of the reflective faculties, but
constituting the only unchangeable ground of Truth, to which those
faculties may ultimately refer. Yet have these Ideas no living energy in
themselves; they are but the _forms_, as we have said, through or in which
a higher Power manifests to the consciousness the supreme truth of all
things real, in respect to the first class; and, in respect to the second,
the imaginative truths of the mental products, or mental combinations. Of
the nature and mode of operation of the Power to which we refer, we know,
and can know, nothing; it is one of those secrets of our being which He
who made us has kept to himself. And we should be content with the
assurance, that we have in it a sure and intuitive guide to a reverent
knowledge of the beauty and grandeur of his works,--nay, of his own
adorable reality. And who shall gainsay it, should we add, that this
mysterious Power is essentially immanent in that "breath of life," by
which man becomes "a living soul"?

In the following remarks we shall confine ourself to the first
class of Ideas, namely, the Real; leaving the second to be noticed
hereafter.

As to number, ideas are limited only by the number of kinds, without
direct relation to degrees; every object, therefore, having in itself
a _distinctive essential_, has also its distinct idea; while two
or more objects of the same kind, however differing in degree, must
consequently refer only to one and the same. For instance, though a
hundred animals should differ in size, strength, or color, yet, if
none of these peculiarities are essential to the species, they would
all refer to the same supreme idea.

The same law applies equally, and with the same limitation, to
the essential differences in the intellectual, the moral, and the
spiritual. All ideas, however, have but a potential existence until
they are called into the consciousness by some real object; the
required condition of the object being a predetermined correspondence,
or correlation. Every such object we term an _assimilant_.

With respect to those ideas which relate to the physical world, we
remark, that, though the assimilants required are supplied by
the senses, the senses have in themselves no _productive,
cooeperating_ energy, being but the passive instruments, or medium,
through which they are conveyed. That the senses, in this relation,
are merely passive, admits of no question, from the obvious difference
between the idea and