Perhaps this subject, however, will always remain in some degree of doubt; and we have merely to say, that of the various opinions which have been advanced in respect to it, we give the preference to that which has been referred to, as supported by Stewart, De Gerando, and other judicious writers, without any disposition to assert its infallibility. The mind appears at its creation to be merely an existence, involving certain principles, and endued with certain powers, but dependant for the first and original developement of those principles and the exercise of those powers on the condition of an outward impression. But, after it has once been brought into action, it finds new sources of thought and feeling in itself.

§ 38. Our first knowledge in general of a material or external origin. If we know not how a single leaf is formed, and are baffled when we attempt to explain the growth even of a blade of grass, it is not surprising that we should fail of absolute certainty in explaining the first cause of the mind's action, and the history of the first feeling to which it gives birth. But, whatever may be true of the first mental exercise, whether its existence be dependant on the condition of some external impression on the senses or not, it may be shown beyond doubt, that, during the early period of life, the connexion of the mind with the material world is particularly close, and that far the greater portion of its acts and feelings can be traced to that

source.

I.-What has been said will, in the first place, be found agreeable to each one's individual experience. If we look back to the early periods of life, we discover not merely that our ideas are then comparatively few in number, but that far the greater proportion of them are suggested by external objects. They are forced upon us by our immediate wants; they have relation to what we ourselves see, or hear, or touch; and only a small proportion are internal and abstract. As we advance in years, susceptibilities and powers of the mind are brought into exercise, which have a less intimate connexion with things external; and thoughts from within are more rapidly multiplied than from without. We have in some meas

ure exhausted that which is external; and as the mind, awakened to a love of knowledge and a consciousness of its own powers, has at last been brought fully into action by means of repeated affections of the senses, a new world (as yet in some degree a TERRA INCOGNITA) projects itself upon our attention, where we are called upon to push our researches and gratify our curiosity.—This is the general experience, the testimony which each one can give for himself.

In the second place, what has been said finds confirmation in what we observe of the progress of the mind in infants and children generally. The course of things which we observe in them agrees with what our personal consciousness and remembrance, as far back as it goes, enables us to testify with no little confidence in our own case. No one can observe the operations of the mind in infants and children, without being led to believe that the Creator has instituted a connexion between the mind and the material world, and that the greater portion of our early knowledge is from an outward source.

To the infant its nursery is the world. The first ideas of the human race are its particular conceptions of its nurse and mother; and the origin and history of all its notions may be traced to its animal wants, to the light that breaks in from its window, and to the few objects in the immediate neighbourhood of the cradle and hearth. When it has become a few years of age, there are other sources of information, other fountains of thought, but they are still external and material. The child then learns the topography of his native village; he explores the margin of its river, ascends its flowering hills, and penetrates the seclusion of its valleys. His mind is full of activity; new and exalting views crowd upon his perceptions; he beholds, and hears, and handles; he wonders, and is delighted. And it is not till after he has grasped the elements of knowledge, which the outward world gives, that he retires within himself, compares, reasons, and seeks for causes and effects.

It is in accordance with what has now been stated of the tendencies of mind in children, that we generally find them instructed by means of sensible objects, or by pio

tures of such objects. When their teachers make an abstract statement to them of an action or event, they do not understand it; they listen to it with an appearance of confusion and vacancy, for the process is undoubtedly · against nature. But show them the objects themselves, or a faithful picture of them, and interpret your abstract expressions by a reference to the object or picture, and they are observed to learn with rapidity and pleasure. The time has not yet arrived for the springing up and growth of thoughts of an internal and abstract origin.

39. Further proof of the beginnings of knowledge from external

causes.

In the third place, the history of language is a strong proof of the correctness of the position, that the mind is first brought into action by means of the senses, and acquires its earliest knowledge from that source. At first words are few in number, corresponding to the limited extent of ideas. The vocabulary of savage tribes (those, for example, which inhabit the American continent) is, in general, exceedingly limited. The growth of a language corresponds to the growth of mind; it extends itself by the increased number and power of its words, nearly in exact correspondence with the multiplication and the increased complexity of thought. Now the history of all language teaches us, that words, which were invented and brought into use one after another, in the gradual way just mentioned, were first employed to express external objects, and afterward were used to express thoughts of an internal origin. Some writer remarks, that among the Boschuanas of South Africa, who live in a parched and arid country, the word PULO, which literally signifies rain, is the only term they have to express a blessing or blessings. But there may be blessings internal as well as external; goods and joys of the mind as well as of the body; still, in the language of these Africans, it is all rain; the blessings of hope, and peace, and friendship, and submission, and all other modes of intellectual and sentient good, are nothing but rain.

There are thousands of instances of this kind. Almost all the words in every language expressive of the suscep

tibilities and operations of the mind, may be clearly shown to have had an external origin and application before they were applied to the mind. To IMAGINE, in its literal signification, implies the forming of a picture; to IMPRESS Conveys the idea of leaving a stamp or mark, as the seal leaves its exact likeness or stamp on wax; to REFLECT literally means to turn back, to go over the ground again, &c. These words cannot be applied to the mind in the literal sense; the nature of the mind will not admit of such an application; the inference therefore is, that they first had an external application. Now if it be an established truth, that all language has a primary reference to external objects, and that there is no term expressive of mental acts which was not originally expressive of something material, the conclusion would seem to be a fair one, that the part of our knowledge, which has its rise by means of the senses, is, as a general statement, first in origin. And the more so, when we combine with these views the considerations which have been previously advanced.

§ 40. The same subject further illustrated.

And, in the fourth place, it is not too much to say, that all the observations which have been made on persons who, from their birth, or at any subsequent period, have been deprived of any of the senses, and all the extraordinary facts which have come to our knowledge having a bearing on this inquiry, go strongly in favour of the views which have been given.-It appears, for instance, from the observations which have been made in regard to persons who have been deaf until a particular period, and then have been restored to the power of hearing, that they never previously had those ideas which naturally come in by that sense. If a person has been born blind, the result is the same; or if having the sense of sight, it has so happened that he has never seen any colours of a particular description. In the one case he has no ideas of colours at all, and in the other only of those colours which he has seen.-It may be said, perhaps, that this is what might be expected, and merely proves the senses to be a source of knowledge, without necessarily involving

the priority of that knowledge to what has an internal origin. But then observe the persons referred to a little further, and it will be found, as a general statement, that the powers of their minds have not been unfolded; they lay wrapped up, in a great measure, in their original darkness; no inward light springs up to compensate for the absence of that which, in other cases, bursts in from the outward world. This circumstance evidently tends to confirm the principle we are endeavouring to illustrate.

Of those extraordinary instances to which we alluded as having thrown some light on the history of our intellectual acquisitions, is the account which is given in the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences for the year 1703, of a deaf and dumb young man in the city of Chartres. At the age of three-and-twenty, it so happened, to the great surprise of the whole town, that he was suddenly restored to the sense of hearing, and in a short time he acquired the use of language. Deprived for so long a period of a sense which in importance ranks with the sight and the touch, unable to hold communion with his fellow-beings by means of oral or written language, and not particularly compelled, as he had every care taken of him by his friends and relations, to bring his faculties into exercise, the powers of his mind remained without having opportunity to unfold themselves. Being examined by some men of discernment, it was found that he had no idea of a God, of a soul, of the moral merit or demerit of human actions; and what might seem to be yet more remarkable, he knew not what it was to die; the agonies of dissolution, the grief of friends, and the ceremonies of interment being to him inexplicable mysteries.

Here we see how much knowledge a person was deprived of merely by his wanting the single sense of hearing; a proof that the senses were designed by our Creator to be the first source of knowledge, and that without them the faculties of the soul would never become operative.

41. Subject illustrated from the case of James Mitchell. But the foregoing is not the only instance of this sort