deaf and dumb in the rear, notwithstanding the latter are furnished with all the Ideas that can be inherited from sight. This constant employment of words, impregnated with meaning, affords the blind considerable facility in acquiring information by pertinent questions, and enables him to communicate his thoughts with precision and correctness. These words, and the intelligence that resides in them, are the only sources of his knowledge, (his perceptions being commuted for words,) and the meaning they import is all that it is necessary for him to comprehend. It may here be repeated that the capacity by which man exclusively exercises the range of thought by sounds that are significant, and receives from others the same oral intelligence, has no material basis that we can possibly detect or logically infer: but must be considered an endowment of infinite power and wisdom.

Before we attribute such vast powers to these Ideas or phantasms, the shadows of visual perception, it will be convenient to inquire into their nature, and endeavour to ascertain the laws by which they are regulated. In that state of mental relaxation, when the intellect is not intently occupied on any particular subject, numberless phantasms will involuntarily intrude: for, during the time we are awake, the mind is never wholly unoccupied, and such irregular presentations of Ideas constitute our reveries. However these ignes fatui may glimmer in their wanderings, tumultuously assemble, or abruptly depart; such confluence or dispersion contributes nothing to effective thought. As far as these Ideas or phantasms, the obsequious shadows of visual perception, can be traced, they are incapable of being summoned to appear by any voluntary command; but are consequently revived by the term or word for which the perception is commuted. Thus, having previously noticed them with attention, when we speak of St. Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, the attendant visions of these buildings immediately arise, and we are impressed with a memorial picture in conjunction with, and through the intervention of the word. The will possesses no power to unite or separate Ideas; they adhere to, and remain the unalterable deposits of perception. Let it next be asked, what human purpose can be effected by their sole agency? On those solemn occasions when we address our prayers to the Divine Source, can these effusions of grateful feeling, and humble petition, be conveyed in phantasms? Does not the lamenting and repentant sinner emphatically articulate his anxious supplications? Can any human contract be concluded by mere Ideas, or any system of jurisprudence be established on such visionary basis? Ideas therefore cannot enable us to perform our duty towards God, or our neighbour.[6]

In pursuing this important subject, the candid confession of Mr. Locke bewrays his distrust of the powers and efficiency of his favourite Ideas. "To form a clear notion of Truth, it is very necessary to consider Truth of Thought, and Truth of words distinctly one from another: but yet it is very difficult to treat of them asunder. Because it is unavoidable, in treating of mental propositions to make use of words; and then the instances given of mental propositions, cease immediately to be barely mental, and become verbal. For a mental proposition, being nothing but a bare consideration of the Ideas, as they are in our minds stripped of names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions, as soon as they are put into words. And that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal Propositions separately, is, that most men, if not all, in their THINKING, and reasonings within themselves, make use of Words, instead of Ideas, at least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex Ideas. Which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty of our Ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively made use of, serve for a mark to shew us, what are those things, we have clear and perfect established Ideas of, and what not."—Vol. II. C. 5, p. 195. Mr. Locke was a patient and acute observer of that which passed in his own mind, when he strictly meditated any particular subject: and in this process he was likewise aware, in common with others, that he employed words instead of Ideas in his thinking and reasoning within himself. By Ideas alone, he confesses that he could not advance; and for this evident reason, because Ideas are incapable of being communicated to others, or received by ourselves, excepting through a verbal medium. There is no evidence of Thought without it be perspicuously expressed in words addressed to the ear, or by their characters presented to the eye; and the vain consciousness we may feel that our mind is teeming with important Thoughts, is little to be relied on, until we are capable of expressing them orally, or exhibiting them in writing. It has been a prevailing opinion with those attached to the Ideal doctrine, and who are advocates for the spiritual process of Thought, that the Idea is first conceived mentally, and subsequently, by some process not explained, invested with the corresponding expression. It is however certain that the word itself, with the meaning that is attached to it, must be previously acquired, and thoroughly comprehended, before the abstract Idea, or naked Thought, can select the befitting expression, and ransack the vast range of a copious vocabulary. The believers in the extreme rapidity of thought to which we shall presently advert, must be alarmed at this manner of explanation, which necessarily constitutes Thought a two-fold process, and consequently would consume, at least double the time for its disclosure. Perhaps in all instances the phraseology we employ, like our manners, is derived from the society we frequent: that which is imbibed from persons of good education bears the stamp of superior discrimination and correctness, contrasted with the rude dialect of the vulgar: but it still remains unsolved, by what means these phantasms, or Ideas, accommodate themselves with the appropriate words to express the Thoughts they have conceived.

Can it be supposed that the abstract, naked, and incommunicable conception possesses an innate sagacity to clothe itself with a verbal garb, at best of capricious and transient fashion?

It is certain that Ideas may exist in the mind, as the connected results, and enduring phantasms of visual perception, independently of words, and such condition is exemplified in those born deaf, who are consequently dumb: to whom the business of life is a mere pantomime, who only communicate the impulses of passion, and expose their want of comprehension.

From these examples it appears that a human being may possess a multitude of Ideas, and yet be wholly ignorant of language: and in the instances of those born blind, he may acquire speech to its fullest extent without having any Ideas, which therefore cannot be considered the necessary instruments of Thought. Thus, the presumed mutual intercourse, and reciprocal correspondence between Ideas and words is