334 
PECULIAR FACULTY IN MAN. 
a providential endowment for our greater security, 
and though it certainly must be admitted that we 
are allowed to argue on the presumption of no 
accidents accruing to us calculated to disturb the 
uniform operation of the power, of no possible 
exposure to unknown spots without this retained 
power on our passage thither, of no exposure in the 
dark, and of no imperfect development or inefficient 
state of the faculty, the question at length comes,— 
what is its precise range of action ? If we were 
only in possession of the power of guiding ourselves 
by appointing certain objects as waymarks, our 
ability of investigating new tracts would be very 
limited, because our memories would inevitably be 
fatigued and become deceitful by keeping in re¬ 
collection so many objects and their respective 
relative bearings, we should also be liable to dis¬ 
traction by the effect of multifarious other objects 
continuedly crowding on the sight, precisely in¬ 
deed as we are wont to be perplexed when 
endeavouring to retrace our steps to some particular 
spot by the aid of the memory of those things we 
had noticed on our passage from it. To enable us 
to disregard these minor subjects of direction, to 
enable us to proceed at once to a distant locality 
without consideration of relative bearings and 
positions of objects by the way, above all to enable 
us to gratify our propensity to enterprize, and to 
suffer us to advance beyond our immediate range 
of abode without hesitation or fear of being lost,— 
these are the special operations of this power as 
granted to us in our conjoined moral and physical 
condition on the earth. But not only is this faculty 
of enterprize an assistant of the more recognisable 
faculty of the memory of localities and relative 
positions of objects, but they seem actually blended 
and to be portions of one indivisible power; for it 
is matter of fact that in taking cognizance of any 
