tion of power. er. Power that is controlled in part is an admissible notion, and therefore it is that the word freedom, as applied to the human mind, is a term that has a variable value. Human minds are more or less free at different times or in different conditions. One mind has incomparably more freedom than some other minds; some appear to have none.

Power that is overpowered is not pow

99. This primary element of our consciousness, which we are intending when we employ the word power, is entitled to the foremost place in this set of abstract notions; first, because the other terms of the set depend entirely upon this for their significance; and, secondly, because among them this is the one that draws its meaning directly from our consciousness, and which is able to stand by itself without support.

100. When we shall come to inquire hereafter concerning the structure of Mind as a subject of physical science, we may see reason to assent to this doctrine, namely, that MIND is the only power or force in the universe of which we have or can have any cognizance. In that case we shall be ready to grant that, in the scheme of the material world, as to all those "constant sequences," as they are called, and those invariable linkings of event to event with which physical science is concerned, the term causation can be applied to them only in a figurative sense or by a metonymy. This tendency to impute power or inherent force to the immediate antecedent of any event, and so to speak of physical causes and effects, is, in fact, a clear indication of the prerogative of the Mind itself, conscious

as it is of being the initiative power both within itself and as it is related to the outer world.

101. Uncultured nations, and, indeed, the ignorant and imaginative every where, are prompt to impute Mind, and feeling, and purpose, and power to all things material-animate and inanimate, and to suppose that a hidden soul is expressing itself in every event, especially in such as excite wonder or terror. Philosophy comes in to check, or to dispel entirely, these imaginary imputations, and to deprive the term causation of its meaning otherwise than as significant of the fixed sequency of events. Physical science is doing this more and more, and it must do so until this process of generalization comes at length to touch or to call in question the prerogatives of the world of Mind. When this happens, a strong reaction takes place, and then a challenge is made on behalf of those intuitive convictions which are anterior to formal reasoning, and which, therefore, have a hold of the intellect that is too strong to be much affected by logic, however specious it may be.

102. In recent times strenuous endeavors have been made to bring into doubt those instinctive convictions which are part of the constitution of the human mind, and which are the foundation of all knowledge, ordinary or scientific.

103. On the one hand, to reject these primary convictions because they can not be made good by reasoning, or, on the other hand, to attempt to establish them as theorems that are capable of demonstration, is to misapprehend the constitution of the mind. What can be done by means of that sort of analysis and rea

soning which is called metaphysical, is simply this— to exhibit the relative position of those abstract notions which are the product of thought. The absolute value of the terms appropriated to those notions is not to be found, for elements are not to be analyzed.

104. It does not come, therefore, within the province of metaphysics to add any thing, even a particle, to our knowledge of the world of Mind. It has done its utmost when it has set its own house in order. If any genuine advances are possible on this field, they must be looked for on the path of physical inquiry.

V.

METAPHYSICS:

CONCRETIVE ABSTRACTIONS.

105. In the exercise of this same faculty of abstraction we may either, as in the various instances already mentioned, employ ourselves in setting off from some complex notion, one by one, its several constituents, until we arrive at that which admits of no further separation, or, otherwise, we may take up an abstract idea or a principle, whether it be of the simplest order or not, and then look about for the same idea or principle as it is to be met with elsewhere, imbodied under very different conditions, and combined with other elements.

106. Instances of this kind meet us at every step throughout the circle of the physical sciences; in truth, such instances constitute the staple of these sciences, and they are so abundant that they need not be

mentioned otherwise than briefly in illustration of what we now intend. The "laws of nature," as they are called, are, as to our mode of conceiving of them, certain abstract notions, which we recognize as we find them taking effect in a multitude of diversified in

stances.

107. Newton's falling apple suggested to him a "law," which he perceived to take effect in determining the revolution of the moon in her orbit, and then again to prevail throughout the planetary system. When the ascent of water under a vacuum came to be truly understood, the rise of mercury in a tube, under the same conditions, was seen to be an instance explicable by means of the same law; and then the heights respectively to which the two fluids will rise in vacuo were found to correspond to the specific gravity of the two as weighed against the terrestrial atmosphere, thus confirming the principle that had been assumed. Those innumerable analogies which are found to prevail between vegetable and animal organizations are instances of the same kind; as, for example, the several processes of nutrition, excretion, respiration, secretion, are found to be, to a certain extent, identical in principle; that is to say, a law, which, as we apprehend it, is not a reality any where existing, but is a pure abstraction, is recognized in this, in that, in many instances, which, at the first view of them, differ in many respects, and they so differ that it is with an emotion, first of surprise and then of pleasure, that we catch the identity which has been concealed, as we might say, hitherto, within the folds of many exterior diversities.

108. Abstractions of this kind may properly be called CONCRETIVE, because their tendency is to gather around themselves other adjuncts than those with which, at first, they may have presented themselves to our view. The human mind, when once its faculties have been pleasurably stimulated in this manner, eagerly goes in quest of these instances of sameness amid differences. The mind is never wearied in the pursuit of this ever-fresh intellectual gratification; this appetite of the reason meets no satiety in its indulg

ence.

109. As well in gaining possession of these concretive abstractions at the first as in pursuing them through all diversities of form, it is the same faculty that is brought into exercise as in the analytic processes which we have already spoken of. But now we find ourselves to be moving in a contrary direc tion, and we have also now another end in view.

110. Nor is this the only difference between the two mental exercises; for the state of mind which is produced by the one when it has become a habit of thought, is in utter contrast with that state of mind. which is produced by the other when it also has become a habit of thought in the individual mind.

111. In following out, to their last stage, those processes which yield what we have called ultimate abstractions, we are, in a manner, driven forward by a stern impulse, which forbids our stopping short any where, so long as to advance another step may be possible; and when at length we reach that last position-a position on the very verge of the region that is accessible to the human intellect, we retrace our