FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 



operate in their turn with a reflex influence, and rekindle in fhe mind the 

 feelings that have given birth to them. And hence the origin and soul- 

 subduing power of tender or impassioned poetry, or of manly and forcible 

 eloquence ; as also the cause why we feel equally hurried away by the classi- 

 cal debates of the senate, and the fictitious distresses of the drama. 



We behold, moreover, in different persons, these energetic principles dif- 

 ferently modified or associated in every variety of combination : sometimes 

 one of them, and sometimes another, and sometimes several leagued toge- 

 ther, peculiarly active, and obtaining a mastery over the rest. And we behold 

 these eff'ects in different instances, from different causes ; as peculiarity of 

 temperament, peculiarity of climate, custom, habit, or education. And hence 

 the origin of moral and intellectual character; the particular dispositions and 

 propensities of individuals or of whole nations. Hence one man is naturally 

 violent, and another gentle ; one a prey to perpetual gloom, and another full 

 of hope and confidence ; one irascible and revengeful, and another all bene- 

 volence and philanthropy; one shrewd and witty, and another heavy and 

 inert. Hence the refinement and patriotism of ancient Greece ; the rough 

 hardihood of the Romans; and the commercial spirit of Carthage; and 

 hence, in modern times, the silent and plodding industry of the Dutch; the 

 chivalrous honour of the Spaniards of the last century, unpoisoned by the 

 deadly fever of Corsican morality ; the restless loquacity and intriguing am- 

 bition of the French ; and, may I be permitted to add, the high heroic cou- 

 rage, and love of freedom, the generosity and promptitude to forgive injuries, 

 the unswerving honesty and lofty spirit of adventure, that peculiarly sig- 

 nalize the inhabitants of the British isles: all which are subjects that yet 

 remain to be treated of and elucidated, and which seem to promise us an 

 ample harvest of entertainment and instruction. 



Let us begin with the mental faculties themselves. These, as we have 

 already seen, are numerous and complicated ; so much so indeed, that it is 

 difficult to arrange and analyze them ; and hence I do not, at the present 

 moment, recollect a single treatise upon the subject, which gives us a clear 

 and methodical classification of them. I shall take leave, therefore, to offer a 

 new distribution ; and shall divide them into the three general heads, of 

 powers or faculties of the understanding; powers or faculties of election; 

 and powers or faculties of ebiotion. To the first belong the principles of per- 

 ception, thought, reason, judgment, memory, and imagination ; to the second, 

 those of choosing and refusing, or of willing and nilling, to adopt an old and 

 very expressive metaphysical term, that ought never to have grown obsolete; 

 to the third belong those of hope, fear, grief, and joy, love, hatred, anger, and 

 revenge, or whatever else is capable of moving the mind from a state of tran- 

 quillity and rest. 



All these are, properly speaking, acts or actions of the mind ; yet, as, during 

 the operation of the last set, the mind becomes at times irregularly and invo- 

 luntarily agitated and affected, though, by the force of its own attributes, as 

 the voluntary muscles of the body are often thrown into trepidation and 

 spasms by the contraction of their own fibres, metaphysicians, and especially 

 those of Germany, have seemed inclined to restrict the name of mental 

 actions to the operations of the understanding and the will, and to give the 

 name of affections or passions to those productive of mental emotion : to those 

 transitions of feeling into which the mind is involuntarily hurried by the sti- 

 mulus of this class of its own powers, and under the stress of which it may 

 thus far be said to be passive; and hence, if I mistake not, the application of 

 the term passions (v/hich has so much puzzled the metaphysicians) to certain 

 conditions or powers of the mind, which import activity and exertion. It is 

 upon the same ground, that where the mind is completely subdued, and suffers 

 extreme violence, we employ the term with peculiar emphasis ; thus, when a 

 man is raging either with anger or love, he is said pre-eminently to be in a 

 passion, or to entertain a passion; and thus again, but in a far more serious 

 and solemn sense, the Christian world applies the same term in its highest 

 force of signification to the agony of our blessed Saviour. 



