pursuit of this greater good."-"For good," he says in another passage, "though appearing and allowed ever so great, yet, till it has raised desires in our mind, and thereby made us uneasy in its want, reaches not our wills."*

He was satisfied, on repeated examination, and on the most mature reflection which he could give to the subject, that the mere intellectual conviction of what might tend to the greatest good has no effect upon the Will till it has first excited within us desires after that good. And we find the same view taken by other writers on the mind. The following expressions of Sir James Mackintosh show what were his convictions on the subject." Through whatever length of reasoning the mind may pass in its advances towards action, there is placed at the end of any avenue, through which it can advance, some principle wholly unlike mere reason, some emotion or sentiment which must be touched before the springs of will and action can be set in motion."+

§ 10. Power of will and intellect not perfectly correspondent to each other.

But, although the Intellect thus lays the original foundation of the acts of the Will, we are not necessarily to infer that there is an exact correspondence and proportion between them. In other words, we are not to infer that the vigour of the WILL is always in exact proportion to the expansion and vigour of the INTELLECT. It was a sagacious remark of the distinguished painter Fuseli, which we venture to assert a careful observation will fully confirm, that nature does not always "proportion the will to our powers; meaning by the last expression our perceptive or intellective powers. "It sometimes," he adds, "assigns a copious proportion of will to minds, whose faculties are very contracted, and frequently associates with the greatest faculties a will feeble and impotent." The

* Essay concerning the Human Understanding, book ii., ch. xxi., § 35, 46. View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, sect. v.

+ Cunningham's Lives of Painters, art. Fuseli.

Will appears to require, as the basis of its action in any given case, only a certain sphere of knowledge; and any amount of knowledge beyond that sphere will not necessarily affect the energy of the volitional action either one way or the other. Some instances will explain more clearly what we mean.

In Dr. Goldsmith, so justly celebrated for his various literary productions, we may notice no inconsiderable grasp of Intellect, combined with a Will not fully proportioned to it. Distinguished as a poet, a comic writer, and a novelist, his conduct through life was marked with an exceeding infirmity of purpose. With a perfect understanding of the impositions of which he was made the subject, he still had not promptness and decision enough to counteract them. His biographer asserts that he could not give a refusal; and, being thus cheated with his eyes open, no man could be a surer and easier dupe to the impostors, whose arts he could so well describe.*

May we not also adduce the mental traits of a man still more distinguished? The intellect of Sir Isaac Newton seemed capacious enough to embrace the whole circle of knowledge; nothing among men could well exceed the grasp of his understanding; but, if we carefully compare the statement given by his biographers, we shall probably be convinced that there was not a perfect correspondence and proportion between his intellectual power and his power of will; that in the course of his life he often exhibited no small infirmity and indecision of purpose; uniting, in remarkable contrast, a gigantic strength of thought with a childlike uncertainty and flexibility of action. After he had completed his great work, the PRINCIPIA, and had placed the new philosophical creed on an immoveable basis, we are told he was unwilling to give it to the world, probably through fear of the controversies it might occasion, and that he was induced to do so through the urgent importunity of some of his

* Scott's Lives of the Novelists, art. Goldsmith.

intimate friends.*-In the case of Newton, however, it may not be necessary to assert positively, as in that of Goldsmith and many others, that there was a natural deficiency or weakness of the will, since we are at liberty to attempt another explanation. The Will, like the other mental powers, strengthens by exercise, and grows languid and weak by disuse. But this great philosopher was almost constantly employed in inquiries beyond the ordinary sphere of the world's motives and actions; and as he consequently had but little occasion for calling the voluntary power into exercise, we may well suppose that it lost in some degree its natural vigour.

§ 11. An energetic will sometimes found in connexion with limited powers of intellect.

And if, on the one hand, a great grasp of intellect is not always attended with a voluntary energy corresponding to it, we find, on the other, that inferiority of intellect (we do not speak now of extreme cases, but of such as are of every day's occurrence) is not necessarily accompanied with diminished power of the Will. The sphere of the will's action is of course diminished in such instances; but it is possible for it to exhibit great vigour within that limited sphere. It has but a small field to work in (not an empire, but a small enclosure which a man can cast his eye over), but it does its duty faithfully, promptly, and sternly in the restricted limits allotted it.

It has been remarked of the renowned Marshal Ney, that he was scarcely capable of putting two ideas together. Although this is an exaggeration, it is very certain that his great celebrity does not rest upon his comprehensive views and powers of reasoning, but almost solely on his surprising promptness and resolution in action; in other words, on the promptness and force of the will. And it is well known that the Emperor Napoleon was accustomed to speak of some of

* Brewster's Life of Newton, chap. xi.-Cumberland's Memoirs, p. 9.-D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, vol. ii., p. 165.

his generals (Murat, as well as Ney, was an instance) as men of limited intellect but of great energy; as weak and microscopic, if we may be allowed the expressions, in all matters of perceptivity and reflection, but great and terrible in their volition.-But it will be necessary to resume this subject again. All that we wish to say now is, that, although there is a connexion between the understanding and the will, and the one is the basis of the life and activity of the other, there is not a perfect correspondence between the two, and that the mere power and activity of the one, since there are other things to be taken into consideration, does not furnish a perfect measure of the ability and promptness of the other.

CHAPTER II.

RELATION OF THE SENSIBILITIES TO THE WILL.

§ 12. Introductory statement.

PROCEEDING now a step further into the interior of the mental nature, we next consider the relation which the Sensibilities hold to the Will. We have already had occasion to remark, that the doctrine formerly prevalent of the Will's being controlled by the last dictate of the Understanding is untenable, and that the Understanding or Intellect is in no case in direct contact with the volitional power. They are entirely separated from each other. The space between them, however, if we may be allowed that form of expression, is not left vacant, but is occupied by the sentient or sentimentive states. It is this portion of the mind, and not the percipient or intellective, which sustains a direct connexion with the Will. And in approaching the termination of our inquiries, and in coming nearer to that Department, to which is assigned the high office, not only of a general control of the mental action, but of realizing and sustaining the mind's unity, so that we can truly speak of ourselves as one mind or as one person, we enter as briefly as possible

into the consideration of this important and fundamental connexion.

§ 13. Of the division or classification of the sensibilities.

Recalling, therefore, what has formerly been said, we remark once more, in reference to the great subject directly before us, that the states of mind coming under the general head of the Sensibilities may be arranged under the two great departments of the Natural and the Moral Sensibilities. Of these the Natural or Pathematic Sensibilities first present themselves to notice under two subordinate but important divisions, namely, Emotions, distinctively known as the natural or pathematic Emotions, and the Desires or Desiring states.

(I.) Pathematic Emotions.-These feelings are very various in kind, such as the emotions of cheerfulness and joy, of melancholy and sorrow, of surprise, astonishment, and wonder; the emotions of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity; the emotions of the ludicrous, and many others. As already remarked in a former chapter, the emotions are simple states of the mind, and it would be of no avail to attempt to define them; but the knowledge of them, like that of other mental states, must be left to the testimony of each one's consciousness. But it is to be presumed that no one is ignorant of what is meant, when, in the presence of the objects which are fitted to originate them, we speak of emotions of cheerfulness, of wonder, of melancholy, of beauty, grandeur, and the like.

(II.) Desires, or desiring states of mind.-Originating in the Natural or pathematic emotions, without which they could not exist, we have also the subordinate class of Desires included under the general head of the sentient states of the mind or the Sensibilities. The knowledge of the desires, as well as of the emotions, must be had chiefly from that source of internal affirmation which we call consciousness. No mere form of words can illustrate their nature as distinguished from that of emotions, independently of that