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V. — An Essay upon Mr. Stewarfs Explanation of certain Processes of the 

 Human Understanding. By the Rev. James Wills, A.M., M.R.I. A. 



Read February 14, 1842. 



CHAPTER I. 



ARGUMENT STATED, AND MR. STEWART's EXAMPLES ANALYZED, WITH A FEW 

 ADDITIONAL CASES WHICH PRESENT THE SUBJECT UNDER A DIPEERENT ASPECT. 



It is some years since I was very much struck by an argument of Mr. Stewart's 

 with which many here are likely to be famiKar : he endeavours to prove from 

 several cases, that the mind, from habit, acquires a rapidity in the succession of 

 distinct thoughts, so great as to escape the consciousness, a proposition which he en- 

 deavours to prove by examples, and from which he draws some important conclu- 

 sions. Considering that all his instances are such as seem essentially to involve the 

 principle of consciousness, I found it hard to acquiesce in his theory. But it was 

 impossible not to admit that if Mr. Stewart has correctly stated his facts, the in- 

 ference is in no way to be avoided. And I failed at the time to observe, that all 

 these facts (as I shall presently show) are themselves results of a very complex 

 nature, and requiring a minute analysis, before they could become the fair 

 grounds of such inferences as Mr. Stewart's : I, therefore, with some reluctance, 

 dropped a subject which seemed to offer some curious approaches to a more inti- 

 mate knowledge of our intellectual nature. The popularity which Mr. Stewart's 

 theory has acquired (chiefly owing to his very curious and interesting exposition 

 of the phenomena of dreaming) has led me to reconsider the subject with more 

 deliberate attention : and I now venture to advance a statement of the inferences 

 which I propose to substitute for Mr. Stewart's. 



To express Mr. Stewart's theory in his own language, it is this, " The won- 



