Elements of Mental Philosophy Embracing the Two Departments of the Intellect and the Sensibilities (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841 Excerpt: ... the relations and combinations of numbers; another exhibits in like manner an uncommon perception of uses, adaptations, and powers, as they are brought together, and set to work in the mechanic arts; another has the power of generalizing in an uncommon degree, and, having obtained possession of a principle in a particular case, which may appear to others perfectly and irretrievably insulated, he at once extends it to hundreds and thousands of other cases. In no one of these instances does the Associating power operate in precisely the same way, but exhibits in each a new aspect or phasis of action. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to delay here for the purpose of confirming what has now been said, by a reference to the history of individuals. A slight acquaintance with literary history will show that diversities of intellect, such as have been alluded to, and founded, too, in a great degree on peculiarities of the associating principle, have been frequent. How often had the husbandman seen the.apple fall to the ground without even asking for the cause 1 But when Newton saw the fall of an apple, he not only asked for the cause, but, having conjectured it, he at once perceived its applicability to everything in like circumstances around him, to all the descending bodies on the earth's surface. And this was not all. Immediately expanding the operations of the principle which he had detected, from the surface of the earth to the stars of heaven, he showed its universality, and proved that the most distant planet is controlled by the same great law which regulates the particles of dust beneath our feet.--Here was a mind, not merely great by toil, but constitutionally great and inventive; a mind which was regulated in its action, not by the law of mere contiguity in ...