deficiency in certain faculties or qualifications may not until this period be ascertained. The development of the intellectual faculties may, therefore, be considered as depending on two circumstances: the growth of the material frame, and of the organs in which, and through which, the soul exists and acts; and the cultivation and exercise of the faculties themselves, by which they become expanded and improved, and are gradually brought into a state of greater power and activity.

Some men appear, during youth, to possess great intellectual capacity, and to be endowed with a very extraordinary degree of power and activity in the exertion of it; but who in subsequent life, after they have reached maturity, do not seem to be gifted with the same amount of ability, and entirely neglect to fulfil those sanguine expectations, which their early display of talent had raised. This may be extensively, although not entirely, owing to the constitution of their material frames and organs, which in their younger days possessed the activity and energy capacitated for the exercise of a soul of a powerful and enterprising character; but which, when the body became matured by age, for want of a due elasticity and vigour, is restrained in those efforts which it was formerly wont to exhibit.

Each of the intellectual faculties is capable of improvement by cultivation to an almost infinite extent, and is dependent on such a course for reaching maturity. It is also rendered more energetic and more powerful by this means. By exercise the intellectual organs of the body become better fitted for exertion, and the mind acquires greater ascendancy and control in the direction of them."

The general enlargement and improvement of the mind by this method is, however, a topic far too important to be disposed of summarily. Its discussion at length has, therefore, been reserved as the subject for a separate chapter in this Treatise.1

9 Lord Bacon remarks that the intellectual powers have fewer means to work upon, than the will or body of man; but the one that prevaileth, that is, exercises, worketh more forcibly in them than in the rest.-Helps of the Intellectual Powers.

1 Vide post, chap. vii.

CHAPTER II.

THE FACULTY OF UNDERSTANDING.

1. Quality and Constitution of this Faculty, and of its Subordinate Constituent Capacities.

As the first intellectual operation which the mind of every one performs is that of knowing, so the understanding, by which that act is achieved, must be ranked as the first in order among the intellectual faculties.1 And as the senses are the first excited of all the powers possessed by an animated being, so the understanding is exercised the earliest of all the faculties. of the mind, and is probably exerted very soon after the soul is united to the body. To the senses the understanding is indebted for supplying it with intellectual food, and it is the only faculty immediately connected with them. The infant, immediately on its emerging from the womb, and, it may be, even before that period, is actively at work through the instrumentality of this faculty in imbibing a vast store of ideas for its use in after-life. Silently and unobserved, but not the less surely or diligently, does this important process go forward.* Every sense is then fresh and lively, and awake to each impression, whether of sight, of sound, of feeling, or of touch; while

3

1 "The power of perception is that which we call the understanding."Locke. Essay on the Understanding, b. ii. c. xxi. s. 5.

"What is in man the understanding? The assemblage of his ideas. To what sort of understanding do we give the name of talent? To an understanding concentred in one subject, that is to say, to a large assemblage of ideas of the same kind."-Helvetius. Treatise on Man, sect. v. c. 2.

2 According to Burton, the apprehensive faculty consists of two parts, inward and outward. Of the outward part are the five senses. Of the inward are common sense, phantasy (imagination ?), and energy.-Anatomy of Melancholy, pt. i. s. 1. p. 22.

Hobbes asserts that there is no conception in a man's mind, which has not, at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense.-Leviathan, pt. 1. c. i.

According to Condillac, the mind perceives nothing but sensations. What Locke terms reflection, appears to be omitted from his system, except so far as it is confounded with memory.

Locke remarks on the eagerness of new-born children to obtain ideas. Essay on the Understanding, b. ii. c. 9. s. 7.

the various sensations so produced are at once communicated to the understanding, and form the materials of study for this most attentive learner. Probably, indeed, as soon as the soul itself enters upon its separate independent existence, it commences the reception of ideas, inasmuch as action seems essential to its very being; and of all acts that of receiving ideas must necessarily be one of the simplest and easiest. If therefore, during the first stages of infancy, ideas do not enter into the mind, it may reasonably be questioned whether the soul is then united to the body; and whether that process takes place before, or only contemporaneously with, the dawning and exhibition of intelligence.

The activity and vigour of the understanding in infants, is further extensively promoted by the circumstance that the other faculties of the mind are not at this period developed, and consequently do not, as in the case of adults, interfere with the operation of this faculty. The emotions however, when, and so far as, they do accompany these early mental efforts, are of important use to imprint on the mind the ideas thus obtained. Until the understanding is stored with ideas, the other faculties, whose province it is to operate on the materials supplied, are but little, if at all, exerted.

The understanding consists in the power of the mind to receive readily, distinctly, and amply, the ideas of any subject which may be presented to its notice, and thereby to take an accurate and complete survey of it. It is by the understanding that the simple process of ascertaining the nature of any matter which may be submitted to our observation is effected. This faculty is more dependent than the other intellectual faculties are on the perfection of the organs of the senses, by means of which sensations, and from them ideas, are received into the mind, as, unless these are correctly received, no correct view of them can be obtained.

There appears indeed to be no reason why ideas should not be communicated to the mind with equal facility and correctness through the sense of feeling, as through those of seeing and hearing. Whatever sense serves to convey a sensation affording information respecting external objects, serves to

5 Locke compares the uninformed mind, which has yet to be impressed with ideas, to a sheet of white paper.-Essay on the Understanding, b. ii.

c. i. s. 2.

6 Nevertheless, Des Cartes remarks that "in our early years the mind was so immersed in the body, that, although it perceived many things with sufficient clearness, it yet knew nothing distinctly."-Principia, par. i. s. 42.

Malebranche holds that there are four different modes of perception: 1. Knowing things by themselves. 2. Knowing them by their ideas. 3. Knowing them by internal sensation. 4. Knowing them by conjecture.— Search after Truth, pt. ii. b. iii. c. 7, s. 1.

UNDERSTANDING THE ONLY SOURCE OF IDEAS.

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communicate ideas to the mind. It is only, however, in the case of those who are deprived of the sense either of sight or sound, that resort is had generally to that of feeling to supply ordinary ideas. With all persons nevertheless, the latter sense serves to produce a vast variety of sensations, from which ideas spring.

As already remarked in the previous chapter, the lower the faculties or capacities are, the more directly dependent are they on the constitution of the body; while those of the highest intellectual order are the least so. Thus apprehension, which is nearly connected with sensation, is more dependent in this respect than deprehension, whose efforts are grounded on the operations of the former capacity; deprehension than comprehension, the understanding than reason, and reason than genius.

The sensations communicated by the senses, form the main foundation of the efforts of the faculty of understanding; as the ideas obtained by the understanding, do of those of the faculty of reason.*

9

The understanding, although only one of the faculties of the soul, perhaps indeed the lowest in the order, is very exalted in its nature, very extensive in its powers, and is possessed by man alone of terrestrial beings, in common with his Creator and the angels. Of itself, it is sufficient to constitute him an intelligent being, and it serves as a medium of communication between the mind and all exterior objects. It is, as it were, the eye of the soul, by which all the rays of knowledge are enabled to enter.

The understanding, being one of the most important, and the most active of the intellectual faculties, and the one to which the other faculties are indebted for all the ideas about which they are exercised, is constituted of the three several capacities here described; and its nature and use will be accordingly best understood by an examination of these constituent capacities, with each of which every person is in some measure endowed, although they are not necessarily or generally all extensively possessed by the same person. It is indeed very seldom that

8 "Sense is not knowledge and understanding. There is a higher faculty in the soul of reason and understanding, which judges of sense, detects the phantasy and imposture of it, discovers to us that there is nothing in the objects themselves like to those forementioned sensible ideas, and resolves all sensible things into intelligible principles.”— Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe, b. i. c. 4, p. 635.

9 Aristotle holds that perception differs from intellect, the former being common to all animals, the latter to a few. By perception however he probably intended rather sensation, than what I have here termed understanding.

"Birds possess acute powers of observation."—Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 109.

they do each so exist together, although in some individuals they are thus found.

Like the ocean of the material world into which innumerable streams from all quarters are ever flowing, and contributing to its vastness, while on the other hand it loses every minute by evaporation some portion of its mass; so the mind of man from the first hour of his existence until his death, is constantly receiving fresh streams of knowledge through the ideas which the understanding is ever imbibing: while, on the other hand, a never ceasing efflux is going on, by the fading and obliteration of ideas from the memory. From this it results that the mass of ideas in the mind is always in a state of mutation, which must necessarily have its influence on the whole mental and moral condition and constitution. In this respect, indeed, the body and the mind much resemble each other.

2. The Capacity of Apprehension.

Apprehension is that capacity of the faculty of the understanding, by which it is enabled to receive with celerity, ease, and clearness, and to convey to the mind in an intelligible manner, any simple ideas of outward objects, or any combinations of ideas, that have been formed and rendered into language by any person for the description or illustration of any simple subject or matter, such as in common conversation would be made use of in describing it, so as to communicate a general acquaintance with it.'

The ideas received by this capacity, are of each kind as regards their source, but are mainly those obtained by sensation. Indeed, no ideas are dealt by, or even received into, the mind, unless they are clearly apprehended. The nature of some, however, is perceived immediately that the sensation of them is communicated; while about others delay takes place, during which the mind apprehends their quality. Probably indeed, every idea, whatever be its character, is submitted to the apprehension ere the other capacities of the understanding are exercised upon it; although certain of those ideas may occupy more of the attention of apprehension than others do.

If it be objected to this theory, that upon the principle thus propounded, ideas of whatever character or quality, are

1 According to Archbishop Whately, logical writers define simple apprehension to be "that act or condition of the mind in which it receives a notion of any object; and which is analogous to the perception of the senses."-Logic, b. ii. chap. i. s. 1.