450 



ON THE GENERAL. 



and forcible eloquence ; as also the cause why we feel equally, burned 

 away by the classical debates of the senate, and the fictitious distresses 

 of the drama. 



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

 differently modified or associated rn every variety of combination : some- 

 times one of them, and sometimes another, and sometimes several leagued 

 together, peculiarly active, and obtaining a mastery over the rest. And 

 we behold these efiects in different instances, from different causes ; as 

 peculiarity of temperament, peculiarity of climate, custom, habit, or edu- 

 cation. 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 benevolence and philanthropy ; one. shrewd 

 and witty, and another heavy and inert. Hence the refinement and pa- 

 triotism of ancient Greecie ; 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 Span- 

 iards of the last century, unpoisoned by the deadly fever of Corsican 

 morahty ; the restless loquacity and intriguing ambition of the French ; 

 and, may I be permitted to add, the high heroic courage, and love of 

 freedom, the generosity and promptitude to forgive injuries, the unswerving 

 honesty and lofty spirit of adventure, that peculiarly signalize the inha- 

 bitants of the British isles ; all which are subjects that yet remain to be 

 treated of and elucidated, and which seems to promise us an ample har- 

 vest 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, 1 do not, at the pre- 

 sent 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 understandikg ; powers or faculties 

 of ELECTION : and powers or faculties of emotion. To the first belong 

 the principles of perception, thought, reason, judgment, memory, and ima- 

 gination ; 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 jnoving the mind from a state of tranquillity 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 involuntarily agitated and affected, thougii by the force of its own 

 attributes, as the voluntary muscles of the body are often thrown into tre- 

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

 and especially those of Germany, have seem'ed 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 stimulus 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, (which has so much 

 puzded the metaphysicians;) to certain conditions or powers of the mind, 



