vestigating the efficiency of the mental instruments with which they are pursued (namely, the faculties of the human understanding); and in ascertaining the limits which nature has prescribed to our curiosity, that we may not waste our exertions in the prosecution of enquiries beyond the reach of our powers. This is an important part of Mental Philosophy. It is the science which Lord Bacon calls the Philosophia prima, and of which one of the most important applications has received the name of the inductive philosophy. Of its utility in regard to other sciences, Lord Bacon's own writings form a conspicuous example. It is in vain that we pursue truth, unless we set out in the proper path. For how many hundred years had Natural Philosophy made no real progress, merely from the ignorance of mankind as to the precise objects and true method of scientific research! Lord Bacon, whose comprehensive mind surveyed the whole field of intellectual exertion, had the merit of forcibly and distinctly explaining them, and of foretelling the felicitous and wonderful results of experimental enquiry. This prima philosophia, however, which has led to the inductive method of philosophising, need not detain us farther for our present purpose, since it is unnecessary to use many words in showing how such comprehensive views of human knowledge must beget improvements in the methods of pursuing the sciences, and, consequently, in the sciences themselves. I

shall merely add, that as this part of philosophy has had a most important share in the discoveries of modern science, so those discoveries, in their turn, have reflected light upon the true general principles on which scientific enquiry ought to proceed; and it is not too much to assert, that, in like manner as Astronomy has been carried to a degree of perfection which Newton, with all his genius, never reached, so the principles of the inductive philosophy have been improved into a state of perspicuity, explicitness, and practical utility, superior to that in which they were left by the master-hand of Bacon himself. This result, indeed, was predicted by that great philosopher, with whom it was a favourite maxim, that as the sciences advanced, the methods of invention and discovery would partake of their progress. And it is highly probable, that our present methods labour under defects, which a more accurate scrutiny may detect and remove. It has been observed, for instance, that a more thorough insight into the nature of the relation of cause and effect, a subject belonging altogether to metaphysical enquiry, would be extremely likely to free physical science of many of its errors, and simplify the labours of the philosopher, by confining his attention to its legitimate objects.

The advantages of the inductive method of philosophy,- —a method which may be briefly described to consist in observing facts and discarding fancies,

- have been chiefly felt in the rapid advancement of our acquaintance with external nature; but the success attending physical investigation has had an important reflex influence on moral and intellectual, or what are generally termed metaphysical researches. When philosophers had abandoned the search after essences and universals, and other visionary entities, by which they formerly hoped to penetrate the mysteries of the universe; after they had discovered that man, in the language of Lord Bacon, is but the interpreter of nature, and can know nothing but what he observes in the external world and in his own mind,—a truth which is the basis of the inductive philosophy,—they devoted their attention, in the first place, to the physical phenomena around them; and, in the brilliant success which attended their investigations, they appeared to overlook that the phenomena of their own mental constitution demanded an examination according to the same method. As they could not, however, avoid occasional incursions into the regions of mind, they naturally and perhaps unconsciously carried along with them the habits of induction formed in their physical researches; and although the truth was a long time dawning on their understandings, they at length perceived that the same principles apply to one department of enquiry as well as to the other,that the same logical procedure is required in both. The mere logomachics of the schools, the fruitless controversies whether mind was extended or unex

tended, whether it had any relation to space, what was its essence, and the like, have been consequently swept away; and it is now acknowledged that in the science of mind, as well as that of matter, our business is to observe and record, and to form general conclusions from a careful induction of particular facts.

Thus, physical investigation has in its turn reflected light in several ways upon mental philosophy, which, though hitherto comparatively neglected, is sure to receive a large share of future attention, and will probably one day lead to results far more important to mankind, though less immediately striking, than any which have issued from their researches into the properties of

matter.

There is yet another way in which the influence of one of these great departments of investigation upon the other has been manifested. The connection between matter and mind-between the facts of bodily organisation and of consciousness— has been greatly elucidated of late years by physiological research into the nervous and cerebral apparatus both of the lower animals and of man. And although consciousness must ever remain a province to itself, separated by a chasm, if I may so express it, which physical investigation can never pass, yet it is something not to be contemned, to trace physiological action to the very brink of the chasm, -to connect particular organs, movements, and im

pressions of the bodily frame with those mental properties and processes, the laws of which we can become acquainted with only by self-introspection. It has tended, I think, to improve our classification of psychological phenomena, and enabled us to discriminate more clearly our natural and acquired faculties and functions.

One or two further instances of the relation of the philosophy of mind to other pursuits are deserving of notice, before we dismiss it from our consideration. The strong lights which it has thrown on the principles of the fine arts are familiar to all who have attended to the subject. The application of the doctrine of association to the theory of the sublime and beautiful has opened many new views, and although we cannot expect that the artist will imbibe any inspiration from a metaphysical exposition of the principles of his art, yet it is the unquestionable tendency of enlightened speculations on the origin of our sentiments of sublimity and beauty, to expand our conceptions and to purify and establish our taste; and it may be remarked in general, that as the poet, the painter, and the sculptor have to operate on the feelings and passions of mankind, he will be most likely to succeed (other circumstances being the same) who is best acquainted with the laws by which they are governed.

But the noblest instance of the aid which the science of mind has afforded to other subjects, is the admirable explanation it has furnished of some