The writer, in her first attempts to investigate the philosophy of mind, examined the works of Stewart, Reid, Locke, Edwards, Brown, Coleridge, Cousin, Jouffroy, Coombe, Spurtzheim and several others. More recently some attention has been given to the writings of Sir William Hamilton, Hickok and others. The result has been the conviction, that most of these works contain the people's system, more or less disguised with diverse modes of classification and new technics, which tend to render the whole subject misty and perplexing. And still more unfortunately, some of them attempt the discussion of questions which are unpractical and often unintelligible.
As an example, certain metaphysicians have attempted to prove that there is nothing existing but mind, and that all which we believe to be realities without ourselves are not so, but merely ideas in the mind.
Other metaphysicians have attempted to meet their arguments, and to prove that the world around us is a reality.
Both attempts have ended in books which seem to have no sort of practical influence either way. Men can not help believing that there is an outer world, and that the men and things that affect our senses are realities, and such arguments neither lessen nor increase this belief.
Meantime, the books written to prove or disprove this truth are incomprehensible to most common minds, at least the writer of this work has in vain essayed to [pg 054] understand them, or to find any person who could communicate any clear ideas of their contents.
Chapter XII. The Nature of Mind, or Its Powers and Faculties.
We have seen, in the preceding chapters, that our only mode of gaining a knowledge of the natural attributes of God, is by the study of the nature of mind. We have seen also that the only way to discover the nature of mind is to examine what are its qualities, and how it acts and is acted upon in our own experience.
When we discover what our minds actually do, we find out what they have power to do. The faculties of mind are its powers of acting as they are exhibited in our own experience.
The following presents a brief outline of the powers and faculties of mind as they have been classified and named by the people.