Haven's Mental Philosophy [pp. 306-319]

Haven's Mental Phtilosophy.
rives it from some other proposition on which it depends. And
the same is true of this other proposition, and so on for ever,
until we come, at last, to some proposition, which depends on
no other, but is self-evident, a first truth or principle. Whence
come these first principles? Not, of course, from experience,
for they are involved in and essential to all experience. They
are native, or a priori convictions of the mind, instinctive and
intuitive judgments," pp. 238-9. How then are they inductive
conclusions? The author's two positions on these points seem
to us flatly contradictory. As the latter is demonstrably true,
the former must be false.
Professor Haven teaches in one passage, p. 430, that the
"feeling of the beautiful is the condition and source of our perception of the beautiful." This appears to us the reverse of
the truth, and out of harmony with all else which he copiously
and happily sets forth in regard to it. Nothing is more evident
than that the agreeable feeling which arises in the mind in
view of the beautiful, is in view of it, i. e. arises from the perception of it, and is otherwise impossible. It must be so, or
the feeling is no longer a rational emotion, as our author justly
represents it, but a mere blind, instinctive sensation. And by
strict logical consequence, taste itself is no longer a faculty of
intelligence, as he justly represents it, but a mere faculty of
feeling, like the animal appetites. It is no answer to this to
say, that the mind still judges in regard to these feelings and
the objects which excite them. So it judges in regard to the
sensations produced by sugar or aloes, and the objects which
excite these sensations. But, in both cases alike, the sensation
or feeling is the primary object or groundwork of its judgment.
Intelligence differs from mere sentimentality, and rational from
instinctive emotion, in just this, that in the one case cognition
precedes and shapes the feeling, while in the other feeling precedes and shapes the cognition. The author has no difficulty
in placing intellect and feeling in their due positions in the
case of conscience. Indeed, his universal doctrine is, that "the
intellect properly precedes the sensibility," p. 378. But his
reasons for reversing them in the case of taste, apply equally
well to that of conscience. On this account we deem the subject of considerable importance. The greatest evils result from
VOL. XXX.-NO. II. 40
1858.]
309