oughly explore, but in which he may discover more and more. What he may discover, and what he may never be able to discover, are to be determined by the separate sciences, each in its own department. Thus, what he can find out of mind, of its various powers and original convictions, is to be determined by the various branches of mental science. What he can ascertain by the senses, aided by instruments, must be settled by the physical sciences.

2. The limits to man's capacity of knowledge being ascertained, it is easy to determine the limits to his power of forming ideas. The materials must all be got from the three sources of knowledge which have been pointed out. There are two classes of powers employed in enlarging and modifying these. The one is the imagination, which can decrease, as when on seeing a man it can form the idea of a dwarf; and increase, as when it can form the idea of a giant; or separate, as when it sees a man it can form an image of his head; or compound, as when it puts a hundred hands on man, and forms the idea of a Briareus. It should be observed that the imagination can never go beyond the rearrangement of the materials supplied by the original sources of knowledge. The mind can further discover a number of relations among the objects primitively known. These I have endeavored to classify. In particular, out of the concrete it can form innumerable abstracts, and from the singulars construct an indefinite number of universals. It should be observed that man's power of imagination and correlation extends over his moral convictions as well as his intellectual cognitions. Thus, he can clothe the hero of a romance in various kinds of moral excellence of which he has discovered the rudiments in himself or others, and perceive relations among the moral properties which

have fallen under his notice. These are the limits to man's capacity of forming ideas, determined, first, by his original powers of cognition, and, secondly, by his powers of imagination and correlation.

3. Our beliefs, it is evident, may go beyond our cognitions. Still there are stringent limits set to them in our very nature and constitution. Thus, we can never believe anything in opposition to self-evident and necessary truths. There are beliefs which are in our very mental make and frame, and which are altogether beyond our voluntary power. If we except these, however, our power of possible belief is as wide as our capacity of forming ideas. If it is asked what we should believe within these limits, the answer is, Only what has evidence to plead in its behalf, what has self-evidence or mediate evidence. Metaphysics, with their tests, can determine what truths are to be received on their own authority; as to the kind and amount of evidence required in derivative truth, this can be settled only by the canons of the special departments of investigation, historical or phys ical.

But do our beliefs ever go beyond our ideas? This is a very curious question, and different persons will be disposed to give different answers to it. It seems clear to me that every belief must be a belief in something of which we have some sort of conception. A belief in nothing would not deserve to be called a belief, and a belief in something of which we have no apprehension would be equivalent to a belief in nothing. But it will be urged that every man must believe in certain great truths regarding eternity of which he has no conception, and that the Christian in particular has such a truth, in which he firmly believes, in the doctrine of the Trinity. Still, I maintain that even in such a case there is an ap

prehension or conception. Thus, in regard to infinity, we apprehend space or time, or God, who inhabits all space and time, stretching away further and further; but far as we go, we apprehend and believe that there is and must be a space, a time, a living Being, beyond. Or we apprehend a spiritual God, with attributes, say of power and love; and we strive to conceive of him, and of these perfections; and we believe of him and his power and goodness that they transcend all our feeble attempts at comprehension. In every supposable case of belief we have an apprehension of some kind. A traveller tells us that he saw in Africa a monstrous animal, which he cannot describe so as to enable us to comprehend it; we understand the man's language, and if we have reason to look upon him as trustworthy we believe his statement; but in doing so our belief goes upon the apprehension of an animal different from all other animals. An inspired writer tells us about there being three persons in one Godhead; and, having evidence of his inspiration, we believe him: but even here there is an apprehension; there is a conception of the God of truth as revealing the truth. There is more this revelation is contained in words of which we form some sort of apprehension: thus, we are told that Jesus Christ is God; that he became man; and yet we discover that he is somehow or other different from God the Father. Thus in all our beliefs there seems to be a conception of something, and of something real and existing; but still it may be of something conceived by us as having qualities which pass beyond our comprehension, or qualities of which we have no comprehension.

Some of these conceptions, with their attached beliefs, are those which raise up within us the feeling of the sublime, and are, of all others, the most fitted to elevate the

soul of man. Need I add that it is possible for us to believe in truths which we cannot reconcile with other truths of sense or understanding? It is wrong in us, indeed, to believe in a proposition unsupported by evidence; but when it is properly sustained, and when especially it is seen to have the sanction of God, then the mind asserts its prerogative of belief, even when the truth transcends all sense, all personal, all human experience, nay, even when it is encompassed with darkness and difficulties on every side. Faith feels that it is in one of its highest exercises when founding on the authority of God it believes, not indeed in contradictions (which it can never do), but in truths which it cannot reconcile with the appearance of things, or with other truths which the reason sanctions.

CHAPTER III.

RELATION OF INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE.

WE must now dive into the subject whose depths the great Teutonic metaphysician sought to sound; not that Kant spoke much of it in the intercourse with his friends, but he was forever pondering it as he sat in his bachelor domicile, as he paced forward and backward in his favorite walk in the suburbs of Königsberg, as he lectured to his class, or elaborated his published writings. The general question embraces several special ones, which must be carefully distinguished. In seeking to settle these, we must always have it fixed in our minds in what sense we employ the word "experience; " for the phrase may be understood in narrower or in wider significations. It may be confined to the outward fact known or apprehended, or it may also embrace the inward consciousness.

It is the aim of this whole work to explain the nature of intuition. In this chapter it is of all things necessary to explain the nature of experience.

First, there is Personal Experience, which consists of what each one has passed through. There is no opposition, even in appearance, between intuition and such an experience. Every exercise of intuition is an experience.

Second, there is a Gathered Experience, or an Induction. This consists of the experience of mankind generally; in fact, of the aggregate of what man can observe. It is the relation of this human experience to intuition that I am to discuss in this chapter. The gathered experi