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an energy of mind being once determined, it is natural that it should persist, until again annihilated by other causes. This in fact would be the case were the mind merely passive in the impression it receives; for it is a universal law of nature, that every effect endures as long as it is not modified or opposed by any other effect. But the mental activity, the act of knowledge of which I now speak, is more than this; it is an energy of the self -active power of a subject, one and indivisible; consequently a part of the ego must be detached or annihilated, if a cognition once existive be again extinguished. Hence it is, that the problem most difficult of solution is not how a mental activity endures, but how it ever vanishes." Is not this notion of the necessary persistence of force referable exclusively to physical forces? What is the proof of its applicability to mental action? The facts of mind inquired into on their own basis, seem to indicate quite the opposite conclusion. He proceeds: " If it be impossible that an energy of mind that has once been, should be abolished without a laceration of the vital unity of the mind, one and indivisible, on this supposition, the question arises, How can the facts of our self-consciousness be brought to harmonize with this statement, seeing that consciousness proves to us that cognitions once clear and vivid are forgotten? The solution of this problem is to be sought for in the theory of obscure or latent modifications. The disappearance of internal energies from the view of internal perception does not warrant the conclusion that they no longer exist." "All the cognitions which we possess, or have possessed, still remain to us the whole complement of all our knowledge still lies in our memory; but as new cognitions are continually pressing in upon the old, and continually taking place along with them among the modifications of the ego; the old cognitions, unless from time to time refreshed and;