_Specific Character._--In its specific character and function it is quite distinct from any of the faculties as yet considered. It does not, like the presentative power, bring before us, in direct cognizance, sensible objects; nor does it, like the representative faculty, replace those objects to thought, in their absence. It neither presents, nor represents, any object whatever. It forms no picture of any thing to the mind's eye. It is a power of simple conception; and yet it differs in an important sense from the other conceptive powers and that is, that it is not _reflective_ but intuitive in its action. Its data are conceptions, but conceptions necessary and intuitive, seen at a glance, not the results of the reflective and discursive process. These data are ideas of reason, rather than notions of the understanding, or processes of reflection. There is no sensible object corresponding to these ideas. We do not see, or hear, or feel, or by any means cognize, any thing of the sort; nor can we form a picture, or represent to ourselves any such thing as, _e. g._, time, or space, or substance, or cause, and the like. They are conceptions of the mind, and yet we conceive of them as _realities_. We cannot think them the mere creations and figments of the brain. And in this respect, again, they differ from the notions of the understanding--those classes and genera which we know to be the mere creations of the mind. _Existence of such a Faculty._--If any are disposed to doubt the existence of the faculty under consideration, as a distinct power of the mind, we have only to ask, whence come these ideas? They are given, not by perception, evidently, nor by memory, nor by imagination, for they fall not within the sphere of any of these faculties, that is the sphere of sense. They relate not to the sensible, but to the super-sensible. Nor are they the result of abstraction, as might at first appear. Particular instances being given, certain times, certain spaces, certain substances, certain instances of right and wrong conduct--it is the province of the faculty now named, to form, from these concrete ideas, the abstract notions of time, space, etc. But whence comes, in the first instance, the concrete idea? Whence comes the notion of a time, a space, a substance, a cause, a right or wrong act? Abstraction cannot give these. Manifestly, however, we have a faculty of forming such conceptions, of perceiving such truths and realities; and as manifestly, it is a faculty distinct from any hitherto considered. There are such realities as time, space, substance, cause, right and wrong, etc., The mind takes cognizance of them as such, knows them, and knows them to be realities; has, therefore, the faculty of knowing such truths. We may call it, if we please, the faculty of original and intuitive conception.