38 THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION, 



mote. It has been already said that we can have no 

 knowledge of what the state of the mind may or 

 may not be when apart and separated from the body ; 

 but of this there can be no doubt, that if we had 

 been wholly without sensation, we never could by 

 possibility have known any thing about the material 

 world about that creation which is the source of 

 so much knowledge, and the fountain of so many 

 enjoyments. 



Try to recollect or call to memory any thought, 

 whether that thought related to the departed past, 

 or to the future which did not then or does not yet 

 exist ; and you cannot help feeling as if you were 

 present bodily on the spot, and saw all the parties- 

 all the subjects of that thought, whoever, whatever, 

 or wherever they maybe. No matter whether the 

 thought is real, that is, of realities, or not ; no matter 

 whether it is even possible : still it comes as if it 

 were both real and present. What Shakspeare says 

 of " the poet's eye" is partly true of " the mind's 

 eye," in the most unpoetical man that lives : that 

 always gives to the " airy nothing" of thought " a 

 local habitation ;" and there wants only the power 

 of expression in order to give it "a name." To 

 give that name is, however, no necessary part of the 

 thought. It is another and a separate operation, and 

 may be inferior in men who think well, or superior 

 in those who think but indifferently. But thought 

 stands nearly in the same relation to expression, 

 that the exercise of the senses does to thought; 

 where there is no thought there can be no expres- 

 sion ; and if both faculties have their proper exercise, 

 the man who thinks most correctly always expresses 

 himself in the clearest and most agreeable manner ; 

 and if he had the hand of a painter, he could easily 

 and correctly make a picture of any subject of his 

 thoughts. However long the process of thinking 

 may be, the subjects are present, as if they were 

 before the eyes all the time ; and one can alter their 



