ed with any object we have in view at present, why such a full enumeration should be attempted. A few instances will suffice to show how fruitful a source of experience and of knowledge this is.

(I.) All the various degrees of belief are matters of Consciousness. We are so constituted that the mind necessarily yields its assent in a greater or less degree when evidence is presented. These degrees of assent are exceedingly various and multiplied, although only a few of them are expressed by select and appropriate names; nor does it appear to be necessary for the ends of society, or for any other purpose, that it should be otherwise. Some of them are as follows: doubting, assenting, presumption, believing, disbelieving, probability, certainty, &c.

(II.) The names of all other intellectual acts and operations (not the names of the intellectual Powers, which, like the mind itself, are made known to us by Suggestion, and are expressed by a different class of terms, but simply of acts and operations) are expressive of the subjects of our Consciousness. Among others, the terms perceiving, thinking, attending, conceiving, remembering, comparing, judging, abstracting, reasoning, imagining.

(III.) Consciousness, considered as a source of knowledge, includes likewise all our emotions and desires, (everything, in fact, which really and directly comes within the range of the SENSITIVE or SENTIENT part of our nature,) as the emotions of the beautiful, the grand, the subime, the ludicrous; the feelings of pleasure, and pain, and aversion, of hope and joy, of despondency and sadness, and a multitude of others.

(IV.) Here also originates our acquaintance with the complex emotions or passions. A man bestows a benefit upon us, and we are conscious of a new complex feeling which we call GRATITUDE. Another person does us an injury; and we are conscious of another and distinct feeling, which we call ANGER. In other words, we feel, we know that the passion exists, and that it belongs to ourselves; and it is the same of jealousy, hatred, revenge, friendship, sympathy, the filial and parental affections, love, &c.

(V.) All the moral and religious emotions and affections, regarded as subjects of internal knowledge, belong

here; such as approval, disapproval, remorse, humility, repentance, religious faith, forgiveness, benevolence, the sense of dependence, adoration.-When we consider that the mind is constantly in action; that, in all our intercourse with our fellow-beings, friends, family, countrymen, and enemies, new and exceedingly diversified feelings are called forth; that every new scene in nature, and every new combination of events, have their appropriate results in the mind, it will be readily conjectured that this enumeration might be carried to a much greater extent. What has been said will serve to indicate some of the prominent sources for self-inquiry on this subject.

27. +

CHAPTER IV.

RELATIVE SUGGESTION OR JUDGMENT.

127. Of the susceptibility of perceiving or feeling relations. It is not inconsistent with the usage of our language to say, that the mind brings its thoughts together, and places them side by side, and compares them. Such are nearly the expressions of Mr. Locke, who speaks of the mind's bringing one thing to and setting it by another, and carrying its view from one to the other. And such is the imperfect nature of all arbitrary signs, that this phraseology will probably continue to be employed, although without some attention it will be likely to lead into error. Such expressions are evidently of material origin, and cannot be rightly interpreted in their application to the mind, without taking that circumstance into consideration. When it is said that our thoughts are brought together; that they are placed side by side, and the like, probably nothing more can be meant than this, that they are immediately successive to each other. And when it is further said that we compare them, the meaning is, that we perceive or feel their relation to each other in certain respects.

The mind, therefore, has an original susceptibility or power corresponding to this result; in other words, by

which this result is brought about; which is sometimes known as its power of RELATIVE SUGGESTION, and at other times the same thing is expressed by the term JUDGMENT, although the latter term is sometimes employed with other shades of meaning." With the susceptibility of Relative Suggestion," says Dr. Brown, Lect. 51, "the faculty of judgment, as that term is commonly employed, may be considered as nearly synonymous; and I have accordingly used it as synonymous in treating of the different relations that have come under our review."

We arrive here, therefore, at an ultimate fact in our mental nature; in other words, we reach a principle so thoroughly elementary, that it cannot be resolved into any other. The human intellect is so made, so constituted, that, when it perceives different objects together, or has immediately successive conceptions of any absent objects of perception, their mutual relations are immediately felt by it. It considers them as equal or unequal, like or unlike, as being the same or different in respect to place and time, as having the same or different causes and ends, and in various other respects.

128. Occasions on which feelings of relation may arise.

The occasions on which feelings of relation may arise are almost innumerable. It would certainly be no easy task to specify them all. Any of the ideas which the mind is able to frame, may, either directly or indirectly, lay the foundation of other ideas of relation, since they may, in general, be compared together; or if they cannot themselves be readily placed side by side, may be made the means of bringing others into comparison. But those ideas which are of an external origin are representative of objects and their qualities; and hence we may speak of the relations of things no less than of the relations of thought. And such relations are everywhere discoverable.

We behold the flowers of the field, and one is fairer than another; we hear many voices, and one is louder or softer than another; we taste the fruits of the earth, and one flavour is more pleasant than another. But these diffe ences of sound, and brightness, and taste, could never

be known to us without the power of perceiving relations -Again, we see a fellow-being; and as we make hi the subject of our thoughts, we at first think of him only as a man. But then he may, at the same time, be a father, a brother, a son, a citizen, a legislator; these terms express ideas of relation.

§ 129. Of the use of correlative terms.

Correlative terms are such terms as are used to express corresponding ideas of relation. They suggest the relations with great readiness, and, by means of them, the mind can be more steadily, and longer, and with less pain, fixed upon the ideas of which they are expressive. The words father and son, législator and constituent, brother and sister, husband and wife, and others of this class, as soon as they are named, at once carry our thoughts beyond the persons who are the subjects of these relations to the relations themselves. Wherever, therefore, there are correlative terms, the relations may be expected to be clear to the mind.

§ 130. Of relations of identity and diversity.

The number of relations is very great; so much so, that it is found difficult to reduce them to classes; and probably no classification of them which has been hitherto proposed, exhausts them in their full extent. The most of those which it will be necessary to notice may be brought into the seven classes of relations of IDENTITY and DIVER

SITY, of DEGREE, of PROPORTION, of PLACE, of TIME, of POSSESSION, and of CAUSE and EFFECT.

The first class of ideas of relation which we shall pro ceed to consider, are those of IDENTITY and DIVERSITY.Such is the nature of our minds, that no two objects can be placed before us essentially unlike, without our having a perception of this difference. When, on the other hand, there is an actual sameness in the objects contemplated by us, the mind perceives or is sensible of their identity It is not meant by this that we are never liable to mistake; that the mind never confounds what is different, nor separates what is the same; our object here is merely to state the general fact.

Two pieces of paper, for instance, are placed before us, the one white and the other red; and we at once perceive, without the delay of resorting to other object and bringing them into comparison, that the colours are not the same. We immediately and necessarily perceive a difference between a square and a circle, between & triangle and a parallelogram, between the river and the rude cliff that overhangs it, the flower and the turf from which it springs, the house and the neighbouring hill, the horse and his rider.

Whatever may be the appearance of this elementary perception at first sight, it is undoubtedly one of great practical importance. It has its place in all forms of reasoning, as the train of argument proceeds from step to step; and in Demonstrative reasoning in particular, it is evident, that without it we should be unable to combine together the plainest propositions.

§ 131. (II.) Relations of degree, and names expressive of them. Another class of those intellectual perceptions which are to be ascribed to the Judgment, or what we term more explicitly the power of RELATIVE SUGGESTION, may properly enough be named perceptions of relations of Degree. Such perceptions of relation are found to exist in respect to all such objects as are capable of being considered as composed of parts, and as susceptible, in some respects, of different degrees.-We look, for instance, at two men; they are both tall; but we at once perceive and assert that one is taller than the other. We taste two apples; they are both sweet; but we say that one is sweeter than another. That is to say, we discover, in addition to the mere perception of the man and the apple, a relation, a difference in the objects in certain respects.

There are terms in all languages employed in the ex pression of such relations. In English a reference to the particular relation is often combined in the same term which expresses the quality. All the words of the comparative and superlative degrees, formed by merely altering the termination of the positive, are of this description, as whiter, sweeter, wiser, larger, smaller, nobler, kinder, truest. falsest, holiest, and a multitude of others. In oth