our bodily on our mental part has been poetically compared to that which the sun was supposed to exercise on a lyre, that formed part of a celebrated Egyptian statue of Memnon, which was said to become musical when struck with its beams; and though the poet has extended the similitude, beyond our mere elementary sensations, to the complex perception of beauty, it is still a very happy illustration- -as far as a mere poetic image can be an illustration of the power which matter exercises over the harmonies of mind : "For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd -- When we consider the variety of our feelings thus wonderfully produced, -the pleasures, and, still more, the inexhaustible knowledge, which arise, by this mysterious harmony, from the imperceptible affection of a few particles of nervous matter, it is impossible for us not to be impressed with more than admiration of that Power, which even our ignorance, that is scarcely capable of seeing any thing, is yet, by the greatest of all the bounties of heaven, able to perceive and admire. In the creation of this internal world of thought, the Divine Author of our being has known how to combine infinity itself with that which may almost be considered as the most finite of things; and has repeated, as it were, in every mind, by the almost creative sensibilities with which He has endowed it, that simple but majestic act of omnipotence, by which, originally, He called from the rude elements of chaos, or rather from nothing, all the splendid glories of the universe. • "Then the charm," &c. to "enchantment," from the second form of the Poem. The corresponding clause, in the first form, from which all the rest of the quotation is taken, is this, to coexist with perception, are still easily distinguishable from it; and, in like manner, when they arise from the intellectual states of memory, imagination, comparison, they are equally distinguishable from what we remember, or imagine, or compare. They form truly a separate order of the internal affections of the mind,-as distinct from the intellectual phenomena, as the class, to which they both belong, is distinguishable from the class of external affections, that arise immediately from the presence of objects without. LECTURE XVII. CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND.-CLASS 1. EXTERNAL STATES.-INTRODUCTORY. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I endeavoured to prepare the way, for arranging, in certain classes, that almost infinite variety of phenomena, which the mind exhibits,-pointing out to you the peculiar difficulty of such a classification, in the case of phenomena so indefinite and fugitive, as those of the mind, and the nature of that generalizing principle of analogy or resemblance, on which every classification, whether of the material or mental phenomena, must alike proceed. I then took a slight view of the primary, leading divisions of the phenomena of the mind, which have met with most general adoption, the very ancient division of them, as of two great departments, belonging to the understanding and the will,-and the similar division of them, as referable to two classes of powers, termed the intellectual and active powers of the mind. I explained to you the reasons, which led me to reject both these divisions, as at once incomplete, from not comprehending all the phenomena, and inaccurate, from confounding even those phenomena, which they may truly be considered as comprehending. After rejecting these, it became necessary to attempt some new arrangement, especially as we found reason to believe that some advantage could scarcely fail to arise from the attempt itself, even though it should fail as to its great object; and we, therefore, proceeded to consider and arrange the phenomena, as nearly as possible, in the same manner as we should have done, if no arrangement of them had ever been made before. In thus considering them, the first important distinction which occurred to us, related to their causes, or immediate antecedents, as foreign to the mind, or as belonging to the mind itself; a distinction too striking to be neglected as a ground of primary division. Whatever that may be, which feels and thinks, it has been formed to be susceptible of certain changes of state, in consequence of the mere presence of external objects, or at least of changes produced in our mere bodily organs, which, themselves, may be considered as external to the mind; and it is susceptible of certain other changes of state, without any cause external to itself, one state of mind being the immediate result of a former state of mind, in consequence of those laws of succession of thoughts and feelings, which He, who created the immortal soul of man, as a faint shadow of his own eternal spirit, has established in the constitution of our mental frame. In conformity with this distinction, we made our first division of the phenomena of the mind, into its external and internal affections; the word affection being used, by me, as the simplest term for expressing a mere change of state induced, in relation to the affecting cause, or the circumstances, whatever they may have been, by which the change was immediately preceded. The class of internal affections,-by far the more copious and various of the two, we divided into two great orders, our intellectual states of mind, and our emotions, words which are, perhaps, better understood, before any definition is attempted of them, than after it, but which are sufficiently intelligible without definition, and appear to exhaust completely the whole internal affections of the mind. We have sensations or perceptions of the objects that affect our bodily organs; these I term the sensitive or external affections of the mind; we remember objects-we imagine them in new situations we compare their relations; these mere conceptions or notions of objects and their qualities, as elements of our general knowledge, are what I have termed the intellectual states of the mind; we are moved with certain lively feelings, on the consideration of what we thus perceive, or remember, or imagine, or compare, with feelings, for example, of beauty, or sublimity, or astonishment, or love, or hate, or hope, or fear; these, and various other vivid feelings, analogous to them, are our emotions. There is no portion of our consciousness, which does not appear to me to be included in one or other of these three divisions. To know all our sensitive states or affections,-all our intellectual states, and all our emotions, is to know all the states or phenomena of the mind; "Unde animus scire incipiat, quibus inchoet orsa It must not be conceived, however, that, in dividing the class of internal affections of the mind, into the two distinct orders of intellectual states, and emotions; and, in speaking of our emotions as subsequent in their origin, I wish to be understood, that these never are combined, at the same moment, in that sense of combination, as applied to the mind, which I have already explained too frequently, to need again to define and illustrate it. On the contrary, they very frequently concur; but, in all cases in which they do concur, it is easy for us to distinguish them by reflective analysis. The emotion of pity, for example, may continue in the mind, while we are intellectually planning means of relief, for the sufferers who occasioned it; but, though the pity and the reasoning coexist, we have little difficulty in separating them in our reflection. It is the same with all our vivid desires, which not merely lead to action, but accompany it. The sage, who in the silence of midnight, continues still those labours which the morning began, watching, with sleepless eye, the fate of some experiment, that almost promises to place within his hand the invisible thread, which leads into the labyrinths of nature, or exploring those secrets of the mind itself, by the aid of which he is afterwards to lay down rules of more accurate philosophizing, and to become the legislator of all who think, is not cheered, in his toils, merely by occasional anticipations of the truths that await his search. The pleasure of future Gray de Principiis Cogitandi, Lib. I. v. 1—5. * discovery is, as it were, a constant light, that shines upon him and warms him; and, in the very moments in which he watches, and calculates, and arranges, there are other principles of his nature, in as lively exercise as his powers of observation and reasoning. The warrior, at the head of an army which he has often led from victory to victory, and which he is leading again to new fields of conflict, does not think of glory only in the intervals of meditation or action. The passion which he obeys, is not a mere inspiring genius, that occasionally descends to rouse or invigorate. It is the soul of his continued existence,-it marches with him, from station to station,-it deliberates with him in his tent,-it conquers with him in the field,—it thinks of new successes, in the very moment of vanquishing; and, even at night, when his body has yielded at last to the influence of that fatigue, of which it was scarcely conscious, while there was room for any new exertion by which fatigue could be increased, and when all the anxieties of military command are slumbering with it, the passion that animates him, more active still, does not quit him as he rests, but is wakeful in his very sleep, bringing before him dreams, that almost renew the tumults and the toils of the day. Our emotions, then, may coexist with various sensations, remembrances, reasonings, in the same manner as these feelings, sensitive or intellectual, may variously coexist with each other. But we do not think it less necessary to class our sensations of vision as different from our sensations of smell, and our comparison, as itself different from the separate sensations compared, because we may, at the same moment, both see and smell a rose, and may endeavour to appreciate the relative amount of pleasure which that beautiful flower thus doubly affords. In like manner, our intellectual states of mind, and our emotions, are not the less to be considered as distinct classes, because any vivid passion may continue to exist together with those intellectual processes of thought, which it originally prompted, and which, after prompting, it prolongs. In all these cases, however, in which an emotion coexists with the results of other external or internal influences, it is still easy to distinguish its subsequence of the feelings that preceded it. Pity, for example, as in the case to which I have before alluded, may coexist with a long train of thoughts, that are busily occupied in endeavouring to relieve most effectually the misery which is pitied; but the misery must have been itself an object of our thought, before the state of mind which constitutes pity, could have been induced. The emotion which we feel, on the contemplation of beauty, may continue to coexist with our mere perception of the forms and colours of bodies; but these forms and colours must have been perceived by us, before the delightful emotion could have been originally felt. In short, our emotions, though like the warmth and radiance, which seem to accompany the very presence of the sun, rather than to flow from it-they may seem in many cases to be a part of the very feelings which excite them, are yet, in every instance, as truly secondary to these feelings, as the light which beams. on us, on the surface of our earth, is subsequent to the rising of the great orb of day. As yet, we have advanced but a short way, in our generalization of the mental phenomena: Though, as far as we have advanced, our division seems sufficiently distinct and comprehensive. The mind is susceptible of certain existing affections, of certain intellectual modifications which from these, and of certain emotions which arise from both; that is to say, it is capable of existing in certain states, the varieties of which correspond with these particular designations. We see, we remember, or compare, what we have seen, we regard what we see, or remember, or compare, with desire or with aversion; and of these, or of states analogous to these, the whole of life, sensitive, intellectual, or moral, is composed. Every minute, therefore, of every hour, in all its variety of occupation, is but a portion of this complicated tissue. Let us suppose ourselves, for example, looking down from an eminence, on the prospect beneath.-On one side all is desolation, and we see perhaps, at a little distance, some half-roofless hovel, as miserable as the waste immediately around it, which has scarcely the appearance of a dwelling for any living thing, but seems rather, as if Nature herself had originally placed it there, as a part of the general sterility and ruggedness. On the other side, all is plenty and magnificence ;—and we see, amid lawns and wooded banks, a mansion as different in aspect, as if the beings that inhabited it were of a different race,—which, as a part of the scene, where it is placed, accords so harmoniously with the whole, that, without it, the scene itself would appear incomplete, and almost incongruous, as if stripped of some essential charm. To view these separate dwellings, and all the objects around them-if no other feeling arose-would be to have a series of external or sensitive affections only. But it is scarcely possible for us to view them, without the instant rise of those intellectual states of mind which constitute comparison, and of those affections of another order, which constitute the emotions of admiration and desire in the one case, and in the other the emotions that are opposite to admiration and desire, together perhaps with some of those bitter emotions which the sight of misery makes in every breast that is not unworthy of so sacred an influence. In this example, our intellectual states of mind, and our emotions, have for their objects things really existing without; but the external affections of our senses, though the most permanent, and usually the most vivid, and therefore the best remembered, of all the sources of our internal feelings, are far from being necessary, in every instance, to the production of these. There is a constant, or almost constant succession of internal affections of mind, of thoughts, and emotions, following thoughts and emotions, which even though we were to be rendered incapable of a single new sensation,-if our animal life could in these circumstances be long protracted,-would still preserve to us also that intellectual and moral existence, which is the only life that is worthy of the name. The knowledge which we acquire from without, lives in us within; and, in such a case as that which I have now imagined, our memory would be to us in some measure every sense, which we had lost, creating to us again that very world which had vanished before us. If we could compare and love or hate only things actually present, we should be far from the maturity and perfection of an infant's mind, and should scarcely be advanced to the rank of idiocy, which, limited as it is in its range, still comprehends in its little sphere of foresight and memory, some few moments at least of the past, and even a moment or two of the future. It is with the future and with the past, that, intellectually and morally, we are chiefly conversant. To these high capacities of our being, the subjects, which can exercise our powers and feelings, however distant in time or place, are as it were everlastingly present,-like that mysterious eternal now, of which theologians speak,-in which past, present, and future are considered, as, in every moment of every age, alike visible to the omniscient glance of the VOL. I. 22 |