FUNCTIONS OF THE CEREBRVM. 375 



of Abstraction, by which we fix our attention on any particular qualities of 

 the object of our thought, and isolate it from the rest, and that of Generali- 

 zation, bv which we fix in our minds some definite notions in regard to the 

 general relations of those objects. These are the processes chiefly concerned 

 in the simple acquirement of Knowledge ; with which class of operations, the 

 Emotional part of our nature has very little participation. But in those 

 modes of exercise of our reasoning powers, which are chiefly concerned in 

 the determination of our actions, the Emotions, &c., are largely concerned. 

 As formerly explained (S 440), they chiefly (if not solely) act upon the reason- 

 ing powers, by modifying the form in which the ideas are presented to the 

 mind. whether these ideas are directly excited by external sensations, or 

 whether they are called up by an act of the Memory, or result from the 

 exercise of the Imagination.^ If we closely scrutinize our Emotions, indeed, 

 we shall find that they consist chiefly, if not entirely, of feelings of pleasure 

 and pain, connected with certain classes of ideas ; the former producing a 

 desire of the objects to which they relate ; the latter a repugnance to them. 

 They thus have a most important influence upon the Judgment, which is 

 formed by the comparison of certain kinds of ideas; and they may conse- 

 quently modify the Volitional determination, or act of the Will, which is con- 

 sequent upon this, and which may either be directed towards the further 

 operations of the mind itself, or may exert an immediate influence on the 

 bodily frame, by the agency of the Xervous System. In either case, it is the 

 characteristic distinction of a Volitional operation, that means are intention- 

 ally adapted to ends, in accordance with the belief of the mind as to their 

 mutual relations. Upon the correctness of that decision, will depend the 

 power of the action to accomplish what the mind had in view. 



495. The faculty of Imagination is in some respects opposed in its cha- 

 racter to that of Reason; being concerned about fictitious objects, instead of 

 real ones. Still it is in a great degree an exercise of the same powers, though 

 in a different manner. Thus it is partly concerned in framing new combi- 

 nations of ideas relating to external objects, and is thus an extended exercise 

 of Conception, placing us, in idea, in scenes, circumstances, and relations, 

 in which actual experience never placed us, and thus giving rise to a new 

 set of objects of thought. In fact, every Conception of that which has not 

 been itself an object of perception, may, strictly speaking, be regarded as the 

 result of the exercise of Imagination. Now the new Conceptions or mental 

 creations thus formed take their character, in great degree, from the Emo- 

 tional tendencies of the mind ; so that the previous development of particular 

 feelings and affections will influence, not merely the selection of the objects, 

 but the mode in which they are thus idealized. In the higher efforts of the 

 Imagination, the mind is concerned, not so much with the class of Sensa- 

 tional ideas, but with those of the Intellectual character; and the collocation, 

 analysis, and comparison of these, by which new forms of combinations are 

 suggested to the mind, involve the exercise of the same powers, as those con- 

 cerned in acts of Reasoning. but they are exercised in a different way. 

 "V\ hilst the Imagination thus depends upon the Intellectual powers for all its 

 higher operations, the Understanding may be said to be equally indebted to 

 the Imagination ; for the ideal combinations, which are the results of the 

 action of the latter, do not merely engage the attention of the Artist, who 

 aims to develop them in material forms, but are the great sources of the im- 



The recal of past sensations and ideas may produce purely Emotional actions ; by ex- 

 citing in the centres, from which those actions proceed, a condition corresponding with that 

 which would be excited by the present sensation ( 439). 



