>:> J> x>~> %> >> D > >»^ ►> » ^» ■>■>■> - e^L> I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I ! ^^^0.,Bi: | f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 3>» ^O > Capita » » >^> >3 m>5 > > >> > ■? ?^^ agar 8E3fe>- ^1 -ms^ >Si v>^» J* -3b s ■j-i^-r < J > » ? ^ 3 > >X f ' > " yj> 3^^. >^> finish >) 3 >>> > 55! >J ~ MM i« ^:BQS 51>7 -^ ' ^--p3>> > £>^ ,>2» > a: > > ^ s O&fcflV ATIOS OF THE Mlf B: ^—+~+~+ a: lecture BY IX e v. A-N T> II E W'V TEI AH I> I E , A • M OF WHITEWATER;. WISCONSIN. ^ ,# . •• ■ a. ■ . \ $^ v v^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by L. H. RANN, in the Clerk's office of the District Court, for the District of Wisconsin. PTINTED AT THE REGISTER OFFICE, WHITEWATER, WISCONSIN. V Whether there be a diftinction in nature between the human Soul and the human Spirit; whether Reason and Underftanding be diftinguifhable ; whether the various acts of Judgment, Mem- ory, Imagination, are to be regarded as so many different ftates or one iimple, indivisible subliance, or whether they mull be explain- ed by s-uppofing the exiftence of distinct powers, or faculties, in that subliance ; whether ideas, or notions rather, be innate, — that is, born with us, — and only unfolded by education, which therefore may be defined a process of evolution ; or whether, on the contrary, all the ilores of the mind have been imported from without : these, and other kindred queiiions, which have deeply engaged the attention of philosophers, I am compelled to pass by with this general observation : that though considera- ble light might be thrown on the topic before us, from the in- veftigation of those other points, yet we may satisfactorily dis- cuss this without even forming an opinion regarding any of them, or even being aware of their exiftence, as a person may easily be taught to use a telescope who is ignorant of the laws of the reflection or the refraction of light, according to which the tel- escope is conftructed ; or as every soldier in a regiment can moulder arms at the word of command, whereas perhaps not one of them could name the muscles which that act called into operation. The word mind is often used in a reftricted sense ; but I mall, in this lecture, employ it in its moil exteniive application, not to denote any one peculiar faculty, or exercise, of the human soul, but that which is the subject of all those faculties — the one agent in all those exercises. I include as well the moral and imagina- CULTIVATION rive powers as the intellectual, in my idea of the mind. The objects with which we are conversant present themselves to our minds principally under these three grand aspects ; firft, as true or false ; second, as beautiful and noble or mean and deformed ; third, as right or wrong, good or evil. That which is convers- ant with the true or false is the intellectual faculty, called in common language, indifferently, reason or underflanding; that which is employed about the beautiful or sublime is imagination, fancy, tafle ; that w T hich takes cognizance of the right and the wrong is conscience, sometimes called also moral sense. The cultivation of the mind includes whatever has the effect of en- larging and invigorating it in these, and in all its other faculties or exercises, and of delivering them from those trammels and impedi- ments which hinder their free and beneficial action, so that the im- agination mail be a prolific mother of healthful and well favored thoughts ; the underflanding an acute and jealous guardian, lest any illegitimate notions be received into the family and cherifhed there as truths ; and the conscience sitting a severe and incor- ruptible judge, impartially pronouncing sentence on all the men- tal offspring, and inexorably carrying his judgments into effect, unseduced by his handmaids, the paffions, entreating him to spare his fofler children,. We not unfrequently observe minds having some one faculty or more in great flrength, while the others are little developed* Some men grow all to underflanding ; some all to imagination. The former see all objects through the glass of logic ; the latter look at everything through the medium of poetry. The one are hard and dry trees, bearing no bloffoms, and even their fruit, though not unwholesome, wants juice and flavor ; the others run all to flowers and effences, perfuming the air and regaling the senses ; but they yield little fruit, and that too pungent to be nu- tritious. These are cases of monflrofity as much as those bodies, one member of which has grown great and flrong at the expense of the reft, all of which its increase has dwarfed and ruined. — Cases may also be found in which the conscience, not satisfied OF THE MIND. with aflerting his claims to a conflitutional monarchy, has raised himself to absolute dominion in the soul. Instead of governing the other faculties he has sought to flay them, — like those eafl- ern despots who fancy they do not lit securely on their thrones till they have murdered their kindred. It is indeed neceflary we mould be acutely alive to the right and the wrong in all subjects in which these qualities exift, but it is not deflrable that we mould see nothing in them but the right and wrong. In fhort, as the perfection of the human body confifts, not in the flrength and energy of any one member or sense, but in the health and activity of all ; and as the higher! idea of civil gov- ernment is not realized by the exclulive development of any one element of polity, but by such a combination of them all as mall, to the greateil extent poffible, neutralize the deleterious effects which each displays when adding uncombined with countervailing elements ; — so the perfection of the mind, and the point to which its cultivation mould be directed, is to educate, ftrengthen and regulate whatever is in the mind, implanted there by that manifold wisdom whose provifions are neither {tinted or inade- quate on the one hand, nor superfluous on the other. Thus ac- complifhed the man is clad in panoply, prepared to discharge the high offices to which humanity is called, in relation both to the vifible and to the spiritual world. Cultivation of the mind is the result of well directed exercise, those objects being presented which are calculated to excite its various capacities, and by the pursuit of which the capacities themselves are beneficially employed. We can hardly account it wise, however, either to exert the mental or bodily powers in those employments which furniih exercise, indeed, but yield no further advantage, when so many labors present themselves which minifter a double fruit : firft, in him that labors in them ; and then in the things themselves in which he labors. He that walks to preserve health does well ; he that digs, does better ; for in this case the labor itself is productive and profitable, which in the former it is not. So it is better the mental powers mould CULTIVATION be employed on even the moil barren subjects than that they should be idle; but when the world is full of pregnant truths, valuable both in themselves and in the further pofTeflions to which they lead, it is surely not wise to expend our energies on those which in themselves are utterly valueless. The iludent of chess gets mental exercise which in and of itself is good ; but he gets nothing further, the knowledge thus acquired being of no use either absolutely or inflrumentally ; whereas the fludent of the mathematics, and the fludent of hiflory, befides mental employment, obtain a key, the one to all the phyfical sciences, — that is, to the whole material world, — the other to humanity it- self. Thus the labor, which in the former case terminates in itself, in the other opens up the great flore-house of nature and makes us free of all the riches of the world. Few, perhaps, would maintain that our minds do not require any particular discipline in order to qualify us for discharging those functions to which, as members of society, and as subjects of the moral government of our invifible sovereign, all men are called ; but many of the moil prevalent and pernicious errors are never avowed, much less defended, in words, as the moft powerful agents in nature manifefl themselves only by their ef- fects. Millions of persons mow that the only education of their inner man, which they hold to be defirable, confiils in that ac- quaintance with the alphabet of knowledge obtained at school, and which has unfortunately engroffed the name of education, and in that fkill in their particular trades or profeffions which may secure success in them, and through them the means of subfiflence. But that this does not deserve to be ilyled " the cultivation of the mind, " will inflantly be admitted, if we confider that that knowledge concerns man chiefly, not as a man but as an animal prerTed with certain corporal necefhties, and therefore it only puts him on a level with the inferior creatures, which are taught the methods of supplying their wants by blind, irrefiilible inflin&s. Man's mind cannot surely be said to be cultivated, when it is so inflru&ed as to enable him to supply OF THE MIND. 5 only his lowelt wants, and to a£t suitably only in his lowed re- lations. Few pofTeffions of much real value come into our hands by accident. No man ever was a fkillful architect, or phyilcian, or carpenter, by chance ; these gifts are not beflowed by nature, but acquired by induftry ; and the knowledge of those sciences and arts which are profounder and more intricate in themselves, and which more deeply concern us, is not granted on eafier terms. Not even the lowell organ in the body, not a muscle or a sense, can perform its function without having un- dergone a lengthened and elaborate process of inftruction ; the hand, the ear, the eye, mud each be trained and taught, and though we may be unconscious of this education, it has as really been received as that was by which we learned to read or to write. If, then, even the meanefl corporeal sense demand an appropriate education, without which they would prove rather encumbrances to the individual than his scouts and mefTengers by which he keeps up his communication with the external world, shall we suppose that the noblefl capacities of man's spirit are alone independent of all training and culture ? that they only are incapable of expanfion and refinement ? that in the whole territory of human nature this is the only field which promises to reward the tillage with no fruit ? Addison's cele- brated comparison of the human soul, without cultivation, to a block of marble in the quarry, though beautiful and finking, falls below the case ; for the process of poliihing only displayed those spots and veins which were in the subftance as much be- fore it was hewn and drefTed as afterwards : whereas, cultivation performs for the mind the same office which heat and moiflure discharge in relation to the vegetable seed, or food and exercise to the animal organization, to which, though they absolutely impart no new organ, they enlarge and flrengthen all and per- mit some to devolope themselves which had no exiflence except in germ. It is an inadequate comprehenfion. of our position and our relations which fhelters the delufion that our faculties are then sufficiently disciplined and expanded, when they qualify us CULTIVATION to fulfill our vocation as creatures beset with certain corporal neceflities. We have other problems to solve than these : what fhall we eat ? what mail we drink ? wherewithal fhall we be clothed ? Our personal wants, our domeilic ties, even our so- cial relations, address not to us those queftions which touch our interefts moil vitally. Man has also relations to the universe, to the sum of vifible things which surrounds him, and to that high- er world, regarding which our senses bring no information, but in which we mull seek the ideas of whatever of the perfect, good, or fair, is found, though dimly represented in this, which, as wise men have persuaded themselves, was created with such analogy to that as both to suggefl to the inquiring spirit those higher forms of beauty and goodness, and to aid it somewhat in apprehending these. Yes, " Man, the animal formed out of the dull of the ground, that eats and fleeps, is born and dies, is also the image of God ; " a ray of the divinity, to whom even the ftru&ure of his body intimate that he was formed to look above that earth to which he is chained ; a mediator and a prieft, he Hands between God and his other terreflrial works, con- secrated to present them in sacrifice, for they are full of praises which they cannot themselves offer ; and that man has not ap- prehended his highefl calling who knows not that he is anointed with the holy oil of reason and speech, to express the sense of all things here below ; to say that which all the creatures mean, to render those works of God vocal which naturally are dumb. But how shall, he fulfill his vocation as a prieft, offering up his works to God as sacrifices of praise continually, who is all un- conscious of that manifold wisdom, goodness, and power, from which they all originated, and which they all reveal ; and how can these be known if they are not carefully observed and dili- gently ftudied ? Jehovah is a God that hideth himself as well in nature and the moral conftitution and government of the world, as in that dispensation of divine mercy unfolded in the bible. In that as well as in this the truth is spoken in parables ; it is revealed in myflery, so that they who have no ear to hear OF THE MIND. J are nothing the wiser ; the Shekinah blazes indeed in both, but it is either a pillar of lire or a pillar of cloud, according to the polition from which we view it. The objects to be proposed in the cultivation of the intellectual powers are chiefly these : Firft, knowledge — acquaintance with facts and principles ; that is, with particular and general truths, as also the power of re- taining this, which power is called memory, the (lore house or treasury of the mind ; secondly, judgment : the faculty of eflimating correctly whatever is presented. The caution for- merly given may here be repeated, left the intellectual veffel be upset, too much ballaft being thrown to one fide or the other, — the mind becoming either a depofitary of unarranged, unman- ageable knowledge — mere lumber, of which the pofTerTor under- ftands not the value, and which he can turn to no account in the way of utility or pleasure, or a naked, uninformed judgment. — The former of these ftates is an intellectual gluttony, craving for knowledge which is swallowed ravenoufly, but is never digefted or transmuted into the subftance of the mind, of which it only feeds the peccant humors. Who reads incefTantly, and to his reading brings not a spirit and judgment equal or superior, un- certain and unsettled ftill remains. "Deep read in books, but shallow in himself."— Milton. The latter state is not less to be dreaded when the mind grows, to a naked judgment, acute and active, but unfurnifhed — destitute of the materials without an abundant supply of which our decifions are likely to be as erroneous as if the judgment it- self were weak, or even more so ; for more false opinions, and of greater consequence, arise from a too narrow comprehenfion of facts than from a miftaken eftimate of those which are ob- served ; as a tower is exposed to no less danger of falling if it stand on a basis too narrow or insecure than if the building itself be infirm. And while paflion and interest beget many prejudi- ces, Ignorance is the parent of more, who, befides her own nu- merous family, melters and rears all the offspring of her two As- ters. No acuteness or vigor of judgment can deliver an igno- 8 CULTIVATION rant mind from danger of the mod hurtful prejudices ; whereas, in many cases, the very extenfion of our knowledge inevitably and inilantaneoully dispels those prejudices, which are the night of the soul, and which fly before the firll beams of the riling truth which is her sun — the ghofts and specters of the mind ; also whose habitation is darkness, not being permitted to abide the crowing of the cock. " The flocking shadows pale Troop to the iniernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several cave"— Milton. To prevent both these evils it is neceflary that we mingle as great an acquaintance as may be with other men's thoughts, w r ith as great an exercise as poffible of our own. In order to be very profitable, reading and reflection fhould be united ; either, with- out the other, will fail of obtaining the great end which lhould be had in view. A mere swallower of books is no more likely to become wise than is a glutton to be healthy or ftrong. Infor- mation is not knowledge, much less is it wisdom, any more than food is chyle or blood ; we mull exercise reflection upon facts — information mull be digeiled : then only is it turned into that knowledge which is the vital fluid of man's spirit, and from which wisdom draws her nouriihment. On the other hand, to prevent them preying upon themselves and corroding their own vitals, men's minds, especially those that are energetic and active, ihould be furniihed with a copious supply of wholesome nouriihment, derived from books in which we mull read much if we would be mentally healthy and vigorous. You will not suppose that by much reading I mean the running over many books ; this is not so much reading as diflipation ; and inflead of concentrating and training the intellectual faculty, that habit tends, beyond moll others, to emasculate the underflanding, both indispofing and disqualifying it for those several exercises of at- tention and reflection from which its health and expanlion arise. An ancient author has well diilinguifhed between much read- ing and the reading of many books ; and certainly he who has so read one good book as to have imprefled the facts contained OF THE MIND. in it on his memory : as to have fully comprehended the reason- ings : as not only to have followed its author in what he has expreffed, but also to have pursued, to some diflance, those man- ifold cogitations implied in his discourse, or which it naturally suggefts to a meditative spirit ; — for an author fhould be valued, not so much according to what he has thought for us as to what he' has enabled us to think, and the highefl value of the belt wri- ters lies rather in what they suggeft than in what they teach, for their books drain off only the surface water of their concep- tions, the more copious and purer fireams finking beneath, so that none, without digging deep, can find those wells of living water ; he, I say, who has thus thoroughly maflered and ap- propriated one good author, has made a greater Hep in the path of self-improvement than if he had devoured the contents of a whole library without reflection, or attempting to ponder, judge, or retain, what he read ; for in this" case the mind is paffive, in the former it is active, and it is an unfailing principle that power and ikill arise not from pamvity but from action. A child who has been taught to Hand or take three Heps by himself, has made a greater progress towards the art of walking than if he had been carried over the whole globe. I am aware of the folly of prescribing any one method as applicable universally ; the infi- nite variety of circumflances, taftes, and talents forbids such hedging up of the path to knowledge ; and genius, commonly by a certain happy divination, discovers for herself the way that fhall conduct: her most directly to the point proposed. Yet, as genius is not a universal or even a common gift, and as even when present she is not an infallible directress ; when also we see so much induflry misapplied, — as we sometimes do, — so much labor bellowed in the unfruitful weaving of a Penelope's web : when men read much yet know little, or little that is worth knowing : can talk but not judge, argue but not reason, are better able to defend any pofition than to discern what pofitions ought to be defended, or will repay the defence : when their minds are so ill-flored and so undisciplined that self-communion affords IO CULTIVATION them no pleasure and no profit, so that they are driven to seek society, however worthless: when men are so unliable as to be tolled about from one opinion to another, continually, not knowing what to believe, or what to reject, ending, perhaps, in that melancholy unfixedness which knows not whether to be- lieve anything, — surely it becomes a duty to warn all againfl that diffipation of which those miserable mental diseases are the nat- ural result. If you wifh to know nothing, to do nothing, to be nothing, you will permit your fancy to rove whithersoever it wills ; that is, you will indulge mental diffipation. He that sows the wind will reap the whirlwind ; he that ploughs and sows within enclosures will find a harvefl to reap ; labor be- llowed upon the wilderness, or upon the common, is loll ; and he that has little time to apply to the cultivation of his under- fltanding, ihould be doubly solicitous left any fraction of that little Ihould be loft, but that all of it mould be concentrated and husbanded. The firft and moll necefTary preparation for making advancement in knowledge, is the habit of attention, or the power and cuftom of keeping one's mind fixedly and continuously directed to the matter before it, to the exclufion, for the time, of all other thoughts. This, to persons of adlive and fruitful imaginations, especially, is a moil difficult attainment ; hence they are often outftripped in the race of knowledge by others of far inferior powers, to whom the very flowness of their parts present less formidable obje6ls in acquiring the habit of atten- tion. To generate and ftrengthen this power nothing conduces more than the ftudy of geometry, which, therefore, fhould be pursued, at leaft to some extent, by all who have the opportuni- ty ; for though all the particular propoiitions fhould afterwards be effaced from the memory, the seeds will probably have been sown of a habit which can perifh only with the mind itself. All ftudies demanding a close application of thought have the same tendency, though none, I think, in the same de- gree as that I have mentioned, which has this further recommen- dation : that it appeals to the underftanding exclufively, the pas- OF THE MIND. II fions having here no liberty of speech. But you may exercise and improve the habit of attention in the common employments of life as well as in ftudies expreffly engaged in for that purpose. Whatever is before you, endeavor to make it, for the time, as long as is necefTary, the object of your undivided thoughts ; this is the grand secret for acquiring intellectual opulence, as well as of success in the business of this world. He that does one thing at once commonly does many things, and each well. Newton profeffed that he was conscious of no superiority to or- dinary men in any respect except in the power of attention : he could keep his mind fixed on one point till he discerned what he sought. He that thinks it necefTary to have formed a final opinion on every queflion, — yea, on every important queflion, — will often be compelled to profess what he has not invefligated, and, if he be honest, to retract his profefhons, which can never be done but at a confiderable loss of reputation. It is the part of a wise as well as of an honest and truth-loving man, to hold his judgment in suspense till he has well examined ; and such a person will regard it equally an offence against candor and rec- titude to arrive at a decifion after having heard what can be said only on one fide of a disputed point, as if a jury fhould return a verdict before they had liftened to both of the parties. Yet this is the sort of inveftigation which satisfies a large proportion of mankind, even in regard to most important matters : they form their opinions first as paffion, interest, or authority dictates, and ever after their ears are open only to those who defend that which they have chosen to believe. How else lhall we explain the remarkable fact that opinions are often found as hereditary in families as features, or diseases : a sentiment descends through many generations, from father to son, like a wart or a scrofula. This unfortunate and highly censurable proceeding is one great spring of heats and factions : as men almost always maintain with more keenness and paffion what they have received from authority, than what they have examined for themselves, and of the grounds of which they feel afTured. It is not only a part of I 2 CULTIVATION prudence but is erTentially involved in maintaining a pure con- science that we exercise caution and deliberation in forming and avowing opinions which, when once profefTed, the pride of con- fiftency, and the fhame of confeffing an error, may drive us per- tinaciously to adhere to, notwithltanding many secret misgivings. By a premature avowal of opinions also persons often connect themselves with parties, and pledge themselves to a course of conduct which corrupts and degrades their moral sense ; for no fituation can be conceived more miserable, as few are more de- baring, than for one who is dubious and lukewarm to have linked himself with those who are forward and zealous, being troub- led with no doubts or heiitations. The truths of mathematical science are supported by an evidence that has no degrees of strength, and admits of no contradiction, so that to queflion them would betray a defect of underilanding ; but in metaphys- ics, morals, politics, theology, and many other sciences, the evi- dence which supports the difFerent pofitions varies in degree, from the highest moral demonflration down to the lowest proba- bility ; where the weight of arguments on both fides appear so nearly equal that the inclination of the beam either way is scarcely to be discerned, the former are truths or verities, the latter opinions or probabilities. Between these two as there is an immense difference, — not in themselves, indeed, or absolutely, every proportion whatever being true or false, yet in the kind and amount of their evidence ; — so there mould exift in our minds a clear diftinction between the two, for our several judg- ments mould bear a certain proportion to the amount of evi- dence which supports them, and to pronounce pofitively where the reasons are weak is as much an infirmity of the judgment as to hefitate where the proofs are strong. It is of consequence to diftinguifh between verities and opinions also, because the great- er number of controverfies respect not the former but the lat- ter ; and it is a sad illuftration of the weakness of our under- standings, and the strength of our paffions, that the fiercest con- tends often turn upon the most tenebrious points, the heat and the OF THE MIND. I 3 light being inversely as each other ; and parties often hate each other the more intensely the minuter and dimmer are the grounds which separate them. But surely we ought neither to wonder much nor to feel very angry, if, where the road is intricate and the light dim, some persons wander a little out of the way ; and we ought not to confider him who cannot see the point of a hair as decidedly blind as another who cannot diflinguifh a house from a tree. Our not perceiving the difference of the two cases would prove that our own blindness was greater than that of either. We must also learn to separate between those logoma- chies of which the world is full, but which require for their settlement little more than that the disputants would suffer them- selves so far to cool as to explain what it is each party really means to say, and those queilions which are mere curiofities, not worth determining either way : it is important to separate in our minds between these and such differences of sentiment as are of grave moment in themselves, or pregnant with consequences, whether for good or evil. A wise man, no less than a wise nation, will not go to war without alking not only whether he have truth and right on his fide, but also whether the subject in dispute will repay the expense of the warfare ? A barren rock in the midst of the ocean mould not summon the world to arms. Nothing more disqualifies for the attainment of truth in all those queflions, in the solution of which our highest interefls are most deeply concerned, than that party spirit to which we are ever less or more exposed, and of which only the mofl conscientious and vigilant self-inspection can keep us free, nor even this with- out aid sought from Him who is the Truth. Almost every opinion forms a party which has, or thinks it has, an interest in maintaining it ; and this calls up an oppofing party which fan- cies it has an oppofite interest. And so all leaders find more followers than the truth, whose party is commonly the smallest ; for nearly ' all turn suitors or advocates in the cause, and almost nobody is left to serve as jury. I may here be permitted to remark the danger, especially to young and ardent minds, of 1 4 CULTIVATION indulging much in the reading of controverfial books, or of oth- erwise suffering yourselves to breathe yet more freely a contro- verfial atmosphere. Controverfies, I am aware, are by many held to be the great means of discovering and diffufing truth. For my own part, I cannot afTent to this opinion without very- great limitations ; for it is not easy to conceive how that which so fiercely excites the paffions mould help the judgment in drawing those conclusions which fhe cannot draw accurately without calmness and deliberation. Probably it will also be found, in fact, that controverfies have commonly fhut more eyes than they opened, and that those that they fhut once were closed forever. Disputations and heats between communities and par- ties have generally the same consequences as debatings between individuals : each of the disputants leaves off more closely wedded to his former sentiment than he was when the argument commenced, the rude making which his notions suffered having only caused them to strike their robots more deeply in his mind ; and they who profit at all are such as keep themselves so far aloof as to be without the influence of the epidemic, it being as difficult for a mind, suffered freely to breathe that miasma, to remain unfevered and cool, as for our bodies to continue in health living where a peftilence rages. Not to speak of the tendency of a large proportion of controverfial books to inflame the paffions, to corrupt the taste, and to generate rather anger and hatred than that love which is, after all, the only medium through which the pure rays of truth can enter the ' ' eyes of our understanding. ' ' Such books furnifh, with rare exceptions, the driest and least pleafing of all reading, as well as the least in- structive ; for as Mr. Coleridge has somewhere well observed, < c most controverfies are only the contest of half truths ; ' ' and no writers commonly build the truth so far from the per- pendicular as controvertifls do who cannot afford to look fully and broadly at the truth, being conflrained to squint perpetually afide towards the cause which they are engaged to maintain. — The weakest minds are in great danger from this influence, as OF THE MIND. I 5 the least healthy bodies are most liable to be attacked by epi- demic diseases. Besides the danger of dogmatism and bigotry there is an oppo- fite mischief arifing from the same source, yet greater even than this, and which I feel confident has been experienced in innu- merable inftances. An individual hearing how much may be said on both fides of most questions, and how many reasons apparently of almost equal strength may be uregd in favor of op- pofite conclufions, conceives a doubt whether there be in nature any diftinction between truth and error : begins to suspect that truth may be only the sentiment of the majority, — or to de- spair, at least, of his ability to find it under such an accumula- tion of opinions, — and so he gradually collapses into a fkepti- cism which regards all beliefs with equal indifference, — the man hardly knowing what he believes or whether he believes anything. Mr. Pope has intimated that this was his own state of mind in regard to the respective claims of the Roman and Proteilant churches ; and it is said of Toftatus that at his death he had heard and read so many opinions he did not know which to rest in at last. ' ' In multitudine controverfiarum non habuit quod crederet." With reason, therefore, Lord Bacon clafTes controverfies among the diseases of learning; ".for like as many solid subflances in nature do putrify and corrupt into worms, so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrify and difiblve into a number of subtle, idle, and, as I may say, vermiculate (wormy) queflions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality ; wherefore it is not poflible but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the people be- ing apt to contemn truth upon the occafion of controverfies and altercations, and to think they are all out of the way which never meet. ' ' It will probably be found in the hiflory of the human mind that an age diflinguifhed for its addi&edness to queflions and controverfies has been generally succeeded by an- other equally remarkable for a fkeptical spirit, and for a con- 1 6 CULTIVATION tempt of the subjects themselves, however important, with which those disputations were connected. We are as much un- der obligations to yield our understandings to truth as our affec- tions to goodness, or our wills to rectitude ; and he is a rebel against the law of his moral being who has suffered any cause to be dearer to him than that of truth. Truth, no less than good- ness, is every man's interest, how much soever the paffions may deny it. He that labors to deceive himself or others, is only induflrious in perpetrating a fraud upon the common fund of happiness, his own and theirs : such an one is to be detefled as the vilest of swindlers, because what he purloins is the most valuable of property ; he is worse than the forger of base coin, for he adulterates the currency of thought, he vitiates the ex- change of mind. We are bound to be of but one party of the truth, < < children of light. ' ' Imagination is the creative power or exercise of the mind. She unites the forms of nature in new combinations, according to her own will. Fancy is her younger filler and handmaid, who builds no stately palaces or solemn temples, — these rise un- der the plaftic hand of her elder lifter, — but Ihe crowns all things with garlands, and renders them fragrant with her own perfumes, and Iheds on them her richest light. A mind rather addicted to decorate what is old than mowing capacity to pro- duce new forms of thought, is diftinguilhed for fancy, not for imagination : imagination is an architect, fancy is a painter and gilder : imagination causes the marble to breathe, and fancy crowns it with chaplets of flowers. Tafte, again, is the imaginative faculty in the critical attitude ; Ihe then fits in the chair of judgment, appreciating and relifhing (or the contrary) the productions of the imagination. To those persons who think the culture of this power is little other than a work of vanity, I would reply that it is an element in that mental con- stitution with which our all wise and gracious creator has en- dowed us, and we may not suffer the talent to rust, or suppose we are innocent though we bury it. It has been given us, and OF "THE MIND. 17 this is reason sufficient why it fhould be used and improved ; nor have I any apprehenilon that conflderate persons will dis- sent when I take much higher grounds, and affirm that the im- agination is not only a source of high and pure pleasure, but a grand inftrument of progress and amelioration ; and that not only in reference to the condition of man on this earth, but also in connection wnth his higheft relations and prospects as an heir of immortality. The underftanding seizes only those gr offer forms of truth which are revealed to us in this twilight of our ce obscure sojourn.' ' Imagination dilates the eye of the mind to collect and concentrate those few rays of light which descend to us from a higher sphere, glimmering through the thick inter- vening clouds, whose fkirts they fringe with glory ; the imagin- ation it is that stretches forth her hand to grasp those ideas of the infinite, the eternal, the perfect, of which terresftrial things, inftead of embodying the forms, are rather negations and oppo- fites ; that homely fare which nourifhes the underilanding can- not please or satisfy her : neither will flie patiently trudge with underftanding upon the ground, but having angel's wings fhe soars even to the third heaven : neither is there any depth to- wards which her adventurous pinions will not descend, and fhe feeds on manna — her nourifhment is angels' food. Hence poets have generally been efteemed a higher type of men, and in the conceptions and languages of ancient nations they are identified with prophets, to whose eye the material veil is rent, so that they see virions of God. The triumphs of the underftand- ing itself are more intimately connected with the exercise of the imagination than has often been observed or acknowledged ; for though fhe does not herself subdue the provinces of science, fhe indicates their pofition, and, as a pioneer, fhe opens up the roads by which the powers of underftanding march to their victory. — When Newton wrote indignantly, ' ' hypotheses non fingo,' ' he did not mean to deny that the Copernican syftem, till he demon- strated it, was an hypothefis, or that imagination first suggefted what reason afterwards confirmed ; for if underftanding be the 1 8 CULTIVATION hill last of the soul and conscience the helm, imagination is the sail, without which there may be steadiness and safety, but little speed, and no adventurous voyages across the wilderness of un- navigated oceans to add new worlds to the old kingdoms of knowledge. It is the union of the ideal with the actual which rescues this from its intrinfic meanness, and gives it elevation and dignity ; and that individual, that people, that generation, will be found commonplace in their whole sentiments, and de- void of high and generous aspirations, in whom imagination is a reprefTed or uncultivated faculty. In the men of the Elizabeth- an age we remark a certain grandeur and loftiness of mind which is sought in vain in more modern times. Bacon, Shak- speare, Hooker, and Raleigh have had no succefTors ; for while in particular exercises of mind they have been outdone, in the high pitch and full tone of their faculties they have no repre- sentatives in these later ages. Such a work as the advancement of learning, or the laws of ecclefiailical polity, can never again be expecled to appear in the Engliih language, any more than the flowers of spring are to be looked for among the yellow leaves of autumn. Perhaps we fhall not much err if we attrib- ute this difference principally to the larger scope which the con- dition of the world in those times gave to the imagination ; something then remained to be discovered : all was not yet laid open: cc the unknown " yet had an empire which now it has not, either in earth or Iky. The compass and the telescope had not then unfolded all, but every day they brought home some new marvel which set men's minds agaze with wonder and delight. Poetry was the natural expreffion of those emo- tions, and accordingly it was the study and the solace of all, and its production in its highest forms was the attainment of not a few. It was the age of Skakspeare and Spenser ; and the super- fluous imaginations which poetry did not drain off, found vent for themselves in ideal commonwealths and new forms of socie- ty ; in the creation of Utopias, and Arcadias, and Oceanas ; and even Bacon, the uprooter of one philosophy and the planter OF THE MIND. 10, of another, had the the inclination to commence that new At- lantis, "the model of a college inftituted for the interpretation of nature, and the producing of marvelous works for the benefit of men," which, alas, he did not live to fmifh. The strong infufion of imagination is one of the elements which give to the writings of that extraordinary person so exquilite a relifh ; for the weight and importance of those truths which he propounded are not more remarkable than is the splendor of the vehicle in which he conveys them to the minds of his readers. His pages are not more richly fraught with reasons, which are the pillars of a discourse, than with illuflrations, which are its windows : so that in pcrufing his writings the same perplexity is created as in viewing those mafterpieces of architecture in which ftrength seems as much consulted as if beauty had not entered into the mind of the defigner, and beauty as much as if no regard had been had to Irabilitv. For this reason, Bacon's views were both more extended and jufler than other men's, who commonly look at objects through one eye of the mind alone, — either under- Handing or imagination, — and so behold in them exclusively either the naked matter of fact or the poetry : whereas it was given him to use both eyes, and so to comprehend both the sci- ence and the poetry ; and by being neither limply a poet nor iimply a philosopher, he was more and greater than either. But we shall indicate the highest function of the imagination when we say it has a most important office to perform in rela- tion to the moral and religious character, being inseparably con- nected with that sentiment of veneration, and that emotion of love, which, between them, conftitute so large a part of a de- vout and spiritual state of mind. The imagination is closely allied to the paffions, so that poetry is their natural language; and it may be suggefled as an hiflorical queflion, whether intense devotional feelings were ever found, in fact, to pofTess a mind deficient in the imaginative powers. My own recollection does not supply such an example, and I can hardly conceive it to ex- ist. When we turn to the sacred volume itself, we find the 20 CULTIVATION flame of devotion burn most intensely in those writers who had naturally most of the poetic temperament. Of all the penmen of the Old Teilament, David and Isaiah are, by many degrees, both the most fervent and the most poetical. To them were given the wings of the seraphim, not without a live coal from off the altar. On the other hand, there appears in those who cultivate the understanding chiefly, a manifest tendency either to skepticism on religious subjects, or to a cold and low form of religion. This fact none will deny who has observed the state of mind very general among persons addicted exclusively to mathematical studies, or those phyfical studies which have a close affinity with the former; and it has often been attempted to be explained by suppofing that those studies revealed to their cultivators something which appeared to be adverse to revelation. I submit that that suggeiled above is a truer solution ; for as the higher part of religion does not address itself to the underiland- ing, which it transcends : so they who cultivate the underiland- ing alone unfit and indispose themselves for receiving those higher myileries. Holding these opinins, I regard the painter, the architect, the mufician, and above all, the poet, as much more than miniilers to our gratification. Their office is infinitely higher than this. They are the educators of the human imagination. With the philosopher and divine, they are fellow-workers in the cultiva- tion and improvement of mankind ; helping together to raise men out of the groifness and meanness of the actual into the dignity and glory of the ideal. And if any contributes to dif- fuse a tafle for these arts, whether by excellent productions in any of them, or by drawing attention to those already exiiling ; or by rendering these more acceflible, or in whatever other mode, I feel impelled to regard him as a public benefactor. He augments the fund of innocent and ennobling pleasures, and in no small degree he smooths the path to virtue. Those, also, who are laboring in the higher fields of human culture, owe OF THE MIND. 21 him obligations, which are, for the most part, too dimly per- ceived and too reluclantly acknowledged. The third division into which we diilribute the powers of the mind is conscience, or moral sense. I do not enquire what may be the vinculum, or connection, between reason and con- science ; whether they be separate faculties of mind, or wheth- er they be the same power exercised on different objects. This, at least, is certain : that while the poiTeffion of understanding, — of which the inferior animals partake, in different degrees, — does not infer the presence of conscience, — of which those creatures are all of them wholly deilitute, — no being, so far as our experience or information extends, is endowed with the gift of reason without partaking also of conscience ; so that all ra- tional beings are also moral beings, and conversely all moral be- ings are also rational. Nor can we conceive a disjunction of these two in nature : as reason seems to involve liberty, will, and responfibility, — that is, moral agency, — as inevitably, on the one hand, as these appear to imply reason on the other. By the ex- ercise of the conscience man recognizes himself as the subject of a law which comprehends all rational natures : of which the origin is buried in the depths of eternity : which can no more be changed than God, its author, can be mutable, — of whose will it is the expreffion, as it is the image of his character and the initrument of his goodness : a law which we cannot invali- date, modify, or repeal : from the obligations of which no hu- man power can absolve us ; for it borrows none of its authority from human laws, though it lends them all their force : a law which is one and the same, immutably, and to all the nations and generations of men : which is written on a subflance more enduring than brass or marble, even the immortal mind itself, its inviolable depofitory ; and to which, as each one is conilrained to acknowledge himself amenable, so each carries an expofitor and judge within himself. Through the conscience we behold that which is the most august aspect of the divine nature, and the noblest attribute of our own ; and in yielding subjection to 2 2 CULTIVATION a law of which God's own character is the prototype, and his will the sanction, we acknowledge our closest relation to him, and our highest dignity. Refiftance to that law, which speaks through the conscience, is therefore as much rebellion against human nature as against the divine government ; for we cannot violate the will of our Maker without trampling on the noblest part of ourselves ; and this, whatever else we may suffer, is our heaviest penakv. In thus describing conscience, you will underfland that I am speaking of its capacity and proper office, not of its actual per- formance in all cases ; for as the savage, who venerates in the clouds the forms 01 those spirits he worfhips, and in the moan- ings of the winds hears the voices of his anceflors, has within him that same faculty by which Newton demonflrated the theo- ry of the solar syflem : so, though every man has conscience, it frequently lies buried and apparently dead ; and it demands, in all cases, an appropriate education, in order to its acquiring its full acuteness and strength, no less than the underilanding does, or any other mental power. And here let me urge on you the diligent study of the sacred oracles. I am deeply persuaded that no other book contains so much that is calculated to enlarge the underilanding ; none pre- sents so much of that higher truth which is the appropriate ob- ject of the reason, as contradiHinguimed from the underilanding ; none so exalts the imagination, for it half lifts the veil from the invifible world, and it half reveals the myilery of the universe both of God and man. But I shall indicate that which is the more appropriate office of the Bible when I say it is the chart of the conscience, the great repofitory of its laws, of which it contains the principles and their exemplifications, with all their solemn sanctions. The Bible is throughout an appeal to the con- science, whom God summons as his witness in the soul, and through whom, if at all, the divine will is to receive attention or obedience from any of us ; for between God and our lower nature there is no common ground. It has nothing spiritual or OF THE MIND. 23 divine in it, so that that controversy cannot be commenced through it the success of which would prove the extinction of its usurped authority. But the divine spirit finds in the con- science a certain principle whence to proceed, a something di- vine ; and on this as its fulcrum is fixed the lever by which the whole man is to be turned round, or converted from the unnat- ural position in which he stands as a sinner. We should, there- fore, read the Bible as a continuous appeal to our conscience by the lord of it, and as the great means of quickening its percep- tions and invigorating its authority. But while I thus hold up the Book of God to you as the great inilrument for educating the conscience, I am far from agreeing with those who judge that no subfidiary aid is deiira- ble, or to be sought, for this purpose. They who hold this opinion appear to me to forget that God, in the scriptures as elsewhere, speaks to men as creatures endowed with rational and moral faculties, which it is not his purpose to supersede but to inflruct and stimulate. The New Teftament is a book of prin- ciples ; and when it prescribes rules, these are, for the most part, of a general character, as we might expect they should be. It enjoins duties without strictly defining them, or marking those limitations which one virtue imposes on another. It requires juftice and mercy ; but does not pretend to teach, in every case, what juflice or mercy is, or to inform us where the one should yield to the other. It forbids lying, but leaves us to find for ourselves what conflitues a lie ; neither does it explain that a person may lie while speaking the literal truth. Subjection to rulers, to parents, to husbands, to mailers, is peremptorily en- joined, under the heaviest sanction, — no other limitation to this subjection specified than this : that in yielding it we do not rebel against the supreme authority. And even this grand limitation itself, though always underllood, is in many cases not exprefled. The Sermon on the Mount, the most striking and popular moral discourse that ever was addrefTed to men, is also the profoundest and most pregnant ; but while it contains the effence and prin- 24 CULTIVATION ciples of all morality, being in face a new and spiritual edition oi the Decalogue, there is hardly one of its clauses that was intended by its divine author to be obeyed in the naked and un- reftrained sense in which, for the sake, of brevity and imprefiion, they are recorded. For promoting the education of the conscience I would there- fore strongly recommend such books as treat of chrifiian morals. Discuffions regarding the effence of virtue, or the ultimate foun- dations of morals, may appear dry and unprofitable enough. Whether it be resolved into utility, or the fitness of things, or beauty, or sympathy, or into all or. none of these, will not much trouble any one who remembers that it has its great subjeclum in the nature of God, and becomes a law to us because of his will clearly intimated to us to that effect. But the application of this law to all the variety of men's relations and actions is a most profitable and pleasant, as well as neceffary, exercise of the mind. He that has his unblerflanding less expanded, his imagi- nation less elevated, than he might, suffers a deprivation : he loses pure and lofty pleasures that he might enjoy ; but we can- not neglect to cultivate the conscience without guilt and danger : for while the former is as clothing, comfortable or ornamental, the latter is our armor, without which we cannot fight, in safety, the battle to which we are called. For as not the underftand- ing, but the cultivated underflanding, is our sufficient guide to the discovery of truth ; as not the hand, but the hand trained and practiced, is the initrument by which God works out all his wonders : so conscience, who will place himself at the helm of man's life as his rightful station, will not steer him safely unless inftrutted both in the dangers of this dark and stormy deep and in the art of observing those celeitial signs which indicate his pofition and his course on the terreftrial sphere ; for men must be guided in this life, as sailors on the ocean, by light from heaven. Thus have I offered a few observations on a subject which, to discuss it satisfactorily would require, not a single lecture, but a OF THE MIND. 25 whole course. I am convinced, myself, and I defire to impress the conviction on you, that the cultivation of those mental pow- ers, which our creator has bellowed upon us, is at once an impe- rative duty and a prolific source of enjoyment. Surely it is pleasant, and not unprofitable, to look with an intelligent eye on the works of the Infinite Intelligence ; to discern those laws to which all the great phenomena of Nature are referable, so redu- cing innumerable and apparently unconnected, or even contra- dictory facts to some few principles ; thus giving to the universe, in our apprehenfions, that simplicity, and order, and unity, which it has in itself, and in the mind of its Inscrutable Archi- tect. Should we not be pleased, as we must be profited, to learn the grave leffons of hiitory, whose voice echoes to us sol- emnly from the depths of ages, telling us the long sad story of man's crimes and sorrows. Who is not charmed and elevated while he liitens to the strains of poetic inspiration, — the dictates of that meus divinor, — which, spurning the actual world and its groveling population, creates for itself other and grander worlds, in which it embodies its own loftier ideas, and peoples them with inhabitants surpaffing us as much in happiness as in virtue. If truth seen through the underltanding (that is science) be use- ful and excellent, no less so is poetry, which is truth beheld through the medium of the imagination, the organ of a form of truth as real as the former, though different and higher. And when, in this every-day life, we must affociate with mortals preffed down, like ourselves, with those vulgar but inevitable cares which debase our common humanity, shall we hold it no privilege to have access to the great council of poets, legiflators, hillorians, philosophers, who are the oracles of all time, the teachers of all generations ? to whom we may introduce our- selves without presumption ? who will communicate to us all they know, or as much of it as we can receive, without reserve and without reward ? who will speak to us when we wish, and be silent at our bidding ? and who, having themselves " shuffled off this mortal coil," with t'he paffions that inhered in it, exist now in the form of unalloyed wisdom ? 26 CULTIVATION Mental cultivation is evidentlv a matter of vast moment, be- ing, indeed, the improvement of the man himself; for the mind is the man : and for attaining that measure of it which is need- ful, opportunity can hardly be wanting to any who are not want- ing to themselves. He never can want time who knows the art of redeeming it. The hours daily spent in society, by a large portion of mankind, would more than suffice for all the purposes of mental culture, without which society itself affords little pleasure and little profit ; for the commerce of minds can then only be profitable, when there is capital to trade upon and arti- cles of value and utility to be exchanged. If this bufiness is ever to be accomplished, it should be early begun. The habit of mental discipline and self-cultivation should be early imbibed. Habits soon begin to eflablish them- selves, and the habit of mental sloth and contented ignorance as soon as any. Seek, even in the dawn of your life, to rise above that " swinish philosophy " which proposes no problems for solution but these : " What shall we eat ? what shall we drink ?" It is natural and easy, in after years, to build on foundations already laid, but hard and rare then to lay new foundations. 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