he is totally insensible to the manifold evidence, which meets him wherever he turns his eye, of its futility and folly. And surely, if there be in human things an affecting representation of a mind lost to every function of a healthy understanding, incapable of rising from effects to causes, or of tracing the relations of things,-a mind deserted by its rightful guardian, and left the unprotected victim of every wild delusion that flutters by,-it is to be found in him who, possessed of the senses of a living man, can stand before the fair face of creation, and say in his heart, "There is no God."

In every exercise of judgment, it is of essential importance that the mind shall be entirely unbiassed by any personal feeling or emotion which might restrain or influence its decisions. Hence the difficulty we feel in deciding on a subject in which we are deeply interested, especially if our inclinations and the facts and motives presented by the case be in any degree opposed to each other. Thus, we speak of a man who allows his feelings to influence his judgment; and of another, of a cool head, who allows no feeling to interfere with his decisions. Any particular emotion, which has been deeply indulged and fostered, comes in this manner to influence the judgment in a most extraordinary degree. It is thus that a vitiated and depraved state of the moral feelings at last misleads the judgment, in regard to the great principles of moral rectitude; and terminates in a state of mind emphatically described in the sacred writings, in which a man puts evil for good and good for evil, and is left to the influence of strong delusion, so that he "believes a lie." This remarkable condition of the power of reasoning and judging we cannot refer to any principle with which we are acquainted; but we must receive it as a fact in the history of our moral constitution which is not to be questioned. A poet has sung, that vice,

:

which at first is hated as an odious monster, is, when seen too oft, endured, then pitied, then embraced and he has only added his evidence to a fact which has been received upon the testimony of the philosopher and the moralist in every age, and is acted upon as a fixed and uniform principle of our nature by all classes of men.

Upon the grounds which have been briefly referred to in the above observations, it will appear, that the principles on which a man should form his opinions are essentially the same with those by which he ought to regulate his conduct. If this conclusion be admitted, it will enable us to perceive the fallacy of a dogma which has often been brought forward with much confidence,-that a man is not responsible for his belief. When taken abstractly, this is true; but in the practical application of it there is a great and dangerous fallacy. In the opinions which a man forms on any particular subject, he is indeed influenced, not by his own will, but by the facts or evidence by which the doctrines are supported; and, in this sense, a man may justly be said not to be responsible for his belief. But when we apply the principle to practical purposes, and especially to those truths of religious belief to which the dogma has been pointed, it may easily be seen to be as fallacious as it is dangerous. A man is undoubtedly responsible for the care with which he has informed himself of the facts and evidences by which his belief on these subjects ought to be influenced; and for the care and anxiety with which he gives to each of these facts and evidences its due weight in the momentous inquiry. He is further responsible for any degree of that vitiated and corrupted state of the moral feelings by which his judgment may have been biassed, so as to prevent him from approaching the subject with the sincere desire for truth of a pure and uncontaminated mind. If, in this sense, we say that a man is not responsible for his belief,

we may quite as reasonably allege that he is not responsible for his conduct, because he chooses on some slight and partial grounds to frame for himself principles of action, without taking into consideration those fundamental rules of moral rectitude by which mankind in general are expected to be influenced. We may as well contend that the man is not responsible for his conduct who, by long familiarity with vice, has lost sight of its malignity, and has come to approve and love that which he once contemplated with abhorrence.

It appears, then, that the exercise of reason is precisely the same, and is guided by the same laws, whether it be applied to the investigation of truth or to the regulation of conduct. The former is more particularly connected with the further prosecution of our inquiry; but the leading principles apply equally to the great questions of morals, and the important subject of religious belief. In prosecuting the subject as a branch of intellectual science, it seems to resolve itself into two parts:

I. The use of reason in the investigation of truth.

II. The use of reason in correcting the impressions of the mind in regard to external things.

Before proceeding to these branches of the subject, however, this may perhaps be the proper place for again stating in a few words, that in the preceding observations my object has been to confine myself to facts, respecting the processes which the mind actually performs, without entering on the question how it performs them. On this subject we find great differences among philosophers, which I have alluded to only in an incidental manner.

Some

appear to have spoken in too unqualified terms respecting various and distinct FACULTIES of the mind, and have enumerated a variety of these, correspond

ing to the various mental operations. Dr. Brown, on the other hand, has followed a very different course, by referring all our mental processes to the two principles of simple and relative suggestion. According to this eloquent and ingenious writer, we have no direct voluntary power over the succession of our thoughts; but these follow each other in consequence of certain principles of suggestion, by which conceptions, in certain circumstances, call up or suggest other conceptions, which are in some manner related to them. We have the power only of fixing the mind more intensely upon some images of this series, when they arise, in consequence of approving of them, as referring to some subject of thought which is before us, while we disapprove of others of the series as less allied to it. The former become more fixed and vivid in consequence of this approbation, while the latter are allowed to sink back into oblivion. What systematic writers have called the faculty of conception is, according to this system, the simple presence in the mind of one of these suggested or recalled images. Memory is this simple suggestion combined with the impression of past time. In imagination, again, which has been considered as a voluntary power of forming conceptions or images into new combinations by a peculiar mental process, Dr. Brown believes that we have only the power of perceiving images as they are brought up by established principles of suggestion,-approving of some which thus become fixed, and disapproving of others which thus pass away. In thus approving or disapproving of the suggested images, we are guided by a perception of their relation to any particular subject which is before us, and which we may desire to cultivate or illustrate. According to this writer, therefore, what is usually called conception is simple suggestion; memory is simple suggestion with a feeling of past time; imagination is simple suggestion combined with desire

and with a perception of relation. The relative suggestion of Dr. Brown, again, is that perception of relations arising out of the comparison of different facts or objects which we have treated of under the more familiar name of judgment; and the mental process usually called abstraction he resolves simply into a perception of resemblances. Various objections might be urged against this system; and we may, perhaps, be allowed to doubt whether by means of it any thing has been gained to the science of mind. But the plan which I proposed to myself in this outline does not lead me into any consideration of it, or of those systems to which it is opposću. My object has been simply to inquire what the mind does, without entering on the question how it does On this ground, the division which has been adopted of distinct mental operations, not distinct faculties, appears to be that best calculated for practical utility.

So.

I.

OF THE USE OF REASON IN THE INVESTIGATION

OF TRUTH.

In applying our reason to the investigation of truth in any department of knowledge, we are, in the first place, to keep in mind that there are certain intuitive articles of belief which lie at the foundation of all reasoning. For, in every process of reasoning, we proceed by founding one step upon another which has gone before it; and when we trace such a process backwards, we must arrive at certain truths which are recognised as fundamental, requiring no proof and admitting of none. These are