FACULTIES OF THE MINI). 



451 



\yhich import activity and exertion. It is upon the same g^round, 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 jjassion, or 

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

 lemn sense, the Christian world applies the same term in its highest force 

 of signification to the agony of our blessed Saviour. 



Now it is the peculiar feature of physiology, and especially as studied 

 upon the principles of induction, that, as far as it has proceeded, it has 

 discovered a general adaptation of means to a proposed end ; and has 

 hence placed the doctrine of final causes, as it has been incorrectly, an4 

 not without some degree of confusion, denominated — of causes, however, 

 operating to a final intention, — upon a basis too strong to be shaken by 

 the ridicule of many modern philosophers, sheltering themselves under an 

 orroneous construction of Lord Bacon's views upon the subject.* What, 

 then, are the uses or ])roposed ends of this extensive and complicated 

 machinery of the mind of man ? What are the respective parts which its 

 various faculties, in the order in which we have now arranged them, are 

 intended to fulfil, and the means by which they are to operate ? 



Their object is threefold, and in every respect most important, and ad- 

 mirably calculated to prove the wisdom and benevolence of the almighty 

 Architect : they are the grand sources by which man becomes endowed 

 with knowledge, moral freedom, and happiness ; and is hence fitted to 

 run the elevated race of a rational and accountable being. From the 

 powers of the understanding he derives the first ; from those of volition 

 or election the second ; and from the passions or motive powers the third. 

 Yet never let it be forgotten, that it can in no respect, or at least to no 

 considerable extent or good purpose, possess either the one or the other, 

 unless the mind, as an individual agent, maintain its self-dominion, and 

 exercise a due degree of government over its own forces. This, I tliink, 

 must be obvious to every one ; and it is in this harmonious balance, this 

 equable guidance and control, that the perfection of the human character 

 can alone consist and exhibit itself. Unless the faculties of the under- 

 standing be called forth, there can be no knowledge ; and unless they be 

 properly directed, though there may indeed be knowledge, it will be of 

 a worse nature than utter ignorance ; we shall pluck, not of the mixt tree 

 of the knowledge of good and evil as it stood before the fall, but from the 

 tree of the knowledge of evil alone, without any union or participation 

 of good. In like manner, unless the will and the passions be under an 

 equal degree of guidance, the mind can be neither independent nor happy : 

 a mental chaos must usurp the place of order, and the whole be misrule 

 and Confusion. 



We are too much in the habit, both in common life and in philosophy, 

 of regarding the faculties of the mind as distinct agents from the mind it- 

 self, as though the latter were nothing more than a house or repository for 

 their reception. This is particularly true in respect to the faculty of the 

 WILL ; for we are perpetually told that the will operates upon the under- 



. * Caasarum finaliiim inqaisitio sterilis est, et, tRnqiiam Virgo Deo consecrata, nihil.parit. 

 Sach is his celebrated aphorism : bnt the term inquisitio does not relate to the subject or 

 doctrine itself, but merely to its being: made a branch, of physical instead of , metaphysical 

 philosophy. The discoveries of modem times have sufficiently shown that Baeon was de- 

 cieivedupon this last point. Bnt it is perfectly clear from other passages in his writing that 

 he did ntjt mean to controvert the doc,tr»ne itself, Sejj St«wafrt'ti Elements, vol* ii. p. 454. 



