language intelligible to all, without using the same words more frequently, and sometimes adopting more familiar illustrations, than a refined literary taste would dictate.

That the philosophy of the human mind should constitute a part of the study of every person, is undeniable. Some have thought it too elevated a subject, however, for youth at school. It ought, undoubtedly, to be one of the later in course, but should never be finally omitted. Every youth of decent attainments, under the guidance of a suitable teacher, is competent to understand its most essential truths; and unless he studies it at school, he ordinarily never does. Lighter reading, amusements, business, passing events engross his attention.

He accordingly goes through life ignorant of even the terms which define the powers and operations of his mind. When he hears or reads them, they convey to him no distinct meaning; when he employs them, he does not definitely know what he says. He listens to lectures, addresses, sermons relating to philosophy, morals and religion, under serious disadvantages. Sometimes an entire argument or illustration hinges on a single term of which he is ignorant. No defining dictionary can supply the place of that clear and enlarged knowledge of terms which is obtained by a thorough and systematic study of the subjects to which they relate.

When we further consider that the mind is to live forever; that, forsaken of the world, it is soon to be thrown upon its personal resources; and that its present training is preparatory to its future welfare, those clear and earnest views of its powers, duties, and destinies, which this study affords, appear to be of the highest importance.

To all who are invested with the high and responsible office of teaching, I would therefore most respectfully and earnestly say, Inspire your pupils with a taste for this ennobling study; secure in them a fondness for it, while they are yet under your culture; arouse them to a wakeful consciousness of their powers, and to a stirring sense of their responsibilities; teach them to define and trace the operations of their minds, and to refer them to their appropriate objects. You will thus lay the foundation, and form the habits, favorable to an enduring progress in true knowledge. The study of the human mind, thus auspiciously commenced, prepares the way for the most sublime and glorious of all knowledge—THE SCIENCE OF GOD AND ETERNAL LIFE.

INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART I.

PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

LIFE.

RESPECTING the mysterious principle which we call Life, there have been various speculations. Some have identified it with caloric, meaning by the term, not heat, but the cause of heat. Heat is an effect, of which caloric, acting through a material substance, is the cause. That all the effects produced by life cannot be referred to this, will appear evident when we shall notice the peculiar operations of the vital principle. But even if it could be shown that life is caloric, the question returns, What is caloric? All we have gained is an exchange of names.

THE ATHEISTIC THEORY.

Some atheistic theorists have considered Life, and what we call Mind or Spirit, the same thing, and to be nothing more than the heat or agitation resulting from the action of caloric on elementary atoms. To this

cause they would refer all the wonders of wisdom and goodness in the living creation! "There is nothing," says the learned Cudworth, " in fire and flame, or a kindred body, different from other bodies, but only the motion or mechanism and fancy of it. And, therefore, it is but a crude conceit, which the atheists and corporealists of former times have been always so fond of, that souls are nothing but fiery or flammeous bodies. For though heat in the bodies of animals be a necessary instrument for the soul and life to act by in them, yet it is a thing really distinct from life; and a red-hot iron hath not, therefore, any nearer approximation to life than it had before, nor the flame of a candle than the extinguished snuff or tal-. low of it; the difference between them being only in the agitation of the insensible parts."* Thales, on the other hand, and the disciples of his school, supposed the principle of all life to reside in water.

It was, doubtless, from observing the important uses of heat and water in the processes of organized life, that men were led to such theories.

LIFE WIDELY Diffused.

Matter may be either inert or animated, dead or alive. But life is more widely diffused through the material world than is generally supposed. Indeed, some philosophers, both of ancient and modern schools, have considered every atom of matter instinct with life. Such was one of the conceits of the ancient atomic theory, which made every atom a living thing. A modern writer on Dynamical Physiology says, "The elements of dust are the elements of life; for there is no substance, however inert or passive its atoms may be, whose combinations are not governed by a force common to all vital structures. The very debris of the soul, that lies mouldering in the grave, moved only by the worm, has generated the force that moves it, and testifies that all matter is vital, and ever ready to animate all other atoms

* Intellectuai System of the Universe, vol. i. p. 108.

with which it comes in contact with a higher degree of life. Death is but a comparative term; in a world where there is nothing fixed but change, death has no reality."*

That ingenious and observing minds should have adopted such sweeping theories, is accounted for only by the fact that life is so eminently all-pervading. Wherever we look, whether with the microscope or with the unaided eye, we see life every where at work. Still, there is a state of matter, in which it is subject. only to the laws of gravitation, chemistry, and mechanical forces. This we call a state of inertia. There is another state, in which it passes from under their sovereignty, and becomes subject to the dominion of a higher power, which we call Life.

Life is not itself an intelligent being, nor is it of itself intelligent; for the vegetable has life, without intelli gence. But life sustains intelligent beings, as truly as vegetables. It is a power imparted by God, the source of all life, sustaining alike the vegetable, animal, and rational creations. All hold it at his pleasure; when he withdraws it, by whatever means, they cease to be.

PHENOMENA OF LIFE.

essence of life, we If we cannot tell It would be out of

Although entirely ignorant of the know something of its phenomena. what it is, we can tell what it does. place here to discuss the subject of dynamics, but some notice of the phenomena of life will assist our inquiries respecting the nature and relations of the human mind. Of the effects of life upon matter, or the particulars in which matter alive differs from matter dead, we observe the following:

1. Living matter is ORGANIZED. It is formed into a union of parts, each contributing to sustain all the others. The organism becomes more simple, the lower we descend on the scale of living things; still it exists, and, so

* Laws of Causation, p. 81.