to the individual fact above alluded to the fact composed of two parts; the empirical and absolute parts. We will leave out of view the idea of succession, and confine ourselves to the one fact before us.

By immediate abstraction let us suppose the separation of the empirical, and the disengagement of the necessary and absolute. We then have the pure idea of the absolute and necessary. This idea thus developed we find it impossible not to apply to all cases, real or supposed. We have then, and in this manner, the universal, necessary, and absolute idea or principle.

This process might perhaps be more distinctly explained by a reference to the ideas of body and space. These ideas are not originally given in their present simple abstract form. They are given in such proportions as this: This particular body is somewhere, or in space. Here you have the empirical part, body, and the necessary and absolute part, space. Separate the two, and you have the contingent idea of body, and the necessary and absolute idea of space. Hence the principle, universal, necessary, and absolute: Body supposes space.

Error of Cousin.

I have now a word to say upon a favorite principle of Cousin, that most necessary ideas, such as the idea of time, cause, &c., have their origin in Reflection, and what he calls a sentiment of the Will. The first succession of which we are conscious, he says, is some act of the Will, for the reason that we perceive nothing only on the condition that we attend to it, and the condition of attention is the Will. To this I reply: It is admitted that we know nothing, i. e. have a distinct knowledge of nothing, only on the condition of attention, and that the condition of attention is the Will. But from this it does not follow, that the act of attention is the first thing of which we are conscious. It may be some feeling or thought, it being impossible for us to become distinctly conscious of the act of attention, till we attend to that. Equally false is his conclusion that the consciousness of our own proper causalty precedes any conception of the principle

of causality. We are not conscious of our Will as a cause, but of the acts of the Will as mere phenomena. Succession within and without is nothing but succession. The first phenomenon that is observed by the mind, whether it is within or without us, develops the principle of causalty, or we can never account for its existence in the mind.