divine side, such a loss would be providential; but on the human side it might be regarded as fortuitous. But, however this may be, there is not a particle of evidence that any writing known to have proceeded from the pen of an apostle was ever rejected as uninspired.

With regard to the companions of the apostles, there is ground for believing that the primitive churches recognized gradations among them, and that they did not receive indiscriminately the writings of all of them as possessing divine authority. The full consideration of this subject is reserved for consideration in a future Number. It is sufficient to remark at present that no writing was admitted into the canon of the New Testament that did not proceed from an apostle, or from one who was associated with the apostles in the work of the ministry and recognized as possessing spiritual gifts in common with them.

Here, then, we have an intelligible objective rule of judg ment, and one that is in harmony with the whole history of redemption. God is not the author of confusion. He works in a sovereign way, but never at random. There is system in the operations of grace as well as of nature. Having chosen the nation of Israel as his peculiar people, he made them, and not the world at large, the depositaries of his revelations. Nor were his communications to them made in a scattered way without order, but rather according to an established economy. He raised up from Moses till the close of the Babylonish captivity a regular succession of prophets; most of them trained in the schools of the prophets, but some of them, like Amos,1 called directly from the ordinary avocations of life. It is admitted that no book was received into the canon of the Old Testament which had not for its author a prophet, or a prophetical man, like Solomon, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Into the composition of certain books state documents may have entered; but they were selected by one who had the spirit of prophecy, and thus had the sanction of God. It is further admitted that the canon of

1 Amos vii. 14, 15.

the Old Testament was closed soon after the captivity, because from that time, to use the words of Josephus, "the exact succession of the prophets was wanting." An analogous economy of revelation appears under the New Testament. The gift of the Spirit, in a high and special sense, was imparted to the disciples on the day of Pentecost, and the apostles enjoyed the high prerogative of communicating this gift to others by the laying on of hands.2 We have no indications in the New Testament that this power was extended beyond their circle. These men the primitive church acknowledged as having the broad seal of divine authority, and their writings they received as inspired of God. We shall proceed in the next Number to inquire whether their judgment rested on valid grounds.

ARTICLE III.

INSTINCT.

BY REV. JOHN BASCOM, PROFESSOR IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

THERE seem to be three forms of nervous and mental phenomena, very distinct in kind, yet easily passing into each other by slight gradations. The first form is purely a vital, nervous fact, and cannot properly be called mental. It is that by which through a nervous centre or centres the present condition and the muscular action of a living body are harmonized. Thus, in man, the lungs, heart, stomach, intestines are subject to a constant play of muscular forces, suited to the passing state of those organs by means of nervous centres, which receive, on the one hand, influences from these seats of activity, and on the other, return to them the impulses of regular, suitable, proportionate muscular effort, 1 ̓Απὸ δὲ ̓Αρταξέρξου μέχρι τοῦ καθ' ἡμᾶς χρόνου γέγραπται μὲν ἕκαστα, πίστεως δὲ οὐχ ὁμοίας ἠξίωται τοῖς πρὸ αὐτῶν, διὰ τὸ μὴ γενέσθαι τὴν τῶν προφητῶν ἀκριβῆ διαδοχήν. Against Apion, i. 8.

2 Acts viii. 17 seq.; xix. 6.

by which their rhythmic movements are maintained and their functions discharged.

This form of nervous action is not confined to the viscera; it extends, in a greater or less degree, to all parts of the body, and maintains the voluntary muscles in that general state of tensity which keeps the body charged with life and ready for the immediate handling of the will.

A second class of nervous and mental phenomena is found in the senses, in the memory which retains and restores their impressions, and in the muscular action consequent upon them. The first harmonic effort of the nervous system, by which the constant activities of the living being are made concordant with each other, and with the changing state of each of its parts, and with the most immediate of the forces which act upon it from its environment, does not necessarily enter consciousness, and is for the most part secured in a direct, automatic, unmistakable way. The second class of nervous facts of which we are now speaking appears in consciousness, and these give us rudimentary mental phenomena. The living being is by it adapted to the less immediate and constant of its external conditions; through it, it is made cognizant of transient circumstances, and suits itself to them. We cannot definitely say how much, but certainly a great deal, can be accomplished with a basis of appetites, by alert, specific senses, a retentive memory, and action that follows instantly on the impulse given by these. In the first place, the special appetites are, by odor, sight, sound, set in speedy pursuit of their appropriate objects, and their search becomes increasingly skilful and successful. The memory rapidly classifies, and thus generalizes, all the experiences for weal and woe to which the living being has been hitherto subjected; and this it does in so direct, automatic a way as to give the utmost promptness to the actions it controls. The very conditions of effort suggest at once, under accumulated experience, the results; and the animal acts as if in immediate view of those consequences whose inevitable sequence time has established in the associations of the

mind. Memory may thus oftentimes do the work of judg ment in a way more decided and safe than is possible to the higher faculty. A decision resting on the balance of cases is found in the very faculty itself, and with an effect as instant as vision controls the conduct.

The third class of nervous phenomena, or phenomena dependent on the nervous system with its great centres, is still more purely mental; it is that of judgment or thought. In the previous class, we have sensations, the feelings which these directly call forth, whether of appetite, sportiveness, fellowship, hostility, fear, and the inevitable junction of these by memory under the experiences of life in fixed associations, whereby action is suited instantly to the conditions. under which it arises. Hence come the tricks of the old dog, the cunning of the fox, the sagacity of the elephant. In the present class, we have the facts of sensation thrown distinctly, consciously, by the mind's own action, into judgments. The mind states to itself the conditions before it, and draws from them in full form certain conclusions. Something more than the associations of memory, restoring things as they have been previously found, is here involved. No judgment, not even the simplest, can be formed without the presence of one or more of those ideas known as intuitive. It is not to our purpose to discuss the origin of these ideas. It is sufficient to say that some one or other of them enters into the most rudimentary thought, if we use this word as an equivalent to judgment. The marble is, involves the idea of existence; the marble is white, this idea and that of resemblance; the marble is now white, these two ideas and that of time; this marble is now white, these three and that of place or space. The direct, conscious union of facts and ideas in judgments is thinking. This is thinking; though thinking includes this and something more.

The three classes we have now defined are typically distinct, though passing easily into each other, and mingling freely with each other in psychological events. The first class hinges on unconscious states, automatic in the series

of actions which, through the nervous system, flows from them; the second class hinges on sensations-conscious states, reached by special organs and general conditions, which in a conscious way secure appropriate action; the third class hinges on ideas which are occasions of judgments, in turn controlling voluntary actions.

All three of these forms are found in man, and mutually modify each other. The complete or highest type of rational action is seen in the third class; though this is supplemented and aided by both the other two. The labor, if it may be so called, of simply living,- of keeping the vital organs in harmonious play, in perfect relation, is taken off the mind as a conscious activity, and left with the highly organized and organizing nervous centres, which do this work in a comparatively direct, unvarying fashion. Yet over these processes the mind exercises a measure of power, quickening or retarding inspiration, shutting, opening, directing the eyes, relaxing or making more tense muscles already affected by involuntary forces. The lower life is run independently of the higher life, though kept in a state of readiness for it, subject to its influence and use. Much of what is known as skill is but a change of voluntary into involuntary or automatic connections. So long as one is compelled to put a distinct, conscious purpose back of each motion, his movements are slow, perplexed, and awkward. When at length such a union has by repetition been established that the succession of actions in any series can be handed over to the unconscious muscular, nervous system, to the rhythm of its instant and unerring play, then skill appears; the whole movement is rapid, precise, felicitous. Thus the skilful organist, wrapped in the sentiment of the piece, scarcely knows the existence of the keys that are responding so perfectly to his rapid touch.

What is known as instinct falls, at least in part, into this division. Besides the organic and the acquired harmonies of the nervous and muscular systems, there are others which we observe, even in man, without understanding their ground.