INTUITIVE POWER.

CHAPTER I.

EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF THE INTUITIVE FACULTY.

Office of this Power. In our analysis of the powers cf the mind, one was described as having for its office the conception of truths that lie apart from the region and domain of sense-first principles and primary ideas, fundamental to, and presupposed in, the operations of the understanding, yet not directly furnished by sense. They are awakened in the mind on occasion of sensible experience, but it is not sensible experience which produces them. On the contrary, they spring up in the mind as by intuition, whenever the fitting occasion is presented. We must attribute their origin to a special power of the mind by virtue of which, under appropriate circumstances, it conceives the truths and ideas to which we refer. This power we have termed the originative or intuitive faculty.

Specific Character. — In its specific character and function it is quite distinct from any of the faculties as yet considered It does not, like the presentative power, bring before us, in direct cognizance, sensible objects; nor does it, like the representative faculty, replace those objects to thought, in their absence. It neither presents, nor represents, any object whatever. It forms no picture of any thing to the mind's eye. It is a power of simple conception; and yet it differs in an important sense from the other conceptive powers.

and that is, that it is not reflective but intuitive in its action, Its data are conceptions, but conceptions necessary and intuitive, seen at a glance, not the results of the reflective and discursive process. These data are ideas of reason, rather than notions of the understanding, or processes of reflection. There is no sensible object corresponding to these ideas, We do not see, or hear, or feel, or by any means cog nize, any thing of the sort; nor can we form a picture, or represent to ourselves any such thing as, e. g., time, or space, or substance, or cause, and the like. They are conceptions of the mind, and yet we conceive of them as realities. We cannot think them the mere creations and figments of the brain. And in this respect, again, they differ from the notions of the understanding-those classes and genera which we know to be the mere creations of the mind.

Existence of such a Faculty. - If any are disposed to doubt the existence of the faculty under consideration, as a distinct power of the mind, we have only to ask, whence come these ideas? They are given, not by perception, evidently, nor by memory, nor by imagination, for they fall not within the sphere of any of these faculties, that is the sphere of sense. They relate not to the sensible, but to the super-sensible.

Nor are they the result of abstraction, as might at first appear. Particular instances being given, certain times, certain spaces, certain substances, certain instances of right and wrong conduct it is the province of the faculty now named, to form, from these concrete ideas, the abstract notions of time, space, etc. But whence comes, in the first instance, the concrete idea? Whence comes the notion of a time, a space, a substance, a cause, a right or wrong act? Abstraction cannot give these. Manifestly, however, we have a faculty of forming such conceptions, of perceiving such truths and realities; and as manifestly, it is a faculty distinct from any hitherto considered. There are such realities as time, space, substance, cause, right and wrong, etc.,

The mind takes cognizance of them as such, knows them, and knows them to be realities; has, therefore, the faculty of knowing such truths. We may call it. if we please, the faculty of original and intuitive conception.

Generally admitted. — The existence of ideas not directly furnished by sense or experience, and not given by the faculties whose office it is to deal with objects of sense, is a doctrine now generally admitted by the most eminent philosophers. Nor is it a doctrine peculiar to any one school. Under different names it is the doctrine substantially of Reid, Stewart, Brown, Price, among English metaphysicians; Kant and his disciples in Germany; Cousin, Jouffroy and others in France. It is denied by Hobbes, Condillac, Gassendi, and others of that class who trace all our ideas to sense as their ultimate source and parentage.

Opinion of Locke. - The position of Locke respecting this matter, has been the subject of much controversy. By a certain class of writers he has been regarded as denying the existence of any and all ideas not derived from sense, and has been classed with the school of Hobbes, Condillac, etc. His philosophy has been regarded by many as of doubtful and dangerous tendency, as leading to the denial of all truth and knowledge not within the narrow domain of sense, and so conducting to materialism and skepticism. This can by no means be fairly charged upon him, nor upon his philosophy. He held no such views, nor are they implied or contained in his doctrine Locke, indeed, takes the ground that all our ideas may be traced ultimately to one of two sources, sensation or reflection; the one taking cognizance of external objects, the other of our own mental operations and that, whatever other knowledge we have not given directly by these faculties, is produced by adding, repeating, and variously combining, in our own minds, the simple ideas derived from these sources. In this process, however, of adding, combining, etc., he really includes what we prefer to designate as a separate faculty of the mind,

and by another name. He distinctly recognizes the existence of the ideas which we attribute to this faculty — ideas of space, power, etc. and gives a clear, and for the most part correct account of their origin. The mind, he says, observes what passes without-the changes there occurring; it reflects also on what passes within-the changes of its own ideas and purposes; it concludes that like changes will be produced in the same things, under the same circumstances, in future; it considers the possibility of effecting such changes, and so comes by the idea of power. In this Locke really includes essentially what we mean by suggestion or original conception. Experience, it is universally admitted, furnishes the occasion, suggests the idea, must precede as the indispensable condition of the mind's having that idea, and is, at least in this sense, the source of it, that it suggests the idea to the mind. All this, Locke fully admits, while, at the same time, he fails to draw the dividing line clearly between the ideas of sense and those in question.

Objections to the term Suggestion. The name original suggestion has been commonly applied, of late, especially in this country, to designate the faculty now under consideration. It is so used by Professor Upham, and by Dr. Wayland. It is liable, however, to serious objections. The term suggestion does not seem to me to express the peculiar characteristic, the distinctive element and office of this faculty. It is not peculiar to the ideas now in question, that they are suggested to the mind; many other ideas, all ideas, in fact, are suggested by something. This class of our thoughts, therefore, is no more entitled to that name than any other class. Nor is it peculiar to tais class that they are original suggestions. The mind has many other equally original ideas that are likewise suggestions from things without, or from its own operations-mere fancies many of them, imaginations. We need to distinguish, in this case, the merely fanciful, the ideal, from the real. The terms intuitive and intuition, while they imply the reality of the

thing perceived, indicate, also, the immediateness of the process.

More serious Objection. But there is a still further and more serious objection to the term suggestion as thus employed. The word does not, and cannot, with propriety, be made to denote what is now intended. It has a transitive significance, and cannot be made to denote a purely subject ive process. Objects external suggest certain ideas to my mind. I suggest ideas to other minds. The faculty of suggestion lies, properly, not with the mind that receives the suggestion, but with the mind or object that gives it. But when we say the mind has the faculty of original suggestion, we do not mean that it has the power of suggesting original ideas to other mids; we refer to that power of the mind by which, in virtue of its constitution, certain ideas, not strictly derived from sense, are awakened in it when the occa sion presents itself. We intend not a power of suggesting, but rather of receiving suggestions, a power of conceiving ideas, a power of original and intuitive conceptions. To say that the mind suggests to itself ideas of space, time, etc., is a singular use of terms. I understand what is meant by suggesting ideas to others, and what it is to receive sugges tions from others, and to have ideas suggested by events, Dccurrences and objects without, and how one thought may, by some law of association, suggest another. But how the mind suggests ideas to itself, is not so clear. A man, in a fit of abstraction, talks to himself, but whether he suggests ideas to himself in that way, so that he finds his own conver sation instructive and profitable, may admit of question. The truth is, the idea is suggested, not by the mind, but to the mind-suggested from without. The mind has the power of conceiving certain ideas, which are awakened or excited in it by the occasion which presents itself. To call this fac uly a faculty of suggestion, is simply a misnomer.

The true Doctrine. All we can truly say, is, that the idea is awakened or called up in the mind when the occasion