the science of Anatomy is to the Surgeon. It constitutes the first principles of rational practice. It is in a moral view, the anatomy of the heart. It discovers

why it beats, and how it beats; indicates appearances in a sound and healthy state; detects diseases with their cause; and it is infinitely more fortunate in the power it communicates of applying suitable remedies.

Yet, notwithstanding the superior importance of this Science, it has not engaged the attention of philosophers, to an equal degree with the intellectual powers of man. Those who are conscious of the acuteness of their own intellects, have loved to employ them upon subjects the most difficult and abstruse. Their chief delight has been in the study of natures and essences; and their ambition, to solve difficulties which have repeatedly occupied and embarrassed the strongest minds. Patient attention to

facts appears to them an employment best adapted to plain and common understandings it is the province of Genius to soar above the common level, and penetrate the mists which surround the regions of intellect.

When it is asserted that the passions of the mind have not employed the attention of the philosophic world, equally with the other branches which relate to Man, the assertion implies that they have not been totally neglected. Philosophers, in their study of human nature, have not passed them over in silence. They have treated them occasionally, but generally speaking superficially; chiefly as appendages to their other philosophical pursuits. This circumstance, it is acknowledged, has been productive of a train of thought peculiar to each speculator; and thus has each been able to throw some light upon a subject, which

it was not his sole or primary object to investigate.

Among the Authors who have paid the most attention to the subject, Professor Hutcheson, Dr. Watts, Mr. Grove, the Writer of the Article" on the Passions of Men," in the British Encyclopædia, and Mr. Hume, may justly be placed in the first rank. The observations of Mr. Hutcheson chiefly respect the moral uses of the Passions, which it is not the professed object of the present Treatise to investigate. Objections to some of the principles advanced by Dr. Watts, and Mr. Grove, as well as other Writers of eminence, are stated in the Introductory Chapter, and will occasionally appear in different parts of this Work. It will therefore be sufficient to remark at present, that the very small degree of information obtained respecting many essential points; the imperfection of every arrangement hitherto made; the almost universal disagreement among philo

sophers, in their ideas concerning the precise nature of a Passion, Emotion, and Affection, or in what respect they specifically differ from each other, &c. were the principal inducements to the Author of the following Treatise, to pay much greater attention to the workings of the human mind, than he would have done, had their remarks been more satisfactory. In order to find his way through perplexing labyrinths, he was determined to extend the analytical method much farther than it has hitherto been pursued; from a full conviction that, although it is not in general the most popular and acceptable mode, it is much the securest, and best adapted to procure a strength of evidence, in philosophical, moral, and religious subjects, which approaches to the nature of demonstration.

The Treatise now submitted to public candour, contains the history and the result of this process; in which, however slow and tedious the steps, the Author has been

frequently relieved, and sometimes amply rewarded, by discoveries which appeared to him equally new and important. If they should appear so to others, he will feel himself completely recompensed for his labour.

As he is not without apprehensions that the analytical part will appear much too tedious and prolix, thus he fears that the philosophical observations and inquiries will appear much too superficial; but he would remind the Reader that his sole object in the present treatise, is to give an epitome of general and influential principles, and not to pursue the development of any to the extent of which it is susceptible.

The natural consequences of this immediate application to the genuine sources of knowledge, without any pre-conceived hypothesis, are, that, in some instances, the author has traced a perfect coincidence of opinion. between his own and those of preceding Writers on the Passions; in many, he has cor