CH. XXXIX.] MENTAL INTELLIGENCE. 



.153 



certain ; it is only on account of that peculiar difficulty latter 

 which arises when thought becomes the object of thought, ^^^^ '""■ 

 and which makes metaphysics so difficult and, in the eyes 

 of most men, so unsatisfactor}- a study. 



None of the materials of om- thoughts are innate in the There are 

 mind ; they are all either the direct results of experience, j^eas. 

 as when we remember what we have seen and heard ; or 

 else they are the results uf the mind's activity in working 

 with the results of experience, as when we infer and 

 imagine. For, as I have already pointed out, the mind 

 possesses no really creative power ; it can only combine 

 and recombine. And, as I have shown in the last chapter, 

 I believe not only the materials of thought, but also such 

 forms of thought as time, space, and causation, to be results 

 of experience. Thus all thought begins from data of ex- Thought 

 perience. But we have the power of reasoning, and reason- f/o^^gx- 

 ing truly, from these data to conclusions that lie beyond perience. 

 experience. Thus, for instance, the whole science of 

 geology, as distinguished from its mere facts, consists in a 

 mass of inferences, from the data that are visible in the 

 rocks, concerning the state of the earth before man lived 

 to witness it ; many of which inferences admit of no more 

 reasonable doubt than do the events of the history of last 

 year. Now, what is the nature of the intelligence which 

 makes these inferences ? Is it only a resultant from the 

 laws of habitual association ; or are its principles (to use, I 

 believe, Coleridge's expression), not the result of experience 

 but implied in experience ? I am of Coleridge's opinion. 

 1 believe that in the simplest inference an element of intel- Element of 

 ligence is needed, which is not a result of experience ; or, ^^^^^J' 

 in other words, not to be referred to the laws of habitual in all 



thought 

 association. which is 



The laws of association will account for much. In the "°* f^ . 



result of 



chapter on IMental Growth I have endeavoured to show experi- 

 how, as I believe, the laws of memoiy, acting by associa- ^^^^' 

 tion, account for such a mental process as that of learning 

 our own or another language ; and I believe that the laws Associa- 

 of association are quite sufficient to account for the origin *g°p°^,j\'' 

 of our con rc2'>f ions ; but that they utterly fail to account for con- 



