Enquiries of this nature have been usually conducted by commenting on the numerous and discordant authorities which have treated on metaphysical subjects; these persons, however they may differ on many points, appear to be pretty generally agreed, that the human mind possesses certain faculties and powers; as imagination, judgment, reason, and memory. They seem to consider these, as so many departments, or offices of the mind, and therefore class men according to the excellence or predominance of these powers. One man, is said to be distinguished by the brilliancy of his imagination; another, by the solidity of his judgment; a third, by the acuteness of his reason; and a fourth, by the promptitude and accuracy of his recollection.
As far as I have observed respecting the human mind, (and I speak with great hesitation and diffidence,) it does not possess, all those powers and faculties with which the pride of man has thought proper to invest it. By our senses, we are enabled to become acquainted with objects, and we are capable of recollecting them in a greater or less degree; the rest, appears to be merely a contrivance of language.
If mind, were actually capable of the operations attributed to it, and possessed of these powers, it would necessarily have been able to create a language expressive of these powers and operations. But the fact is otherwise. The language, which characterizes mind and its operations, has been borrowed from external objects; for mind has no language peculiar to itself. A few instances will sufficiently illustrate this position. After having committed an offence it is natural to say that the mind feels contrition and sorrow.
Contrition is from cum and tero, to rub together, which cannot possibly have any thing to do with the operations of the mind, which is incapable of rubbing its ideas or notions together. Contrition is a figurative expression, and may possibly mean the act of rubbing out the stain of vice, or wearing down by friction the prominences of sin.
If we were to analyze the word Sorrow, which is held to be a mental feeling, we should find it to be transferred from bodily sufferance: for the mind, is incapable of creating a term correctly expressive of its state, and therefore, it became necessary to borrow it from soreness of body.—See Mr. Tooke’s Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 207, where sore, sorry, and sorrow are clearly made out to be the same word.
It is customary to speak of a man, of accurate perceptions, and of another, who has grand and luminous conceptions of human nature. Perception, from per, and capio to take, seize, grasp, through the medium of the organs of sense, being implied. But to take, seize, and grasp are the operations of the hand, and can only, by extreme courtesy, be attributed to mind.
Mr. Dugald Stewart, the most thoughtful and intelligent of modern metaphysicians, has said, “By conception I mean that power of the mind which enables it to form a notion of an absent object of perception, or of a sensation which it has formerly felt.”—Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 8vo. p. 133.
This definition means merely memory; and by perusing attentively the whole chapter the reader will be convinced of it. Conception, from cum and capio, has been applied to mind from the physical sense of embracing, comprehending, or probably from the notion of being impregnated with the subject. It may be remarked, that these three terms, by which conception has been explained, have been all applied to mental operation.
The words reason and reasoning, I believe, in most languages, strictly imply numeration, reckoning, proportion; the Latin ratio, ratiocinor, ratiocinator are sufficient examples. A curious coincidence between the Latin ratio and the Gothic rathjo, together with some pertinent and interesting observations, may be seen in Ihre’s Glossarium Svio-gothicum, p. 393, art. Rækna. As we now acknowledge the science of number to be the purest system of reasoning, a system, on which all persons agree, and so unlike medicine, politics, and divinity, concerning which there is a constant, and hostile variety of sentiment, it adds some force to the argument. Indeed, Mr. Locke, who almost personifies reason, after having painfully sifted this matter, appears to be much of the same way of thinking: he says, “Reason, though it penetrates into the depth of the sea and earth, elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast spaces and large rooms of this mighty fabrick, yet it comes far short of the real extent of even corporeal being; and there are many instances wherein it fails us: as,
“First: it perfectly fails us where our ideas fail: it neither does, nor can extend itself farther than they do, and therefore, wherever we have no ideas our reasoning stops, and we are at an end of our reckoning: and if at any time we reason about words, which do not stand for any ideas, it is only about those sounds, and nothing else.