successions take place." Then, the one kind of succession (simultaneous) does give us the idea of Space, but the other kind (protensive) does not give us the idea of Time; and yet "the idea of Space is at bottom one of Time,” and, only by the duration of the effort, do we become conscious of the extent of Space. How, then, does he measure "duration," or what means "duration," except existence continued in Time?

6. Why should the idea of Space, even if constructed as Mr. Mill would have it to be, be that of an external and indestructible entity, existing independently of our conceptions, when all its elements are internal and contingent? True, he does not believe in the externality; or rather, he believes it is not "capable of proof." But he must admit that we have an idea of it; and he is bound to show how this idea was generated.

It does not appear, then, that "The Battle of the Two Philosophies," in regard to the idea of Space, has terminated in a victory for Mr. Mill.

II. As an example for the application of the second criterion of an intuitive truth known as such,-that of being a necessary condition of experience, so that, without it, experience would not be possible,—take the direct cognition by the thinking subject of himself as exerting force. Here we are sorry to part company with Hamilton, Reid, and Stewart, though Mr. Mansel is on our side. We maintain, with the last named, that in every act of consciousness, but especially in that of volition, we are directly conscious, not only of the action, but of the agent; not only of the force exerted, but of Self as exerting force. The action could not be known at the moment to be mine, as it unquestionably is, if one and the same act of mind did not cognize both the Ego and the effort. I could not know hunger, if I did not, at the same moment, know Self as feeling the hunger; for knowledge is a relation between the Subject, or the Self-knowing, and the object known; and even Mr. Mill admits (p. 375) that assuredly a relation can not "be thought without thinking the related objects between which it exists." In the case of Matter, reasoning from the attributes to the substance is a proper inference, that being inferred which is not directly known or perceived. But in the case of Mind,

we pass from actions to the agent, which is no inference at all, but a mere descent from an abstraction to a reality,—the object of immediate knowledge being, not the act, but the person acting.

For these reasons, we affirm that Self is an immediate and original presentation of consciousness. Mr. Mill's doctrine is, that Self is only a factitious unit, made up by experience and association out of previous sensations. We apply to this doctrine the second criterion, and maintain that a cognition of Self is a prerequisite or condition of experience, so that, without it, no experience whatever would be possible. Before Mr. Mill can make any use of his psychological chemistry, before he can even apply association to cement his materials together, he must know that these materials exist. His theory postulates Sensations; but it needs to postulate known sensations— known either as now existing, or remembered as former objects of knowledge. But any act of knowledge involves a cognition of the subject knowing, as well as of the object known. He admits this fact in another place (258, Note), where he says, "The contrast necessary to all cognition is sufficiently provided for by the antithesis between the Ego and particular modifications of the Ego." But when arguing (p. 256) to prove that the Ego is not an original presentation of consciousness, he forgets this admission, and denies that a mere impression on our senses involves, or carries with it, any consciousness of a Self;" and asserts that "our very notion of a Self takes its commencement, there is every reason to suppose, from the representation of a sensation in memory." Now, it is very easy to believe that we should remember less; but how came we to remember more, than we originally knew? If the original presentation of the sensation did not contain the Ego, how can the re-presentation of the same fact contain it? But still worse: the first "mere impression on our senses," since it does not involve "any consciousness of a Self," is no sensation-no cognition at all; for "the contrast necessary to all cognition" is the antithesis between this very Ego and its particular modifications. Apparently, Mr. Mill thinks he had a sensation before he was born, or even conceived. We say

again, then, that by denying the original presentation of the Ego in consciousness, he has made experience impossible, and thereby burned up all the materials he had to work with, his "Psychological Theory" of Matter and Mind perishing in the same conflagration.

Mr. Mill also denies any "enorganic volition," considered as a conscious putting forth of energy by the thinking subject, either antecedent to, or wholly apart from, the sense of any muscular strain. As a necessary part of his doctrine of Necessity, he does not admit a mental, but only "an animal nisus," as Hume calls it, which, Mr. Mill says, "would be more properly termed a conception of effort." He affirms, still more distinctly, that "the idea of Effort is essentially a notion derived from the action of our muscles, or from that combined with affections of our brain and nerves." This doctrine will not appear very probable to any one who has "made an effort" to confine his attention to a dull book; or to banish gloomy thoughts; or to keep down an expression of severe pain; or to call up courage to face danger; or to remember a half-forgotten message; or to repress anger; or to do half a hundred other things, in which mere muscular strain has as little part to play as in working out a formula by the binomial theorem. In fact, this doctrine is so extravagant, that Mr. Mill himself forgets that he has been pushed into affirming it, and informs us, on p. 451, that the formation of a concept "requires a mental effort, a concentration of consciousness upon certain definite objects, which concentration depends on the will, and is called Attention." And again, on p. 377, he says the consciousness of certain elements of the concrete idea "is faint, in proportion to the energy of the concentrative effort." Naturam expellas furca. Mr. Mill's vigorous common sense will show itself in spite of his own theories, when the necessity of defending these theories is not immediately before him.

In another passage (Note to p. 264), the difficulty of maintaining this very untenable doctrine seems to deprive him of his usual precision and caution in the use of language, and in statements of fact. He questions Hamilton's assertion, that

we are conscious of a mental effort, or nisus, to move-distinct both from the original determination to move, and from the muscular sensation,-even though stupor of the sensitive nerves, and paralysis of the motive nerves, render both the feeling of the movement, and the movement itself, impossible; and he adds, "If all this is true-though by what experiments it has been substantiated we are not told-it does not by any means show that there is a mental nisus not physical, but merely removes the seat of the nisus from the nerves to the brain." "A mental nisus not physical!" Will Mr. Mill inform us, what is a mental nisus that is physical? The expression seems very like a contradiction in terms, unless he now intends to teach that all the so-called "mental" phenomena are really physical, thus adopting one of those "ruder forms of the materialist philosophy," against which he so vigorously protested in his "Logic," as pretending to resolve "states of consciousness into states of the nervous system." He surely does not mean to assert, that a purely mental act, which is antecedent to, and wholly distinct from, any muscular sensation, is accompanied by immediate consciousness of action in the brain. And, if we are not conscious of brain-action in such a case, will he tell us what physiological experiments have proved that, in the case supposed, there is any such action ?

The so-called "Psychological Theory" resolves both Matter and Mind into Permanent Possibilities of Sensations. As Mr. Mill says we can not prove either of these possible groups to be really external, or to have any external cause or antecedent, it is not easy to see why one of them should be called Matter, and the other be baptized Mind; or why the two supposed entities, that are thus named, should be so broadly distinguished from each other, as they are in most people's apprehension of them, when, in fact, they are both made up of the same sort of elements, put together by the same process of mental chemistry. Why should it be even thought that the one is necessarily external, and the other internal? Moreover, we can find a reason why certain sensations should be put into the one group that is called a material object,

for they are simultaneous; at the same moment, I may see the color, smell the odor, taste the savor, and feel the shape and hardness, of the one object which I call an apple. But we find no reason why the other phenomena should be formed. into a group at all, since they are not simultaneous, but successive, and often separated from each other by rather long intervals. Why should the phenomena of "knowing, feeling, desiring, etc.," be selected from the countless other manifestations in consciousness, in order to make up the factitious unit called Mind or Self, when they appear in every possible order, sometimes together, sometimes separate, and always more or less jumbled up with external sensations? Some of the modifications of one of them, such as joy, anger, pain, sorrow, love, and the like, may be even of very infrequent occurrence. Why should they be selected as elements of the second group, or of any group, except from a previous or accompanying Intuition, that these alone are States or Modifications of a real unit or entity which I call Myself, and also from an Intuitive apprehension of that difference, which the "Psychological Theory" can not make out or account for,— the difference between internal and external?

Dic, sapiens Milli, et eris mihi magnus Apollo.

We have not yet half done with Mr. Mill; but our limits compel us to leave the discussion here for the present, hoping to return to it in the next number of this REVIEW.

ART. VIII.-AN "OLD SIDE" PLEA FOR REUNION.

A Sermon by REV. F. ALISON, D. D., 1758.*

The following discourse was preached before the Synod of Philadelphia, and the Commission of the Synod of New York, on occasion of the reunion of the two bodies in 1758. It is an able and eloquent plea for peace and union among the followers of Christ, and especially among those who accept the Presbyterian standards. The views which it presents, and

*Preached before the Reverend Synod of Philadelphia, and the Reverend Commission of the Synod of New York, at Philadelphia, May the 24th, 1758, by Francis Alison, Ď. D., Vice-Provost of the College, and Rector of the Academy in Philadelphia.

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