Elements of the philosophy of mind

Front matter

INU'i

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ELEMENTS

Preface

This Volume, commenced some years ago, in the form of Lectures, addressed to Pupils in a Female Seminary, is chiefly the labour of thought and experience. As a Teacher, the Author felt the necessity of a work on this important branch of science, adapted to the instruction of her own sex, and sought to draw from her own resources, as well as from the records of History and Biography, such illustrations as might assist the mind in making a practical application of the leading facts of Mental Philosophy.

This "Work, is based on the Truth as we find it revealed in the Sacred Scriptures, and is not intended to enter into the intricate disquisitions of the Metaphysical schools. The Author, has not, however, been negligent in searching into the opinions of some of the best writers on this Branch of Science, and hopes, if not in perfect agreement, at least she will not be found in any great discordance with the sentiments of the wisest and the most esteemed. Truth, as it is found in Reason and Revelation is her object.

With the strongest sentiments of affection for the Youth of her country, more especially those of her own sex, to whose instruction for the last fourteen years, she has devoted her time ; to those, whose future

IT FREFACE.

influence will soon be identified with all the objects most hallowed by us, our literary, political, moral and religious Institutions ; to these Youth, to their Teachers, and to their Mothers, this Work is now presented By their affectionate Friend,

The Author, Geneva, December 14th, 1839.

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Chapter I

Philosophy is the science of reason. It investigates causes, and is the highest knowledge that can be obtained of a subject.. It is by Cousin called reflection, " the abstraction of thought from every external form."

Metaphysics is the general name given to the sciences that treat of immaterial subjects. The branch relating to soul or mind, is that, to which these Lectures call your attention : it is Mental or Intellectual Philosophy. This science will lead you to an acquaintance with the powers of your own minds, and be the first step in that most important part of your education, Self- Knowledge. We are assured, by a muchesteemed writer, that, " in order to a true self-knowledge, the human mind with its various powers and operations, must be narrowly inspected : all its secret springs and motives ascertained : otherwise, our self-acquaintance will

Introduction

be but partial and defective; and the heart, after all, will deceive us." #

The science of Physiology has already made you acquainted with animated nature, more especially with the human frame. Upon examination, we find the animal body to be a most complicated piece of machinery, wonderful in its operations, and easily deranged in its movements. The design visible in every part, shews that it was intended to contribute to the enjoyment, as well as to the operations of its inhabitant, the Soul. The eye, alone, is sufficient to shew the matchless skill of its Contriver. This delicate instrument is more complicated in its formation, more beautiful in its appearance, and is better adapted to usefulness and pleasure, than is any piece of workmanship ever invented by the most ingenious artist.

Yet the eye is but an instrument, designed to convey to the mind, ideas of the innumerable objects of use and beauty, with which this earth abounds. The ear, formed with equal delicacy and skill, is nothing less than the instrument of communication between mind and mind ; imparting to the soul thoughts and feelings that have enlightened and affected other souls. The tongue, that wonderful organ, moved by so great a variety of muscles, that no dissector's knife

* Mason, on Seif-Knowledge.

has been able to trace them, seems designed chiefly, as an instrument to the mind.

Since, then, this body, " so fearfully and wonderfully made," is intended for no purpose but to be the receptacle, or, as Plato calls it, the " prison of the soul or mind," how much more precious, more wonderful must be the soul, for which so glorious an abode is furnished !

At the head of animated forms, we find the human frame, the noblest of material objects ; the last, best exhibition of Divine skill, enclosing the immaterial spirit, said by St. Augustine, to be excelled by no object in the universe, except its Creator.

Mind, when viewed in its wonderful qualities and operations, gives to us a more conclusive proof of the existence of the great Creator, the first Intelligence, than all the evidences gathered by Dr. Paley, or any other, in the world of matter. " Shall we then," says Lord Brougham, " deny that the eye could be made without skill in optics, and yet admit that the mind could be fashioned and endowed, without the most exquisite of all skill, or could proceed from any but an Intellect of infinite power ?"*

When we consider the developement of simple ideas in the mind, until it reaches the power

* Brougham's Discourse on Natural Theology.

of reasoning such as we find it in a Newton, we are amazed that this evidence of divine skill did not occur to a reasoner so acute as Paley. The instincts found among brutes, whereby each is adapted to his peculiar state of existence, often strike us with admiration, and lead us to acknowledge a contriving Mind, or creating Cause : but what comparison can be instituted between the instinct of the beaver in constructing his habitation, and the intelligence of man in erecting, not only buildings for his comfort, but palaces for his pride ; in his invention that provides a ship for the circumnavigation of the globe, or a balloon to ascend to heights whence the earth is scarcely visible ?

The brightness, the velocity, the regularity of motion in the celestial bodies, strike us with awe, and we cannot but exclaim, "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work." But, when we consider the brightness of the human intellect, the sparkling of wit, the velocity of thought, more rapid than can be conceived, the wonderful order with which the mind proceeds in its power of reasoning, and reason itself, — we are constrained to acknowledge that Man is the highest object in this part of creation, and his Mind the most amazing instance of the skill of the Creating Mind :

INTRODUCTION. O

•• How poor, how rich, how abject, how august! How complicate, how wonderful is Mao ! How passing wonder He, who made him such! Who centered in our make, such strange extremes From different natures, marvellously mix'd ; Connexion exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguished link in being's endless chain ! Midway from nothing to the Deity ! An heir of glory, a frail child of dust. Helpless immortal, insect infinite ! A worm, a god ! I tremble at myself, And in myself, am lost." Young.

With these impressions of the noble nature of man, must not those, to say the least, be considered unwise and wanting in self-respect, who, in the years devoted to studj^, give by far the greater proportion of their time to the consideration of subjects, connected almost exclusively with material objects, while they utterly neglect those more intimately concerned with the immortal Mind ? They devote years to the investigation of the nature, and the classification of minerals, of plants, or of animals ; they are curious in acquiring a knowledge of chemical compounds ; they seek to understand the laws by which, the bodies that compose the universe are governed ; they puzzle themselves with the combinations of numbers, and indefatigably study the relation of surfaces ; while the history of their own nature, the investigation of

INTRODUCTION.

those powers of mind by which they stand related to superior Intelligences, to God himself, is totally disregarded.

Perhaps it may be said of many of our youth, more especially of the other sex, that they give years of study to the acquirement of languages, that are not to be used even for the purpose of expressing thoughts as they pass in :a constant succession through the mind, while thought itself, in its various combinations, is never understood, or properly arranged by them. Not that the above sciences are by any means to be undervalued ; it is only contended that the study of ourselves, of our relations to each other, and to God, should find a prominent place among them.

How melancholy is the truth, that many a lovely creature grows up to maturity of body, without a definite knowledge that she is much superior, except in beauty, to the butterfly she paints, while she considers herself flattered by a comparison with the lily or the rose. She knows no other use of sweet sounds, in which she perhaps employs one-third of the precious day, than to amuse the listless hours, or to attract the passing mead of admiration. Abridging the moments of a life too short for the developement of the powers of a soul, that here begins its eternal existence ; wasting the freshness, the

INTRODUCTION.

sprightliness, the elasticity of youth, in those gratifications that will leave age without a charm, eternity without a hope !

It is a lamentable fact, that in the education of our sex, the showy, even in intellectual acquirements, is more sought after, than the solid. We are not so much taught to look in upon ourselves, as out upon others ; into the immaterial world, as upon the material world. The mind is so hurried from one subject to another, that little time is left to examine any. We are engaged in seeing and hearing, not in reflecting. We have no leisure to enter within ourselves, to inquire what we are, or what we are likely to be. We seem to take for granted that the objects apparent are reality, when the serious truth is, that the things invisible will soon be to us, the sole realities ; that the Soul, w T ith its amazing powers, its responsibilities, and its relation to its Creator, will soon be the only subject with which we can be concerned.

"It is admitted, of course, that we can no more create matter than we can mind, and we can influence mind in a way altogether analagous to our power of modulating matter. By means of the properties of matter, we can form instruments, machines and figures. So, by availing ourselves of the properties of mind, we can affect the intellectual faculties — exercising them, training and improving them : producing, as it were, new forms to the understanding. Nor is there a greater difference between the mass of rude iron, from which we make steel, and the thousands of watch-springs into which that steel is cut, or the chronometer which we form of this and other masses equally inert — than there is between the untutored, indocile faculties of a rustic, who has grown up to manhood without education, and the skill of the artist who invented the chronometer, and the mathematician who uses it to trace the motions of the heavenly bodies."

The above beautiful passage, extracted from Lord Brougham's Discourse on Natural Theology, shews strikingly the difference established in the human family by the cultivation of the mental powers. The savage inhabitant of New- Zealand, or the Hottentot of South Africa, seems but little advanced in intellect above the Ourang- Outang of his native woods, while the enlightened, refined and benevolent Christian, appears to belong to beings of a superior nature.

The possibility must be admitted that the mind of a savage might be so cultivated, by early and careful instruction, as to bring him to an equality with the enlightened and refined inhabitant of Christendom. Still it seems difficult to admit with Cousin, that "man in intellect is equal to man," and that "the only difference that exists, is the difference of more or less, the difference of form." He says, " A peasant, the meanest of peasants, knows as much as Leibnitz, about himself, about the world and God, and about their relations: but he does not possess the secret and complete explication of that knowledge, he knows not how to account for it."*

The discussion of this difference of opinion respecting the equality of mind, imports but little in this place. It may not be true that " man is the equal of man," yet it undoubtedly is true, that cultivation may render the meanest of peasants equal to Leibnitz himself. God is no "respecter of persons" in the bestowment of His gifts. As he has made of " one blood" all nations of the earth, so has He dispensed intellect, high and powerful, among every nation, rank and sex. He has not indeed "seen fit to clothe all flesh with the same muscular power, or to crown all flesh with the same intellectual stature, or to confound all flesh with the same providential allotments ;"f yet in intellectual endowments as well as in other respects, has He placed us in the same state of respon-

* History of Philosophy, by Victor Cousin, page 38. f Mr. Barnard's Discourse before the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

sibility, as rested upon those among whom the Lord divided the talents. None are excusable for the misimprovement of these powers, or for neglect in their cultivation ; more especially are those guilty, who having themselves drank largely from the streams of knowledge and of truth, think lightly of participating them with others.

Knowledge, that is, self-knowledge, and the knowledge of God, are treasures open to all. The one we carry within us, the other we find in the Book of Revelation. With the first of these we have now to do. In this, as well as in every other intellectual acquisition, we find humble and patient inquiry an indispensable requisite. To know ourselves, we must turn our thoughts within : we must examine the means, or powers we possess, internally, for acquiring knowledge, and use them industriously ; we must look at the springs of internal action, and direct them properly.

In this study would I most earnestly direct you to the Word of God. There, alone, will you find a true history of man, from his first formation. In that sacred Book, are laid open all the springs of action in the soul, and the causes which philosophy no where points out, of the defect, so apparent, in human character. And there, where you study the disease, will x INTRODUCTION. 11

you find the remedy, and the great Physician to make the application.

May these Lectures aid you, my beloved young friends, in this research. May you be led to see your own strength, as well as your own weakness ; the exaltation of your nature, as well as its degradation. Your inability in yourselves to change what is wrong — your power in God to do what is right.

The subject before us will be divided into four parts :

1st. The existence, nature and destination of the soul.

2d. Its power of acquiring, retaining and usino- knowledge.

3d. Its capability of enjoying or suffering, arising from its relation to surrounding objects, or to other beings.

4. Its moral responsibility.

The First Part will bring evidence of the existence of Mind independent of Matter ; of its superiorly to the mere animal ; its affinity to the Creating Mind ; and its state of progression, arguing its immortal and high destiny.

The Second Part will treat of the Developement of the Intelligence and Reason in Consciousness, Sensible Perception, Attention, Conception, Memory, Association, Imagination, Abstraction and Judgment.

The Third Part will comprise the Emotions and Passions of the Soul.

The Fourth, the Will and Conscience, including directions for the cultivation of Mind, and the formation of Character.

Chapter II. Existence Of Mind

Matter is substance that may be perceived through the medium of the senses. It has form, colour, weight, taste, smell ; is hard or soft, moveable or immoveable. Those who are acquainted with the principles of Natural Philosophy, will perceive that some of these properties are inherent in matter, and that others depend on circumstances. The human body is a material substance ; that is, it has the properties of matter — so has a stone or rock.

When we enquire into the difference between the animal body and a stone, we perceive that the stone has no voluntary or instinctive motion, no apparent growth ; that it does not decay. The animal body grows, after a certain time decays and dies, then turns to dust. This is also true of a plant.

The plant from a seed, springs out of the

EXISTENCE OP MIND. 13

ground. Like an animal, it grows from a state of infancy to maturity ; it then withers and dies. A stone or rock has no life ; it is inanimate. A plant has life, for it grows, it blossoms, bears fruit and decays : it is animate ; but it has no power to remove from the place assigned it ; where it is planted, there it remains. Though provided with vessels to receive nourishment, it has no organs of sight, of hearing, or of smell ; neither has it a voice to utter sound. But man has voluntary action and five senses, enabling him to perceive objects ; so has a horse or a dog. Still there is a difference ; a brute ' animal moves as his inclination prompts him ; he perceives objects by means of sight, hearing, or any of the senses ; but there is a difference in the perception and movements of man, that shows an existence above that of the mere animal. A dog or any other brute animal undoubtedly perceives common objects, but he is attracted to them in no other way than as they serve to gratify his appetite, or minister to his comfort. He avoids them when annoyed or frightened. But who ever saw a brute take pleasure in the beauty of form or of color ; find rapture in the sublimity of objects, or admire their utility ? Sounds are distinguished by brutes so nicely that they perceive danger when man hears nothing ; the slightest whistle from the masters' s lips, will arouse the attention of his faithful dog ; the tones of affection and reproof convey meaning to him. But brutes are not moved by the most powerful eloquence; neither do they understand necessary relations. The highest moral action draws no approbation, even from brutes, like the monkey, of instinct so wonderful, that it often seems to surpass the greatest human acuteness.

Man, in common with other animals, has appetites and senses, that enable him to provide for his existence, and the comforts of sensitive life. He sees objects that are good or hurtful ; he has the power of motion to seize or avoid them ; he has appetites that prompt him to prolong his existence. So far is he an animal. But in man there is something which brutes do not possess. Sensible objects, when perceived by him, act upon a hidden spring, causing the overflowing of joy, or of sorrow ; occasioning approbation or disgust. The loveliness of a spring morning — the stillness of a summer evening — the variety of natural scenery, produce delight. The soft tones of the flute, still more those of the human voice, have for the ear an inexpressible charm. While on the contrary, objects unnatural or loathsome, create disgust. Sounds that are harsh or discordant, occasion pain. An act of benevolence gains approbation; amiability of disposition attracts affection, and a cruel action, or a wicked character, would meet with disapprobation, even abhorrence.

In instinct, also, man in his infant and savage state, is an animal. The actions that in those conditions tend to preserve life and provide for its wants, are mostly instinctive. But in this he is far the inferior of the brute. Instinct would not teach a child to distinguish poison from food ; nor would it teach a man to work unerringly as does the bee, by a rule that has never varied for thousands of years ; choosing for the construction of its habitation the best of all possible angles ; one hundred and twenty degrees for the sides of its little room, and the angles of one hundred and ten and seventy degrees for the inclinations of the roof. In this, the little insect never varies, it never improves. But man has something within by which he knows the essential relations of things, by which he knows himself, and by which he learns to distinguish what is good for him and what is hurtful. He gradually learns to improve his condition, to multiply his comforts, even to luxuries. He also subdues animals, who far surpass him in strength. Not only brutes, but every element in nature become his property ; time and opportunity render him master of the whole material world.

These instances show that there is in man something upon which sensible and moral objects act, causing emotions of pain and pleasure, as well as high attainment of power. In these respects, as well as in speech, we find no affinity between man and the brute.

But there are other instances that show a higher nature than the animal. An object is presented to the sight, —we notice its form, its colour and other qualities. We close our eyes, or withdraw the object, but it is not gone ; its form, its colour, is still there. Still where? it is present, but not to the eye. We have then a sight which is not of the body. We hear sounds at night that terrify us ; at the return of the same season, - the same sounds return with all their terror. Scenes or circumstances in which we have formerly been interested, friends of past years, return to us in the hours of solitude or of darkness. Return, not to our bodily senses, no, but to something within us, upon which the impression made is often deeply painful, or highly pleasurable. Different objects being presented, we immediately compare them as to beauty, utility, or other qualities, and within ourselves establish a preference. Should this proffered object be attainable, a desire of possession arises, and we take measures to acquire what to us appears desirable , success in this would produce joy, disappointment, sorrow. The expectation of desired good, creates hope, the certainty that it cannot be obtained, despair. Injuries received, fill us with anger, good bestowed, with gratitude ; and we feel within us liberty to act or not to act, as inclination prompts.

When we reflect upon ourselves and perceive within us this power of retaining the images of outward objects, of recalling, of connecting and comparing them ; when we attend to the emotions such objects produce, and the actions they prompt, we feel assured that there is within us a thinking, active, feeling principle. To this has been given the name of Mind, or Soul. It has already been shown that the body is material , that is, it has the properties of matter : It grows and lives like a plant, it moves, sees, hears, feels, like an animal, and at length dies and returns like every kind of matter, to original dust. The Soul is not matter. It is neither to be seen or touched, nor do we know in what part of the body it is lodged. We call it immaterial ; it is, strictly speaking, that part we call Myself. When death has dissolved the connection between the body and Soul of a dear friend, we say he is gone ; though the body lies before us, we call it the corpse. The Soul, or Mind, was Himself.

" The evidence for the existence of Mind, is 2 to the full as complete as that upon which we believe the existence of Matter. Indeed it is more certain and more irrefragable. The consciousness of existence, the perpetual sense that we are thinking and that we are performing the operation quite independently of all natural objects, proves to us the existence of a being different from our bodies, with a degree of evidence higher than we can have for die existence of these bodies themselves, or any other part of the material world. It is certain that many of the perceptions of matter which we derive through the senses are deceitful, and seem to indicate that it has no reality at all. But that the Mind, that the sentient principle, that the thing or being which we call I and we, and which thinks, feels, reasons, should have no existence, is a contradiction in terms."*

Chapter III. Immateriality Of Mind

Having established a belief in the existence of that which we call ourself, or mind, we naturally enquire whether this thinking, active, feeling part be the body itself, so ennobled and

* Brougham's Discourse on Nat. Theology, pp. 47, 48.

refined, or whether it be something within, that thinks, and acts, and feels, apart from the body? This enquiry becomes the more interesting from the consideration that the doctrine of Materialism, making the Mind or Soul, nothing more than Matter refined and ennobled into thought and feeling, has at the present time been revived and extensively taught among us. According to a late and renowned writer, who asserts, "that until Phrenology was discovered, the nature of man was not scientifically known ;" " man is like other animals, a purely organic creature, with this difference ; that being less perfect in some of his organs, he surpasses the lower animals in the organs of Constructiveness and Reflection." Also, " that mental talents and dispositions are determined by the size and construction of the brain."* Another writer calls " birth and death the Alpha and Omega of existence" ? t Without attempting any argument to disprove such theories, it may not be amiss to inform the Christian student, that the opinions depending on Materialism have been adopted mostly by those, who, in some way, depart from the truth revealed in the Bible. f Materialism, in all its shades, must fall before the Word of Inspiration, which declares, that " the

* Constitution of Man, by Combe.

f Philosophy of Sleep. X Note A.

Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground? and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." The above passage, from Genesis, as well as the declaration of the Apostle in the 5th Chapter of the 2d Corinthians, we, who profess Christianity, must deem conclusive. St. Paul speaks of the soul as distinct from the body, using for its designation the personal pronoun We, while he calls the body the tabernacle or transient dwelling of its noble and immortal inhabitant ; the soul being destined at the dissolution of its frail tenement, to be fixed in a surer and better habitation, for, says he, " we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

We see plainly from these passages that, by the will of the Father of Spirits, the soul of man, created in His own image, and, as expressed, by His own breath, was placed in a receptacle, already prepared, of the material substance that enters into the composition of the earth and its products. An importance is attached to the creation of man, very unlike what is recorded of the formation of beings purely organic or animal. The account given us in Genesis, shows that the living creatures whose existence belongs solely to earth, sprung forth from its surface, at the command of the Creator, numerous in kind and form. Animal life and its adaptation to the various elements they were to inhabit, are all we find noticeable of them. To the creation of man our attention is called by these very remarkable words : "let us make man." Here speaks the uncreated Godhead, as if in consultation how to form this noble creature. A body was then prepared, and in that earthly habitation was placed the immaterial, immortal spirit, made, not in proportions according to the form and size given to the breathing clay, but in the image of its glorious Maker.

But many arguments may be drawn from the nature of the soul itself, to prove its immateriality, as well as its immortality.

Our observation teaches us, that man exists in two states, entirely different from each other. The l)ody has its pains and pleasures, so has the soul, but, how unlike the one to the other : eating, drinking, rest and motion, depend on the senses or bodily powers, and give enjoyments, such as all animals possess. Hunger, and thirst, and pain, produce suffering that brutes endure equally with man. The above are the pains and pleasures of sensation, and are as keenly felt in infancy as in age. The soul has other enjoyments and other sufferings. Its thoughts, its reasonings, its feelings, are often independent of sensible perceptions. The blind and the deaf have their pleasures. The sick and the suffering in body, their enjoyments ; the healthy, the rich, and those surrounded by the delights of sense, have their sorrows.

When once the mind has received ideas by means of the senses, it is busy within itself, not needing further aid from them, in arranging, combining and analyzing its own ideas and conceptions. It needs not the eye, to recall the objects of sight, for the darkest night cannot shut from the mind the scenery of earth and heaven. Without sight or hearing, the blind may be made to conceive the ideas of other minds ; and it is a remarkable fact, that those who are deprived of the use of their senses, exercise attention most readily and acutely. When we wish to reflect on a subject or understand it, what means are so effectual, as shutting out the perception of every foreign object ?