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admitted fact that the mind increases in power. The subjective method of this increase is beyond present explication; we are simply not to figure it under a material form, as if it were a substantial change. If, on the other hand, we say with Sir William Hamilton, that there are unconscious modifications of mind, we have prepared the way for denying its constant, conscious activity; since some moments of being, at least, would seem to be sufficiently accounted for by the occurrence of these subconscious facts, and the existence of such facts would prepare the way for their hypothetical occupation of the mind in periods of external repose. Yet, Sir William Hamilton answers this question, justly we believe, in the affirmative. The mind is always consciously active.

The reason which most avails in bringing us to this conclusion is one which will probably have little weight with most minds. It is of an a priori character. The only proof of existence is some form of phenomena. Existence without phenomena is unevinced and unintelligible. Matter that should manifest neither active nor passive effects anywhere, under any conditions, would cease to meet our idea of matter, would be non-existent. Now the sole known phenomena of mind are those of consciousness; and to suppose a total arrest of these leaves the mind, for the interval, without the proof or the form of existence. We may figure, in some vague way, under the analogy of matter, some passive state or power as belonging to the mind and maintaining for it a phenomenal existence during the hours of sleep; but here again we are in the region of pure hypothesis. We know nothing of mind save as the source of certain activities, and if these are gone, the only grounds on which we ever predicated its existence are gone. To suppose it capable of existence in a passive state, is a supposition altogether beyond knowledge, and made tenable only by analogies