train of reasoning, to show that the comparing of judging power and sensation are essentially one.

This, as seems to be generally conceded at the present time, is an erroneous view of the human mind; a doctrine equally at variance with our personal consciousness, and with the facts gathered from the observation of others. Nothing can be more obvious than the fact, notwithstanding the assertions of these writers, that men possess not only the powers of sensation and of external perception, but of judgment, in the positive and full sense of that term; that is, of perceiving the relations of agreement and disagreement, and other relations existing in the objects which they perceive. But this is not all. It is not enough to say that the power of Relative Suggestion or Judgment has an existence merely. It is necessary to add, that it is a leading power of the mind; a characteristic and exceedingly important element; one which not only furnishes an explanation, to a considerable extent, of man's intellectual ability, but of those diversities of mental efficiency by which one man is distinguished from another.

§ 125. Weak or disordered Judgment arising from natural obtuseness of Mind.

Without delaying longer upon the subject of the existence and of the nature of this power, we shall proceed at once to consider it in connexion with the general inquiry of imperfect and disordered mental action. And our first general remark is, that an imperfect, defective, or disordered judgment may exist in various forms. I. In the first place we

discover in some persons, owing to the original constitution of the mind, or to accidental injuries, or occasionally, perhaps, to some other causes, an obtuseness or want of quickness in relative perceptions. The external perceptive faculties of these persons may be sufficiently acute and active; they may exhibit a quick reception of everything which is addressed to the outward senses; but, when they are required to judge of one thing as compared with another, and to indicate in what they agree and in what they differ, and thus to call into exercise the discriminating power in distinction from mere perception, they discover at once a degree of mental inferiority, which would not have been suspected by merely looking at another form of mental action. This trait of mind is happily described by Dr. Conolly in the following terms.- "Defect of the Comparing power" [by which he means the judgment, as every act of judging involves comparison] "is observable in the pursuits and progress of many men in all professions. The industry of such men is great, but often ill-directed: they do not distinguish trifles from things of importance, and are generally occupied about matters of little worth. In my own profession, we see such minds engaged in the prosecution of minute observations; all the larger features of pathology, all general principles of practice, escape them; but a symptom not heeded or not valued by others, or any deviation from common anatomical arrangement, or a line in the face, or a pimple on the hand, or a streak on the tongue, or a pretended specific, fills them with the anticipated delight of a disT

covery. They do not compare one symptom with another; they pronounce diseases to exist which are really not present; they do not contrast the reputation of a new medicine with that of other medicines, once brought forward in the same way, and then abandoned; they do not compare effects with causes, but suppose they have cured diseases which were only imaginary, with specifics of which the virtue is equally imaginary; and thus, but in a state of continual satisfaction, they grow old without experience. These errors and many others, to which something analogous may doubtless be found in every department of study, arise from defective powers of comparing one thing with another."

§ 126. Disordered Judgment as connected with incapacity of Attention.

II. In other cases the defect in the exercises of the power of Judgment does not seem to be owing so much to any obtuseness in the power itself, as to an inability of fixing the attention, and a consequent rapid transition from one object to another. There are some men who have a quick perception, who bestow more or less notice on almost everything which comes in their way, but do not appear to be capable of a fixedness or continuity of thought. They are like the winds, always in motion, but always veering from one point of the compass to another.

This state of things may be owing to two causes in particular; FIRST, a want of voluntary energy; SECOND, a disordered action of the principle of association. Where there is a want of voluntary power,

ence.

it will be found difficult, in a multitude of cases, to keep the mind long enough fixed upon the object of inquiry to estimate it properly in all its bearings. I am aware that some writers adopt the opinion, that the Will has no direct power over trains of thought, either in originating them, or in directing and regulating them when they are already called into existBut this opinion, so far at least as it relates to the regulation of trains of thought already present to the mind, is undoubtedly an erroneous one. The power of the Will is unquestionably great in this respect; but it is no less true, that it is much greater in some persons than in others. In some it is very deficient; and the consequence is an incapacity of continuity of thought, and a rapid transition from one thing to another, which is necessarily very unfavourable to accurate judgment.

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But that trait of mind which we are now considering is more frequently owing to a disordered action, or, at least, a peculiarity in the principle of Association. The peculiarity of mind which we now have in view is known in common parlance under the designation of "light-headedness." And we often speak of the persons who exhibit it as flighty" hairbrained," in consequence of their thoughts flying rapidly from one thing to another. But as it will be necessary to recur to this subject under another head, we will not dwell upon it here.-All we have to add is, that whether this unfixedness and evanescence of perception be owing to a weakness of the Will or to a too rapid action of the Associating principle, it is in either case inconsistent, to a

great degree, with entire soundness of Judgment. And one, at least, of the forms of disordered Judgment is to be explained by keeping these facts in view.

§ 127. Of disordered Judgment in connexion with facility of Belief.

III. Another form of weak or imperfect Judgment seems to be closely connected with a disordered state of the susceptibility of Belief. There are some persons whom, in consequence of the faIcility with which they receive the statements made to them, we are accustomed to designate as CREDULOUS persons. And it will hardly be denied, that we generally connect the idea of weakness of Judgment with the existence, whenever it is ascertained to be a permanent mental trait, of Credulity.

Credulous persons (pursuing the subject a little more into particulars) take statements too much upon trust. It is a characteristic trait, that they receive without hesitation the most exaggerated accounts. Their belief, instead of being graduated to the degrees of presumption, probability, and certainty, in some degree of accordance with the evidence, assumes the highest form at once, and receives everything that is proposed to it as a thing unquestionable.

Now let us consider a moment the bearing of this state of things on the Judgment. It is evidently not so much the office of the Judgment, in its original and appropriate exercise, to ascertain facts, as to ascertain the relations existing among them, and to