Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will

by Joseph Haven

I believe the faculties of the intellect, in pure thinking, may all be reduced to those forms now specified, under these four leading divisions.

Results of the preceding analysis in a tabular form:

POWERS OF THE INTELLECT.

I.	Presentative,		Perception.
II.	Representative,	{1. Of the Actual,	Memory.
		{2. Of the Ideal,	Imagination.
III.	Reflective,	{1. Synthetic,	Generalization.
		{2. Analytic,	Reasoning.
IV.	Intuitive,		Original Conception.

§ III.—Historical Sketch—Various Divisions of the Mental Faculties.

The earlier Division.—The general division of the powers of the mind, for a long time prevalent among the earlier modern philosophers, was into two chief departments, known under different names, but including under the one what we now term the intellect, under the other what we designate as the sensibilities and the will, which were not then, as now, distinguished from each other in the general division, but thrown into one department. Under the first of these departments, they included the thinking and reasoning powers, the strictly intellectual part of our nature; under the second, whatever brings the mind into action—the impelling and controlling power or principle—the affections, emotions, desires, volitions, etc. The names given to these two divisions varied with different writers, but the difference was chiefly in the name, the principle of division being the same. By some authors they were designated as the contemplative and the active powers, by others cognitive and motive. The latter was the nomenclature proposed by Hobbes. Others again adopted the terms understanding and will, by which to mark the two divisions; Locke, Reid, some of the French philosophers, and, in our own country, Edwards, followed this division. Stewart designates them, the one class as the intellectual, and the other as the active and moral powers. Brown objects to this phraseology on the ground that the intellectual powers are no less active than the other. He divides the mental powers or states primarily into what he calls external and internal affections of the mind, comprehending under the former all those mental states which are immediately preceded by and connected with the presence of some external object; under the latter, those states which are not thus immediately preceded. The latter class he divides into intellectual states and emotions, a division corresponding essentially to those of the authors previously mentioned, the emotions of Brown comprehending essentially the powers which others had termed motive, or active and moral.

Prevalence of this Method.—This twofold division of the mental powers, under different names, as now stated, has been the one generally prevalent until a comparatively recent date. It may doubtless be traced, as Sir William Hamilton suggests, to a distinction made by Aristotle, into cognitive and appetent powers.

The more recent Method.—The threefold division of the mental faculties very early came into use among philosophical and theological writers in this country, and is now very generally adopted by the more recent European writers of note, especially in France and Germany. According to this division the various affections and emotions constitute a department by themselves, distinct from the will or the voluntary principle. There are many reasons for such a distinction; they have been well stated by Professor Upham Cousin adopts and defends the threefold division, and previously still, Kant, in Germany, had distinguished the mental powers under the leading divisions of intelligence, sensibility, and desire.