is certain that we cannot contemplate any body whatever, an apple, a rose, a tree, a house, without always finding the idea of space a ready and necessary concomitant. We cannot conceive of a body which is nowhere. So that we may at least date the origin of the idea of space as early as our acquaintance with any external body whatever. In other words, it is a gift of the mind, made simultaneously with its earliest external perceptions.

117. Of the origin of the idea of power.

Under the head of Suggestion the idea of POWER properly belongs. Every man has this notion; every one feels, too, that there is a corresponding reality; in other words, power is not only a mere subject of thought, but has, in some important sense, a real existence. And we may add, that every one knows, although there is somewhere a great original fountain of power, independent of all created beings, that he has a portion (small indeed it may be, but yet a portion) of the element of power in his own mind and in his own person. There is indeed a Power, unexplored and invisible, which has reared the mountains, which rolls the ocean, and which propels the sun in his course; but it is nevertheless true, that man, humble as he is in the scale of rational and accountable beings, possesses, as an attribute of his own nature, an amount of real efficiency, suited to the limited sphere which Providence has allotted him. This is a simple statement of the fact. Power goes hand in hand with existence, intelligence, and accountability. There is no existence, either intelligent or unintelligent, without power, either in the thing itself, or in something else which sustains it. There is no accountable existence without power, existing in and participating in such existence, and constituting the basis of its accountability.

118. Occasions of the origin of the idea of power.

But the principal question here is, not what power is in itself, nor whether man possesses power in fact, but under what circumstances the notion or idea of power arises in the human mind. The occasions of the origin of this idea, so far as we are able to judge, appear to be

threefold. (1.) All cases of antecedence and sequence. in the natural world. We are so constituted, that, in connexion with such cases of antecedence and sequence, we are led at a very early period of life to frame the proposition and to receive it as an undeniable truth, that there can be no beginning or change of existence without a cause. This proposition involves the idea of efficiency or power. (2.) The control of the will over the muscular action. We are so constituted, that, whenever we will to put a part of the body in motion, and the motion follows the volition, we have the idea of power.-(3.) The control of the will over the other mental powers. Within certain limits and to a certain extent, there seems to be ground for supposing that the will is capable of exercising a directing control over the mental as well as over the bodily powers. And whenever we are conscious of such control being exercised, whether it be greater or less, occasion is furnished for the origin of this idea. It is then called forth or SUGGESTED. It is not seen by the material eye, nor reached by the sense of touch; but, emerging of itself from the mind, like a star from the depths of the firmament, it reveals itself distinctly and brightly to the intellectual vision.

119. Of the ideas of right and wrong.

Right and Wrong also are conceptions of the pure Understanding; that is, of the Understanding operating in virtue of its own interior nature, and not as dependent on the senses. We are constituted intellectually in such a manner, that, whenever occasions of actual right or wrong occur, whenever objects fitted to excite a moral approval or disapproval are presented to our notice, the ideas of RIGHT and WRONG naturally and necessarily arise within us. In respect to these ideas or intellections, (if we choose to employ an expressive term partially fallen into disuse,) Cudworth, Stewart, Cousin, and other writers of acknowledged discernment and weight, appear to agree in placing the origin of them here. And this arrangement of them is understood to be important in connexion with the theory of Morals. If these ideas originate in the pure intellect, and are simple, as they obviously are, then

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each of them necessarily has its distinctive nature; each of them is an entity by itself; and it is impossible to conceive of them as identical or interchangeable with each other. They are as truly unlike as our conceptions of unity and time, or of space and power. And if this is true of our ideas of right and wrong, it is not less so of right and wrong themselves. In other words, right can never become wrong, nor wrong right; they are placed for ever apart, each occupying its own sphere; and thus we have a foundation laid for the important doctrine of the immutability of moral distinctions." The distinction between right and wrong," says Cousin, (Psychology, ch. v.,)" may be incorrectly applied, may vary in regard to particular objects, and may become clearer and more correct in time, without ceasing to be with all men the same thing at the bottom. It is a universal conception of Reason, and hence it is found in all languages, those products and faithful images of the mind. Not only is this distinction universal, but it is a necessary conception. In vain does the reason, after having once received, attempt to deny it, or call in question its truth. It cannot. One cannot at will regard the same action as just and unjust. These two ideas baffle every attempt to commute them, the one for the other. Their objects may change, but never their nature."

§ 120. Origin of the ideas of moral merit and demerit.

Closely connected with the ideas of right and wrong are the ideas of moral MERIT and DEMERIT. In the order of nature, (what is sometimes called the logical order,) the ideas of right and wrong come first. Without possessing the antecedent notions of right and wrong, it would be impossible for us to frame the ideas of moral merit and demerit. For what merit can we possibly attach to him in whom we discover no rectitude? or what demerit in him in whom we discover no want of it? Merit always implies virtue as its antecedent and necessary condition, while demerit as certainly implies the want of it, or vice. Although the ideas of merit and demerit, in consequence of being simple, are undefinable, there can be no doubt of their existence, and of their

being entirely clear to our mental perception; and that they furnish a well-founded and satisfactory basis for many of our judgments in respect to the moral character and conduct of mankind.

121. Of other elements of knowledge developed in suggestion.

In giving an account of the ideas from this source, we have preferred as designative of their origin the term SUGGESTION, proposed and employed by Reid and Stewart, to the word REASON, proposed by Kant, and adopted by Cousin and some other writers, as, on the whole, more conformable to the prevalent usage of the English language. In common parlance, and by the established usage of the language, the word REASON is expressive of the deductive rather than of the suggestive faculty; and if we annul or perplex the present use of that word by a novel application of it, we must introduce a new word to express the process of deduction. Whether we are correct in this or not, we shall probably find no disagreement or opposition in asserting, not only the existence, but the great importance of the intellectual capability which we have been considering. The thing, and the nature of the thing, is undoubtedly of more consequence than the mere name.

In leaving this interesting topic, we would not be understood to intimate that the notions of existence, mind, personal identity, unity, succession, duration, power, and the others which have been mentioned, are all which Suggestion furnishes. It might not be easy to make a complete enumeration; but, in giving an account of the genesis of human knowledge, we may probably ascribe the ideas of truth, freedom, design or intelligence, necessity, fitness or congruity, reality, order, plurality, totality, immensity, possibility, infinity, happiness, reward, punishment, and perhaps many others, to this source.

◊ 122. Suggestion a source of principles as well as of ideas.

One more remark remains to be made. Original Suggestion is not only the source of ideas, (and particularly of ideas fundamental and unalterable,) but also of principles. The reasoning faculty, which in its nature is essen

tially comparative and deductive, must have something to rest upon back of itself, and of still higher authority than itself, with which, as a first link in the chain, the process of deduction begins. It is the suggestive intellect which is the basis of the action of the comparative and deductive intellect. Of those elementary or transcendental propositions which are generally acknowledged to be prerequisites and conditions of the exercise of the deductive faculty, there are some particularly worthy of notice, such as the following.-There is no beginning or change of existence without a cause.- -Matter and mind have uniform and permanent laws.-Every quality supposes a subject, a real existence, of which it is a quality.-Means, conspiring together to produce a certain end, imply intelligence.

CHAPTER III.

CONSCIOUSNESS.

123. Consciousness the 2d source of internal knowledge; its nature. THE second source of that knowledge which, in distinction from sensations and external perceptions, is denominated Internal, is CONSCIOUSNESS. By the common usage of the language, the term Consciousness is appropriated to express the way or method in which we obtain the knowledge of those objects which belong to the mind itself, and which do not, and cannot exist independently of some mind. Imagining and reasoning are terms expressive of real objects of thought; but evidently they cannot be supposed to exist, independently of some mind which imagines and reasons. Hence every instance of consciousness may be regarded as embracing in itself the three following distinct notions at least; viz., (1.) The idea of self or of personal existence, which we possess, not by direct consciousness, but by suggestion, expressed in English by the words SELF, MYSELF, and the personal pronoun I; (2.) Some quality, state, or operation of the mind, whatever it may be; and (3.) A relative