524 OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS ACTIONS. 



ideas, the decomposition of complex ideas into more simple ones, and 

 the combination of simple ideas into general expressions ; in which are 

 exercised the faculty of Comparison, by which the relations and con- 

 nexions of ideas are perceived, that of Abstraction, by which we fix 

 our attention on any particular qualities of the object of our thought, 

 and isolate it from the rest, and that of G-eneralization, by which we 

 grasp in our minds some definite notions in regard to the general 

 relations of those objects. These are the processes chiefly concerned 

 in the simple acquirement of Knowledge, with which class of opera- 

 tions the Emotional part of our nature has very little participation, 

 save as furnishing the desire which may be the necessary incitement 

 to the exertion of the intellect. A certain measure of intellectual 

 activity seems natural to Man, provided that the development of the 

 mind has taken place under favourable circumstances ; and our highest 

 pleasures are connected with the healthful and almost spontaneous 

 exercise of its faculties. 



922. But the Will possesses a determining power over the mental 

 as well as over the bodily operations ; and it is, in fact, this determi- 

 ning power, which is the source of the self-control that characterizes the 

 well-regulated mind of Man, and distinguishes him alike from the 

 madman and the brute. The regulation of our conduct consists in the 

 application of our reasoning powers to the circumstances of our con- 

 dition, and in the due regulation of those emotional tendencies, which 

 (as already pointed out, 919) are the moving springs of our actions. 

 However powerful these tendencies may be, there can be no doubt, 

 that we possess within ourselves the means of checking them, by 

 withdrawing our minds by a voluntary effort from the thoughts which 

 they suggest, as well as by calling forth opposing influences within us, 

 so that the decision which is finally arrived at is something very 

 different from that which the first " balance of motives" would have 

 produced. It is the deficiency or entire loss of this power of self- 

 control, that usually constitutes the first step in the development of 

 Insanity ; for this state generally consists, not so much in a perversion 

 of the reasoning processes, as in a disorder of the emotional state, 

 which causes the patient to dwell upon particular trains of thought, 

 until his feelings in relation to them become exaggerated or perverted ; 

 and at last intellectual delusions arise, from the habit of viewing every- 

 thing that comes before the mind through a distorted medium, and 

 from the substitution of the patient's morbid imaginings for real occur- 

 rences. In what is now termed impulsive Insanity, there is intellectual 

 perversion ; but a desire of some kind is so powerfully excited, that 

 the Will cannot control it. And every phase may be witnessed 

 between a state of this kind, which renders the individual an irrespon- 

 sible agent, and that mental condition in which the individual, though 

 originally fully able to control himself, habitually gives way to his 

 passions, and thus 5> by their continual indulgence, at last allows them 

 to become the dominant powers of his mind. 



923. Although the Will has been usually regarded as directly deter- 

 mining those muscular movements which are usually distinguished as 

 Voluntary, through the intermediation of fibres originating in the cere- 



