CHAPTER FIRST."

OF INTERNAL ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE.

§. 253. The soul has fountains of knowledge within.

WE have traced the history of the mind thus far with continued and increased satisfaction, because we have been guided solely by well authenticated facts, without the least desire of exciting wonder by exaggeration, and with no other feeling than that of knowing the truth. With cautious endeavours not to trespass upon those limits, which the Creator himself has set to our inquiries, we have seen the mind placed in the position of a necessary connection with the material world through the medium of the senses, and in this way awakened into life, activity, and power. Dumb matter seems to have been designed and appointed by Providence as the handmaid and nurse of the mind in the days of its infancy; and for that purpose to have been endued with forin, and fragrance, and colour the most various and delightful. Material eyes were given to the soul, that it might see; and material hands, that it might handle; and rearing, that it might hear; but the time shall come, when these outward and bodily helps shall be taken away, and it will see, as it were, face to face, and not as in a glass darkly. Even before the body is put off, and the senses are entirely closed up, the spiritual eye begins to open, and the spiritual touch to

feel; in other words the soul finds knowledge in itself, which neither sight, nor touch, nor hearing, nor any other sense, nor any outward forms of matter could give. However interesting and fruitful may have been the train of investigation, which has already been before us, it is to be remembered, that we have hitherto seen the mind unfolding its susceptibilities only in connection with external impressions on the senses. A new view is to be taken of it.

"The natural progress of all true learning, (says the author of Hermes,) is from sense to intellect." Beginning with the senses, and first considering the sensations and ideas which we there receive, we are next to enter more exclusively into the mind itself, and shall there discover a new and prolific source of knowledge. And in thus doing, it is a satisfaction to know, that we are treading essentially in the steps of Mr. Locke, whose general doctrine undoubtedly is, that a part of our ideas only may be traced to the senses, and that the origin of others is to be sought wholly in the intellect itself.

§. 254. Declaration of Mr. Locke, that the soul has knowl

edge in itself.

After alluding to the senses as one great source of knowledge, "the other fountain, (says Locke,) from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which · could not be had from things without, and such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings ideas as distinct, as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself. And though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with ExTERNAL objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly

enough be called INTERNAL SENSE. But as I call the other sensation, so I call this Reflection; the ideas it affords. being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself."

It is perhaps necessary to remark here, that we introduce this passage from Mr. Locke, merely in support of the general doctrine, without wishing to intimate a full approbation of the manner, in which he has applied it in its details. What we say now concerns the general question; and in reference to that question, the passage just referred to is undoubtedly weighty in itself, as well as in consequence of the great fame and acknowledged discernment of its author. It would seem to be the doctrine of Mr. Locke, that our knowledge begins with sensation; that impressions, made on the bodily system, are the first occasions of bringing the mind into action, so far as we can judge. Nor is it necessary to make any objection to this view; it is very reasonable, and pains have already been taken to show, that it is clearly worthy of the utmost regard. But it does not follow from this, (and the passage just quoted shows, that Mr. Locke did not suppose it thus to follow,) that the sensation is the only source of knowledge. There is undeniably something distinct from sensation; thoughts, which have an interiour origin, and cannot be represented by any thing external; principles, so far from being directly dependent on sensation, that they control, compare, appreciate, judge of it.

§. 255. Opinions of Dr. Cudworth on the general subject of internal knowledge.

We may properly introduce here a quotation or two from another great authority, nearly contemporaneous with Mr. Locke, that of Dr. Cudworth, a name which is acknowledged to rank deservedly high among those, which are most closely associated with exalted wisdom and virtue. Let us however be again reminded, that our whole object here is to establish the general position, that there is knowledge of a purely internal, as well as of an external origin; and that, therefore, a reference to writers for

that purpose does not necessarily involve an approbation of, or a responsibility for their opinions any farther than they relate to the particular object in view.The posthumous work, from which these extracts are made, is understood to have been written in reply to Mr. Hobbes, who held the opinion, that all our thoughts of whatever kind are only either direct, or transformed and modified sensations. And therefore the statements made in it, being called forth under such circumstances, must be supposed to have been carefully meditated, and on that ground, among others, are entitled to much weight.

"That oftentimes, says Cudworth, there is more taken notice of and perceived by the mind, both in the sensible objects themselves, and by occasion of them, than was impressed from them, or passively received by sense; which therefore must needs proceed from some inward active principle in that which perceives, I shall make it further appear by some other instances.

"For, first, let a brute and a man at the same time be made spectators of one and the same artificial state, picture, or landskip; here the brute will passively receive all that is impressed from the outward object upon sense by local motion, as well as the man, all the several colours. and figures of it; and yet the man will presently perceive something in this statue or picture, which the brute takes no notice of at all, viz. beauty, and pulchritude, and symmetry, besides the liveliness of the effigies and pourtraitThe eye of the brute being every jot as good a glass or mirror, and perhaps endued with a more perspicacious sense or power of passive perception, than that of aman.

ure.

"Or again, let both a man and a brute at the same time hear the same musical airs, the brute will only be sensible of noise and sounds; but the man will also perceive harmony in them, and be very much delighted with it; nay, even enthusiastically transported by it. Wherefore the brute perceiving all the sounds, as well as the man, but nothing of the harmony, the difference must needs arise

*Immutable Morality, Book IV, Chap. II. §. 14.