CHAPTER VIII. 



OF THE PRINCIPAL ACTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING, OR THOSE 

 OF THE FIRST ORDER FROM WHICH ALL THE REST ARE 

 DERIVED. 



The subjects which I propose to treat in the present chapter are so 

 vast as to make it impossible for me, within the limits which I have set 

 myself, to exhaust all the problems and topics of interest which they 

 present. I shall therefore confine myself to an attempt to show how 

 all the acts of the understanding, and all the phenomena that result 

 from them, originate in the physical causes which I have expounded 

 in the previous chapter. 



The special organ which gives rise to the wonderful phenomena of 

 intelhgence is not hmited to a single fimction ; it clearly performs four 

 essential functions ; and in proportion to its development, these func- 

 tions acquire more capacity and energy, or are subdivided into many 

 others ; so that when the organ is highly developed the intellectual 

 faculties are numerous and some of them attain an almost infinite 

 capacity. 



Hence man, who alone furnishes instances of this latter event, is 

 the only kind of being who is enabled by his lofty intellectual faculties 

 to give himself up to the study of nature, to perceive and wonder at 

 the invariable order, even to discover some of her laws, and finally to 

 ascend in thought to the Supreme Author of all things. 



The principal fimctions performed in the organ of inteUigence are 

 four in number, and consequently give rise to four very different kinds 

 of acts, viz. : 



1. The act which constitutes attention ; 



2. That which gives rise to thought, from which spring complex ideas 

 of all orders ; 



3. That which recalls acquired ideas and is named recollection or 

 memory ; 



4. Lastly, that which constitutes judgments. 



