II. DEPARTMENT: 



PSYCHOLOGY. 



IN the department of Psychology, we would include those branches 

 of knowledge which relate more immediately to the human mind, its 

 powers, and their cultivation. The name is derived from the Greek 

 4f*7 signifying the soul, spirit, or mind, in its widest sense ; and we 

 would embrace under it the branches of Rhetoric ; Logic ; Phrenics, 

 or Mental Philosophy ; Ethics, or Moral Philosophy ; and Education. 

 It comprehends, therefore, that important study inculcated by Thales, 

 the ancient sage of Miletus ; know thyself; (rv0c asavtov) ; inscribed 

 on the temple of Apollo, at Delphi. It stops not, however, at the 

 boundaries of ancient or classic wisdom ; but soaring at once to 

 the source of all intellectual truth, the book of Divine Revelation, it 

 there derives sublimer views of the nature and destiny of man. 



Although we cannot fully comprehend ourown nature; but, in examin- 

 ing the mind abstractly, find ourselves lost in mystery and uncertainty ; 

 still we can investigate its faculties ; its modes of acting ; its incen- 

 tives to action ; its instruments and objects ; its appetites and its pas- 

 sions ; with the means of governing, directing, and applying all these, 

 to the attainment of man's chief pursuit, the happiness of himself and 

 his fellow-men, and the glory of his Creator. In making such an 

 investigation, we find that we are complicated beings ; immortal spirits 

 tenanting houses of clay ; but destined soon to leave them for another 

 and an eternal state. Thus, in studying our relations both to the 

 material and the spiritual world, we lay the foundations of all other 

 knowledge ; and derive lessons of the greatest practical importance. 



The department of Psychology, like the preceding one, may be 

 considered as introductory to all the remaining divisions of human know- 

 ledge ; since the mind is the agent which embraces and pursues them 

 all. Thus, Psychology is the immediate basis of the studies of Law, 

 and Government, and of Religion ; which studies are often included 

 together with it, wholly, or in part. To these high studies, the whole 

 subsequent province of Ethnology, or the study of nations, may be 

 regarded as subsidiary ; while it furnishes rich materials for the illus- 

 tration of Psychology. The Physical Sciences and Arts, are less 

 closely connected with this department : but even to them, a know- 

 ledge of our faculties, and the extent to which they may be relied 

 upon, may be of essential service : for the mind, it is, which has de- 

 veloped these stores of knowledge, and applied them to the preserva- 

 tion and comfort of its own incarnate existence. 



It is true that the study of the human mind embraces two great divi- 

 sions ; the one, Intellectual, relating to the perceptive and reasoning 

 powers ; the other, Moral, relating to the affections, passions, and 

 sentiments : but these are so closely and mutually connected, that 



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