

THE HUMAN MIND. 



*HPHE various properties that distinguish Mind 

 J_ from what is not Mind are summed up in 

 three great general properties, named Emotion 

 or Feeling, Volition or Will, and Intellect or 

 Thought. 



EMOTION, or FEELING, is exemplified in the 

 gratifications and pains of the Senses, and in 

 Wonder, Love, Anger, Fear, &c. The mental 

 states produced by sunshine and the fragrance of 

 a garden are emotions. Everything that we de- 

 nominate by the two contrasting terms, 'pleasure' 

 and ' pain,' and whatever is called mental excite- 

 ment, comes under this general head. The term 

 ' Consciousness ' also signalises more especially 

 this first general property of mind. The members 

 of the human race agree in manifesting Feeling. 

 The orders of the brute creation give like symp- 

 toms of the same endowment. The vegetable and 

 mineral worlds are devoid of it. 



VOLITION involves feeling, and something 

 more; that something being action, or the putting 

 forth of power for some end. Eating, walking, 

 fighting, building, sowing, reaping, are operations 

 rising above the play of mere emotion, but which 

 yet derive their stimulus and owe all their 

 meaning to our various susceptibilities to pleas- 

 ure or pain. All voluntary actions whatsoever 

 have for their immediate or remote end the pro- 

 curing of something pleasurable, or the staving off 

 of something the reverse ; any actions performed 

 without some conscious end, are involuntary, and 

 are not included in the sphere of mind, properly so 

 called. Such are the reflex or automatic opera- 

 tions of breathing and propelling the blood. The 

 powers of nature, as gravity, heat, &c. are not 

 mental actions, because they are not associated 

 with consciousness as a regulating principle. 



INTELLECT, or THOUGHT, is the comprehensive 

 summary of such mental faculties or attributes as 

 Memory, Reason, Judgment, Imagination, &c. It 

 implies, among other things, the persistence in 

 the mind of the impressions of the senses after the 

 original object is gone, thus giving birth to what 

 are called ideas, which can answer most of the 

 ends of the actual and present sensations. Thus 

 the feeling of cold can continue in the mind in a 

 certain shape after the reality has ceased, and this 

 ideal cold is capable of inspiring the will to a 

 series of precautionary operations bearing on the 

 future, even while we are immersed in the most 

 comfortable warmth. 



The mental phenomena thus summed up in 

 three grand distinctive modes or manifestations, 

 are found to be in close alliance with certain 

 portions of our bodily organisation, and chiefly 

 with the brain. Properly speaking, the Nerves 

 and Nerve-centres (principally collected in the 

 brain), the Organs of Sense, and the Muscular 

 System, are the parts concerned in the mental func- 

 tions, while ministering also to some of the bodily 

 functions. That the brain is the principal organ 

 of mind, is proved by such facts as the following : 

 I. From the local feelings we experience during 

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mental excitement. As indigestion is felt in the 

 stomach, and toothache in the jaws, so intense 

 mental workings usually make themselves felt by 

 pains in the head. 2. Injury or disease of the 

 brain impairs in some way or other the powers of 

 the mind. 3. There is an indisputable connection 

 between size of brain and the mental energy dis- 

 played by the individual man or animal. There 

 may be differences of quality in the nervous sub- 

 stance, as in the muscle or any other tissue ; but, 

 as a general rule, largeness of size gives greater 

 vigour of mental impulse. The average weight of 

 the human brain is 3 pounds ; that of Cuvier 

 weighed upwards of 64 ounces (4 pounds). In 

 idiots, the weight is as low as 27, 25, 22, and 20 

 ounces. 



Much is now known of the structure and func- 

 tions of the nervous system, and a certain degree 

 of light has been thrown upon the mental opera- 

 tions in consequence ; but we must refer to the 

 treatises on Physiology and the larger works on 

 Mental Philosophy for a full account of those 

 discoveries. The general inference derived from 

 the whole is, that the nervous action connected 

 with the mental life is a current action, or con- 

 sists of nerve-currents propagated from the senses 

 to the brain, thence to the muscles, and from one 

 part of the nervous system to another. Hitherto, 

 the notion has prevailed that the brain is a sort 

 of receptacle or storehouse of passive impressions, 

 called a sensorium commune; but we are now led 

 to believe that the brain and mental life are stag- 

 nant, except when those currents of nervous force 

 are in the course of transmission from one part to 

 another. 



The most convenient division of the subject for 

 the purposes of exposition is into the four following 

 heads : i. SENSATION, with certain allied sub- 

 jects that go naturally along with it, such as the 

 Muscular Feelings, the Appetites, and the In- 

 stincts. This is usually reckoned the first and 

 lowest department of mind. It takes in one 

 important branch of the Emotions, and the most 

 simple and primitive Volitions, and gives an 

 account of the primitive mechanism on which 

 acquisitions have to be based. 2. INTELLECT. 

 3. THE EMOTIONS ; including those species that 

 remain to be treated of, and the discussion of the 

 subject of emotion generally. 4. THE WILL, or 

 the nature of voluntary power, and the different 

 varieties of it 



MOVEMENT, SENSE, AND INSTINCT. 



This includes in all four subjects Movement 

 and the Feelings of Movement, the Senses and 

 Sensations, the Appetites, and the Instincts. 



MOVEMENT AND THE FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. 



The feelings connected with the movements of 

 i the body, or the action of the muscles, have come 



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