hopes, sooner or later, to be able to state the
views which a long and patient consideration

of them has suggested to his mind.

Norbury, near Sheffield, Feb. 20th, 1855.

CONTENTS.

Page

LETTER

I. Origin and Design of the present

Series of Letters

1

III.

II. Methods of investigating and speaking

of the Facts of Consciousness

Personification of the Faculties

9

14

92

IX. Intellectual Operations continued: Be-

lieving and Reasoning

X. Willing

XI. The alleged Faculties of Reason and

Understanding

XII. Ambiguity of certain Terms

XIII. Theories of Perception

103

• 109

XVII. Theories of Perception continued:

Berkeley, Hume, and Brown

-

134

142

XVIII. Theories of Perception continued:

Hobbes, D'Alembert, and Stewart 154

XIX. Theories of Perception continued:

- 206

XXIV. Abstract Terms continued

XXV. Examples of important General and

You have frequently expressed a wish that I would give you, and eventually the public, a methodical exposition of those views in the Philosophy of the Human Mind which we have so repeatedly, although informally, discussed together.

Against this I can urge neither want of leisure nor want of interest in the subject; and it would be an affectation of modesty to disclaim such an amount of qualification for the task as may be implied by an almost unintermitting meditation upon the principal questions of Philosophy during the greater part of a life which can no longer be termed brief.

B

or,

The chief obstacle in the way of complying with your request is, I confess, want of adequate motive; if you will, that kind of mental indolence which is not seldom the fruit of it. The requisite materials are already in my mind, I may say, indeed, already stored in various manuscript volumes, although put down in detached memoranda without much method, finish, or connexion.

You know as well as myself the pleasure of mastering (in one's own fancy at least) difficult and interesting subjects, and discussing them in the desultory way of random notes or friendly conversation; but the process of reducing such speculations to order and precise expression — digesting them, as it is significantly termed, into a methodical treatise--connecting the disparted, marshalling the disorderly, supplying the deficient, labouring at transitions, consulting authorities and verifying assertions and references constitutes altogether a very different affair. The delight of novelty and invention, of expatiating at will and skipping when convenient, is gone, and the drudgery of task-work succeeds. For this formidable labour some strong motive seems essential. You have named several; the hope of distinction as one, the prospect of enlightening the world as another you very wisely did not mention pecuniary profit as a third. But of attaining these ends I see small probability. With regard to the first, I do not apprehend that even the successful accom