ESSAYS

ON

THE ACTIVE POWERS

OF THE

HUMAN MIND.

INTRODUCTION.

THE division of the faculties of the human mind into Understanding 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 speculative being. For this purpose, certain active powers have been given him, limited indeed in many respects, but suited to his rank and place in the

creation.

Our business is to manage these powers, by proposing to ourselves the best 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 praiseworthy must lie in the right use 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 assent.

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 consists all the honour, dignity and worth of a man; and in the abuse and perversion of it, all vice, corruption and depravity.

VOL. III.

We are distinguished from the brute animals, not less by our active than by our speculative powers.

The brutes are stimulated to various actions by their instincts, by their appetites, by their passions; but they seem to be necessarily determined by the strongest impulse, without any capacity of self 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 capacity to discern.

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

Since, therefore, the active powers of man make so important a part of his constitution, and distinguish him so eminently from his fellow animals, they deserve no less to be the subject of philosophical disquisition 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.

ESSAY I.

OF ACTIVE POWER IN GENERAL.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER.

TO consider gravely what is meant by active power, may seem altogether unnecessary, and to be mere trifling. It is not a term of art, but a common word in our language, used every day in discourse, even by the vulgar. We find words of the same meaning in all other languages; and there is no reason to think that it is not perfectly understood by all men who understand the English language.

I believe all this is true, and that an attempt to explain a word so well understood, and to show that it has a meaning, requires an apology.

The apology is, that this term so well understood by the vulgar, has been darkened by philosophers, who, in this, as in many other instances, have found great difficulties about a thing which, to the rest of mankind, seems perfectly clear.

This has been the more easily effected, because power is a thing so much of its own kind, and so simple in its nature, as not to admit of a logical definition.

It is well known, that there are many things perfectly understood, and of which we have clear and distinct conceptions, which cannot be logically defined. No man ever attempted to define magnitude; yet there is no word whose meaning is more distinctly or more generally understood. We cannot give a logical definition of thought, of duration, of number, or of motion. When men attempt to define such things, they give no light. They may give a synonymous word or phrase, but it will probably be a worse for a better. If they will define, the definition will either be grounded upon a hypothesis, or it will darken the subject rather than throw light upon it.

The Aristotelian definition of motion, that it is "Actus entis in potentia, quatenus in potentia," has been justly censured by modern philosophers; yet I think it is matched by what a celebrated modern philosopher has given us, as the most accurate defini

tion of belief, to wit, "That it is a lively idea related to, or associated with a present impression." Treatise of Human Nature, vol. 1. p. 172. "Memory," according to the same philosopher," is the faculty by which we repeat our impressions, so as that they retain a considerable degree of their first vivacity, and are somewhat intermediate between an idea and an impression."

Euclid, if his editors have not done him injustice, has attempted to define a right line, to define unity, ratio, and number. But these definitions are good for nothing. We may indeed suspect. them not to be Euclid's; because they are never once quoted in the Elements, and are of no use.

I shall not therefore attempt to define active power, that I may not be liable to the same censure; but shall offer some observations that may lead us to attend to the conception we have of it in our own minds.

1st, Power is not an object of any of our external senses, nor even an object of consciousness.

That it is not seen, nor heard, nor touched, nor tasted, nor smelt, needs no proof. That we are not conscious of it, in the proper sense of that word, will be no less evident, if we reflect, that consciousness is that power of the mind by which it has an immediate knowledge of its own operations. Power is not an operation of the mind, and therefore no object of consciousness. Indeed every operation of the mind is the exertion of some power of the mind; but we are conscious of the operation only, the power lies behind the scene; and though we may justly infer the power from the operation, it must be remembered, that inferring is not the province of consciousness, but of reason.

I acknowledge, therefore, that our having any conception or idea of power is repugnant to Mr. Locke's theory, that all our simple ideas are got either by the external senses, or by consciousness. Both cannot be true. Mr. Hume perceived this repugnancy, and consistently maintained, that we have no idea of power. Mr. Locke did not perceive it. If he had, it might have led him to suspect his theory; for when theory is repugnant to fact, it is easy to see which ought to yield. I am conscious that I have a conception or idea of power, but, strictly speaking, I am not conscious that I have power.

I shall have occasion to show, that we have very early, from our constitution, a conviction or belief of some degree of active power in ourselves. This belief, however, is not consciousness: for we may be deceived in it; but the testimony of consciousness can never deceive. Thus, a man who is struck with a palsy in the night, commonly knows not that he has lost the power of speech till he attempts to speak; he knows not whether he can move his hands and arms till he makes the trial; and if, without making trial, he consults his consciousness ever so atten

tively, it will give him no information whether he has lost these powers, or still retains them.

From this we must conclude, that the powers we have are not an object of consciousness, though it would be foolish to censure this way of speaking in popular discourse, which requires not accurate attention to the different provinces of our various faculties. The testimony of consciousness is always unerring, nor was it ever called in question by the greatest skeptics, ancient or modern.

2dly, A second observation is, that as there are some things of which we have a direct, and others of which we have only a relative conception, power belongs to the latter class.

As this distinction is overlooked by most writers in logic, I shall beg to illustrate it a little, and then shall apply it to the present subject.

Of some things, we know what they are in themselves; our conception of such things I call direct. Of other things, we know not what they are in themselves, but only that they have certain properties or attributes, or certain relations to other things ; of these our conception is only relative.

To illustrate this by some examples; in the university library, I call for the book, press L, shelf 10. No. 10. the library keeper must have such a conception of the book I want, as to be able to distinguish it from ten thousand that are under his care. But what conception does he form of it from my words? They inform him neither of the author, nor the subject, nor the language, nor the size, nor the binding, but only of its mark and place. His conception of it is merely relative to these circumstances; yet this relative notion enables him to distinguish it from every other book in the library.

There are other relative notions that are not taken from accidental relations, as in the example just now mentioned, but from qualities or attributes essential to the thing.

Of this kind are our notions both of body and mind. What is body? It is, say philosophers, that which is extended, solid, and divisible. Says the querist, I do not ask what the properties of body are, but what is the thing itself? Let me first know directly what body is, and then consider its properties. To this demand I am afraid the querist will meet with no satisfactory answer; because our notion of body is not direct but relative to its qualities. We know that it is something extended, solid, and divisible, and we know no more.

Again, if it should be asked, What is mind? It is that which thinks. I ask not what it does, or what its operations are, but what it is? To this I can find no answer; our notion of mind being not direct, but relative to its operations, as our notion of body is relative to its qualities.

There are even many of the qualities of body, of which we