Minchah (^03^;), properly a gift (as often ren- dered) or present (Gen. xxxii, 14; six, 21 ; xliii, 11 sq.), especially to nobles and kings (Judg. iii, 15; 1 Sam. xi, 23 ; 2 Chron. xvii, 5, 11 ; Psa. xlv, 13 ; Isa. xxxix, 1 ; 1 Kings x, 25) ; hence tribute from a subject nation (2 Sam. viii, 2, 6; 1 Kings v, 1 [iv, 21]; 2 Kings xvii. 4; Psa. Ixxii, 10) ; but specifically an offering to God, i. e. sacrifice (Isa. i, 13 ; 1 Chron. xvi, 29), particularly a bloodless one, " meat-offering," consisting of flour, meal, or cakes, with oil and frankincense, burned upon the al- tar by itself, or in connection with a bloody offering (Lev. ii, 1 sq. ; vii, 9, etc.). See Offering.
In Jewish liturgy the word Minchah is the technical term for the afternoon service of prayer. See Litur-
GY (I).
Mincing (rjSIS, taphaph', Isa. iii, 16) occurs in the prophet's description of the behavior of the '• daughters of Jerusalem." The Hebrew word, as well as the Arabic taf, refers to the taking small and quick steps, the af- fected pace of a coquettish woman. The passage might be rendered, " They walk and trip along." Although the Hebrew word has perhaps a slightly different sense, yet the gait of the females seems to have been very much like the modern practice of swaying the body in walking. See Wojias.
Mind, the exercise or expression of the spiritual part of man's nature. It is obviously divisible into the
three elementary functions, thought, emotion, and voli- tion ; but scientific writers greatly differ as to the sub-> ordinate or detailed faculties, as they are called. Eeid thus classifies the mental powers: Perception, memor}', conception, abstraction, judgment, reasoning. Stewart thus: Perception, attention, conception, abstraction, as- sociation, imagination, reason. Others propose a deep- er analysis of the intellectual faculties, and find three properties which appear fundamental and distinct, no one in any degree implying the other, while the whole taken together are sufficient to explain all intellectual operations: namely, discrimination, retentiveness, and association of ideas. Sir W. Hamilton, departing from common classifications, sums the intellections into six:
MIND
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MIND
(1.) The presentative faculty, or the power of recog- nising the various aspects of tlie world and of the mind. (2.) The conservative faculty or memory, meaning the power of storing up. (o.) The reproductive faculty, or the means of recalling sleeping impressions or concepts. (4.) The representative faculty, or imagination. (5.) The elaborative faculty, or the power of comparison, by which classification, generalization, and reasoning are performed. (G.) Tlie regulative faculty, or the cogni- tion of the a priori or instinctive notions of the intel- lect, as space, time, causation, necessary truths, etc. Noah I'orter divides his " Human Intellect" into four parts: (a.) He treats of natural consciousness, philo- sophical consciousness; sense perception, its conditions and process; of the growth and products of sense per- ception. (6.) He treats of representation and represent- ative knowledge; by which he means memory, imagin- ing power, etc. (c.) He treats of thinking and thought knowledge; by which he means the formation and nat- ure of the concept, judgment, reasoning, etc. (jl.) He treats of intuition and intuitive knowledge, in which he discourses on mathematical relations, causation, design, substance, attribute ; the Unite and conditioned ; the in- iinite and absolute. Berkeley and his school teach a pure idealism, which asserts that everything we can take cognizance of is mind or self; that wc cannot tran- scend our mental sphere ; whatever we know is our own mind. Others, again, as Locke, resolve all into empiri- cism, and look on mind as simply the result of material organization. These two views contain the extreme angles to which speculation has run. The former is idealism or spiritualism, the latter materialism or em- piricism.
The pre-Socratic school of philosophers was material- istic, of which ^Vuaxinioncs. Pythagoras, Heraclitus, were patrons. Between these and I'lato, Socrates was a tran- sitional link. The post-I'latonic philosophers were spir- itualistic in the main, notwithstanding French material- ism and German rationalism. See Matekialism. Dr. WcCosh, in his Intuitions of the Mind, makes a triplet of parts. In part first (which is on the " Nature of the In- tuitive Convictions of the IMind") he shows that there are no innate mental images; no innate or general no- tions ; no a priori forms imposed by the mind on objects ; no intuitions immediately before consciousness as law principles. But there are intuitive principles operating in the mind ; these are native convictions of the mind, which are of the nature of perceptions or intuitions. Intuitive convictions rise up when contemplations of objects are presented to the mind. The intuitions of the mind are primarily directed to individual objects. The individual intuitive convictions can be generalized into maxims, and these are entitled to be represented as philosoi)liic principles. In part second he shows that the mind begins its intelligent acts with knowledge; that the simple cognitive powers are sense, perception, and self-consciousness. It is through the bodily organ- ism that the intelligence of man attains its knowledge of all material objects beyond. The (jualities of mat- ter—extension, divisibility, size, density or rarity, figure, incompressibility, mobility, and substance — are known by itituilion; and it is by cognition we know self as having being, and as not <lepcnding for existence on our observation ; as being in itself an abiding existence ; as exercising potency in spirit and material being — " Cogito, ergo sum." The primitive cognitions recog- nise being, substance, mode, quality', personality, num- ber, motion, power. The primitive beliefs recognise space, time, and the infinite. The mind intuitively ob- serves the relations of identity, of whole to part, of space, time, (piantity, property, cause, and ett'ect. The motive and moral convictions — as ai)iictencies, will, conscience — are involved in the exercise of conscience. In ])art thiril he shows that the sources of knowledge are sense, perception, self-consciousness, and faith exercise. But there are limits to our knowledge, iileas, and beliefs. Wc cannot know any substance other than those re-