And although, in strict application, and rigid expression, thought and speech always are, and always must be, regarded as two things metaphysically distinct,--yet there only can we find these two elements in disunion, where one or both have been employed imperfectly or amiss. Nay, such is the effect of the original unity or _identity_ that, in their most extensive varieties of application, they can never be totally disunited, but must always remain inseparable, and every where be exerted in combination."--_Frederick Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature_, (_English Translation_, 1818,) _page 11_. * * * * * TO _MRS. HUNTER, DUNDEE._ _My dearest Daughter_, _This Essay on_ THOUGHT _is appropriately dedicated to a lady of whom I am constantly thinking:--whose dutiful conduct, and filial affection, have rendered a protracted life the subject of consolation, under all its contingent miseries_. _33, Great Ormond Street, June 1835._ ON THE NATURE OF THOUGHT, _&c. &c. &c._ In our survey of the Creation endowed with life and intellect, we are impelled to the conclusion, that the human mind is, beyond all comparison, the most perfect specimen that the Divine Author has chosen to allot to his creatures. The history of our species unfolds the splendid catalogue of man's achievements: many monuments, reared by his patriotism and piety, and elaborated by his tasteful ingenuity, that have resisted the corrosions of time, and the spoliations of conquest, remain in our possession: and we still preserve those intellectual treasures that embalm the poetry, the eloquence, and the wisdom of the enlightened nations of antiquity. These are, deservedly, the models we have endeavoured to imitate, and they have even been considered the boundaries of attainment: but a new epoch has arisen, distinguished for the cultivation of that which tends to ultimate advantage, where the mind, confiding in its native energies, and exercising its own thought on human affairs, has been less disposed to submit to the dictates of authority.