THE PROFESSOR AND IIIS CLASS. 227 



am saved the risk of attempting to describe what I have not seen, 

 and cannot be expected to be skilled in, by the sketches with which 

 I have been favored from men well able to do justice to the sub- 

 ject, so far as any sketch can be supposed to do justice to an 

 eloquence that required to be heard in order to be appreciated. Of 



resort, to enable him to discharge his known obligations. There must be a resolved and deliberate 

 subjection of himself to the known Moral Law ; and an inquiry, therefore, into the necessity, 

 nature, and means of Moral Self-government, will furnish the Third and last Division of the 

 Course. 



" In the First Division of the Course, then, we consider the constitution of the Human Being. 

 He has a Physical Nature, the most perfect of any that is given to the kinds of living creatures, 

 of which he is one, infinitely removed as he is from all the rest. He has an Intelligence by which 

 he is connected with higher orders of beings; he has a Moral Nature by which he communi- 

 cates with God; he has a Spiritual Essence by which he is immortal. 



" All these natures and powers, wonderful in themselves, are mysteriously combined. The 

 highest created substance Spirit, and Matter the lowest, are joined and even blended together in 

 perfect and beautiful Union. 



" We begin by treating generally of his Physical Constitution and Powers, and showing 

 that much of his happiness — it may be of his virtue — is intimately connected with their health- 

 ful condition, as there is a mutual reaction between them and his highest faculties. The Appe- 

 tites are explained, and the phenomena of the Senses; and pains taken to put in a clear light 

 the nature of Simple Sensation, before proceeding to illustrate the Theory op Perception. 



"The impressions received through the senses would be of no use; they could not become 

 materials of Thought, if the mind were not endowed with a power of reproducing them to itself 

 in its internal activity ; and this power we consider under the name of Conception, and very 

 fully the laws by which its action is regulated, the Laws of Association. 



"We are then led to inquire what is the Faculty of Thought itself; and if the different 

 operations of Judgment, Abstraction, and Reasoning may all be explained as Acts of this one 

 Faculty of Intellection. 



" Imagination itself seems to admit of being resolved into the union of this Faculty, with cer- 

 tain Feelings, under the Law of Association; and here an inquiry is instituted into the sources 

 of the Sublime and Beautiful, an attempt made to define Genius and its province, and illus- 

 trations are given of the Philosophy of Taste. 



"Looking on Man's Moral Nature, we seem to see one Principle presiding over and deter- 

 mining the character of all the rest; distinguished by different names, but which no other, per- 

 haps, so well describes as that which expresses it to the common understandings of men — Con- 

 science. Is it simple or composite ? natural or acquired ? In endeavoring to answer these 

 questions, we must take a review of all the most celebrated Moral Systems in which it has been 

 attempted to explain its origin, its composition, its growth, and its power. 



"From the consideration of this Moral Principle, to which our whole mind is subjected, we 

 pass on to those various Powers of Passion and Affection which are placed under its juris- 

 diction, and which, in their endless complexity and infinitely diversified modifications, constitute 

 the strength of the human mind for action, and are the sources of the happiness, the sorrows, and 

 the unfortunate errors of human life. These numerous principles, which have been classed in dif- 

 ferent manners by Ethical writers, but of which no classification is adequate to represent the va- 

 riety, are very fully treated of under such great and simple divisions as serve to mark them out 

 for separate discussion ; an arrangement and order, which, whether metaphysically just or not, ap- 

 pear to atfo'-d facilities for analyzing the processes of nature. 



" In treating of Man as a Spiritual Being, we consider the. doctrines of the Immateriality and 

 Immortality of the Soul — doctrines so important and interesting that no argument can be lost 

 that serves to impress them more deeply, and so elevated, that merely to contemplate them, does 

 of itself tend to spiritualize the affection and imagination. 



"The Second Division of the Course comprehends an inquiry into Man's Relations and Du- 

 ties. His first relation is as a creature to the Maker and Governor of the World, and 



