CHAPTER II 



THE CONTENTS OF THE MIND 



IN the language of common life, the " mind " 

 is spoken of as an entity, independent of the body, 

 though resident in and closely connected with it, 

 and endowed with numerous " faculties," such as 

 sensibility, understanding, memory, volition, 

 which stand in the same relation to the mind as 

 the organs do to the body, and perform the func- 

 tions of feeling, reasoning, remembering, and will- 

 ing. Of these functions, some, such as sensation, 

 are supposed to be merely passive that is, they 

 are called into existence by impressions, made 

 upon the sensitive faculty by a material world of 

 real objects, of which our sensations are supposed 

 to give us pictures; others, such as the memory 

 and the reasoning faculty, are considered to be 

 partly passive and partly active; while volition is 

 held to be potentially, if not always actually, a 

 spontaneous activity. 

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