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that it moved itself; if the act conceived of was agency exercised upon some other being—the Spirit exercising it was not thought of as a mere passive instrument transmitting that agency from some other being, not as a mere powerless, willless medium of agency, but as itself operating; if it was an act of thought, we did not suppose it merely carried on in it by extraneous energy without its participation, but as proceeding by faculty of its own; if it was a movement of love, aversion, will in any kind, we still thought of it, however called forth, as proceeding from itself; if imagined in the mere passive state of impressed pleasure or pain, we considered that passion as terminating on sense of its own—in a word, as centring on itself; nay, do not rub your forehead, as if you were perplexed, for I appeal to your consciousness, is it not even so?

Shepherd. Dinna ask me-but go on, sir.

North. Now, James, these are all ideas, I affirm, of very strong, positive, and most important realities. What, then, may that be which always appears to our minds the deficiency in our conception of Spirit-which makes the conception to our reflection appear unsatisfactory-nay, which at times makes us doubt if indeed we have it at all?

Shepherd. Clear up that to my contentment, sir, and you'll mak me happy a' the rest o' the nicht.

North. We say, then, that we can conceive a notion of the being of Matter, but not a notion of the being of Spirit.

Shepherd. The materialists say sae.

North. What conception then, I ask, have we of the being of Matter? Probably there comes before our mind the image of something extended and opaque.

Shepherd. Just sae.

North. If we make the conception a little more intense, then the conception of that property by which body is displaced or displaces is superadded?

Shepherd. Just sae.

North. If we were to think further, quality after quality is superadded, till the idea is of some definite known substance? Shepherd. This table.

North. Just so, James. Or by effort of the mind we may proceed in the other direction, endeavouring to abstract the idea to the utmost; we can dismiss the idea of opacity, and

IS AS PERFECT AS OUR CONCEPTION OF MATTER. 251

conceive matter as transparent; we can reduce the idea of extension to the most indivisible atom. In all such cases it is obvious that our conception of matter is the mere recovery to the mind of some remains of actual impression made on the sense.

Shepherd. It would seem sae-just sae, sir.

North. The conclusion, I apprehend, must be, that the conception we think we have of the being of Matter, is a conception either of past impressions of sense, or of an apprehended power to affect the sense with impressions; but the moment we attempt to conceive of that Something having power to affect the sense-to conceive of it in any way absolutely distinct from the remembered impression of sense, we find that we are entirely unable to shape such a conceptionand we acknowledge, that of the being of Matter itself, we really have no more conception than of the being of Spirit! Shepherd. That seems sound logic.

North. Therefore, my dear Shepherd, we cannot call it an imperfection in our conception of Spirit, that we do not conceive its mode of being, since you see we do not conceive it even of Matter.

Shepherd. Conclusive.

North. What we miss, then, in the conception of Spirit, is, I believe, nothing else than that shadowy image of Matter, derived from sense, which unavoidably attends upon the conception of Matter.

Shepherd. Even o' a ghost.

North. A good illustration. If this be true, then, all that is really deficient in our conception of Spirit is that which it could not by any possibility include, namely, the image of an impression on sense!

Shepherd. Let the materialists answer that. That's a bane for them to mummle till their jaws are sair.

North. But, my dear James, I claim your ear for a few minutes more.

Shepherd. You'll no be angry if I keep eatin awa at the oysters?

North. Not at all. If the two conceptions of Matter and Spirit be examined in more particular comparison, it will perhaps be found, that what to our first apprehension of them makes the difference of the power of conceiving them so

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WHY IT SEEMS TO BE LESS PERFECT.

indissoluble, are the two circumstances-first, of the excessive complexity of impressions-the body of impressions, if it may be called so that we derive from the forms of material being with which we are most familiar-and, secondly, that the great qualities of its weight and impenetrability make such powerful and overcoming impressions upon those bodies from which the mind receives the materials of all its conceptions. These are circumstances in the conception of material being which must needs affect strongly the opinion of the mind which has not been practised to analyse its conceptions, but which it puts away, one by one, as it becomes familiar with the process of resolving its complex impressions into their elements.

Shepherd. My genius is rather synthetical than analytic, I suspeck; but I'm no carin.

North. Now, Spirit, James, presents no such complex aggregate of impressions embodied together, and therefore does not rise as a full conception to the mind, but has to be slowly produced. Thus, it appears to me that there is nothing defective in the conception of Spirit which it could possibly include. All that is defective, in our knowledge of it, is, that its properties are not manifested to sense; but that is the very ground of its character, and its essential distinction from Matter, of which the sole character that we can give, is, that it is being, of which the properties are manifested to

sense.

Shepherd. If that's no truth, then welcome falsehood.

North. Spirit is conscious of itself, and that consciousness is the sole ground of our belief in its being.

Shepherd. And what else would fules seek?

North. Firmer than all rocks. Oh! what is the whole life of the human creature but continual self-consciousness, varied in ten thousand times ten thousand ways! This Spirit, united by life to material being, sees no Spirit but itself; but it sees living bodies like its own-warm in life-springing with motion-gestures, look, voice, speech answering to its own; and it believes them to bear Spirits like itself-beings of will, love, wrath, tears.

Shepherd. Dinna rin aff into description; but haud up your head, and stick to the subjeck, like a Scots thrissle, tall as a tree.

SPIRIT IS NOT COGNISABLE BY SENSE.

253

North. We believe, then, in a kind of being distinct from Matter, because we cannot help it. We have no other resource, and we choose to call it Spirit. That there is power, energy, will, pleasure, pain, thought, we know; and that is all that is necessary to the conception of Spirit, except one negation—that it is not cognisable to sense. All we have now to ask ourselves is, "Is this being, that feels, wills, thinks, cognisable by sense? If so, by what sense?" If there is no account to be given, that this thinking, willing, feeling being was ever taken cognisance of by sense, it seems at least a hard assertion to say it is so cognisable-an assertion at least as hazardous as to say it is not.

Shepherd. Ten thousand million times mair sae.

North. If you consider, then, my dearest Shepherd, what is our reasoning when we form to ourselves a belief of Spirit, it is simply this "Here is Matter which I know by my senses. There is nothing here which appears to me like what I know in myself. My senses, which take cognisance of Matter, show me nothing of the substance which thinks, or wills, or feels. I believe, then, that there is being, which they cannot show me, in which these powers reside. I believe that I am a spirit.” Shepherd.

"Plato, thou reasonest well."

North. From the moment the child is conscious of power within himself, of thought, sense, love, desire, pain, pleasure, will, he is beginning to gather together in one the impressions, feelings, and recollections which he will one day unite in conception under the name of Spirit.

Shepherd. Mysterious life o' weans!

North. Ah! that deep and infinite world, which is gradually opened up within ourselves, overshadowed as it is with the beautiful imagery of this material world, which it has received into itself and cherishes! Ah! this is the domain of Spirit. When our thoughts begin to kindle, when our heart dilates, the remembrances of the works of Spirit pour in upon us : let me rather say, my Shepherd, the Sun of Spirit rises in its strength, and consumes the mist, and we walk in the joy of his light, and exult in the genial warmth of his life-glorifying beams.

Shepherd. Simpler, simpler, simpler, sir.

North. Oral need not be so correct as written discourse.

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THE INFINITE AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

But I take the hint, and add, if it be asked why it is hard to us to form the conception, why we nourish it with difficulty, why our minds are so slow to reply when they are challenged to speak in this cause, it is because they are dull in their own self-consciousness.

Shepherd. That's a better style.

North. The Spirit, which feeds the body with life, itself languishes. It has not learnt to awaken and cherish its own fires. It is only when strong conception seizes upon its powers, and swells them into strength, that it truly knows, and vividly feels itself, and rejoices, like the morn, in its own lustre.

Shepherd. Eyeing the clouds as ornaments, and disposin them as fits its fancy in masses, or braids, or specks-a' alike beautifu'.

North. Illustrating the line in Wordsworth

"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

Shepherd. Weel, weel-aye quotin Wordsworth.

North. Oh the blind breasts of men! Because in the weakness of our nature we cannot rend ourselves enough from sense, we often seek to clothe the being of Spirit in the vain shadows of material form! But we must aspire to a constant conviction that at the verge and brink of this material nature in which we stand, there is an abyss of being, unfathomable to all our thoughts! Unknown existences incomprehensible of an infinite world! Of what mighty powers may dwell there what wonders may be there disclosed-what mutation and revolution of being or what depths of immutable repose, we know nothing. Shut up in our finite sense, we are severed for a while, on our spot of the universe, from those boundless immortalities. How near they may be to us we know not, or in what manner they may be connected with us-around us or within us! This vast expanse of worlds, stretching into our heavens many thousand times beyond the reach of our powerfulest sight-all this may be-as a speck of darkness! Shepherd. I wuss Dr Chaumers heard ye, sir.

North. I wish he did. And may we, with our powers fed on Matter and drenched in Sense, think to solve the question of what being may be beyond? Take upon us impiously to judge whether there be a world unsearchable to us, or whether