a very disputable conclusion.

When the Idea or phantasm that is connected with visual perception appears, in consequence of the word being mentioned (which by commutation is its substitute), the presentation is immediate. He who has visited and attentively noted interesting scenes, mountainous districts, cataracts or prospects, when they are mentioned, will have their phantasms or pictured images occur to him, and he will be aware of them, like the intrusion of a sudden flash. From this phenomenon the generally received opinion of the rapidity of Thought may in all probability have originated.

All popular and settled notions, however unfounded, like prejudices early imbibed, are with difficulty eradicated. Among these may be instanced the dictum of the astonishing rapidity of Thought, which is almost proverbial, and generally believed: even Mr. Tooke, Vol. I., p. 28, conforms to this established maxim. "Words have been called winged: and they well deserve that name, when their abbreviations are compared with the progress which speech could make without these inventions; but when compared with the rapidity of thought, they have not the smallest claim to that title." By calculation, the progress of light from the sun and other luminaries is said to be ascertained; and likewise the rate at which sound travels: but hitherto no contrivance has been fabricated to estimate the rapidity of thought. If the succession of our thoughts should be more rapid than they can be distinctly apprehended, confusion must ensue, and their rapidity would render them useless. Our perceptions are regulated by the same law. If the prismatic colours be painted on a surface which is revolved with great rapidity, the individual colours will not be apparent. The succession of sounds to a definite number, may be severally distinguished, in a certain interval: but if the succession be increased beyond the power of discrimination, they will impress the ear as one uniform sound. The same principle must regulate our thoughts, whether they be composed of Ideas or words, or, if it be possible, of both jumbled together. It does not appear that our thoughts for any useful purpose, which must imply their communication to others, or for a record in written characters, can be more rapid than the intelligible pronunciation of the words themselves, and which, when delivered in quick succession, leave the short-hand-writer behind.[7]

As Ideas can be nothing more than the mere phantasms attendant on visual perception, which, like the perceptions of the other senses, are commuted for words, that, by the aid of memory, recall in their absence the objects that have been perceived; it would be difficult to suppose that Ideas could fortuitously or voluntarily assemble in a more rapid succession, than the words for which they have been commuted, without producing confusion. It frequently happens to inexperienced persons, in giving evidence before a legal tribunal, or in addressing a popular assembly, that they cannot proceed; and they are generally disposed to interpret this failure, to their thoughts occurring in a succession too rapid for their utterance. Allowing the apology to be correct, it is a proof that such rapidity is inconvenient, and renders the Thought wholly useless if it cannot be communicated.

When we attentively measure the steps of our own minds in the act of thinking, and also observe the progress of others, it will be found that effective Thought does not result from this rapid and tumultuous rush of Ideas; but is a very deliberate, and in many cases painful elaboration: and must, when committed to writing, be subjected to subsequent revisals and repeated corrections, and which must be applied to the words constituting the sentence in which the thought is contained. From this general view of the subject, it is concluded that Ideas, the residuary phantasms of visual perception, cannot directly constitute or become the immediate instruments of Thought.

The present Essay being considered an humble attempt to investigate a portion of intellectual physiology, an apology will scarcely be deemed necessary for a short digression to inquire into the powers and faculties of the human mind: and which, when determined, may be viewed as the alphabet of mental science.

Systems prematurely constructed, and under the impression of authority, have been especial impediments to our intellectual progress: and this truth has been remarkably exemplified in the works that have treated of the human mind. In the numerous treatises on this subject that have issued from the press, there is but little agreement concerning these powers or faculties, and it is evident that a definite number must be required: some writers enumerate more, others less, and it is not unusual for some of these metaphysical projectors to split a single and presumed faculty into a variety of subdivisions. To the acute and patient observer, it will appear that the operations of Nature are contrived with admirable simplicity; but man, in his endeavours to explain them, has generally resorted to a mysterious and discouraging complexity. Thus, as might be expected, the same faculty, according to different authorities, has dissimilar energies,—one is detected to encroach on the boundary of another, and when the mechanism of mind, fabricated by these scholastic dictators, is attempted to be set in motion, it is found incapable of working. For the grand moving power we have an undefined, and consequently unintelligible doctrine of Ideas, of supposed spiritual and directing agency; the admission of which would destroy the responsibility of a human being both here and hereafter, and degrade his ennobled condition to the instinct of the speechless brute. To endow these insubstantial and reflected phantasms with some activity and mimic play, a theory of the association of Ideas has been erected, without having previously established that they are capable of such confederation. A wearisome catalogue of faculties, many of which are conjectural, has been enumerated; Abstraction, Conception, Contemplation, Consciousness, Comparison, Imagination, Judgment, Memory, Recollection, Reminiscence, Retention, Perception, Sensation, Reflection, Thought, Understanding, Volition, and many others that caprice has created, or a subtle discrimination helped to multiply. These are the materials out of which scholastic metaphysicians have fashioned their unresembling model, and deserted Nature. It is not intended in this abbreviated essay to settle the pretensions of these numerous faculties, the discussion of which would require an ample volume: and the award might probably be protracted, till the claim was forgotten. When we contemplate the dexterities that the hand performs, and the monuments of skill and taste that it has elaborated; it would only create unnecessary distinctions to affirm that it possessed the faculties of sculpturing, painting, writing, spinning, weaving, sewing, and numberless other manipulations: besides those that ulterior discoveries may enable it to accomplish. However profuse these constructors of the mind may have been in the accumulation of its component faculties, they appear to have little regarded language, its most prominent and important feature; the universal menstruum of intelligence, and accredited currency for the circulation and exchange of thought. There are two faculties or capacities that are peculiar to the human intellect, by