Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

2 INTRODUCTION.
distingurished from the rest, both by the degree of evidence
which accompanies their principles, and by the relation which
they bear to the useful sciences and arts; and it has unfortunately happened, that these have shared in that general discredit into which the other branches of metaphysics have
justly fallen. To this circumstance is probably to be ascribed
the little progress which has hitherto been made in the PHILOSOPHY OF THE HIUMAN MIND; -a science so interesting in its
nature, and so important in its applications, that it could scarcely have failed, in these inquisitive and enlightened times, to
have excited a very general attention, if it had not accidentally been classed, in the public opinion, with the vain and unprofitable disquisitions of the schoolmen.
In order to obviate these misapprehensions with respect to
the subject of tile following work, I have thought it proper,
in this preliminary chapter, first, to explain the nature of the
truths which I propose to investigate; and, secondly, to point
out some of the more important applications of which they are
susceptible.
things are material or immaterial; but it is usually confined to things material, and thus signifies the science of the external world. After Aristotle
had written books upon various branches of Physics, he composed certain
other treatises, to which he gave the name of Metaphysics, or things coming
after Physics. In its widest signification, therefore, the term Metaphysics
comprehends every study or science which does not belong to Physics. It
is the science of pure ideas, or of abstract and universal truths; the objects of
this science lie beyond the range of the senses, and are not attainable by
experience. That every event must have a cause —that qualities or attributes presuppose a substance in which they inhere - that the human will is
free, etc., are propositions which belong to Metaphysics. By many writers,
however, the word Metaphysics is loosely applied to denote the Philosophy of Mind. Such a Philosophy treats of the Association of Ideas, Memory, Attention, and other phenomena of mind; and as it consists only in
collecting facts and making inductions, it is properly an experimental science, and ought to be ranked under the head of Physics rather than of Metaphysics. Psychology is the latest term in use to denote the science of mental phenomena, while Physics, in its narrower signification, comprehends
only material phenomena; the one is the philosophy of mind, the other is
the philosophy of matter.]