It is much the same with the mind. That it possesses certain tendencies and faculties, which, as it develops itself, will terminate in certain ideas and sentiments, is admitted; but apart from certain external conditions of development, those sentiments and ideas will, in effect, never be formed,--the mind will be in perpetual slumber. Thus, in point of fact, this controversy is connected ultimately with that ancient dispute as to the origin, sources, and genesis of human knowledge and sentiments. I shall simply take for granted that you are (as most philosophers are) an advocate of innate capacities, but not of "innate ideas"; of "innate susceptibilities," but not of "innate sentiments"; that is, I presume you do not contend that the mind possesses more than the faculties--the laws of thought and feeling--which, under conditions of development, actually give birth to thoughts and feelings. These faculties and susceptibilities are, no doubt, congenital with the mind, --or, rather, are the mind itself. But its actually manifested phenomena wait the of the external; and they will be modified accordingly. It is absolutely dependent on experience in this sense, that it is only as it is operated upon by the outward world that the dormant faculties, whatever they are, and whatever their nature, be they few or many,-- intellectual, moral, or spiritual,--are first awakened. If a mind were created (it is, at least, a conceivable case) with all the avenues to the external world closed,--in fact, we sometimes see approximations to such a condition in certain unhappy individuals,--we do not doubt such a mind, by the present laws of the human constitution, could not possess any thoughts, feelings, emotions; in fact, could exhibit none of the phenomena, spiritual, intellectual, moral, or sensational, which diversify it. In proportion as we see human beings approach this condition,--in fact, we sometimes see them approach it very nearly,--we see the "potentialities" of the soul (I do not like the word, but it expresses my meaning better than any other I know) held in abeyance, and such an imperfectly awakened man does not, in some cases, manifest the degree of sensibility or intelligence manifested in many animals. If the seclusion from sense and experience be quite complete, the life of such a soul would be wrapped up in the germ, and possess no more consciousness than a vegetable. It appears, then, that universally, however true it may be, and doubtless is, that the laws of thought and feeling enable us to derive from external influence what it alone would never give, yet that influences an indispensable condition, as we are at present constituted, of the development of any and of all our faculties.