be fully recognised and received, seems to be evident, in the third place, from the structure of language. In the English language we have the two terms in question, which we constantly use, not as synonymous terms, but as truly expressive of things which are dif ferent from each other. And as we find it to be the same in other languages, we may well regard this as a circumstance which decisively indicates the general conviction and belief on this subject. The existence of a belief so general and so deeply founded does not appear to admit of any satisfactory explanation, except on the ground of the actual existence of the distinction to which the belief relates.

§ 153. Further shown from the possession of a moral nature. Furthermore, the possession of mental power, as well as of mental liberty, is involved in the fact that man is a moral and accountable being. Argument in its ordinary form is not necessary here. Our Creator, in great kindness, has not left the questions of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, to be settled by the abstruse deductions of philosophers alone, but has written their solution in letters of light on the tablet of the common heart of mankind. All classes and descriptions of men, in the exercise of the powers that God has given them, are alike capable of understanding their essential import, and of rendering their interpretation. They all know, hardly less than they know their own identity, and far better than any human philosophy can teach them, that moral responsibleness implies the existence of power, and that the defect of power necessarily involves the negation of accountability.

"There is," says Dr. Reid," a perfect correspondence betwen power on the one hand, and moral obligation and accountableness on the other. They not only correspond in general, as they respect voluntary actions only, but every limitation of the first produces a corresponding limitation of the two last. This indeed amounts to nothing more than that maxim of

common sense, confirmed by Divine authority, that to whom much is given, of him much will be required."*

§ 154. Origin of the idea of power in intuition or suggestion. What has so far been said in this chapter, at least when taken in connexion with the illustrations of volitional power hereafter given, seems abundantly to show that there is a distinction between power and liberty, and that it is important not to confound them together. The subject of power, therefore, is a sub-. ject by itself, and requiring a separate and careful consideration.-And, in entering upon the examination of this subject, it seems to be a proper place here to say a few words in explanation of the origin of the idea of POWER. Power is obviously not anything which is directly addressed to the outward senses. It is not addressed to the sense of sight, as colours are; nor to the sense of hearing, as sounds are; nor to the taste; nor to any other of the outward senses. cannot see it, nor hear it, nor touch it, nor taste it, although it is everywhere actually diffused; for it is a first truth and undeniably certain, that, wherever there is existence, there is power, either actually in the thing itself, or in some way connected with it.

We

If the idea of power is not to be ascribed in its origin to external perception in any of its forms, except so far as we may sometimes find in them the indirect occasions of its origin, we must look within for its rise. And in doing this, we find ourselves unable to assert anything more or otherwise than this, that it is the result (that is to say, it is made known to us by means of it) of that suggestional or intuitional faculty which has already been referred to as the true source of our idea of liberty. In other words, we are so constituted that, on certain occasions and under certain circumstances, the idea of power naturally and necessarily arises, or is suggested, or is intuitioned within us. It is thus suggested or intuitioned in all cases which come under our notice, of antecedence and

* Reid's Active Powers of the Human Mind, Essay iv.

sequence in the natural world; in all cases of the control of the Will over the muscular action; and also of the control of the Will over the other mental powers.

§ 155. The idea of power involves the reality of power. Such is the origin of the idea of power-an idea which is both simple and undefinable. But we are not, therefore, to suppose that it represents nothing; in other words, that the power, which the idea is supposed to affirm and verify, is in itself a chimera and nonentity, a mere baseless fiction of the mind. This would be a great mistake. It is true that there may be complex ideas of things, as Mr. Locke has correctly maintained, which are chimerical; that is to say, which have nothing corresponding to them in outward objects, or in anything else, such as the ideas of a hypogriff, or of a dragon, or centaur, or of gold which is lighter than water, and the like. But this want of correspondence between the idea and the object to which it relates, or professes to relate, is never experienced in the case of simple ideas; and it is not at all surprising that we should find this difference in these two classes of our notions. Complex ideas, so far as the combination and arrangement of the subordinate elements is concerned, is the work of man; and it may sometimes happen, therefore, that they are expressive, or, rather, profess to be so, of what has no real existBut simple ideas, on the other hand, which result necessarily from the action of the mind under given circumstances, may be regarded as truly the work of the great Author of our mental nature; and it would be inconsistent with our ideas of his perfections, particularly his truth, as well as with our own consciousness and experience, to suppose that they ever express anything other than an unchangeable reality.

ence.

§ 156. Things exist which are not made known by the senses. Can it be necessary to say that there are existences, at least that there are realities (whether they are ex

istences in themselves, or the mere attributes of things or relations), which have no outward and visible representation? We know that the contrary supposition would not be inconsistent with the philosophy of Condillac and Helvetius, and especially of Mr. Hume; but the result of later patient and thorough inquiries seems clearly to indicate that the philosophical systems of those writers cannot, in this particular at least, be sustained. It is undoubtedly true that we do not have a knowledge of Power by means of any direct action on the outward senses; that it has no form and outline, as if it were some material entity; that it is not the subject of any process of material admeasurement; that it is not an object of sight, hearing, or touch. But it is at last fully settled, I think, that there are not only outward or sensuous, but inward or super-sensuous sources of knowledge; and that things and the attributes of things, which are not susceptible of any material or outward representation, can nevertheless be made known as having an existence by means of internal or super-sensuous cognitions. And POWER, whether it be something in itself, or the attribute of something else, is one of this class of things.

§ 157. Of power as an attribute of the human mind.

Without saying anything further on the existence and nature of power in general, and of the way in which we have a knowledge of it, we now proceed to remark upon power as existing in, and as an attribute of, the human mind. There is power somewhere. Is it also in the mind of man? Does it reside there as something substantive and positive, or is it merely an appearance?

In proof of the position that power, in the strict sense of the term, is an attribute of the human mind, we may safely appeal, in the first place, to each one's consciousness. Every one is supposed to know what power is in realization, although, as has been said, the idea or intellectual representation of it is not susceptible of definition. In other words, every man is con

scious that he possesses this power in himself; not perhaps in so high a degree as it actually exists in some others, but yet in some degree. He is not conscious that it exists in him in the form of a separate faculty, analogous to perception or memory, but that it exists as an attribute of the whole mind, and is diffused, in a greater or less degree, through all its faculties. That is to say, having from the earliest period formed a distinct idea of power, he feels, and from the nature of his being cannot help feeling and knowing, that he possesses in himself the reality corresponding to the idea, and that in every exercise or operation of the mind there is and must be power.

Furthermore, the existence of power as an attribute of the human mind is proved by our observation of others. When we carefully consider the wonderful efforts of the human intellect, with what rapidity and consummate skill it embraces and analyzes the most difficult subjects, have we not evidence of power? When we see men controlling their passions, sustaining themselves in meekness and fortitude amid the most cruel assaults, have we not additional evidence? When we read of the Republics of antiquity, of the eloquence that shook and swayed the fierce democracy of Athens, and controlled the proud hearts and intellects of Rome, and in later times has risen with no less ascendency in the stormy periods of the French and English Parliaments, can we believe that these astonishing effects are the results of minds constituted without any infusion of a living causative element? Without the recognition of the existence of power, as something consubstantial with and a part of the human mind, the philosophy of human nature, in the explanation of the facts which human history presents, will be found to be entirely inadequate.

§ 158. Further shown by a reference to the divine mind.

On this subject (the existence of power as truly an attribute of the human mind) it may not be improper, although it is to be done with suitable humility and