connection, if he does not force them to the earnest work of reflecting upon their own processes and experience; above all, if he does not accustom them somewhat to the wide reach, and the superior dignity of thinking in the light of principles, he fails materially in securing that which should be the chief object. of these studies, viz: philosophical discipline, or the discipline of thought. We accord to this book of Dr. Wayland's, all the praise which it deserves for its useful matter and readable form, but we cannot assign it very high philosophical merit. We do not complain that the author has not read more extensively; but we do wonder that he has not recognized certain distinctions which are so familiar to the authors whom he has read.

We

are surprised that some of his statements are so indefinite, and his discussions are so loose and unphilosophical,-that with such masters at hand as Reid and Sir William Hamilton, he should fall so far below their spirit and be so strikingly deficient in acuteness and method.

The Introduction consists, very properly, of Definitions of the Intellectual Powers. The classification which he adopts is very nearly the same with that of Reid, except that he introduces "original suggestion," nearly in the sense in which Cousin uses "The Reason," and strangely enough speaks of a Faculty called the Reason, which he defines to be the power by which "we are able to make use of the knowledge acquired by the powers of which I have spoken, in such a manner as to arrive at truth before unknown, truth which these powers could never have revealed to us." This might well be characterized as a definition in which nothing is defined, except that there is something to be defined. When we turn for some positive light to the sixth chapter, under which this "Faculty" is treated, we find the chapter entitled "Reasoning," which we suppose to be intended as the name for the acting or exercise of this power. As we look through the chapter, we find that First Truths, Syllogism, Evidence of Testimony, Indirect Evidence, Probable Reasoning and Analogy, are treated of in succession. We can hardly explain to ourselves how so many and so complicated functions should all be referred to a single faculty. Still less can we understand how the name Reason should have been given to that Faculty, as it is notorious that this has been an oft repeated word in the mouths of all students of philosophy, both the fledged and the unfledged, for the last twenty years, and its true meaning ought to have been beaten out of it by the many discussions which have been bestowed upon it. Sir William Hamilton's clear exposition of this "very vague, vacillating, and equivocal word," ought to have saved it from the

use to which it is applied by Wayland. Or, if he chose to give it the special use of naming a faculty, he should not have abandoned his own name, in describing the functions of the "faculty" so called.

In chapter first, the author tells us, as also in the Introduction, that we do not know the essence of mind or of matter, that "we cognize the qualities by means of our perceptive powers; but we have no power by which we are able to cognize essence or absolute substance." p. 16. On page 18 he answers the suggestion that "the thinking principle in man is material, or that its essence is the same as the essence of matter;" "first, that the assertion is unphilosophical, inasmuch as it transgresses the limits which the Creator has fixed to human inquiry;" secondly, that "the assertion is nugatory, as we know nothing of the essence of either matter or mind;" and thirdly, "so far as the grounds for an opinion exist they favor precisely the opposite opinion." We submit the inquiry, whether there can be grounds for any opinion in respect to an object of thought in respect to which we can and do know nothing, and whether it were worth while to confuse the learner by discussing any question in respect to the essense of the mind, especially at the beginning of the text-book, unless the author were prepared to explain the conception a little more distinctly, and to make it clear why and how far our inquiries in regard to it are necessarily limited. To make subtle distinctions, and then to attempt to throw light upon them by an inconsistent and superficial explanation, is, to say the least, not fitted to satisfy the bold spirit of the youthful inquirer or to increase his respect for the science, at the threshold of which he is bidden to stumble.

The author says, p. 16, "I look upon snow and there is created in my mind the idea of white. . . . Besides this, there is another idea created, which is that this quality or power of creating in me this notion belongs to the object which I contemplate." Language of this kind may be admissible in the earnest freedom of a spoken lecture, but it cannot be justified in a written text-book. The habit of conceiving the mind under physical analogies is too inveterate and too pregnant with error, to be countenanced by such language. Were this a single or even an occasional oversight in phraseology, it might be overlooked. But it is an instance of a serious deficiency which pervades the volume. Dr. Wayland does not seem to be sensible of the fundamental and fatal error which prevails in so much of English, and indeed in all modern psychology, according to which the mind is treated as though it were under

the laws of matter, and its function to know, and its competence to rely upon its knowledge, were not allowed till they had been, as it is said, explained but in reality humbled, or illustrated but in fact obscured, by some physical analogy. Dr. Reid was well aware of this danger, though he has not fully guarded against it. But Dr. Wayland does not recognize this, nor the danger allied to it which arises from the fact that the language employed to describe mental phenomena, is necessarily borrowed from the world of sense. He vindicates to the mind by no means so distinctly as does the father of the Scotch philosophy, its peculiar function to know, and the truth, that whether its perceives or remembers, or generalizes, it is competent to do so, and trusts its own knowledge.

We need not say that the questions in relation to Sensible Perception have been the cruces psychologorum ever since the days of Aristotle; and that the analysis of the conditions and processes which are involved in sensation and perception is very subtle and difficult. We enumerate some of these questions. In perception we gain the conception of externality, or to use language now become technical, of the non-ego. Do we gain this by each of the senses, in its separate activity, so that even in smelling we perceive a something which is not ourself? If we do not gain it by any one of the senses, when acting alone, by which one or two or more of the senses is it given to us? Again, the objects which we apprehend, are extended. How is this knowledge gained-by each, by one or more or by all of the senses? Do some of the senses give us no extension, others but two, and one only, three dimensions of extension? Then again, these sensations are experienced, and the appropriate perceptions are acquired, through a material organization, which is itself extended. What part does this fulfill in the process of perception? What is the relation of the organization and its affections to the perceiving mind? Does the mind distinguish itself from this organization, so that to the mind, this is extended also? If this is the fact, is it so intimately connected with this extended sensorium, that in sensation, as distinguished from perception, the mind, by a state which must of necessity be sui generis, knows some of its phenomena as objective, i. e., pertaining to it as a non-ego; and others as subjective, i. e., affections of itself, as an ego? If so, does the mind in all of its sensations necessarily have both extension and externality,-in other words, exercise perception? Thus far, our questions have concerned the separate action of each of the senses. But what is the product of their united action? How is it that we perceive objects as

things with various qualities? How do we assign the thing a definite position in space, and conceive it as endowed with qualities or capacities to affect the senses; and by what process is it that the mind refers the complex of sensations, which a single object awakens, to this undivided or individual whole, as their occasion, which also occupies space and is included in space? Is it by the faculty usually called perception, or by an appeal to a higher power of the intellect? Is the necessary conception of substance and its qualities independent of, or derived from, the conception and belief of causation? How is the conception of space given to the mind? The acquired perceptions those usually so called-also suggest a great variety of interesting and difficult problems, not the least perplexing of which concern the location of the occasions of our sensations in the several parts of the body; to say nothing of the familiar laws of the acquired perceptions of vision.

These are some of the questions which must be discussed, in order to such a philosophical treatment of the doctrine of perception, as shall fulfill the present demands of mental science, and as is desired in a text-book for colleges and higher schools. Some of these Dr. Wayland has not noticed. Others he has answered wrongly. Others he has ably elucidated. It is evident from the ample quotations, on one or two points, which he makes from Sir William Hamilton, that he is familiar with his able contributions to the theory of perception. We are surprised that he has overlooked some of the distinctions which Sir William so clearly explains, and that he has not re-cast the abundant materials at hand, with a better method, and a sharper analysis. He seems to have contented himself with transferring from Reid, from Cousin and Hamilton, adding here and there a felicitous illustration from his own observation, occasionally, however, omitting a distinction recognized by the authors whom he quotes as essential to a complete theory of perception. For example, he seems to suppose that the perception of the non-ego, as distinguished from the ego, is identical with the act of referring the sensation, and its corresponding quality to some object, i. e., some external existence with which the mind is already acquainted through the other senses. "In profound darkness a rose is brought near to me. I am at once conscious of a new state of mind. I have a knowledge, which we call smell. The knowledge, however, exists solely in my mind. I refer it to nothing, for I know nothing to which to refer it." p. 30. "If a tuberose is brought near a person who has never smelled it, he is at once conscious of a form of knowledge entirely new to him. If we

rose,

*

* *

As

do not, by our other senses, know the cause of the sensation, we have no name for it, but are obliged to designate it by referring to the place where we experienced it. soon as I have ascertained that the perfume proceeds from the I call it the smell of a rose. We thus see clearly (?) that from this sense we derive nothing but a sensation, a simple knowledge, which neither gives us a cognition of anything external, nor teaches us that anything exists out of ourselves." p. 42. It is scarcely an apology for this error of confounding one thing with another, to say that Reid has committed the same. It scarcely makes it the better for the author to say, as he does on p. 44, after repeating that the sense of smell "is the source of simple knowledge, which alone would never lead us out of ourselves;" that "it is possible that the suggestion of cause and effect might indicate to us the probability of a cause, but the sense itself would neither awaken this inquiry nor furnish us with the means of answering it." If it is possible that the suggestion of cause and effect gives us any knowledge, it gives us the non-ego, and the sense of smell is the occasion of a knowledge of externality, which is contrary to the distinct and repeated assertions of Dr. Wayland. The self-contradiction is not reconciled by the suggestion that 'it is possible that a cause is probable,' for here we want no possible indications of probability,' nor is any such talk at random consistent with the author's distinct teaching under the head of causation, when he declares that the idea of a cause is necessarily and certainly [not probably] given, by any change, before experience teaches what is the cause of a particular change.

In respect to hearing, he asks, "is it a sensation or perception," and answers, "it is purely a sensation giving us no intimation of anything external. He then goes on to observe, almost in the next sentence, "The sensation of hearing is much more definite, varied, and intensely pleasing, than that derived" from smell and taste. "It has, moreover, a power of strongly affecting the tone of mind of the hearer. These impressions being made upon a being endowed with original suggestion, would naturally occasion an inquiry for a cause." "We should thus learn that something existed out of ourselves, but what that something was, the sense of hearing would furnish us with no means of determining." The point is, that something existsnot what that something is. In respect to this point the author states in one sentence, that hearing gives us no information, in another that it is so exciting and interesting, that it suggests a cause, and thus "we should learn that something existed out of ourselves." It is a new doctrine that a subjective sensation,