is believed to depend upon its unalterable and imperishable spirituality.

IMAGINATION.

The power of the mind to decompose its conceptions, and to recombine the elements of them at its pleasure, is called its faculty of imagination. Imagination is distinguished from memory, not merely by the activity of the mind in the former case, but by the diversified composition of its ideas. To think of the heavens, as glowing like a furnace, and peopled with aerial armies, is to imagine, or to bring together the parts of many actual conceptions. This sort of mental creation is carried on, usually, under the influence of the taste for what is beautiful and sublime. To imagine things neither pleasing, nor grand, nor in any way adapted to excite agreeable emotions, belongs to a fantastic or disordered mind. Poetical genius seems to include, 1st, A power of abstraction in the senses, which enables the mind to separate the qualities and appearances of objects one from another: for unless they were so separated, they would not offer themselves readily for recombination; 2d, A power of vivid conception; 3d, A great susceptibility to the emotions of beauty and sublimity;

4th, A prompt correspondence between these emotions and the moral sentiments; 5th, A nice judgment, in fixing the boundary between sobriety and extravagance; 6th, A quick recollection of words; and 7th, An ear, or sense of the rhythm, or mutual relation of words, as mere sounds.

IMPOSSIBLE;

That which cannot be affirmed, or imagined, without involving some absurdity; as, that all the parts of a thing together should make more or less than the whole. When it is said, as sometimes, that it is impossible that God should do so and so, all that can be properly intended is, that a contradiction in terms, or a direct absurdity, is contained in the supposition of the contrary.

IMPRESSION.

Whenever, either through the senses, or from its own feelings, the mind has undergone a change, or has passed from one state to another, passively, it is said to have received an impression-in allusion to the image that is imprinted upon softened

wax.

INDEFINITE PROPOSITIONS,

Are those which do not limit the affirmation they contain, or declare whether it be universal, "Men or proper to a part, or an individual. are creatures of habit," might be understood to mean, that many men, or some men are so; though the nature of the proposition implies that it is intended to be universal. An indefinite form of speaking is proper when no ambiguity is likely to arise; as if it were said, "Men are mortal;" but then the abstract form is preferable—“ Man is mortal." If it were said-" Men are knaves," the indefinite form of the proposition would seem to convey a false assertion-namely, that all men are knaves.

INDUCTION,

it

Is the drawing, or leading off an inference, or general fact, from a number of instances. Or, is the summing up of the result of observations and experiments. It was Lord Bacon who introduced this term into philosophy; and who moreover taught the true method of acquiring a knowledge of the laws of nature, by attending to

facts, and by carefully comparing a great number of instances; instead of the old method of philosophizing, which consisted in forming a theory, or supposition, independently of all facts, and then explaining the appearances of nature on the blind assumption that the theory was true. The old method was the shortest and the easiest; but it was utterly fallacious. The modern, or Baconian method, is laborious, and difficult; but it is successful, and has proved in the highest degree beneficial. See the words EXPERIMENT and HY

POTHESIS.

INFERENCE,

Is a fact or truth, affirmed on the ground of its known or supposed connexion with some other fact, or truth, which is already established, or admitted. A. and B. are known, or believed, to be inseparable companions: if therefore we see A. we infer that B. is not far distant. The confidence with which we rely upon the truth of inferences, results from that persuasion, which is natural to the human mind, and which is insensibly produced by the uniformity of nature (and it springs also from the consciousness of power) that every effect has a cause, and that the connexion between causes and effects is invariable: or that events

F

which have been seen constantly to succeed one the other, in a certain order, will continue to do so. The manner in which inferences are drawn from facts, may be thus exemplified :—On landing upon an unknown shore, we observe the prints of human feet on the sands, and infer that the country is inhabited;-for the mould of a human foot must be the result, not of the impression of the waves, but of a cause proper to its production; and this can be nothing else but the foot of man. These prints are fresh, and are found below the level of high water.-We infer then again, that some human being is not far distant; for the action of the waves must (according to the established order of nature) have obliterated them, had they been impressed before the last flow of the tide. Again, the prints are those, not only of naked feet, but of feet that have never been confined by the habit of wearing shoes :-it is then probable, if not certain, that these men are savages. In these instances of assuming a fact, of which we have none but indirect evidence, all the confidence of our belief springs from the persuasion, both that every effect must have a cause, and that every effect must have a cause suited to it, in all its conditions. Or in other words, that every part, and property, and circumstance of an effect, must have a cause proper to itself. Independently of any process of