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mingle into one whole state of enchantment and delight, or consternation and pain.

Lastly,-In general, the cultivation of the Intellect checks the development of the Sensitivity; and, vice versa, the development of the Sensitivity is unfavourable to the exercise and cultivation of the Intellect.

Pain and pleasure, when experienced in a high degree, will prevent or interrupt the exercise of the intellectual faculties. Feelings of false shame deprive the person who experiences them of the full possession of his thoughts and language. Self-conceit and self-interest obscure and obstruct the discernment of what is true and right. The passions, when strongly excited, take away the full use and command of the rational powers. And even the indulgence of the benevolent and social affections has a tendency to weaken the mind for intellectual effort. On the other hand, the cultivation of the Intellect checks and moderates the development of the Feelings; and when exclusively attended to, may induce a want of due sensibility to the relations and events of social life.

These points of difference may serve to distinguish that part of the philosophy of mind on which moral science is more immediately founded, from Intellectual philosophy, and to separate the philosophy of our Principles of Action from the philosophy of our Powers of Knowledge; inasmuch as our Principles of Action contain an element which is not involved in the exercise of our Powers of Knowledge.

But notwithstanding these points of difference, there are some philosophers who represent the operations of Intellect as processes of Feeling, while others do not regard the susceptibility of Feeling as a peculiar or original element of our mental constitution, but rather as the complement or consequence of the operations of Intellect. Now, Knowledge is a necessary condition of Feeling; for consciousness is knowledge; and he who feels must know that he feels. But Knowing and Feeling are not therefore to be confounded.

For, 1. We have feelings of pleasure and pain, as in sickness and in health, in hunger and satiety, when no operation of Intellect has preceded.

2. Although pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, when purely mental, imply a preceding operation of Intellect, by which the grounds of our joy or sorrow are made known, this knowledge is the occasion or condition, not the cause, of our having the Feeling; and

is given by the Intellect, co-operating with the Sensitivity. A bodily impression is not a sensation, though it precedes it. Neither is a Cognition to be confounded with the Feeling which follows it.

And, 3. Our Feelings, especially our sympathetic Feelings, are not always regulated in their intensity by the degree of Knowledge we may antecedently have of their object; which they would be, if they were merely the complement or consequence of Cognitions.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

HAVING shown how principles of action differ from powers of knowledge, it may be proper to arrange and classify them.

The task is interesting and important, but not free from peculiar difficulties. These arise,

1. From the number and variety of the principles of human action.

2. From the combination and connection which may take place among them. And,

3. From the sudden and turbulent way in which they frequently

operate.

The principles of human action may be discovered,

1. By examining our own character and conduct. Or,

2. By examining the character and conduct of others.

In the former mode, we are liable to mistake, through partiality and self-love; in the latter, through ignorance and prejudice.

The difficulties which surround this part of philosophy may account for the different theories which have been framed concerning it.

"We have determined,” says Dr. Reid (Act. Pow., Essay iii. ch. 1), “the forces by which the planets and comets traverse the boundless regions of space; but have not been able to determine, with any degree of unanimity, the forces which every man is conscious of in himself, and by which his conduct is directed." Want of clear and correct knowledge is followed by want of clear and correct language; which makes it still more difficult to define and arrange the principles of human action.

But, if regard be had to the way in which they influence the Will, the principles of human action may be arranged in two great

Classes. As in a watch, or other piece of mechanism, there are some parts which give commencement and continuance to the movement, while there are other parts which direct and moderate that movement; so, in the constitution of the human mind, there are some principles which give impulse and energy to human activity, and there are other principles which direct and regulate that activity. To the one it belongs to rouse and incite-to the other, to guide and govern. Principles of the one Class may be called Springs of Human Action; and principles of the other Class may be called Guides of Human Action.

In the First Class will be included

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principles to which the epithet Active is commonly applied. In connection with these Dr. Reid places DISPOSITION and OPINION.

In the Second Class will be included

giving a

A REGARD TO WHAT IS ADVANTAGEOUS, AND

A REGARD TO WHAT IS RIGHT; OR,

REASON, AND

CONSCIENCE,

SENSE OF PRUDENCE, AND A
SENSE OF DUTY.

These are more commonly called Rational and Governing principles, or Rational and Moral principles; but they are also Active—they powerfully contribute to the formation of human character and conduct; and the difference between them and the principles which are more commonly called Active is, that the influence which they have upon the Will, is not so much in the way of impulse or incitement, as in the way of direction and government.7

7 Dr. Reid's classification of the principles of human action is as follows:"There are some principles of action which require no attention, no deliberation, no will. These, for distinction's sake, we shall call Mechanical."-These are Instinct and Habit.

"Another class we may call Animal. They are such as operate upon the will and intention, but do not suppose any

exercise of judgment or reason; and are, most of them, to be found in some brute animals, as well as in man." These are Appetite, Desire, Affection, Passion, Disposition, and Opinion.

"A Third Class we may call Rational, being proper to man as a rational creature. In all their exertions they require, not only intention and will, but Judgment or Reason."-These are a Regard to our good on

the whole, and a Sense of Duty.—Act. Pow., Essay iii., part i. ch. 1, part ii. ch. 1, part iii. ch. 1.

Mr. Stewart enumerates and illustrates our active principles in the following order:-Appetites, Desires, Affections, Selflove, and the Moral Faculty. The three first may be distinguished, he says, by the title of Instinctive or Implanted Propensities; the two last by the title of Rational and Governing Principles of Action. He adds in a note, "If I had been disposed to examine this part of our constitution with all the minute accuracy of which it is susceptible, I should have preferred the following arrangement to that which I have adopted, as well as to that proposed by

.....

Dr. Reid. 1. Of our original principles of action. 2. Of our acquired principles of action. The original principles of action may be subdivided into the Animal and the Rational to the former of which classes our Instincts ought undoubtedly to be referred as well as our Appetites.. Our acquired principles of action comprehend all those propensities to act which we acquire from Habit. Such are our artificial appetites and artificial desires, and the various factitious motives of human conduct generated by association and fashion."Phil. of Act. and Mor. Pow., vol. i. pp. 12, 13. This arrangement is that of Aristotle; and is engrafted upon the Table given in the Manual at p. 39.

BOOK I.

OF THE SPRINGS OF HUMAN ACTION.

"We have springs of action, an elasticity within us, which is constantly pushing itself outward, and urging us to take part in the scenes among which we live."-HAMPDEN, Introd. to Mor. Phil., Lect. 3.

THE principles of this Class admit of being arranged in Three Orders, according to their nature and origin.

The common origin of them all is to be found in our capacity of feeling pleasure or pain-of being affected by good or evil. But these feelings, before they prompt to action, assume the form of Appetence or Aversion—that is, inclination to, or from, an act, or an object; or desire to seek or to shun it, according as we are affected towards it; and the various Springs of action may be classified according to the nature and origin of that element of inclination, or tendency, or propension, or desire, which gives energy and elasticity to them all.

Now, in some cases, the form of Desire, by which we are prompted to act, is a blind impulse; accompanied by no conception of the act to which it prompts, of the means by which it is to be accomplished, nor of the end to be answered by it. These are cases of Instinctive or Implanted impulse; and, in this Order, may be included the various manifestations of Instinct and Appetite, as Springs of action. In other cases, the feeling of Desire is not a blind impulse; but is accompanied with knowledge of the act to which it prompts.1 Now, among the many and various objects of human desire and human pursuit, there are some which, from the first moment of their being contemplated or obtained, affect us in a way that is agreeable, while there are others which do not so affect us at first, although they may come afterwards to do so. On the other hand, there are some objects which, from the first moment of their being contemplated or

1 The distinction was formerly expressed thus.-Appetitus est vel innatus vel eli

citus; ille est inditus creaturæ, hic excitatus ab objecto.

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