be comprehended, and man be as self-willed and remorseless as the Titans of old. Nor can any efforts to create a National Literature as a counteraction to the sordid and anarchical propensities of the age be successful. Alas! no national literature of any depth or grandeur can be created until the popular mind be purified and elevated. Our only remedy is to strengthen the faith of the people; that faith, whose creed of duty is humility, reverence, obedience, love. Man must again be made to bow before the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and look upward to Heaven with filial adoration. Let the saying of one of the sages of our time be ever remembered: "By celestial observations alone, can even terrestrial charts be constructed scientifically." Let our earthly life be rightly subordinated to the Divine, and it shall be full of strength, and joy, and harmony. Its fruits shall be blessed in the family and the state; and sweet singers and deep thinkers shall arise as in the times of old.

ART. VII.-A Critical Exposition of Mental Philosophy, or the First Principles of Metaphysics: embracing a Critical Analysis of Ideas, the Elements of Reasoning, and the Philosophy of the Feelings and Will, adapted to Academic and Popular Use. By Leicester A. Sawyer, A. M. New Haven: Published by Durrie & Peck: 1839.

WHEN a new work on mental philosophy is announced, there is usually some curiosity to know who the author is, and what he has "attempted." Is his reputation, as a metaphysician established, or to be decided by the new work? Is he an original writer or a compiler? Does he profess to have given the results of others in a convenient form? or to have made "great improvements" in the science? Mr. Sawyer's claims appear to be of both kinds. In his introduction, he says, "In the present work considerable improvements have been attempted, in the theory of sensations, ideas, affections, and of the will; and in the general division and arrangement of "mental phenomena." He acknowledges, however, that, "this work is not put forth under any impression that it is perfect," since "imperfection is common

to all human productions." "Locke is not perfect; Reid is not perfect; Stewart is not perfect." He thus leaves us to infer that he himself is not perfect. "The same will be true," he tells us," of all who undertake to prosecute and complete the investigations of these illustrious men! Since, then, any mental philosophy, at present, must be imperfect, we are told, that "that which is not perfect, however, may be better than nothing, and one imperfect thing better than others." The questions to be decided then, are, (1) Is this work better than nothing? if so, (2) Is it better than other imperfect ones? Whatever impressions may be created by our remarks, we are satisfied the perusal of the book itself, would convince, not only " candid and competent critics," but "the public at large," that both of these questions should be answered in the negative.

Mr. Sawyer's work is divided into four parts. Part First, is upon the classification of mental phenomena, and the philosophy of sensations." As he professes to have made "considerable improvements" in the classification of mental phenomena, we call the attention of our readers to these "improvements." We will first ask the reader, however, if he has any idea of mind and of mental phenomena ? what mental phenomena are, and what a book on mental phenomena would treat of? If he has, he will doubtless be surpised to learn from Mr. Sawyer, that mental phenomena refer, not only to "sensations and ideas which are objects of consciousness," but to "human, animal and vegetable physiology;" that all the processes of animal and vegetable life, are nothing but phenomena of mind; and that, in man, the mind resides all over the body, as much in one part as another.

"Phenomena are of two generic orders.

1. The phenomena of mind.

2. The phenomena of matter."

The phenomena of mind, he divides into two generic orders.

"1. Those which are objects of consciousness.

2. Those which are not objects of consciousness. Of the former class, are sensations, &c., and of the latter, the phenomena of organic and animal life." "Those mental phenomena which are objects of consciousness, are the objects of one department of mental philosophy; those which are not objects of consciousness, are the objects of

another. The theory and exposition of the former, has generally been denominated mental philosophy; that of the latter, human, animal, and vegetable physiology." p. 14—16. "The most important orders of minds with which we are acquainted are, 1. Human minds; 2. Animal and insect minds; 3. Vegetable minds; 4. Angels and disembodied spirits; 5. The divine mind." p. 137; In comparing mind and matter, the author says: "The ultimate particles of matter are not as different from minds, as many have supposed. Both are beings, invested with certain powers." "The highest generic property of minds in this world, is that of principles of organization, and of the action peculiar to organized bodies, in the vegetable and animal kingdom." "The discoverable relation between animal and vegetable minds, and the organs of animal and vegetable bodies, is simply that of an agent to an instrument." "Animal and vegetable minds both agree in being agents of operations, considered in relation to which animal and vegetable organs are instruments." Vegetable minds are the agents of all vegetable organic action; animal minds, of all animal organic action." "Human minds possess no power of acting in any way, on bodies which are not organized for the purpose. So of animal and vegetable minds." p. 147-149.

The question very naturally arises here, what are the author's reasons for this anomalous, not to say ridiculous classification? Has he really made any new discoveries, or brought to light any new truth? Has he, by any process of reason, or reflection, or by a series of experiments on animals and vegetables, discovered any new resemblance between human minds, and what he terms "vegetable minds?" He makes no such pretensions. He says the causes of all phenomena must be, either spiritual, or material; the causes of vegetable and animal phenomena, cannot be material, and so he concludes this cause or agent must be the mind. Mr. Sawyer's "improvement" in classification then, amounts to nothing more than an extension of the signification of the word mind. Mankind have been accustomed to give the name mind, to that in them which thinks, reasons and wills. This was the g of the Greeks, and the mens of the Latins. Writers on mental science have,

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of course, conformed to this usage of the word. It is Reid's first definition. By the mind of man, we understand that in him, which thinks, remembers, reasons, wills." So Ab

now.

ercrombie, "The mind is that part of our being which thinks and wills, remembers and reasons." This meaning of the word has become incorporated into all our habits of speaking, thinking and writing. How much philosophy, common sense, or modesty there is displayed, in altering the signification of a word so well established, in saying vegetable mind instead of vegetable life, our readers can judge. We will not be so uncharitable as to suppose Mr. Sawyer was aware of the trouble or confusion his new nomenclature (if adopted) would occasion. All our old notions of the word mind, as something that thinks, must be done away with. Nevertheless we must remember, and the next generation must be taught, what mind used to mean before" Sawyer's mental philosophy" appeared, and what it means When we hear mind spoken of, we shall not know whether it mean human mind, animal mind, or vegetable mind, whether it be apple mind, pumpkin mind! or cabbage mind! nor whether "the improvement of the mind" refers to our intellectual or physical improvement, or to the improvement of horses, sheep, potatoes or corn; for they are all mental phenomena. Twenty years hence, when a mental philosopher is spoken of, it will not be known whether he treats of "mental phenomena, which are the objects of consciousness," or of "mental phenomena which are not the objects of consciousness;" of agriculture, horticulture, or the culture of "mulberry trees and silk worms," for these are all alike "legitimate objects of mental science," according to Mr. Sawyer.

It may be somewhat amusing, if not interesting to our readers, to see a specimen of this philosopher's reasoning, in support of his improved classification. His doctrine is, that the processes of vegetable and animal life, "belong to the same spiritual agent as those of consciousness." His principal argument seems to be, that we don't know his theory is not true. We give his language. "The soul or mind is a being not material. The circulation of the blood, respiration, absorption, secretion, perspiration, excretion, &c., indicate the presence and agency of a being not material. One such being is present, to wit, the soul. Why then shall we not conclude, that the phenomena above referred to, belong to the soul, which we know from other evidences to be present, instead of supposing the existence of a separate principle of animal life, merely to account for them? There is evi

dently no sufficient reason for the hypothesis of a principle. of animal and human life, separate from the soul or mind, which is the subject of consciousness and of various conscious exercises." p. 18.

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When in common language we refer the phenomena of animal and vegetable life to the vital principle, there is no supposing," or "hypothesis, of a principle of animal and human" life to account for these phenomena as Mr. S. seems to imagine. There is something in the phenomena which we cannot understand or explain; we refer it to the vital principle, meaning thereby, nothing more, than our ignorance, or want of knowledge on the subject. But Mr. S. regards it a great" improvement" to refer the processes of animal and vegetable life to "the agency of the mind," which at best is only giving a new name to our ignorance. For what does he mean by "the agency of the mind?" The agency of the mind in thinking, reasoning, willing, as we are accustomed to regard mental agency; or merely that unknown mysterious action, usually referred to the vital principle? When he says the circulation of the blood, &c., " indicate the presence and agency of a being not material," what does he mean by "being?" A being that wills? If he does, he is begging the question; if he does not, then his pompous phrase means nothing more than that the "circulation of the blood, respiration, &c., indicate" something which we do not understand. The same is true of light, electricity, magnetism, and galvanism. And according to Mr. Sawyer's reasoning, they should be referred to the " presence and agency of a being not material," or in other words to a mind. If it be said there is no soul present where the phenomena of electricity, &c., appear, is there any soul in vegetables?

Mr. Sawyer's second argument is, that, since the nerves. which serve as the principle of animal and organic life, serve also" as the organs of the mind in sensation and voluntary action we may infer the identity of the agent which operates by both voluntary and involuntary, sentient and motive nerves." His last argument is drawn from the fact that the phenomena of consciousness and of animal life cease together at death. But animal life is the condition of the manifestation of the mind, and of course, when the condition ceases, the manifestation ceases. If the conditions of two persons dwelling in a house should be, that neither should ever be seen without the other, the man who should judge that because they