THE Views in Theology will continue to be published semi-annually, in May and November, and be devoted chiefly, as heretofore, to discussion on the Doctrines of Religion. Four numbers will form a volume. Those who desire the work, will please to give notice to the publisher, at 148 Nassau-street. Ministers and theological students, of whatever denomination, who apply for it, will receive it without charge. HORE METAPHYSICE. No. II. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE MIND ON EXCITEMENT FROM WITHOUT FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF ITS ACTIVITY. THE next most essential of the mind's relations, after that in which it stands toward God as the continuer of its being, are those which subsist between it and the external existences, that exert influences on it; as it is their impulse that first awakens it to activity, and their continued action that determines in a most important degree, the whole course of its subsequent agency. The question whether created spirits could ever begin to act, could ever gain perceptions and become the subjects of emotions, were it not for the action on them of an external cause, though I do not recollect to have seen it any where formally treated,—is of primary interest: our view of it must affect most essentially our conception of the whole spiritual and material universe. I. That there are strong probabilities, not to say resistless proofs, that the mind, were it subjected to no influence from external causes, would never emerge into consciousness, the following considerations will contribute to show. 1. The consideration that it is united to an organized body, the specific office, the great and almost sole end of which is to furnish it with perceptions, and impress it with sensation, is itself a strong presumption that such is the fact. That the Most High should unnecessarily institute such an instrumentality, would seem to be wholly improbable. It is characteristic of his administration to adapt measures to the natures of his creatures; to employ means only when necessary to ends. To supersede the natural powers of the mind by adventitious instrumentalities; to obstruct its legitimate operations; to subject it to laws that encumber in place of assisting it; is not in accordance with the simplicity and wisdom of his usual procedure. If then it is capable without any external aid, of acquiring thoughts; of discovering the existence and nature of other beings; their relations, agency, character and will; and of acting with a reference to them; why is it, that it is not called to exert that capacity, and act in the sphere for which its endowments fit it? Why is it unnaturally connected with a material body, whose object is to convey to it perceptions, and whose organs are the channels through which all its apprehensions, acquired by its own agency, of things external to itself, are gained? The institution then of this system of means, may be regarded as indicative, not only of its perfect adaptation to our nature and wants, but of the indispensableness to us of the office which it fulfills; of the literal necessity of an external agency in order to the mind's being called into activity, and enjoying a possibility of the diversified exercises for which its faculties are fitted. 2. It is corroborated by the fact that it is to the influence of an external cause, that the mind is actually indebted for its first perceptions. That they in all instances take place through impressions on the senses, or the agency in some form of the body, none probably will dispute. It is certainly indicated by the first visible manifestations of activity. No traces appear in earliest infancy of any ideas, except such as are derived through the body; and none other are ever the subject of early recollections. This fact then strongly favours the conclusion that were it not for the influences, which reach it through that channel, or some equivalent instrumentality, it could never become the subject of perceptions. 3. There is no species of ideas of which it can be conceived to be possible that the mind could become possessed, without the excitement of an external agency. If its nature itself authorizes the belief that it would awake to activity without any such excitement, it must be by indicating that there are some particular species of thought, which would arise in it, though it were wholly uninfluenced by exterior objects. What species is there, however, of which it can be believed that by the mere virtue of its nature, it could in that manner become possessed? Not a consciousness or apprehension of its existence or faculties; as that neither does nor can precede, but is a consequent of its activity, or at most, is merely cotemporary with and involved in it. Its operations are the only subjects of its consciousness it has no independent sense of its being, or apprehension of its nature. Not a vision or conception of măterial objects; as no apprehensions of them are or can be gained, except through their action on the senses. Not an apprehension of God; for he is not the object of direct perception, but is discerned only through his works. And as neither the mind itself, nor any species of external existences, could in that manner become the object of thought to it, so neither could any of the relations that subsist between it and those existences, nor any of their agencies. We are thus carried resistlessly by this consideration, to the conclusion that the mind is necessarily indebted to influences from without, for the commencement of its activity. 4. All the thoughts of which the mind ever becomes the subject, are in fact consequent either immediately or remotely, on the action on it of external causes. |