they warrant nothing in any degree analogous to those partial deductions which form the basis of materialism. On the contrary, they show us the brain injured and diseased to an extraordinary extent without the mental functions being affected in any sensible degree. They show us, further, the manifestations of mind obscured for a time, and yet reviving in all their original vigour, almost in the very moment of dissolution. Finally, they exhibit to us the mind, cut off from all intercourse with the external world, recalling its old impressions, even of things long forgotten; and exercising its powers on those which had long ceased to exist, in a manner totally irreconcilable with any idea we can form of a material function.

SECTION II.

ABSTRACTION.

BY ABSTRACTION We separate various facts from each other, and examine them individually. We separate, for example, the qualities of a substance, and contemplate one of them apart from the rest. This act of the mind is employed in two processes of the utmost importance. By the one, we examine a variety of objects, select the properties in which certain numbers of them agree, and thus arrange them into classes, genera, and species. By the other, we take a more comprehensive view of an extensive collection of facts, and select one which is common to the whole. This we call generalizing, or deducing a general fact or general principle; and the process is of extensive application in all philosophical inquiries. The particular points to be attended to

in conducting it will come under view in another part of our subject. The most important is, that the fact assumed as general really belongs to all the individual instances, and has not been deduced from the examination of only a part of them.

There have been disputes among writers on the science of mind, whether abstraction is to be considered as a distinct mental operation, or is referable to judgment. But I have already stated that my object in this outline is to avoid all such discussions, and to allude simply to the actual processes of the mind in a practical view. One thing at least is clear, namely, that our abstractions must be corrected by reason, the province of which is to judge whether the process is performed correctly, and on sound principles. This, however, is distinct from the primary act of the mind to which I now apply the term abstraction, which is simply the power of contemplating one property of a substance apart from its other properties. It thus disjoins things which by nature are intimately united, and which cannot be separated in any other manner. Reason does not appear to be immediately concerned in this, though it is most closely connected with the purposes to which the process is afterward applied; namely, classifying substances according to a certain agreement of properties, and fixing upon those which are common to all the individuals of a numerous series, in the act of generalizing, or deducing a general fact or general principle.

I have formerly alluded to a period in the science of mind, when our ideas of external things were supposed to be certain actual essences, separated from the substances and conveyed to the thinking principle. In connexion with this theory there arose a controversy, whether, when we perform the mental act of generalizing, there exists in nature any essence corresponding to a general idea; or whether, in generalizing, we merely make use of an abstract term: whether, for example, in using the word man

we only employ a term, or whether we have the power of forming an idea of man in the abstract without thinking of any individual man; and, in the same manner, whether we can reason respecting a class of substances, without thinking of any of the individuals composing it. Hence arose two sects, whose disputes make a most remarkable figure in the history of intellectual science, namely, the Nominalists and Realists.

The controversies of these sects we now consider as little more than a matter of historical curiosity; but, for several centuries, they divided the learned of Europe, and were often carried on with an asperity amounting to actual persecution. "The Nominalists," says Mosheim, “procured the death of John Huss, who was a Realist; and in their letter to Lewis King of France do not pretend to deny that he fell a victim to the resentment of their sect. The Realists, on the other hand, obtained, in the year 1479, the condemnation of John de Wesalia, who was attached to the party of the Nominalists. These contending sects carried their fury so far as to charge each other with the sin against the Holy Ghost.""The dispute," says Mr. Stewart, was carried on with great warmth in the universities of France, Germany, and England, more particularly in the two former countries, where the sovereigns were led by some political views to interest themselves deeply in the contest, and even to employ the civil power in support of their favourite opinions. The emperor Lewis of Bavaria, in return for the assistance which in his disputes with the pope, Occam had given him by his writings, sided with the Nominalists; Lewis the Eleventh of France, on the other hand, attached himself to the Realists, and made their antagonists the objects of a cruel persecution."

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We find some difficulty in believing, in the present day, that the controversy which thus embroiled the continent of Europe in all the rancour of actual persecution related to the question, whether, in em

ploying general terms, we use words or names only, or whether there is in nature any thing corresponding to what we mean by a general idea. It is well designed by Mr. Stewart as one of the most curious events which occur in the history of the human mind."

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The question is one of no practical importance, and when it is cleared from its connexion with the ancient doctrine of ideas, appears to be one of no difficulty. Without supposing that there is in nature any actual essence corresponding to a general idea, the truth seems to be, that we do form a certain notion or conception of a quality in which several substances agree, distinct from any one substance to which the quality belongs. Hence some have proposed the term Notionalist, or Conceptualist, as designating opinions distinct from those both of the Nominalists and Realists. But, according to the principles of modern science, we cannot consider the discussion as any thing more than an ingenious arguing on points of no real importance. The process which the mind really carries on in that mental operation to which these remarks have referred, consists simply in tracing relations or points of resemblance in which certain individual things agree, though they may in others be remarkably different. We then give a name to this common quality, and thus form the individuals into a class of which this quality is the distinguishing character. Thus we may take a number of animals differing remarkably from each other, and say they are all quadrupeds. We may take a number of substances very dissimilar in their external and mechanical properties, and say they are all acids. Some of these substances are solid, some fluid, and some gaseous; but the property of acidity is common to them all, and this accordingly becomes the name and the distinguishing character of the class into which we now arrange them.

SECTION III.

IMAGINATION.

In the exercise of IMAGINATION, we take the component elements of real scenes, events, or characters, and combine them anew by a process of the mind itself, so as to form compounds which have no existence in nature. A painter, by this process, depicts a landscape combining the beauties of various real landscapes, and excluding their defects. A poet or a novelist, in the same manner, calls into being a fictitious character, endowed with those qualities with which it suits his purpose to invest him, places him in contact with other beings equally imaginary, and arranges, according to his will, the scenes in which he shall bear a part, and the line of conduct which he shall follow. The compound in these cases is entirely fictitious and arbitrary; but it is expected that the individual elements shall be such as actually occur in nature, and that the combination shall not differ remarkably from what might really happen. When this is not attended to, as in a picture or a novel, we speak of the work being extravagant, or out of nature. But, avoiding combinations which are grossly at variance with reality, the framer of such a compound may make it superior to any thing that actually occurs. A painter may draw a combination of beauties in a landscape superior to any thing that is actually known to exist; and a novelist may delineate a more perfect character than is met with in real life. It is remarked by Mr. Stewart, that Milton in his Garden of Eden has "created a landscape more perfect, probably, in all its parts, than has ever been realized in nature, and