The British Essayists (Volume 44)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1808. Excerpt: ... N77. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2. Adhibita est ars qiuvdmn extrinsecus ex alio genere quodam, quod sibi totum Philosphi assumunt, qua-rem dissolution, divulsamque conglutinaret, el ratione quddam constringent. CIC. de Onit. A certain art is supplied from a foreign source, and claimed by the philosophers as belonging wholly to their province, which binds in a fast union, and under certain laws of arrangement, those loose principles which lie scattered through nature. As I promised my readers something more on the subject of Taste, I shall dedicate this Number to the inquiry; and by taking up the question at a point still nearer its source, endeavour to throw upon it some fresh illustration. In the compass of my reading I have never met with any analysis of the human mind which has contented my curiosity on that subject; and this perpetual disappointment in my expectations from other men, has forced me upon considering for myself; and I shall here lay down the fruits of my own investigation.--Instead of inquiring what names have been invented to express the different properties of the soul, I shall begin with considering the nature of those properties themselves, and then refer them to the distribution already made, as far as the import of the terms invented agrees with the character and office I shall assign to each. There is certainly a power in the mind of perceiving ideas, and the several relations which subsist VOL. XLIV. F between them; and this power is separate and distinct in its nature. When ideas are perceived, together with the relation in which they stand to each other, they are correctly said to be sufficiently understood. Perception is, then, the operation of the understanding, which is a sort of speculum in the mind that represents the objects whi...