having mistaken figurative phrases for more than they were intended to convey, and over-estimated their consequences, that I have entered into a consideration of the general tendency of such phrases to misdirect us in psychological inquiries.

Much of the language I have quoted describes the transactions of these faculties as if they were real facts. If it is to be taken as figurative, it must be characterised as sometimes shadowing forth realities with more or less confusion and indistinctness; but, perhaps, still oftener presenting us with metaphors, without any realities underlying them - pure chimeras of the imaginationmere unsubstantial substitutes for knowledge.

One of the worst consequences, indeed, of treating the faculties as distinct entities has manifested itself in the great number of fictitious facts, whether arrayed in a figurative garb or not, which are constantly adduced in the description or statement of mental phenomena, or in theorising to account for them.

This consequence, however, which I have already slightly glanced at, forms too important a feature of the subject to be dismissed with a cursory notice, and I will resume it in a separate Letter.

LETTER V.

IMAGINARY MENTAL TRANSACTIONS.

AMONGST the modes in which the practice of erecting the faculties into distinct and independent agents has vitiated the philosophy of the human mind, one of the principal, as I noticed in my last Letter, has been the consequent invention of a great number of imaginary mental transactions. The visionary forces having been brought into the field, there appears to have been an irresistible propensity in metaphysicians to find them employment, by putting them through a variety of evolutions, by which no real advance has been effected. We are continually made spectators of mock fights without any real battle. We are taken to Chobham instead of to Waterloo or to Inkermann.

To drop the metaphor, which stares me in the face as a little inconsistent with my own doctrine, I think it will be found that the practice in question has led philosophers into the very prevalent error of assuming and alleging purely imaginary circumstances in the description and explanation of mental phenomena.

Occasionally these imaginary facts are mixed up

with figurative descriptions of real facts, difficult to be recognised in their metaphorical garb; the whole forming an extraordinary and perplexing exhibition. To common apprehension the science of mind is altogether so unsubstantial and shadowy, that such imaginary circumstances, if plausibly represented, appear to harmonise with positive events of consciousness, and are often received with unhesitating facility.

If you and my other readers will take the trouble of scrutinising philosophical writings with a view to this point, you will be surprised at the extent to which the practice in question has been carried, far beyond what you would conceive from my representation of it.

Nine-tenths of the speculations of transcendental philosophers, as far as they have come under my observation, appear to be made up of absolutely imaginary events.

To make the subject plain, it may be needful to remind you that all the events and facts in the world may be arranged under two heads-mental facts, and physical facts.

In the philosophy of the human mind we have to deal with both, because changes in our physical frame are not only indispensable for the perception of external objects, but are continually producing other variations in the state of our minds; and such variations of intellect or emotion again affect the body, as is obvious in the case of voluntary actions.

When a man, for example, is in a low, sluggish condition of thought and feeling, the application of a stimulating substance to his stomach will enliven both while, on the other hand, the sudden announcement of calamity may deprive that organ for the moment of its usual vigour, at the same time that it excites the powers of utterance to extraordinary exertion. And so in innumerable other instances. Indeed, there is every reason to conclude that no mental state arises without having been preceded by a physical change in the body, and without itself in turn producing such a change.

Whether, nevertheless, this is true or not, one thing is plain, that mental facts and physical facts, even when there is the clearest dependence of one on the other, are distinct as objects of knowledge.

Mental facts can be gathered only from consciousness, or, more correctly, are states and events of consciousness; and physical facts, being states and events of matter, can be gathered only from external observation.

There is, indeed, one class of facts in which there may be some ambiguity—I mean automatic actions, which, originally the result of distinct willing, seem sometimes to go on from the connexion of one nervous state with another, without any conscious effort on our part, as in playing while absorbed in reverie an often repeated tune on a musical instrument. But even here the motions of the fingers are physical, and are matters of external observa

tion. The only question is, whether they are severally preceded by mental acts.

Hence, there is a simple inquiry always to be made, in the case of descriptions and explanations of mental phenomena, -are the descriptive or explanatory facts mental or physical? If they are neither, they are of course nonentities - mere creatures of assumption or hypothesis: but even when they are distinctly either one or the other * in character as alleged, they may be purely imaginary or fictitious. There is consequently a further inquiry to be made, after determining the class to which they belong; namely, if they are mental, whether they are such as we are inwardly conscious of; if they are physical, whether they are such as can be externally observed.

A rigorous questioning of this sort would show that many celebrated explanations and theories turn altogether on alleged facts of this fictitious or imaginary character.

It is deserving of especial remark how exceedingly prevalent is the assumption of imaginary agents and incidents in explaining what has been termed the philosophy of the senses; in treating of which there is often a mixture, and sometimes a confusion, of mental and physical circumstances. Of this practice I have adduced some glaring instances in my Discourses on Various Subjects, recently published; especially in the Discourse on the Paradoxes of Vision, to which I must take