177 



ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL AND 

 BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION.* 



33Y LANGSTON PARKER^ ESQ. 



L_THE GENERAL PHENOMENA OF THE IMAGINATION. 



INIetaphysics, Psycology, or the Science of Mind, has attracted, 

 in an eminent degree, the attention of the master-spirits of all ages / 

 and, from Plato to Abercrombie, the most profound philosophers 

 have been engaged in investigating its properties, its phenomena, 

 and the abstract nature of its essence. One system of ontology has 

 followed another in rapid succession ; each has flourished u})on the 

 arena of learning for a time, till, like its predecessor, each has been 

 suddenly swept away by the production of some ner\v system, and 

 consigned to the stream of oblition. This is essentially true with 

 regard to the knowledge of the intimate nature and operations of 

 mind ; and, after all the labours of the learned, after twenty cen- 

 turies of waste of time, and talent, and ink, and paper, after the 

 creation of countless folios, the very number of which would appal 

 a modern author to contemplate, the last writer upon the subject 

 tells us that all that is past is the mere frivolity of science and 

 speculation, and that, in fact, we know nothing about the matter. 

 Since one of the mental operations is to form the subject of this series 

 of lectures, a prefatory notice of the nature of mind may be consi- 

 dered indispensable. 



'•" The mind," observes Abercrombie, " is that part of our being 

 which thinks and wills, remembers and reasons ; we know nothing of 

 it except from these functions. By means of the corporeal senses, it 

 holds intercourse with the things of the ekternar world, and receives 

 impressions from them, but of this connexion we know nothing ex- 

 cept the facts ; when we attempt to speculate upon their cause, we 

 wander, at once, from the path of philosophical enquiry, into conjec- 

 tures which are so far beyond the proper sphere, as they are beyond 

 the reach of the human faculties. The object of true science, in such 



* The following is the first of a series of Lectures, delivered at the Bir- 

 mingham Philosophical Institution, by the author. 



January, 1836 — vol. hi., no. xiv. n. 



