PHENOMENA OF THOUGHT.

If we

fix the throne of its empire here, whilst it is on the Alps, the Andes, or tracing the course Every object in the external world is suf- of the Amazon, the Danube, or the beauties ficient to excite our wonder. If we proceed of some Arcadian landscape? and then to examine the elements of any body, we again, as though it possessed the attribute of are soon obliged to abandon our inquiries, ubiquity, glancing to those bright orbs which without ascertaining its real essence. rule the day and the night, or those glowing institute a new examination respecting its sapphires which gild the firmament. It is susceptibilities, or how it affects other bod-circumscribed only by that circle whose cenies,and is gffected by them,here again we have tre is everywhere, and whose circumference forced upon us a most humbling conviction is nowhere. The universe of matter and of the limited extent of our capacities and mind is its home. Through this,it darts,and knowledge--for until we know how that in-plays, and ranges. What is it that absorbs finitude of substances of which the material the lonesome mariner, whilst, stiffened with universe is composed, affects a particular cold, he careers in his frail bark on Polar body, and how this particular body affects this infuitude of substances in every possibie combination, our knowledge even of the minutest atom of matter that can be presented us through the aid of microscopic power, must be imperfect. Such are some of the wonders of the universe that surrounds Let us leave this outer court, and enter the inner temple-the universe of thought and feeling within us.

Seas?

In an instant, quicker than the light, he in thought crosses the fathomless deep-revisits his native village-its green pastures and grazing herds-its lakes-its valesmeets his neighbors-receives the embraces of his children, and wipes the tears of joy from his Helen's beaming eye, till he forgets that he is in a region illuminated only by. those streams of light which occasionally flash from the pole, and whose minstrelsy is the winds and the waves. Again: trace those streams of thought that are sent forth from the gushing fountain of maternal love.

Necessity confines the attention of men, during the first periods of their existence, to external objects; and it is not till their wants can be easily supplied, and leisure is furnished for speculation, that they begin to direct their attention to the wonders of their intellectual frame, if frame it may be called, which frame has none. But men, whose thoughts and emotions of pleasure are awakened only by sensible objects, are like those who have chosen a little spot in a desert, whilst an Egypt of plenty was with-mound shall rise, that points out the place

in their reach; or like those who traffic on some creek or bay, and never dream that there is an ocean whitened with the commerce of a world. And hence it is, that those phenomena of thought, which are worthy of their sublimest contemplations, fail to excite their wonder and their admiration.-But what is thought? Has it length, and breadth, and thickness? What has that to do with extension, which is absolutely one

and indivisible? Where does it reside? is it in the centre of the nervous system? why

Whilst the fond mother watches the couch of her infant beauty, and the image of its manly sire is reflected on her vision, how do her thoughts stretch forward to its future fame, and worth, and filial love, the sunshine of which is to enlighten and cheer her descent to the tomb; and when the green

of her slumbers, how does she fancy him visiting it with a tear, and thinking of all the solicitude and care with which she has blessed him. Thought is a vigil in a mother's breast; it paints its bow of promise on the prospects of the infant slumberer, before it has learned to lisp a name. But it will be said, that there is nothing strange or wonderful in these processes or phenomena, and that it is owing to the peculiar state of the

inclinations.

We acknowledge that it is the inclina

tions which put in operation these trains of rushing.multaneously on the field of their thought; but our inquiry is into the nature intellectual vision, in the minuteness with of that principle which is susceptible of such which they were originally observed. And operations-into the structure of that intel- why may not some enlivening or quickenlectual machine that is capable of producing ing process be employed to bring every such astonishing results--not into the cause thought and feeling of our past lives before or power that puts this machine in motion. the mind with a fearful distinctness, at that And tell us, ye who fabricate the web of final revision of our characters which revelametaphysics, what are the parts of this ma- tion teaches us to expect? And may we chine? Has it joints, and tenons, and mor- not inquire whether the prominent distinc tises? how is it put together? how does it tion between the finite and infinite mind be operate to make a thought? or does it re- not this-that while the former can recall semble in structure the corporeal frame? only a few of its past operations, the latter has it bones, and muscles, and arteries, and is capable of embracing its own and the opveins? show them to us. Can inert matter erations of all other minds through the whole think? prove it, if it does. But if it does range of eternity, and of concentrating the not, and you still forbear to satisfy our in- whole, the past, the present, and the future, quiries, quarrel not with our philosophy, if in one fixed point, constituting the eternal we pronounce these phenomena of thought now of Him, who is, and was, and is to wonderful. Quarrel not with our philosophy, if we pronounce it strange-yea, and passing strange that the sunny hills and plains that were trodden by the feet of our childhood, and streams that made the heart leap as they rolled sparkling in sunshine, should, after a long lapse of years, be arrayed in an instant, with all their fascinations, before the mind.

come. O, what is this invisible, intangible, and immaterial something, called thought? How do we come by the thought of a landscape? The rays of light, it is said, are reflected from it, so that they enter the eye, and, undergoing several refractions by the lenses, they finally paint a picture of the landscape inverted on the retina. But what resemblance is there between the picture of It was the opinion of the illustrious Ba- a landscape and the thought of a landscape ? con, that the mind possesses in itself princi- How then do we come by the thought of a ples which inseparably connect it with the landscape? It is said that the retina, which whole series of its past operations. This is an expansion of the optic nerve connectseems to be corroborated by facts; for oc- ing the back part of the eye with the brain, currences are often happening, which bring conveys an impression of it to the brain.to our recollection circumstances and events But who knows that there is an impression which have not been before the mind of it conveyed thither? and supposing there haps for years. And in our dreams, thought, be, who has ever ascertained how it is disranging among the numberless series of our posed of, after it reaches the brain? What past affections, recalls things which have es- is this retina? It is a substance precisely caped, and probably would have escaped us the same with the nerves which are diffused forever. The same phenomena have also oc- throughout the system, some of which form curred in fevers and in nervous excitements, the organs of hearing, others of touch, taste, And the statements of those who have nar- and smell. But if the organs of sensation rowly escaped a watery tomb, tend to con- are all composed of the same material, why firm the credibility of this opinion; for they do not the rays of light, when they come in testify, that whilst actually suffering the ag- contact with the organ of touch, or any of onies of dissolution, their mental operations the other organs of sense, produce in the were powerfully quickened, and that the in- mind the sensation of vision? Why are we cidents of their whole past lives have come not all eyes, like the living ones in the

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Apocalypse? Why are we i

all feeling, all smelling, all tasting? How of his description, fills them with all the

then do we come by thought, O ye, who have searched the penetration of the intellectual temple, tell us. But poetry and oratory furnish us with the most happy and surprising exhibitions of thought. Indeed, all the arts and sciences are only different

modes of it.

pleasing emotions of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity. He speaks, and conviction flashes from every sentence, whilst the goddess of persuasion follows with her golden fetters. But how is it that thought possesses the wonderful power of being concentrated, or concentrating itself, so as to produce the effects that result from the efforts of the orator? Who can tell?

The trains of thought in every mind are under the influence of two or three primary laws, denominated the laws of association or Another of the peculiarities of thought, is siggation. The most important of these the power which it possesses of tracing analare analogy, and contiguity in time and ogies, as means in reference to a particular place. According as the influence of the end, which power is the foundation of all forter or the latter of these laws predomi- that is denominated science. All the great tes, the character or quality of the thoughts truths or propositions in any science are is varied. Analogy is the principle that evolved by a process of thought called reagoverns the trains of thought in the mind of soning, which process is nothing but a series the original poet, and contiguity of time and of felt analogies or relations. Certain data place in that of the mere imitator. The lat- are taken, and the relations traced among ter, after all his efforts to reach some Parnas- them to some final result; which is still Lan summit, will only add one name more nothing but a felt relation, which, when loto the long catalogue of those who have gically expressed, is called a proposition.-fluttered and fallen in their attempts to soar In a series of propositions which constitute those giddy heights; whilst the former, reasoning, there is a relation felt throughout, when he sweeps the harp, fills every bosom and this relation is that of a part to a comwith the harmony of his notes. Like Mil-prehending whole,since the predicate in each tou, he visits creation's early dawn, when the morning stars tuned their first anthems; Bours over the Aonian mount, through chaos and the world unborn; asserts eternal Provdeve, and justifies the ways of God to mes; or like Pollok, he rolls his harmonious naabers down the tide of time; or like Byron, he trends on an empire's dust, muses on torn neean's rear, on Leman's placid bosom, and listens to the grasshopper singing near; and then again leaps with the live thunder among the Alpine erags. But how is it, or why is it, that we find all this difference in the unaccountable phenomena of thought? Way, it is said, that it must be attributed to nature-which means, simply, that we know nothing about it.

preceding proposition of the series, is made the subject of the following. The predicate of the last proposition in the series, therefore, must be some property or quality of the subject of the first. And the first proposition in the series must be an axiom, or a proposition that can ultimately be reduced to one. This is that process of thought which has presented to our ravished views so many fields of science, and is destined to enlarge not only those now before us, but to open still new fields,not a glimmer of which has yet reached our intellectual ken. It is this process of thought that constitutes a genius for scientific investigations. It was with this that Bacon was familiar, who, by the fire of his intellect, consumed those veils Witness again the orator charming every which so long hung before the temples of thought of the crowds that surround him, to truth, and lighted up the avenues which soine particular sentiment. He speaks, and conduct to it, so that the devotee who now he melts them into pity-enkindles their in-wishes, may enter and worship before her