58 NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



ternal to itself, I can see only cases of belief; but of belief 

 which claims to be intuitive, or independent of external evi 

 dence. When a stone lies before me, I am conscious of certain 

 sensations which I receive from it; but if I say that these sen 

 sations come to me from an external object which I perceive, 

 the meaning of these words is, that receiving the sensations, I 

 intuitively believe that an external cause of those sensations 

 exists. The laws of intuitive belief, and the conditions under 

 which it is legitimate, are a subject which, as we have already 

 so often remarked, belongs not to logic, but to the science of 

 the ultimate laws of the human mind. 



To the same region of speculation belongs all that can be 

 said respecting the distinction which the German metaphy 

 sicians and their French and English followers so elaborately 

 draw between the acts of the mind and its merely passive 

 states ; between what it receives from, and what it gives to, 

 the crude materials of its experience. I am aware that with 

 reference to the view which those writers take of the primary 

 elements of thought and knowledge, this distinction is funda 

 mental. But for the present purpose, which is to examine, 

 not the original groundwork of our knowledge, but how we 

 come by that portion of it which is not original ; the difference 

 between active and passive states of mind is of secondary im 

 portance. For us, they all are states of mind, they all are 

 feelings ; by which, let it be said once more, I mean to imply 

 nothing of passivity, but simply that they are psychological 

 facts, facts which take place in the mind, and are to be care 

 fully distinguished from the external or physical facts with 

 which they may be connected either as effects or as causes. 



5. Among active states of mind, there is, however, one 

 species which merits particular attention, because it forms a 

 principal part of the connotation of some important classes of 

 names. I mean volitions, or acts of the will. When we speak 

 of sentient beings by relative names, a large portion of the 

 connotation of the name usually consists of the actions of those 

 beings ; actions past, present, and possible or probable future. 

 Take, for instance, the words Sovereign and Subject. What 



