Thus we shall follow out a clue which has been too often, if not always, lost hold of in the labyrinths of philosophy, a clue, the loss of which has made inquirers represent man as if he lived in distinct[1] sections, and were an inorganic agglutination of several natures, the percipient, the intellectual, and the moral, with separate principles regulating each. This clue consists in our tracing the principle of our moral agency back into the very principle in virtue of which we become percipient beings; and in showing that in both cases it is the same act which is exerted—an act, namely, of freedom or antagonism against the caused or derivative modifications of our nature. Thus, to use the language of a foreign writer, we shall at least make the attempt to cut our scientific system out of one piece, and to marshal the frittered divisions of philosophy into that organic wholeness which belongs to the great original of which they profess, and of which they ought to be the faithful copy; we mean man himself. In particular, we trust that the discovery (if such it may be called) of the principle we have just mentioned, may lead the reflective reader to perceive the inseparable connection between psychology and moral philosophy (we should rather say their essential sameness), together with the futility of all those mistaken attempts which have been often made to break down
- ↑ "You may understand," says S. T. Coleridge, "by insect, life in sections." By this he means that each insect has several centres of vitality, and not merely one; or that it has no organic unity, or at least no such decided organic unity as that which man possesses.
