is the office of Attention,
aided by reason, to direct the mind assiduously to the truths, so as
fully to perceive their relations and tendencies. By the farther
process, analogous to Conception, they are then placed before us, in
such a manner as to give them the effect of real and present existence.
By these means, truths relating to things for which we have not the
evidence of our senses, or referring to events which are future, but
fully expected to happen, are kept before the mind, and influence the
moral feelings and the character, in the same manner as if the facts
believed were actually seen, or the events expected were taking place in
our view. This mental operation is _Faith_;--and, for the sound exercise
of it, the constituent elements now mentioned are essentially necessary.
The truth must be received by the judgment upon adequate evidence; and,
by the other parts of the process, it must be so kept before the mind,
that it may exercise such a moral influence as might arise from the
actual vision or present existence, of the things believed.

Attention to these considerations will probably enable us to discover
some of the fallacies which have obscured and bewildered this important
subject. When the impression, which is thus allowed to influence the
mind, is one which has not been received by the judgment, upon due
examination, and adequate evidence of its truth,--this is enthusiasm,
not faith.--Our present course of inquiry does not lead us to treat of
the notions which have, in various individuals, been thus allowed to
usurp the place of truth. To those who would preserve themselves from
the influence of such, the first great inquiry, respecting their own
mental impressions, ought to be,--are they facts,--and on what evidence
do they rest which can satisfy a sound understanding that they are so.
On the other hand is to be avoided an error, not less dangerous than the
wildest fancies of the enthusiast, and not less unworthy of a regulated
mind. This consists in treating real and important truths as if they
were visions of the imagination, and thus dismissing them, without
examination, from the influence which they ought to produce upon the
moral feelings. It is singular also to remark, how these two
modifications of character may be traced to a condition of the reasoning
powers, essentially the same. The former receives a fiction of the
imagination, and rests upon it as truth. The latter, acting upon some
pr