Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

tive terms nearly synonymous, marks a writer who explores a new subject before its nomenclature has taken on single and precise meanings. The objections to the word Suggestion are decisive, and Dr. Upham's new adjective does not avoid them. For the power indicated he claims a distinct and independent function. "Its appropriate objects must of course exist; and this important faculty, without asking aid of the senses on the one hand, or of reasoning on the other, at once reveals them." The following is also new and commendable:

"The powers of the mind are known and identified as such, not merely by the characteristics which discriminate their respective activities, but also in part by the objects with which they deal and the ends or uses which they are intended to secure. The objects with which the Intuitional power deals are not merely mental, as those which transcend the functions of the senses, but they are things in the absolute; and which, existing in the impersonalities of truth, are subjects of cognition without being subjects of analysis. I think there are three marks or characteristics of them, although the marks are not laid down as exhaustive, but are rather meant as hints and helps than as exclusive and final affirmations. FIRST, they are necessary in their origin. Whatever and wherever they may be, they may be said to exist in the nature of things. The fact of their existence affirms itself, because the opposite of their existence is not a conceivable possibility. SECOND, they are essential and immutable. Space and duration, for instance, which are revealed to us by means of this power, are not only necessities in their origin, but they are necessities to everything else; and they are immutable, because, as no reason can be given for their beginning, so none can be given for their termination. THIRD, as they are objects which are common to all, so, by means of the Intuitional or Suggestional power, they come within the knowledge of all."

An "Additional Practical Remark" in closing this topic (not in the original work,) is also worthy of quotation. It has relation to inspiration.

'The susceptibility of inspiration from higher sources is not merely, as some may perhaps suppose, a theological dogmatism, but is one of the great and precious facts of humanity. God never ignores the sublime truth of His universal Fatherhood, and has never released his connection with any of the tribes of men. He utters his voice everywhere. Homer, Plato, Euripides, Cicero, Livy, and Plutarch, as well as the long record of those whose inspirational history has given lustre and power to the unequalled pages of the Bible, have recognized the fact, that man, in the weaknesses

and ignorance incidental to his finite nature, is susceptible of strength and guidance from the Infinite.

"But these results are reached through law. The conditions of inspirational receptivity, at least those which are leading and indispensable, are three. (1.) Faith in this great fact that there is thus an open door of communication between God and man; (2.) a sincere desire that God, who never violates our freedom, will by means of His inspirational influences come into communication with us; and (3 ) a freedom from all biases and prejudices of self-will-in other words, unselfishness. Under such circumstances the human mind, in virtue of the unchangeable laws of its being, is susceptible of being reached, instructed, and guided. Nothing is more important to man than such guidance. And the mental susceptibility (not exclusively, but much more than some other of our mental powers) which is open to divine influences, and which turns to catch the inspirational suggestions of God is the Intuitional power."

We should be glad to find space for the additions under the heads of Consciousness, Reasoning, and Logic. One query we must quote: "Is there not some ground for saying that the syllogistic method, expanded as it is to nearly an hundred specific forms, sustains the same, or nearly the same relation to the true doctrine of reasoning, which the doctrine of Mnemonics sustains to the true doctrine of the memory?" Association and Memory retain their places in Prof. Upham's arrangement as "subordinate to the reasoning power and essential to its action," interrupting awkwardly his systematic development of "the four great internal sources of knowledge," (Intuition, Consciousness, Judgment, and Reasoning,) and implying the former are not as necessary to other processes also, e. g., those of Abstraction and Imagination. There are no changes in the rest of this volume calling for remark. The author's discussion of the remaining topics and of Imperfect and Disordered Mental Action is simply condensed.

[ocr errors]

In the treatment of the Sensibilities (Vol. II.) the author introduces the new terms, "Emotionality," "Emotiveness," Emotivity." He justly remarks that "the epithet aesthetic, if we are governed in our use of it by its etymology alone, might be regarded as applicable to and embracing all the emotive states." Sir Wm. Hamilton preferred the term apolaustic, the Greek term from which asthetic is derived,

including, he remarks, "feeling in general as well as sense in particular-as our term feeling means either the sense of touch in particular or sentiment--and the capacity of the pleasurable and painful in general." The author also introduces the new term "Desirement," or the Desiring Nature. And he adds the statement-evidently called for by the well-known mingling of intellect with sensibility, and the reproduction of primary æsthetic states under new and rational forms, that all these states, save the pure instincts, "have a twofold action, instinctive and voluntary." Self-love and the desire of happiness are still considered by the author as one, and classed under the propensities as a species of desire, both instinctive and voluntary, leaving us without any affection, properly so called, which has self for its object. The classification of pride, vanity, and arrogance as modifications of selfishness, still retained, implies that the modifications of selfishness are much fewer than they really are, for their name is legion; and an analysis of intellect and will yields them as well as an analysis of the sensibilities. For "sentient" and "sensitive" the author substitutes a new word, "sentimentive"-- not an improvement, it seems to us, in either euphony or accuracy. It has an apparent advantage only in the title "Imperfect or Disordered Sentimentive action," i. e., action in the department of sentiments.

Most of the condensation in Vol. II. is in the treatment of the Will. This now occupies 248 of the Harpers' neat and compact pages, instead of 400 (Ed. 1834). The preliminary matter (pp. 34, "General Classification,") is transferred to Vol. I. (Intro.) Other omissions and condensations are judiciously made. For "Voluntary States" is substituted "Volitional States," a gain, not in euphony, but in accuracy, since all states into which choice is blended are voluntary, but states of will itself are here meant. The author has improved his account of the Nature of the Will, but we wonder a little at his still using the word susceptibility in this connection as a synonym for power. The prospective element of will is brought out as it was not before. The distinction between

desire and volition is strengthened by a newly cited psychological fact, and the Bible accounts of mental phenomena are set forth as true in psychology. The consideration of the Laws of the Will is improved (Part II.) by striking out the two digressive chapters on the Law of Causality, and the Law of Uniformity-subjects which, so far as they are to be psychologically investigated, belong clearly in the department of the Intellect--but a still further improvement would have been a close and analytical distinguishing of the special sense in which "law" is used in relation to the will, shaped with reference to recent discussions upon the term physical and metaphysical. The chapter in the original work entitled, "Laws of the Will implied in the Sciences relating to Human Conduct," is wisely omitted. The use made by Buckle et id genus omne of the position that was formerly somewhat loosely taken on this point, would now require a large digression and discussion, which would have carried the author too far, and the subject really belongs elsewhere, lying in the border land between science and religion. These omissions condense the last form of Prof. Upham's work by about forty pages. In the discussion on "the Laws of the Will involved in its own nature,' the section affirming that the Will is "an attribute and not subject," is allowed to remain, we are surprised to see-notwithstanding the more recent logical and psychological discussions on these two terms-and the still looser terms "incident to an appurtenance of" (the mind), are still applied to the Will. Several sections are here omitted, and new and better ones take their place. The apparent sense of "necessary occasion," formerly given to law at this point, disappears; but we should have been glad if the author had said precisely whether (1) an observed order of facts-to adopt the Duke of Argyll's distinctions, or (2) the force or forces behind the order, creative of it, or (3) the purpose or function guiding the force, or (4) an order of thought, is his meaning here. He seems to have a mixed and blended meaning, viz., that will-phenomena exhibit constant facts, implying a constant order of thought, and involving constant forces and ends. A nicer handling

[ocr errors]

and a profounder analysis of this part of the subject than is common, is greatly needed. The chapters on the "Nature of Mental Freedom," and on "Mental Harmony, its Basis or Occasion," stand as they did, save the omission of a few citations. So does the following one on the Freedom of the Will, and those on the Proof of Freedom in Man's Moral Nature, on the Consistency of Law and Freedom, and on Enthralment or Slavery of the Will. The chapter on Insanity of the Will is dropped, marring a little the symmetry of the whole work, as the corresponding title under Intellect and Sensibility-Natural and Moral-are retained. The Nature of Mental Power, the Power of the Will, and Differences of "Volitional" (voluntary) Power, are handled as before. The chapter on Self-Determining Power is condensed into one paragraph. It would be an advantage, on account of the confounding of power and freedom, which is well-nigh universal, if these topics were always treated before the question of the Freedom of the Will; and it would be a still further advantage if the word energy-adopted by the physicists on account of the ambiguous use of the term force-were substituted here for the equally ambiguous term power. No mind can comprehend what freedom of the will is, if it does not sharply and thoroughly distinguish power or energy from freedom. The remaining topics developed by Prof. Upham-Consistency of Character and Discipline of the Will---do not call for remark. We have aimed to so thoroughly describe this recasting in part a work of wide and established reputation, that those acquainted with it in former years could see what improvement has been made without the labor of such an examination as we have given it, and that those who are not acquainted with it could judge of its comparative merits, in its new and better form, for philosophical study and instruction. The cause of truth and the interests of sound scholarship in every department, especially in those which are highest, are greatly subserved by an increased interest among us in such works, and the foundations of religion--now subjected more widely to philosophical assault than ever--are strengthened in men's minds.

« AnteriorContinuar »