530 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



Crete, are for the most part only approximately true. But in order to 

 give a genuinely scientific character to the study, it is indispensable 

 that these approximate generalizations, which in themselves would 

 amount only to the lowest kind of empirical laws, should be connected 

 deductively with the laws of nature from which they result ; should be 

 resolved into the properties of the causes on which the phenomena 

 depend. In other words, the science of Human Nature may be said 

 to exist, in proportion as those approximate truths, which compose a 

 practical knowledge of mankind, can be exhibited as corollaries from 

 the universal laws of human nature on which they rest ; whereby the 

 proper limits of those approximate truths would be shown, and we 

 should be enabled to deduce others for any new state of circumstances, 

 in anticipation of specific experience. 



The proposition now stated is the text on which the two succeeding 

 chapters will furnish the comment. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF THE LAWS OF MIND. 



§ 1. "What the Mind is, as well as what Matter is, or any other 

 question respecting Things in themselves, as distinguished from their 

 sensible manifestations, it would be foreign to the purposes of this 

 Treatise to consider. Here, as throughout our inquiry, we shall keep 

 clear of all speculations respecting the Mind's own nature, and shall 

 understand by the Laws of JNIind, those of mental Phenomena; of the 

 various feelings or states of consciousness of sentient beings. These, 

 according to the classification we have uniformly followed, consist of 

 Thoughts, Emotions, Volitions, and Sensations : the last being as truly 

 States of Mind as the three former. It is usual indeed to speak of 

 Sensations as states of body, not of mind. But this is the common 

 confusion of giving one and the same name to a phenomenon and to 

 the proximate cause or conditions of the phenomenon. The immediate 

 antecedent of a Sensation is a state of Body, but the sensation itself is 

 a state of Mind. If the word Mind means anything, it means that which 

 feels. If we allow ourselves to use language implying that the Body 

 feels, there is no reason against being consistent in that language, and 

 saying that the Body also thinks. 



The phenomena of Mind, then, are the various feelings of our 

 nature, both those called physical, and those peculiarly designated as 

 Mental : and by the Laws of Mind, I mean the laws according to which 

 those feelings generate one another. 



§ 2. All states of mind are immediately caused either by other states 

 of mind, or by states of body. AVhen a state of mind is produced by 

 a state of mind, I call the law concerned in the case, a law of Mind. 

 When a state of mind is produced directly by a state of body, the law 

 is a law of Body, and belongs to physical science. 



With regard to those states of mind which are called Sensations, all 

 are agreed that these have for their immediate antecedents, states of 



