LAWS OF MINO. 531 



body. Every sensation luis for its proximate cause sonie afloctiim of 

 the portion ot" our frame called the nervous system; whether this aH'cc- 

 tion originate in the action of some external object, or in sonu- patho- 

 logical condition of the nervous organization itself. The laws of this 

 portion of our nature — tnc varieties of our sensations, and the physi* 

 cal ci>nditions on which they proximately depend — manifestly fall 

 under the province of Physiology. 



W'liether any other portion of our mental states arc similarly de- 

 pendent on physical conditions, is one of those scientific questions 

 respecting human nature which are still in abeyance. It is yet unde- 

 cided whether our thouglits, emotions, and volitions arc generated 

 through the intervention of material mechanism ; wliether wo have 

 oi-gans of thought and of emotion, in the same sense in which we have 

 organs of sensation. Many eminent physi(»logists hold the aflirmative. 

 These contend, that a thought (for example) is as much the result of 

 nervous agency, as a sensation: that some particuhir state of our ner\'ou8 

 system, in particular of that central portion of it called the brain, invaria- 

 bly precedes, and is presupposed by, every state of our cimsciousness. 

 According to this theory, one state of mhid is never really produced by 

 another: all are produced by states of body. When one thought seems to 

 call up another by association, it is not really a thought which recalls a 

 thought ; the association did not exist between the two thoughts, but 

 between the two states of the brain or nerves which preceded the 

 tlioughts ; one of those states recalls the other, each being attended, in 

 its passage, by the particular mental state which is consequent upon it. 

 On this theory, the unifonnities of succession among states of mind 

 would be mere derivative uniformities, resulting from tlie laws of suc- 

 cession of the bodily states Avhich cause them. There would be no 

 original mental laws, no Laws of Mind in the sense in which I use the 

 term, at all ; but Mental ^Science would be a mere brandi, though the 

 highest and most recondite branch, of the .Science of Physiology. 

 This is what ^L Comte must be understood to mean, when he claims 

 the scientific cognizance of moral and intellectual phenomena exclu- 

 sively for physiologists; and not only denies to Psychology, or Mental 

 Philosophy properly so called, the character of a science, but places it, 

 in the chimerical nature of its objects and pretensions, almost on a par 

 with Astrology. 



But, after all has been said which can be said, it remains incontest- 

 able by M. Comte and by all others, that there do exist uniformities of 

 succession among .states of mind, and that these can be ascertained by 

 obser\'ation and experiment. Moreover, even if it were rendered far 

 more certain than I believe it as yet to be, that every mental state has 

 a nervous state for its immediate antecedent and proximate cause ; yet 

 every one must admit that we are wholly ignorant of the characteristics 

 of these nervous states; we know not, nor can hope to know, in what 

 respect one of them differs from another; and our only nio<le of study- 

 ing their successions or coexistences must be by observing the succes- 

 sions and coexi.stences of the mental .states of whicli they are supposed 

 to be the generators or causes. The succ«;ssions, therefiire. which <»b- 

 tain among mental pluniomcna, do not admit of lii'ing deduced from 

 the physifjloijical laws (jf our ner^•ous organization; and all real 

 knowledge of them must contiimo, for a long time at lea.st, if not for 

 ever, to be sought in the direct study, by obsunalion and experiment. 



