ESSAY S

Ο Ν THE

ACTIVE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND.

TH

INTRODUCTION.

HE divifion of the faculties of the human mind into Underftanding and Will is very ancient, and has been very generally adopted; the former comprehending all our speculative, the latter all our active Powers.

It is evidently the intention of our Maker, that man should be an active and not merely a fpeculative being. For this purpose, certain active powers have been given him, limited indeed in many respects, but fuited to his rank and place in the creation.

Our business is to manage these powers, by proposing to ourfelves the beft ends, planning the most proper system of conduct that is in our power, and executing it with industry and zeal. This is true wisdom; this is the very intention of our being.

Every thing virtuous and praise-worthy must lie in the right ufe of our power; every thing vicious and blameable in the abuse of it. What is not within the sphere of our power cannot be imputed to us either for blame or praise. These are self-evident

truths, to which every unprejudiced mind yields an immediate

and invincible affent.

Knowledge derives its value from this, that it enlarges our power, and directs us in the application of it. For in the right employment of our active power confifts all the honour, dignity and worth of a man, and, in the abuse and perversion of it, all vice, corruption and depravity.

We are distinguished from the brute-animals, not lefs by our active than by our fpeculative powers.

The brutes are stimulated to various actions by their instincts, by their appetites, by their paffions. But they feem to be neceffarily determined by the strongest impulse, without any capacity of felf-government. Therefore we do not blame them for what they do; nor have we any reason to think that they blame themselves. They may be trained up by discipline, but cannot be governed by law. There is no evidence that they have the conception of a law, or of its obligation.

Man is capable of acting from motives of a higher nature. He perceives a dignity and worth in one course of conduct, a demerit and turpitude in another, which brutes have not the сараcity to difcern.

He perceives it to be his duty to act the worthy and the honourable part, whether his appetites and paffions incite him to it, or to the contrary. When he facrifices the gratification of the strongest appetites or paffions to duty, this is fo far from diminishing the merit of his conduct, that it greatly increases it, and affords, upon reflection, an inward fatisfaction and triumph, of which brute-animals are not fufceptible. When he acts a contrary part, he has a consciousness of demerit, to which they are no less strangers.

Since,

Since, therefore, the active powers of man make so important a part of his constitution, and distinguish him fo eminently from his fellow-animals, they deserve no less to be the subject of philofophical difquifition than his intellectual powers.

A just knowledge of our powers, whether intellectual or active, is so far of real importance to us, as it aids us in the exercise of them. And every man must acknowledge, that to act properly is much more valuable than to think justly or reason acutely.