SECTION V.

OF INTELLECTUAL POWERS.


Many attempts have been made to analyze the dispositions which we have now
enumerated; but one purpose of science, perhaps the most important, is
served, when the existence of a disposition is established. We are more
concerned in its reality, and in its consequences, than we are in its
origin, or manner of formation.

The same observation may be applied to the other powers and faculties of
our nature. Their existence and use are the principal objects of our study.
Thinking and reasoning, we say, are the operations of some faculty; but in
what manner the faculties of thought or reason remain, when they are not
exerted, or by what difference in the frame they are unequal in different
persons, are questions which we cannot resolve. Their operations alone
discover them; when unapplied, they lie hid even from the person to whom
they pertain; and their action is so much a part of their nature, that the
faculty itself, in many cases, is scarcely to be distinguished from a habit
acquired in its frequent exertion.

Persons who are occupied with different subjects, who act in different
scenes, generally appear to have different talents, or at least to have the
same faculties variously formed, and suited to different purposes. The
peculiar genius of nations, as well as of individuals, may in this manner
arise from the state of their fortunes. And it is proper that we endeavour