he mind most naturally assume.

We may preface the enquiry by two or three remarks:--

(1) We do not claim for the popular Psychology the position of a science
at all; it cannot, like the Physical Sciences, proceed by the Inductive
Method: it has not the necessity of Mathematics: it does not, like
Metaphysic, argue from abstract notions or from internal coherence. It
is made up of scattered observations. A few of these, though they may
sometimes appear to be truisms, are of the greatest value, and free
from all doubt. We are conscious of them in ourselves; we observe them
working in others; we are assured of them at all times. For example, we
are absolutely certain, (a) of the influence exerted by the mind over
the body or by the body over the mind: (b) of the power of association,
by which the appearance of some person or the occurrence of some event
recalls to mind, not always but often, other persons and events: (c)
of the effect of habit, which is strongest when least disturbed by
reflection, and is to the mind what the bones are to the body: (d) of
the real, though not unlimited, freedom of the human will: (e) of the
reference, more or less distinct, of our sensations, feelings, thoughts,
actions, to ourselves, which is called consciousness, or, when in
excess, self-consciousness: (f) of the distinction of the 'I' and 'Not
I,' of ourselves and outward objects. But when we attempt to gather up
these elements in a single system, we discover that the links by which
we combine them are apt to be mere words. We are in a country which
has never been cleared or surveyed; here and there only does a gleam of
light come through the darkness of the forest.

(2) These fragments, although they can never become science in the
ordinary sense of the word, are a real part of knowledge and may be of
great value in education. We may be able to add a good deal to them from
our own experience, and we may verify them by it. Self-examination
is one of those studies which a man can pursue alone, by attention to
himself and the processes of his individual mind. He may learn much
about his own character and about the character of others, if he will
'make his mind sit down' and look at itself in the glass. The great, if
not the only use of such a study is a practical one,--to know, first,
human nature, and, secondly, our own nature, as it truly is.

(3) Hence it is important that we should conceive of the mind in the
noblest and simplest