and his place, business and pleasure in the uni

verse.

-

For thirty years past I have been disposed to this kind of study; and it is strange to think how many books I have read, and how often over, and what an amount of hours I have spent in thinking, and how many hundreds of human beings I have watched and speculated upon, without being ever, for one moment, satisfied that I knew what I was about,for want, I suppose, of some scientific basis for the inquiry, and of some laws manifesting themselves in its course; - laws on which one might rest, and to which one might recur, when in perplexity how to proceed. I am sure I do not wonder at scientific men sneering at metaphysics, if the case be at all as I suppose it: that Natural Philosophy and Mental Philosophy are arbitrarily separated; that the one is in a regenerate state (thanks to Bacon), and the other in an unregenerate state; and that we can no more get on in Mental Philosophy without an ascertainment of the true method of inquiry, than the men of the middle ages could get on with Natural Philosophy (except in the departments of detail), till a man rose up to give us a Novum Organon Scientiarum. And why Mental Philosophy is not yet included among the sciences which are benefiting by the Novum Organon of Bacon is a thing that I am quite unsatisfied about. I do not mean that I at all wonder that the greater number of students have recourse to unsound methods; because we see that the fact is so with the greater

number of physical inquirers, the true followers of Bacon being few indeed among Natural philosophers, as they are called. My wonder is, not that there are few so-called Mental philosophers who use or even advocate any experimental method of inquiry into the science of mind; but that there seem to me to be none. If I am wrong as to the fact, tell me; and pray point out where I may find such, if you know them to exist.

I am well aware what the answer of metaphysicians to this difficulty of mine would be. They would plead the totally different and incompatible nature of the two regions of inquiry, and therefore of the method of penetrating those regions. But this is exactly what I am not satisfied about. When I look at the course of metaphysical inquiry from the beginning to this day, I see something very much like the course of physical inquiry from the beginning to Bacon's day: and I am not sure that Bacon may not yet throw down the barrier between the two regions, and make them one. When I look back upon the two paths, it seems to me that I see the same Idols set up for worship on the wayside; and I hear the same excuses for wild theorizing in both departments, - that spiritual agencies are at work, which can be recognized only by each man for himself, by means of a special spiritual sense of which no one can give an account. Now, Science has disabused us of our blinding and perplexing notions of spiritual anti-types of material things, and of spiritual interference in material

operations; and we have arrived at the notion of chance-excluding Law in the physical operations of the universe. I want to know why it is not possible for us to pursue the same process in regard to Mental Philosophy; - why we are to take for granted that the two regions of science are so unlike, that the same principle of inquiry is not applicable to both; and if so, what we are to do next; for we cannot remain forever as hopelessly adrift on the sea of conjecture about the truths of Mental Science as we are now. I do not ask you, however, to make an express reply to every thing I may put in the form of a question, as above. If

you will tell me how you would set to work to ascertain the powers of Man, in order to understand his position and destiny in the Universe, that will include an answer to my speculations on past methods of inquiry.

Your ideas will descend upon this locality in curious contrast with some which are to be found here. I like to talk with the gardener, and the cowherd's wife, and any workman who may relish a bit of talk on Sundays, on their notions of how body and mind should be treated, and what they are living for, and what is wrong and right in morals. There is much amusement and instruction in hearing them lay down the law about health and duty. And then, when I meet a poet here, and a scholar there, and a Quaker or Swedenborgian religionist somewhere else, it seems to me that I have been carried back some thousands of years, to the

time when science was composed of dreaming, and when men's instincts constituted the mythology under which they lived. It is all very interesting, however, and all worthy of respect. To us, who are in search of facts, there is no dream of any intellect, no dogmatic assurance, no stirring of any instinct, which is not full of interest and instruction. But I shall be glad of your answer to my question, as guidance in using the material furnished by my neighbors.

II.

PROPOSAL OF A BASIS.

My dear Friend,

H. G. A. TO H. M.

By all means let us go into this inquiry and explanation. Nothing will give me greater pleasure; for certainly it is most important that we should form a true estimate of man's nature, and ascertain the real basis of a science of mind. Men have been wandering amidst poesies, theologies, and metaphysics, and have been caught in the web of ideal creations, and have to be brought back again to particulars and material conditions; to investigate the real world, and those laws of being and action which are the form and nature of things,

and the phenomena which they present, as they are here, within us and about us in reality and in truth, and not as we would fancy them to be. There are not two philosophies, one for Mind and another for Matter. Nature is one, and to be studied as a whole. "There is nothing in nature," says Bacon, "but individual bodies, exhibiting clear individual effects, according to particular laws.”* Instinct, passion, thought, &c., are effects of organized substances: but men have sought to make out a philosophy of mind, by studying these effects apart from causes, and have even asserted that ́mind was entirely independent of body, and having some unintelligible nature of its own, called 'free will, — not subject to law, or dependent on material conditions; though a man has no more power to determine his own will than he has wings to fly. Of course, I need not say to you that these popular notions are mere delusion. I cannot tell you how odd it seems to me to have to assert such a self-evident fact. All the conditions of man and mental peculiarities are now traced to physical causes and conditions, exhibiting clear determining

laws.

The instinct of animals and the mental

condition of men are all phenomena exhibited as a consequence of the bodily condition, and the influences which have been acting upon it.

is now as

This

clearly understood as the physical con

ditions and cause of the rainbow and of the thun

*Novum Organon, II. Aph. 2.