like light from heaven, into his astonished and rejoicing soul. He trembled, says his historian, he was deeply affected, prostrated himself, and gave signs of reverence and adoration. And when he arose, he uttered by signs also, for he had no other language, these beautiful words, which his instructer declared he should never forget, Ah! Let me go to my father, to my mother, to my brothers, to tell them of a God; they know him not.*

Such facts and instances settle this question; they prove, that the doctrine of inborn and connatural knowledge is unfounded; and may we not add, that they are in perfect accordance with a well known passage of the Apostle Paul; The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.

§. 142. The discussion of this subject superseded and

unnecessary.

It is an additional reason for not entering with more fulness and particularity into this inquiry, that the doctrine of innate or connatural knowledge has been frequently discussed at length and refuted; particularly by Gassendi and Locke, and more recently by De Gerando. This being the case, and public sentiment at the same time decidedly rejecting it, it cannot be supposed that every writer on the human mind is called upon to introduce the subject anew, to go over the train of argument, and slay a victim already thrice slain. Let us ask, Are we called upon at the present day to consider and refute every wild notion, which has ever been proposed? On that ground. we should not stop here; we must follow Locke further, and undertake a confutation of the doctrine of Malebranche, that we see all things in God; we must follow Reid in his laboured and conclusive overthrow of the long established opinion, that we know nothing of the material world, except by means of filmy images or pictures, actually thrown off from outward objects, and lodged in the

* See the work of Sicard, entitled Cours D'Instruction d'un SourdMuet de Naissance, Chap. XXV.

sensorium. But such a course will be purposely avoided; it would be alike toilsome and unsatisfactory; it would be as unreasonable as to require from every author in Natural Philosophy a new confutation of the Alchemists, and to exact from every modern astronomer a like renewed discomfiture of long since exploded theories of the heavenly motions. Mr. Locke himself seems willing to admit, that the discussion does not naturally and necessarily make a part of Mental Philosophy; and gives us clearly to understand that it holds so conspicuous a place in his essay, merely from the accidental circumstance of the prevalence in his own time of the errour, which he confuted. Accordingly when he prepared an abstract or abridgement of that work for Le Clerc's Bibliotheque Universelle, he omitted the whole of the Book on Innate Ideas.

Furthermore, the whole system of Mr. Locke, (and the same may be said of the views of Reid, Stewart, De Gerando, and Brown, who cannot be considered in the prominent outlines of their doctrines as essentially differing from him,) is an indirect, but conclusive argument against connatural knowledge. If the principles, which they advance, be right, the doctrine of innate knowledge is of course wrong, and requires no direct refutation.

The farmer sees the corn full grown and waving in his field; but he knows it would not have been there, had he not scattered the seed; it has not become what it is, wholly independent of an external agency. And if the mind, like the earth, possesses a natural fertility and capacity of producing, still the results, of which it is capable, can as little be realized, except on certain conditions, as the earth can give out the waving cornfield without the previous planting of the seed. Something is requisite to and to keep it in action; it

bring the mind into action, requires the operation of influences from within and without, the atmosphere, the genial rains and the gentle breezes, as well as its own internal laws and powers of growth; and then the tender plant of thought comes forth; it grows high and shoots out its branches; it is clothed with leaves, and beautified with flowers, and in due season bears the ripe fruit.

§. 142. Further remarks on the rise of knowledge by means of the senses.

Considering it, therefore, as settled, that there is no connatural knowledge, we recur with increased confidence to the principle, which has been laid down in this chapter, that the mind is first brought into action by the intermediation of the senses, and that the greater part of its earliest knowledge is from an external source. The considerations, that have been adduced in support of this doctrine, are obvious and weighty; they account with much probability for the very beginnings of thought and feeling, and are entirely decisive of the character of our early ac quisitions in general. The subject, however, is still open to reflection and if it were needful, might be placed in other lights.

Let us then suppose a man entirely cut off from all outward material impressions, or what is the same thing, with his senses entirely closed. It is very obvious, and the instances already brought forward clearly prove, tha he would be entirely deprived of that vast amount of knowledge, which has an immediate connection with the senses. But this is not all; there are other ideas, whose connection with the senses are less immediate, of which he would not fail to be deprived, by being placed in the circumstances supposed. Even if he should possess the idea of existence, and of himself as a thinking and sentient being, (although we cannot well imagine how this should be, independently of some impression on the senses,) still we have no reason to believe that he would know any thing of space, of motion, of succession, of duration, of the place of objects, of time, &c.

Now it will be noticed, that these are elementary thoughts of great importance; such as are rightly consid ered essential to the appropriate action of the mind, and to its advancement in knowledge. What could he know of time, without a knowledge of day and night, the rising and setting sun, the changes of the seasons, or some other of its measurements! What could he know

of motion, while utterly unable to form the idea of place! And what could he know of place without the aid of the senses! And under such circumstances, what reasoning would he be capable of, further than to form the single proposition, that his feelings whatever they might be, belonged to himself!

Look at the subject as we will, we must at last come to the conclusion, that the connection of the mind with the material world by means of the senses is the basis, to a great extent at least, of our early mental history, and the only key, that can unlock its explanation. A sketch of that part of the mind's history, without a reference to its relation to matter, would infallibly be found vague, imperfect, and false.-Let it suffice then to add here, that man is what he is in fact, and what he is designed to be in the present life, only by means of this connection. He cannot free himself from it, if he would; and if he should succeed in the attempt, it would only result in self prostration and imbecility. The forms of matter, operating through the senses, press, as it were, on the soul's secret power of harmony, and it sends forth the answer of its thought and feeling. The material creation, where Providence has fixed our dwelling place, and this earthly tenement of our bodies form the first scene of the mind's developement, the first theatre of its exercises, where it puts forth and enacts the incipient part in the great drama of its struggles, growth, and triumphs.

CHAPTER SECOND.

SENSATION AND PERCEPTION.

§. 143. Sensation a simple mental state originating in the

senses.

In tracing the history of that portion of human thought, which is of external origin, we have frequent occasion to make use of the words Sensation and Perception.

The term SENSATION is not of so general a nature as to include every variety of mental state, but is limited to such as answer to a particular description. It does not appear, that the usage of language would forbid our speaking of the feelings of warmth and coldness and hardness, as well as of the feelings of love and benevolence and anger, but it would clearly forbid our using the term SENSATION with an application equally extensive. Its application is not only limited, but is fixed with a considerable degree of precision.

Sensation, being a simple act or state of the mind, is unsusceptible of definition; and this is one of its characteristics. As this alone, however, would not separate it from many other mental states, it has this peculiarity to distinguish it, that it is immediately successive to a change in some organ of sense, or at least to a bodily change of some kind. But it is evident, that in respect to numerous other feelings this statement does not hold good. They are immediately subsequent, not to bodily impressions, but to other states of the soul itself. Hence it is, that while