JOHN LOCKE

JOHN LOCKE, from the publication of whose Essay on Human Understanding a new era is to be dated in the History of Philosophy, was born at Wrington in Somersetshire, in 1632. Of his father nothing remarkable is recorded, but that he was a captain in the Parliament's army during the civil wars; a circumstance which, it may be presumed from the son's political opinions, would not be regarded by him as a stain on the memory of his parent.

In the earlier part of Mr Locke's life, he prosecuted for some years, with great ardour, the study of medicine; an art, however, which he never actually exercised as a profession. According to his friend Le Clerc, the delicacy of his constitution rendered this impossible. But, that his proficiency in the study was not inconsiderable, we have good evidence in the dedication prefixed to Dr Sydenham's Observations on the History and Cure of Acute

Diseases;¹ where he boasts of the approbation bestowed on his METHOD by Mr John Locke, who (to borrow Sydenham's own words) "examined it to the bottom; and who, if we consider his genius and penetrating and exact judgment, has scarce any superior, and few equals, now living." The merit of this METHOD, therefore, which still continues to be regarded as a model by the most competent judges, may be presumed to have belonged in part to Mr Locke,²—a circumstance which deserves to be noticed, as an additional confirmation of what Bacon has so sagaciously taught, concerning the dependence of all the sciences relating to the phenomena, either of Matter or of Mind, on principles and rules derived from the resources of a higher philosophy. On the other hand, no science could have been chosen, more happily calculated than Medicine, to prepare such a mind as that of Locke for the prosecution of those speculations which have immortalized his name; the complicated and fugitive, and often equivocal phenomena of disease, requiring in the observer a far greater portion of discriminating sagacity, than those of Physics, strictly so called; resembling, in this respect, much more nearly, the phenomena about which Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics, are conversant.

I have said, that the study of Medicine forms one of the best preparations for the study of Mind, to such an understanding as Locke's. To an understanding less comprehensive, and less cultivated by a liberal education, the effect of this study is likely to be similar to what we may trace in the works of Hartley, Darwin, and Cabanis; to all of whom we may more or less apply the sarcasm of Cicero on Aristoxenus, the Musician, who attempted to explain the nature of the soul by comparing it to a Harmony; HIC AB ARTIFICIO SUO NON RECESSIT.³ In Locke's Essay, not a single passage occurs, savouring of the Anatomical Theatre, or of the Chemical Laboratory.

In 1666, Mr Locke, then in his thirty-fifth year, formed an intimate acquaintance with Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury; from which period a complete change took place, both in the direction of his studies, and in his habits of life. His attention appears to

have been then turned, for the first time, to political subjects; and his place of residence transferred from the university to the metropolis. From London (a scene which gave him access to a society very different from what he had previously lived in¹) he occasionally passed over to the Continent, where he had an opportunity of profiting by the conversation of some of the most distinguished persons of his age. In the course of his foreign excursions, he visited France, Germany, and Holland; but the last of these countries seems to have been his favourite place of residence; the blessings which the people there enjoyed, under a government peculiarly favourable to civil and religious liberty, amply compensating, in his view, for what their uninviting territory wanted in point of scenery and of climate. In this respect, the coincidence between the taste of Locke and that of Descartes throws a pleasing light on the characters of both.

The plan of the Essay on Human Understanding is said to have been formed as early as 1670; but the various employments and avocations of the Author prevented him from finishing it till 1687, when he fortunately availed himself of the leisure which his exile in Holland afforded him, to complete his long meditated design. He returned to England soon after the Revolution, and published the first edition of his work in 1690; the busy and diversified scenes through which he had passed during its progress, having probably contributed, not less than the academical retirement in which he had spent his youth, to enhance its peculiar and characteristical merits.

Of the circumstances which gave occasion to this great and memorable undertaking, the following interesting account is given in the Prefatory Epistle to the Reader. "Five or six friends, meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that, before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented, and thereupon it was agreed, that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this discourse, which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty; written by incoherent parcels, and, after long intervals of neglect, resumed again

as my humour or occasions permitted ; and at last in retirement, where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it."

Mr Locke afterwards informs us, that "when he first put pen to paper, he thought all he should have to say on this matter would have been contained in one sheet, but that the farther he went the larger prospect he had ;—new discoveries still leading him on, till his book grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in."

On comparing the Essay on Human Understanding with the foregoing account of its origin and progress, it is curious to observe, that it is the fourth and last book alone which bears directly on the author's principal object. In this book, it is further remarkable, that there are few, if any, references to the preceding parts of the Essay ; insomuch that it might have been published separately, without being less intelligible than it is. Hence, it seems not unreasonable to conjecture, that it was the first part of the work in the order of composition, and that it contains those leading and fundamental thoughts which offered themselves to the author's mind, when he first began to reflect on the friendly conversation which gave rise to his philosophical researches. The inquiries in the first and second books, which are of a much more abstract, as well as scholastic, nature, than the sequel of the work, probably opened gradually on the author's mind, in proportion as he studied his subject with a closer and more continued attention. They relate chiefly to the origin and to the technical classification of our ideas, frequently branching out into collateral, and sometimes into digressive, discussions, without much regard to method or connection. The third book (by far the most important of the whole), where the nature, the use, and the abuse of language are so clearly and happily illustrated, seems, from Locke's own account, to have been a sort of after-thought ; and the two excellent chapters on the Association of Ideas and on Enthusiasm (the former of which has contributed, as much as any thing else in Locke's writings, to the subsequent progress of Metaphysical Philosophy) were printed, for the first time, in the fourth edition of the Essay.

I would not be understood, by these remarks, to undervalue the two first books. All that I have said amounts to this, that the subjects which they treat of are seldom susceptible of any practical application to the conduct of the understanding ; and that the author has adopted a new phraseology of his own, where, in some instances, he might have much more clearly conveyed his meaning without any departure from the ordinary forms of speech. But although these considerations render the two first books inferior in point of general utility to the two last, they do not materially detract from their merit, as a precious accession to the theory of the Human Mind. On the contrary, I do not hesitate to consider them as the richest contribution of well-observed and well-described facts, which

was ever bequeathed to this branch of science by a single individual; and as the indisputable (though not always acknowledged) source of some of the most refined conclusions, with respect to the intellectual phenomena, which have been since brought to light by succeeding inquirers.

After the details given by Locke himself, of the circumstances in which his Essay was begun and completed; more especially, after what he has stated of the "discontinued way of writing," imposed on him by the avocations of a busy and unsettled life, it cannot be thought surprising, that so very little of method should appear in the disposition of his materials; or that the opinions which, on different occasions, he has pronounced on the same subject, should not always seem perfectly steady and consistent. In these last cases, however, I am inclined to think that the inconsistencies, if duly reflected on, would be found rather apparent than real. It is but seldom, that a writer possessed of the powerful and upright mind of Locke, can reasonably be suspected of stating propositions in direct contradiction to each other. The presumption is, that, in each of these propositions, there is a mixture of truth, and that the error lies chiefly in the unqualified manner in which the truth is stated; proper allowances not being made, during the fervour of composition, for the partial survey taken of the objects from a particular point of view. Perhaps it would not be going too far to assert, that most of the seeming contradictions which occur in authors animated with a sincere love of truth, might be fairly accounted for by the different aspects which the same object presented to them upon different occasions. In reading such authors, accordingly, when we meet with discordant expressions, instead of indulging ourselves in the captiousness of verbal criticism, it would better become us carefully and candidly to collate the questionable passages; and to study so to reconcile them by judicious modifications and corrections, as to render the oversights and mistakes of our illustrious guides subservient to the precision and soundness of our own conclusions. In the case of Locke, it must be owned, that this is not always an easy task, as the limitations of some of his most exceptionable propositions are to be collected, not from the context, but from different and widely separated parts of his Essay.¹

In a work thus composed by snatches (to borrow a phrase of the author's), it was not to be expected, that he should be able accurately to draw the line between his own ideas, and the hints for which he was indebted to others. To those who are well acquainted with his speculations, it must appear evident, that he had studied diligently the metaphysical writings both of Hobbes and of Gassendi; and that he was no stranger to the Essays of Montaigne, to the philosophical works of Bacon, or to Malebranche's Inquiry after Truth.¹ That he was familiarly conversant with the Cartesian system may be presumed from what we are told by his biographer, that it was this which first inspired him with a disgust at the jargon of the schools, and led him into that train of thinking which he afterwards prosecuted so successfully. I do not, however, recollect that he has anywhere in his Essay mentioned the name of any one of these authors.² It is probable, that, when he sat down to write, he found the result of his youthful reading so completely identified with the fruits of his subsequent reflections, that it was impossible for him to attempt a separation of the one from the other; and that he was thus occasionally led to mistake the treasures of memory for those of invention. That this was really the case, may be farther presumed from the peculiar and original cast of his phraseology, which, though in general careless and unpollished, has always the merit of that characteristical unity and raciness of style, which demonstrate, that, while he was writing, he conceived himself to be drawing only from his own resources.

With respect to his style, it may be further observed, that it resembles that of a well educated and well informed man of the world, rather than of a recluse student who had made an object of the art of composition. It everywhere abounds with colloquial expressions, which he had probably caught by the ear from those whom he considered as models of good conversation; and hence, though it now seems somewhat antiquated, and not altogether suited to the dignity of the subject, it may be presumed to have contributed its share towards his great object of turning the thoughts of his contemporaries to logical and metaphysical inquiries. The author of the Characteristics, who will not be accused of an un-

due partiality for Locke, acknowledges, in strong terms, the favourable reception which his book had met with among the higher classes. "I am not sorry, however," says Shaftesbury, to one of his correspondents, "that I lent you Locke's Essay, a book that may as well qualify men for business and the world, as for the sciences and a university. No one has done more towards the recalling of philosophy from barbarity, into use and practice of the world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, who might well be ashamed of it in its other dress. No one has opened a better and clearer way to reasoning."¹

In a passage of one of Warburton's letters to Hurd, which I had occasion to quote in the first part of this Dissertation, it is stated as a fact, that, "when Locke first published his Essay, he had neither followers nor admirers, and hardly a single approver." I cannot help suspecting very strongly the correctness of this assertion, not only from the flattering terms in which the Essay is mentioned by Shaftesbury in the foregoing quotation, and from the frequent allusions to its doctrines by Addison and other popular writers of the same period, but from the unexampled sale of the book, during the fourteen years which elapsed between its publication and Locke's death. Four editions were printed in the space of ten years, and three others must have appeared in the space of the next four; a reference being made to the sixth edition by the author himself, in the epistle to the reader, prefixed to all the subsequent impressions. A copy of the thirteenth edition, printed as early as 1748, is now lying before me. So rapid and so extensive a circulation of a work, on a subject so little within the reach of common readers, is the best proof of the established popularity of the author's name, and of the respect generally entertained for his talents and his opinions.

That the Essay on Human Understanding should have excited some alarm in the University of Oxford, was no more than the author had reason to expect from his boldness as a philosophical reformer; from his avowed zeal in the cause of liberty, both civil and religious; from the suspected orthodoxy of his Theological Creed; and (it is but candid to add) from the apparent coincidence of his ethical doctrines with those of Hobbes.² It is more difficult to account for the long continuance, in that illustrious seat of learning, of the prejudice against the logic of Locke (by far the most valuable part of his work), and of that partiality for the logic of Aristotle, of which Locke has so fully exposed the futility. In the University of Cambridge, on the other hand, the Essay on Human Understand-

ing was, for many years, regarded with a reverence approaching to idolatry: and to the authority of some distinguished persons connected with that learned body may be traced (as will afterwards appear) the origin of the greater part of the extravagancies which, towards the close of the last century, were grafted on Locke's errors, by the disciples of Hartley, of Law, of Priestley, of Tooke, and of Darwin.¹

To a person who now reads with attention and candour the work in question, it is much more easy to enter into the prejudices which at first opposed themselves to its complete success, than to conceive how it should so soon have acquired its just celebrity. Something, I suspect, must be ascribed to the political importance which Mr Locke had previously acquired as the champion of religious toleration; as the great apostle of the Revolution; and as the intrepid opposer of a tyranny which had been recently overthrown.

In Scotland, where the liberal constitution of the universities has been always peculiarly favourable to the diffusion of a free and eclectic spirit of inquiry, the philosophy of Locke seems very early to have struck its roots, deeply and permanently, into a kindly and congenial soil. Nor were the errors of this great man implicitly adopted from a blind reverence for his name. The works of Descartes still continued to be studied and admired; and the combined systems of the English and the French metaphysicians served, in many respects, to correct what was faulty, and to supply what was deficient, in either. As to the ethical principles of Locke, where they appear to lean towards Hobbism, a powerful antidote against them was already prepared in the Treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis, which was then universally and deservedly regarded in this country as the best introduction that had yet appeared to the study of moral science. If Scotland, at this period, produced no eminent authors in these branches of learning, it was not from want of erudition or of talents; nor yet from the narrowness of mind incident to the inhabitants of remote and insulated regions; but from the almost insuperable difficulty of writing in a dialect, which imposed upon an author the double task of at once acquiring a new language, and of unlearning his own.²

The success of Locke's Essay, in some parts of the Continent, was equally remarkable; owing, no doubt, in the first instance, to the very accurate translation of it into the French language by Coste, and to the eagerness with which every thing proceeding from the author of the Letters on Toleration¹ may be presumed to have been read by the multitude of learned and enlightened refugees, whom the revocation of the edict of Nantz forced to seek an asylum in Protestant countries. In Holland, where Locke was personally known to the most distinguished characters, both literary and political, his work was read and praised by a discerning few, with all the partiality of friendship;² but it does not seem to have made its way into the schools till a period considerably later. The doctrines of Descartes, at first so vehemently opposed in that country, were now so completely triumphant, both among philosophers and divines,³ that it was difficult for a new reformer to obtain a hearing. The case was very nearly similar in Germany, where Leibnitz (who always speaks

coldly of Locke's Essay)¹ was then looked up to as the great oracle in every branch of learning and of science. If I am not mistaken, it was in Switzerland, where (as Gibbon observes) "the intermixture of sects had rendered the clergy acute and learned on controversial topics," that Locke's real merits were first appreciated on the Continent with a discriminating impartiality. In Crousaz's Treatise of Logic (a book which, if not distinguished by originality of genius, is at least strongly marked with the sound and unprejudiced judgment of the author), we everywhere trace the influence of Locke's doctrines; and, at the same time, the effects of the Cartesian Metaphysics, in limiting those hasty expressions of Locke, which have been so often misinterpreted by his followers.² Nor do

Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal;
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.
Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day
(Though Christ-church long kept prudishly away).
Each staunch Polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce Logician, still expelling Locke,
Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and thick
On German Crousaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.

Warburton, with his usual scurrility towards all Pope's adversaries as well as his own, has called Crousaz a blundering Swiss; but a very different estimate of his merits has been formed by Gibbon, who seems to have studied his works much more carefully than the Right Reverend Commentator on the Dunciad.

"M. de Crousaz, the adversary of Bayle and Pope, is not distinguished by lively fancy or profound reflection; and even in his own country, at the end of a few years, his name and writings are almost obliterated. But his Philosophy had been formed in the school of Locke, his Divinity in that of Limborch and Le Clerc; in a long and laborious life, several generations of pupils were taught to think, and even to write; his lessons rescued the Academy of Lausanne from Calvinistic prejudices; and he had the rare merit of diffusing a more liberal spirit among the people of the pays de Vaud." (Gibbon's Memoirs.)

Crousaz's academical labours appear to have been less useful than his writings; if a judgment on this point may be formed from the sound philosophical principles which he diffused among a numerous race of pupils. One of these (M. Allamand), the friend and correspondent of Gibbon, deserves particularly to be noticed here, on account of two letters published in the posthumous works of that historian, containing a criticism on Locke's argument against innate ideas, so very able and judicious, that it may still be read with advantage by many logicians of no small note in the learned world. Had these letters happened to have sooner attracted my attention, I should not have delayed so long to do this tardy justice to their merits.¹

I am not able to speak with confidence of the period at which Locke's Essay began to attract public notice in France. Voltaire, in a letter to Horace Walpole, asserts, that he

In a subsequent passage Gibbon says, "The logic of Crousaz had prepared me to engage with his master Locke, and his antagonist Bayle; of whom the former may be used as a bridle, and the latter applied as a spur to the curiosity of a young philosopher." (Ibid.)

The following details (independently of their reference to Crousaz) are so interesting in themselves, and afford so strong a testimony to the utility of logical studies, when rationally conducted, that I am tempted to transcribe them.

"December 1755. In finishing this year, I must remark how favourable it was to my studies. In the space of eight months, I learned the principles of drawing; made myself completely master of the French and Latin languages, with which I was very superficially acquainted before, and wrote and translated a great deal in both; read Cicero's Epistles ad Familiares, his Brutus, all his Orationes, his Dialogues de Amicitia et de Senectute; Terence twice, and Pliny's Epistles. In French, Giannoni's History of Naples, l'Abbé Banier's Mythology, and M. Roehat's Mémoires sur la Suisse, and wrote a very ample relation of my tour. I likewise began to study Greek, and went through the grammar. I began to make very large collections of what I read. But what I esteem most of all,—from the perusal and meditation of De Crousaz's logic, I not only understood the principles of that science, but formed my mind to a habit of thinking and reasoning, I had no idea of before."

After all, I very readily grant, that Crousaz's logic is chiefly to be regarded as the work of a sagacious and enlightened compiler; but even this (due allowance being made for the state of philosophy when it appeared) is no mean praise. "Good sense (as Gibbon has very truly observed) is a quality of mind hardly less rare than genius."

¹ For some remarks of M. Allamand, which approach very near to Reid's Objections to the Ideal Theory, See Note (B.)

Of this extraordinary man Gibbon gives the following account in his Journal: "C'est un ministre dans le Pays de Vaud, et un des plus beaux génies que je connoisse. Il a voulu embrasser tous les genres; mais c'est la Philosophie qu'il a le plus approfondi. Sur toutes les questions il s'est fait des systèmes, ou du moins des arguments toujours originaux et toujours ingénieux. Ses idées sont fines et lumineuses, son expression heureuse et facile. Ou lui reproche avec raison trop de raffinement et de subtilité dans l'esprit; trop de fierté, trop d'ambition, et trop de violence dans le caractère. Cet homme, qui auroit pu éclairer ou troubler une nation, vit et mourra dans l'obscurité."

It is of the same person that Gibbon sneeringly says (in the words of Vossius), "Est sacrificulus in pago, et rusticos decipit."

was the first person who made the name of Locke known to his countrymen ;¹ but I suspect that this assertion must be received with considerable qualifications. The striking coincidence between some of Locke's most celebrated doctrines and those of Gassendi, can scarcely be supposed to have been altogether overlooked by the followers and admirers of the latter ; considering the immediate and very general circulation given on the Continent to the Essay on Human Understanding, by Coste's French version. The Gassendists, too, it must be remembered, formed, even before the death of their master, a party formidable in talents as well as in numbers ; including, among other distinguished names, those of Moliere,² Chapelle,³ and Bernier ;⁴ all of them eminently calculated to give the tone, on dis-

puted questions of Metaphysics, to that numerous class of Parisians of both sexes, with whom the practical lessons, vulgarly imputed to Epicurus, were not likely to operate to the prejudice of his speculative principles. Of the three persons just mentioned, the two last died only a few years before Locke's Essay was published; and may be presumed to have left behind them many younger pupils of the same school. One thing is certain, that, long before the middle of the last century, the Essay on Human Understanding was not only read by the learned, but had made its way into the circles of fashion at Paris.¹ In what manner this is to be accounted for, it is not easy to say; but the fact will not be disputed by those who are at all acquainted with the history of French literature.

In consequence of this rapid and extensive circulation of the work in question, and the strong impression that it every where produced, by the new and striking contrast which it exhibited to the doctrines of the schools, a very remarkable change soon manifested itself in the prevailing habits of thinking on philosophical subjects. Not that it is to be supposed that the opinions of men, on particular articles of their former creed, underwent a sudden alteration. I speak only of the general effect of Locke's discussions, in preparing the thinking part of his readers, to a degree till then unknown, for the unshackled use of their own reason. This has always appeared to me the most characteristical feature of Locke's Essay; and that to which it is chiefly indebted for its immense influence on the philosophy of the eighteenth century. Few books can be named, from which it is possible to extract more exceptionable passages; but, such is the liberal tone of the author; such the manliness with which he constantly appeals to reason, as the paramount authority which, even in religious controversy, every candid disputant is bound to acknowledge; and such the sincerity and simplicity with which, on all occasions, he appears to inquire after truth,

turn from the East, where he resided twelve years at the court of the Great Mogul, he published, at Lyons, an excellent Abridgment of the Philosophy of Gassendi, in 8 vols. 12mo; a second edition of which, corrected by himself, afterwards appeared, in seven volumes. To this second edition (which I have never met with) is annexed a Supplement, entitled Doutes de M. Bernier sur quelques uns des principaux Chapitres de son Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi. It is to this work, I presume, that Leibnitz alludes in the following passage of a letter to John Bernouilli; and, from the manner in which he speaks of its contents, it would seem to be an object of some curiosity. "Frustra quæsi vi apud typographos librum cui titulus; Doutes de M. Bernier sur la Philosophie, in Gallia ante annos aliquot editum et mihi visum, sed nunc non repertum. Vellem autem idæo iterum legere, quia ille Gassendistorum fuit Princeps; sed paullo ante mortem, libello hoc edito ingenue professus est, in quibus nec Gassendus nec Cartesius satisfaciunt." (Leibnizii et Jo. Bernouilli Commerc. Epist. 2 vol. 4to. Laussanæ et Genæ, 1745.)

Bernier died in 1688.

that the general effect of the whole work may be regarded as the best of all antidotes against the errors involved in some of its particular conclusions.¹

To attempt any general review of the doctrines sanctioned, or supposed to be sanctioned, by the name of Locke, would be obviously incompatible with the design of this Discourse; but, among these doctrines, there are two of fundamental importance, which have misled so many of his successors, that a few remarks on each form a necessary preparation for some historical details which will afterwards occur. The first of these doctrines relates to the ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS; the second to THE POWER OF MORAL PERCEPTION, AND THE IMMUTABILITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. On both questions, the real opinion of Locke has, if I am not widely mistaken, been very grossly misapprehended or misrepresented, by a large portion of his professed followers, as well as of his avowed antagonists.

1. The objections to which Locke's doctrine concerning the origin of our ideas, or, in other words, concerning the sources of our knowledge, are, in my judgment, liable, I have stated so fully in a former work,² that I shall not touch on them here. It is quite sufficient, on the present occasion, to remark, how very unjustly this doctrine (imperfect, on the most favourable construction, as it undoubtedly is) has been confounded with those of Gassendi, of Condillac, of Diderot, and of Horne Tooke. The substance of all that is common in the conclusions of these last writers, cannot be better expressed than in the words of their Master, Gassendi. "All our knowledge (he observes in a letter to Descartes) appears plainly to derive its origin from the senses; and although you deny the maxim, 'Quicquid est in intellectu præesse debere in sensu,' yet this maxim appears, nevertheless, to be true; since our knowledge is all ultimately obtained by an influx or incursion from things external; which knowledge afterwards undergoes various modifications by means of analogy, composition, division, amplification, extenuation, and other similar processes, which it is unnecessary to enumerate."³

This doctrine of Gassendi's coincides exactly with that ascribed to Locke by Diderot and by Horne Tooke; and it differs only verbally from the more concise statement of

ut loquuntur, fiat; perficiatur tamen analogia, compositione, divisione, ampliacione, extenuacione, aliisque similibus modis, quos commemorare nihil est necesse. (Objectiones in Meditationem Secundam.)

This doctrine of Gassendi's is thus very clearly stated and illustrated, by the judicious authors of the Port Royal Logic. "Un philosophe qui est estimé dans le monde commence sa logique par cette proposition: Omnis idea orsum ducit a sensibus. Toute idée tire son origine des sens. Il avoue néanmoins que toutes nos idées n'ont pas été dans nos sens telles qu'elles sont dans notre esprit: mais il prétend qu'elles ont au moins été formées de celles qui ont passé par nos sens, ou par composition, comme lorsque des images séparées de l'or et d'une montagne, on s'en fait une montagne d'or; ou par ampliacion et diminucion, comme lorsque de l'image d'un homme d'une grandeur ordinaire on s'en forme un géant ou un pigmée; ou par accommodation et proportion, comme lorsque de l'idée d'une maison qu'on a vue, on s'en forme l'image d'une maison qu'on n'a pas vue. Et AINSI, dit il, NOUS CONCEVONS DIEU QUI NE PEUT TOMBER SOUS LES SENS, SOUS L'IMAGE D'UN VENERABLE VIEILLARD." "Selon cette pensée, quoique toutes nos idées ne fussent semblables à quelque corps particulier que nous ayons vu, ou qui ait frappé nos sens, elles seroient néanmoins toutes corporelles, et ne vous representeroient rien qui ne fût entré dans nos sens, au moins par parties. Et ainsi nous ne concevons rien que par des images, semblables à celles qui se forment dans les cerveaux quand nous voyons, ou nous nous imaginons des corps." (L'Art de Penser, 1. Partie. c. 1.)

The reference made, in the foregoing quotation, to Gassendi's illustration drawn from the idea of God, affords me an opportunity, of which I gladly avail myself, to contrast it with Locke's opinion on the same subject. "How many amongst us will be found, upon inquiry, to fancy God, in the shape of a man, sitting in heaven, and to have many other absurd and unfit conceptions of him? Christians, as well as Turks, have had whole sects owning, or contending earnestly for it, that the Deity was corporeal and of human shape: And although we find few amongst us, who profess themselves Anthropomorphites (though some I have met with that own it), yet, I believe, he that will make it his business, may find amongst the ignorant and uninstructed Christians, many of that opinion." * (Vol. I. p. 67.)

"Let the ideas of being and matter be strongly joined either by education or much thought, whilst these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings will there be about separate spirits? Let custom, from the very childhood, have joined figure and shape to the idea of God, and what absurdities will that mind be liable to about the Deity?" (Vol. II. p. 144.)

The authors of the Port Royal Logic have expressed themselves on this point to the very same purpose with Locke; and have enlarged upon it still more fully and forcibly. (See the sequel of the passage above quoted.) Some of their remarks on the subject, which are more particularly directed against Gassendi, have led Brucker to rank them among the advocates for innate ideas (Brucker, Historia de Ideis, p. 271), although these remarks coincide exactly in substance with the foregoing quotation from Locke. Like many other modern metaphysicians, this learned and laborious, but not very acute historian, could imagine no intermediate opinion between the theory of innate ideas, as taught by the Cartesians, and the Epicurean account of our knowledge, as revived by Gassendi and Hobbes; and accordingly thought himself entitled to

that the general effect of the whole work may be regarded as the best of all against the errors involved in some of its particular conclusions.¹

To attempt any general review of the doctrines sanctioned, or supposed to be ed, by the name of Locke, would be obviously incompatible with the design of the course; but, among these doctrines, there are two of fundamental importance, which misled so many of his successors, that a few remarks on each form a necessary preparation for some historical details which will afterwards occur. The first of these doctrines relates to the ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS; the second to THE POWER OF MORAL PERCEPTION, AND THE IMMUTABILITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. On both questions, the real opinion of Locke has, if I am not widely mistaken, been very grossly misapprehended or misrepresented, by a large portion of his professed followers, as well as of his avowed antagonists.

1. The objections to which Locke's doctrine concerning the origin of our ideas, or, in other words, concerning the sources of our knowledge, are, in my judgment, liable, I have stated so fully in a former work,² that I shall not touch on them here. It is quite sufficient, on the present occasion, to remark, how very unjustly this doctrine (imperfect, on the most favourable construction, as it undoubtedly is) has been confounded with those of Gassendi, of Condillac, of Diderot, and of Horne Tooke. The substance of all that is common in the conclusions of these last writers, cannot be better expressed than in the words of their Master, Gassendi. "All our knowledge (he observes in a letter to Descartes) appears plainly to derive its origin from the senses; and although you deny the maxim, 'Quicquid est in intellectu præesse debere in sensu,' yet this maxim appears, nevertheless, to be true; since our knowledge is all ultimately obtained by an influx or incursion from things external; which knowledge afterwards undergoes various modifications by means of analogy, composition, division, amplification, extenuation, and other similar processes, which it is unnecessary to enumerate."³

This doctrine of Gassendi's coincides exactly with that ascribed to Locke by Diderot and by Horne Tooke; and it differs only verbally from the more concise statement of

κατα πρᾶσιν, ut loquuntur, fiat; perficiatur tamen analogia, compositione, divisione, ampliacione, extenuatione, aliisque similibus modis, quos commemorare nihil est necesse." (Objectiones in Meditationem Secundam.)

This doctrine of Gassendi's is thus very clearly stated and illustrated, by the judicious authors of the Port Royal Logic. "Un philosophe qui est estimé dans le monde commence sa logique par cette proposition: Omnis idea orsum ducit a sensibus. Toute idée tire son origine des sens. Il avoue néanmoins que toutes nos idées n'ont pas été dans nos sens telles qu'elles sont dans notre esprit: mais il prétend qu'elles ont au moins été formées de celles qui ont passé par nos sens, ou par composition, comme lorsque des images séparées de l'or et d'une montagne, on s'en fait une montagne d'or; ou par ampliacion et diminution, comme lorsque de l'image d'un homme d'une grandeur ordinaire on s'en forme un géant ou un pigmée; ou par accommodation et proportion, comme lorsque de l'idée d'une maison qu'on a vue, on s'en forme l'image d'une maison qu'on n'a pas vue. Et AINSI, dit il, NOUS CONCEVONS DIEU QUI NE PEUT TOMBER SOUS LES SENS, SOUS L'IMAGE D'UN VENERABLE VIEILLARD." "Selon cette pensée, quoique toutes nos idées ne fussent semblables à quelque corps particulier que nous ayons vu, ou qui ait frappé nos sens, elles seroient néanmoins toutes corporelles, et ne vous representeroient rien qui ne fût entré dans nos sens, au moins par parties. Et ainsi nous ne concevons rien que par des images, semblables à celles qui se forment dans les cerveaux quand nous voyons, ou nous nous imaginons des corps." (L'Art de Penser, I. Partie. c. 1.)

The reference made, in the foregoing quotation, to Gassendi's illustration drawn from the idea of God, affords me an opportunity, of which I gladly avail myself, to contrast it with Locke's opinion on the same subject. "How many amongst us will be found, upon inquiry, to fancy God, in the shape of a man, sitting in heaven, and to have many other absurd and unfit conceptions of him? Christians, as well as Turks, have had whole sects owning, or contending earnestly for it, that the Deity was corporeal and of human shape: And although we find few amongst us, who profess themselves Anthropomorphites (though some I have met with that own it), yet, I believe, he that will make it his business, may find amongst the ignorant and uninstructed Christians, many of that opinion."* (Vol. I. p. 67.)

"Let the ideas of being and matter be strongly joined either by education or much thought, whilst these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings will there be about separate spirits? Let custom, from the very childhood, have joined figure and shape to the idea of God, and what absurdities will that mind be liable to about the Deity?" (Vol. II. p. 144.)

The authors of the Port Royal Logic have expressed themselves on this point to the very same purpose with Locke; and have enlarged upon it still more fully and forcibly. (See the sequel of the passage above quoted.) Some of their remarks on the subject, which are more particularly directed against Gassendi, have led Brucker to rank them among the advocates for innate ideas (Brucker, Historia de Ideis, p. 271), although these remarks coincide exactly in substance with the foregoing quotation from Locke. Like many other modern metaphysicians, this learned and laborious, but not very acute historian, could imagine no intermediate opinion between the theory of innate ideas, as taught by the Cartesians, and the Epicurean account of our knowledge, as revived by Gassendi and Hobbes; and accordingly thought himself entitled to

Condillac, that "our ideas are nothing more than transformed sensations." "Every idea," says the first of these writers, "must necessarily, when brought to its state of ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into a sensible representation or picture; and since every thing in our understanding has been introduced there by the channel of sensation, whatever proceeds out of the understanding is either chimerical, or must be able, in returning by the same road, to reattach itself to its sensible archetype. Hence an important rule in philosophy,—that every expression which cannot find an external and a sensible object, to which it can thus establish its affinity, is destitute of signification." (Oeuvres de Diderot, Tom. VI.)

Such is the exposition given by Diderot, of what is regarded in France, as Locke's great and capital discovery; and precisely to the same purpose we are told by Condorcet, that "Locke was the first who proved that all our ideas are compounded of sensations." (Esquisse Historique, &c.)

If this were to be admitted as a fair account of Locke's opinion, it would follow, that he has not advanced a single step beyond Gassendi and Hobbes; both of whom have repeatedly expressed themselves in nearly the same words with Diderot and Condorcet. But al-

conclude, that whoever rejected the one must necessarily have adopted the other. The doctrines of Locke and of his predecessor Arnauld will be found, on examination, essentially different from both.

Persons little acquainted with the metaphysical speculations of the two last centuries are apt to imagine, that when "all knowledge is said to have its origin in the senses," nothing more is to be understood than this, that it is by the impressions of external objects on our organs of perception, that the dormant powers of the understanding are at first awakened. The foregoing quotation from Gassendi, together with those which I am about to produce from Diderot and Condorcet, may, I trust, be useful in correcting this very common mistake; all of these quotations explicitly asserting, that the external senses furnish not only the occasions by which our intellectual powers are excited and developed, but all the materials about which our thoughts are conversant; or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which is not either a sensible image, or the result of sensible images combined together, and transmuted into new forms by a sort of logical chemistry. That the powers of the understanding would for ever continue dormant, were it not for the action of things external on the bodily frame, is a proposition now universally admitted by philosophers. Even Mr Harris and Lord Monboddo, the two most zealous, as well as most learned, of Mr Locke's adversaries in England, have, in the most explicit manner, expressed their assent to the common doctrine. "The first class of ideas (says Monboddo) is produced from ideas furnished by the senses; the second arises from the operations of the mind upon these materials: for I do not deny, that in this our present state of existence, all our ideas, and all our knowledge, are ultimately to be derived from sense and matter." (Vol. I. p. 44. 2d Ed.) Mr Harris, while he holds the same language, points out, with greater precision, the essential difference between his philosophy and that of the Hobbits. "Though sensible objects may be the destined medium to awaken the dormant energies of man's understanding, yet are those energies themselves no more contained in sense, than the explosion of a cannon in the spark which gave it fire." (Hermes.) (On this subject see Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. I. chap. i. sect. 4.)

To this doctrine I have little doubt that Descartes himself would have assented, although the contrary opinion has been generally supposed by his adversaries to be virtually involved in his Theory of Innate Ideas. My reasons for thinking so, the reader will find stated in Note (D.)

though it must be granted, in favour of their interpretation of his language, that various detached passages may be quoted from his work, which seem, on a superficial view, to justify their comments, yet of what weight, it may be asked, are these passages, when compared with the stress laid by the author on Reflection, as an original source of our ideas, altogether different from Sensation? "The other fountain," says Locke, "from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without; and such are Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which, we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings ideas as distinct as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself: And though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other SENSATION, so I call this REFLECTION; the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself."¹ (Locke's Works, Vol. I. p. 78.)

"The understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations." (Ibid. p. 79.)

In another part of the same chapter, Locke expresses himself thus: "Men come to be furnished with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less REFLECT on them. For, though he that contemplates the operations of his mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them; yet, unless he turn his thoughts that way, and consider them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct ideas of all the operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention heed all the parts of it. The picture, or clock, may be so placed, that they may come in his way every day; but yet he will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with attention, to consider them in each particular.

“ And hence we see the reason why it is pretty late before most children get ideas of the operations of their own minds; and some have not any very clear or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their lives. . . . . Children, when they first come into it, are surrounded with a world of new things, which, by a constant solicitation of their senses, draw the mind constantly to them,—forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with the variety of changing objects. Thus, the first years are usually employed and directed in looking abroad. Men’s business in them is to acquaint themselves with what is to be found without; and so growing up in a constant attention to outward sensations, seldom make any considerable reflection on what passes within them, till they come to be of riper years; and some scarce ever at all.” (Ibid. pp. 80, 81.)

I beg leave to request more particularly the attention of my readers to the following paragraphs:

“ If it be demanded, when a man begins to have any ideas? I think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. . . . I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coëval with sensation; which is such an impression or motion, made in some part of the body, as produces some perception in the understanding. It is about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects, that the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call Perception, Remembering, Consideration, Reasoning, &c.”

“ In time, the mind comes to reflect on its own operations, and about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These impressions that are made on our senses by objects extrinsic to the mind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsic and proper to itself (which, when reflected on by itself, become also objects of its contemplation), are, as I have said, the original of all knowledge.”¹ (Ibid. pp. 91, 92.)

A few other scattered sentences, collected from different parts of Locke's Essay, may throw additional light on the point in question.

"I know that people, whose thoughts are immersed in matter, and have so subjected their minds to their senses, that they seldom reflect on anything beyond them, are apt to say, they cannot comprehend a thinking thing, which perhaps is true: But I affirm, when they consider it well, they can no more comprehend an extended thing.

"If any one say, he knows not what 'tis thinks in him; he means, he knows not what the substance is of that thinking thing: No more, say I, knows he what the substance is of that solid thing. Farther, if he says, he knows not how he thinks; I answer, Neither knows he how he is extended; how the solid parts of body are united, or cohere together to make extension." (Vol. II. p. 22.)

"I think we have as many and as clear ideas belonging to mind, as we have belonging to body, the substance of each being equally unknown to us; and the idea of thinking in mind as clear as of extension in body; and the communication of motion by thought which we attribute to mind, is as evident as that by impulse, which we ascribe to body. Constant experience makes us sensible of both of these, though our narrow understandings can comprehend neither.¹

"To conclude; Sensation convinces us, that there are solid extended substances; and Reflection, that there are thinking ones: Experience assures us of the existence of such beings; and that the one hath a power to move body by impulse, the other by thought; this we cannot doubt of. But beyond these ideas, as received from their proper sources, our faculties will not reach. If we would inquire farther into their nature, causes, and

vague and indefinite use which he occasionally makes of the word Reflection; a word which expresses the peculiar and characteristical doctrine, by which his system is distinguished from that of the Gassendists and Hobbits. All this, however, serves only to prove still more clearly, how widely remote his real opinion on this subject was from that commonly ascribed to him by the French and German commentators. For my own part, I do not think (notwithstanding some casual expressions which may seem to favour the contrary supposition) that Locke would have hesitated for a moment to admit, with Cudworth and Price, that the Understanding is itself a source of new ideas. That it is by Reflection (which, according to his own definition, means merely the exercise of the Understanding on the internal phenomena) that we get our ideas of memory, imagination, reasoning, and of all other intellectual powers, Mr Locke has again and again told us; and from this principle it is so obvious an inference, that all the simple ideas which are necessarily implied in our intellectual operations, are ultimately to be referred to the same source, that we cannot reasonably suppose a philosopher of Locke's sagacity to admit the former proposition, and to withhold his assent to the latter.

manner, we perceive not the nature of Extension clearer than we do of Thinking. If we would explain them any farther, one is as easy as the other; and there is no more difficulty to conceive how a substance we know not should by thought set body into motion, than how a substance we know not should, by impulse, set body into motion." (Ibid. pp. 26, 27.)

The passage in Locke which, on a superficial view, appears the most favourable to the misinterpretation put on his account of the Sources of our Knowledge, by so many of his professed followers, is, in my opinion, the following:

"It may also lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark, how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses; v. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c. are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary signification, is breath; angel, a messenger: and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names which stand for things that fall not under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some kind of guess what kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds, who were the first beginners of languages; and how nature, even in the naming of things, unawares suggested to men the originals and principles of all their knowledge."

So far the words of Locke coincide very nearly, if not exactly, with the doctrines of Hobbes and of Gassendi; and I have not a doubt, that a mistaken interpretation of the clause which I have distinguished by italics, furnished the germ of all the mighty discoveries contained in the Επιστήματα. If Mr Tooke, however, had studied with due attention the import of what immediately follows, he must have instantly perceived how essentially different Locke's real opinion on the subject was from what he conceived it to be.—"Whilst to give names, that might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that came not under their senses, they were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations they experienced in themselves, which made no outward sensible appearances; and then, when they had got known and agreed names, to signify those internal operations of their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words all their other ideas; since they could consist of nothing but either of

outward sensible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their minds about them." (Vol. II. pp. 147, 148.)

From the sentences last quoted it is manifest, that when Locke remarked the material etymology of all our language about mind, he had not the most distant intention to draw from it any inference which might tend to identify the sensible images which this language presents to the fancy, with the metaphysical notions which it figuratively expresses. Through the whole of his Essay, he uniformly represents sensation and reflection as radically distinct sources of knowledge; and, of consequence, he must have conceived it to be not less unphilosophical to attempt an explanation of the phenomena of mind by the analogy of matter, than to think of explaining the phenomena of matter by the analogy of mind. To this fundamental principle concerning the origin of our ideas, he has added, in the passage now before us, That, as our knowledge of mind is posterior in the order of time to that of matter (the first years of our existence being necessarily occupied about objects of sense), it is not surprising, that "when men wished to give names that might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that came not under their senses, they should have been fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations which make no outward sensible appearances." According to this statement, the purpose of these "borrowed" or metaphorical words is not (as Mr Tooke concluded) to explain the nature of the operations, but to direct the attention of the hearer to that internal world, the phenomena of which he can only learn to comprehend by the exercise of his own power of reflection. If Locke has nowhere affirmed so explicitly as his predecessor Descartes, that "nothing conceivable by the power of imagination can throw any light on the operations of thought," it may be presumed that he considered this as unnecessary, after having dwelt so much on reflection as the exclusive source of all our ideas relating to mind; and on the peculiar difficulties attending the exercise of this power, in consequence of the effect of early associations in confounding together our notions of mind and of matter.

The misapprehensions so prevalent on the Continent, with respect to Locke's doctrine on this most important of all metaphysical questions, began during his own lifetime; and were countenanced by the authority of no less a writer than Leibnitz, who always represents Locke as a partisan of the scholastic maxim, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu.—"Nempe (says Leibnitz in reply to this maxim) nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi ipse intellectus."¹ The remark is excellent, and does honour to the

acuteness of the critic ; but it is not easy to conceive on what grounds it should have been urged as an objection to a writer, who has insisted so explicitly and so frequently on re-

passage affords a sufficient proof: "Leibnitz a combattu avec une force de dialectique admirable le Système de Locke, qui attribue toutes nos idées à nos sensations. On avoit mis en avant cet axiome si connu, qu'il n'y avoit rien dans l'intelligence qui n'eût été d'abord dans les sensations, et Leibnitz y ajouta cette sublime restriction, si ce n'est l'intelligence elle-même. De ce principe dérive toute la philosophie nouvelle qui exerce tant d'influence sur les esprits en Allemagne." (Mad. de Stael de l'Allemagne, Tom. III. p. 65.)

I observed in the First Part of this Dissertation (page 67), that this sublime restriction on which so much stress has been laid by the partizans of the German school, is little more than a translation of the following words of Aristotle: Καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ νους νοητός ἐστιν, ὥσπερ τὰ νοητὰ ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν ἔχῃ, τὸ αὐτὸ ἐστὶ τὸ νοῦν καὶ τὸ νοούμενον. (De Anima, Lib. III. cap. v.)

As to Locke, the same injustice which he received from Leibnitz was very early done to him in his own country. In a tract printed in 1697, by a mathematician of some note, the author of the Essay on Human Understanding is represented as holding the same opinion with Gassendi concerning the origin of our ideas. "Ideæ nomine communi sensu utor; earum originem an a sensibus solum, ut Gassendo et Lockio nostrati, cæterisque plurimis visum est, an aliundè, hujus loci non est inquirere." (De Spatio Reali, seu Ente Infinito Conamen Mathematico-Metaphysicum. Auctore Josepho Raphson, Reg. Soc. Socio. This tract is annexed to the second edition of a work entitled Analysis Æquationum Universalis. Lond. 1702.)

In order to enable my readers more easily to form a judgment on the argument in the text, I must beg leave once more to remind them of the distinction already pointed out between the Gassendists and the Cartesians; the former asserting, that, as all our ideas are derived from the external senses, the intellectual phenomena can admit of no other explanation than what is furnished by analogies drawn from the material world; the latter rejecting these analogies altogether, as delusive and treacherous lights in the study of mind; and contending, that the exercise of the power of reflection is the only medium through which any knowledge of its operations is to be obtained. To the one or the other of these two classes, all the metaphysicians of the last century may be referred; and even at the present day, the fundamental question which formed the chief ground of controversy between Gassendi and Descartes (I mean the question concerning the proper logical method of studying the mind) still continues the hinge on which the most important disputes relating to the internal world will be found ultimately to turn.

According to this distinction, Locke (notwithstanding some occasional slips of his pen) belongs indisputably to the class of Cartesians; as well as the very small number of his followers who have entered thoroughly into the spirit of his philosophy. To the class of Gassendists, on the other hand, belong all those French metaphysicians, who, professing to tread in Locke's footsteps, have derived all their knowledge of the Essay on Human Understanding from the works of Condillac; together with most of the commentators on Locke who have proceeded from the school of Bishop Law. To these may be added (among the writers of later times) Priestley, Darwin, Beddoes, and, above all, Horne Tooke, with his numerous disciples.

The doctrine of Hobbes on this cardinal question coincided entirely with that of Gassendi, and, accordingly, it is not unusual in the present times, among Hobbes's disciples, to ascribe to him the whole merit of that account of the origin of our knowledge, which, from a strange misconception, has been supposed to have been claimed by Locke as his own discovery. But where, it may be asked, has Hobbes said anything about the origin of those ideas which Locke refers to the power of reflection? and may not the numerous observations which Locke has made on this power as a source of ideas peculiar to itself, be regarded as an indirect refutation of that theory which would resolve all the objects of our knowledge into sensa-

fection as the source of a class of ideas essentially different from those which are derived from sensation. To myself it appears, that the words of Leibnitz only convey, in a more concise and epigrammatic form, the substance of Locke's doctrine. Is any thing implied in them which Locke has not more fully and clearly stated in the following sentence?

tions, as their ultimate elements? This was not merely a step beyond Hobbes; but the correction of an error which lies at the very root of Hobbes's system;—an error, under which (it may be added) the greater part of Hobbes's eulogists have the misfortune still to labour.

It is with much regret I add, that a very large proportion of the English writers, who call themselves Lockists, and who, I have no doubt, believe themselves to be so in reality, are at bottom (at least in their metaphysical opinions) Gassendists or Hobbists. In what respect do the following observations differ from the Epicurean theory concerning the origin of our knowledge, as expounded by Gassendi? "The ideas conveyed by sight, and by our other senses, having entered the mind, intermingle, unite, separate, throw themselves into various combinations and postures, and thereby generate new ideas of reflection, strictly so called; such as those of comparing, dividing, distinguishing,—of abstraction, relation, with many others; all which remain with us as stock for our further use on future occasions." I do not recollect any passage, either in Helvetius or Diderot, which contains a more explicit and decided avowal of that Epicurean system of Metaphysics, which it was the great aim both of Descartes and of Locke to overthrow.

In the following conjectures concerning the nature of our ideas, the same author has far exceeded in extravagance any of the Metaphysicians of the French school. "What those substances are, whereof our ideas are the modifications, whether parts of the mind as the members are of our body, or contained in it like wafers in a box, or enveloped by it like fish in water, whether of a spiritual, corporeal, or middle nature between both, I need not now ascertain. All I mean to lay down at present is this, that, in every exercise of the understanding, that which discerns is numerically and substantially distinct from that which is discerned; and that an act of the understanding is not so much our own proper act, as the act of something else operating upon us."

I should scarcely have thought it worth while to take notice of these passages, had not the doctrines contained in the work from which they are taken, been sanctioned in the most unqualified terms by the high authority of Dr Paley. "There is one work (he observes) to which I owe so much, that it would be ungrateful not to confess the obligation: I mean the writings of the late Abraham Tucker, Esq. part of which were published by himself, and the remainder since his death, under the title of the Light of Nature Pursued, by Edward Search, Esq." "I have found, in this writer, more original thinking and observation upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand, than in any other, not to say than in all others put together. His talent also for illustration is unrivalled. But his thoughts are diffused through a long, various, and irregular work. I shall account it no mean praise, if I have been sometimes able to dispose into method, to collect into heads and articles, or to exhibit in more compact and tangible masses, what, in that excellent performance, is spread over too much surface." (Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Preface, pp. 25, 26.)

Of an author whom Dr Paley has honoured with so very warm an eulogy, it would be equally absurd and presumptuous to dispute the merits. Nor have I any wish to detract from the praise here bestowed on him as an original thinker and observer. I readily admit, also, his talent for illustration, although it sometimes leads him to soar into bombast, and more frequently to sink into buffoonery. As an honest inquirer after moral and religious truth, he is entitled to the most unqualified approbation. But, I must be permitted to add, that, as a metaphysician, he seems to me much more fanciful than solid; and, at the same time, to be so rambling, verbose, and excursive, as to be more likely to unsettle than to fix the principles of his readers.

“ External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities ; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.” (Locke’s Works, Vol. I. p. 79.)

The extraordinary zeal displayed by Locke, at the very outset of his work, against the hypothesis of innate ideas, goes far to account for the mistakes committed by his commentators, in interpreting his account of the origin of our knowledge. It ought, however, to be always kept in view, in reading his argument on the subject, that it is the Cartesian theory of innate ideas which he is here combating ; according to which theory (as understood by Locke), an innate idea signifies something coëval in its existence with the mind to which it belongs, and illuminating the understanding before the external senses begin to operate. The very close affinity between this theory, and some of the doctrines of the Platonic school, prevented Leibnitz, it is probable, from judging of Locke’s argument against it, with his usual candour ; and disposed him hastily to conclude, that the opposition of Locke to Descartes proceeded from views essentially the same with those of Gassendi, and of his other Epicurean antagonists. How very widely he was mistaken in this conclusion, the numerous passages which I have quoted in Locke’s own words sufficiently demonstrate.

In what respects Locke’s account of the origin of our ideas falls short of the truth, will appear, when the metaphysical discussions of later times come under our review. Enough has been already said to show, how completely this account has been misapprehended, not only by his opponents, but by the most devoted of his admirers ;—a misapprehension so very general, and, at the same time, so obviously at variance with the whole spirit of his Essay, as to prove to a demonstration that, in point of numbers, the intelligent readers of this celebrated work have hitherto borne but a small proportion to its purchasers and panegyrists. What an illustration of the folly of trusting, in matters of literary history, to the traditional judgments copied by one commentator or critic from another, when recourse may so easily be had to the original sources of information !¹

II. Another misapprehension, not less prevalent than the former, with respect to Locke's philosophical creed, relates to the power of moral perception, and the immutability

understanding, to which the world is so much indebted for removing prejudices and encumbrances, and advancing real and useful knowledge.

"First, then, it appears to me, that all the most complex ideas arise from sensation, and that reflection is not a distinct source, as Mr Locke makes it." *

This last proposition Hartley seems to have considered as an important and original improvement of his own on Locke's logic; whereas, in fact, it is only a relapse into the old Epicurean hypothesis, which it was one of the main objects of Locke's Essay to explode.

I would not have enlarged so fully on Locke's account of the origin of our ideas, had not a mistaken view of his argument on this head, served as a ground-work for the whole Metaphysical Philosophy of the French Encyclopédie. That all our knowledge is derived from our external senses, is everywhere assumed by the conductors of that work as a demonstrated principle; and the credit of this demonstration is uniformly ascribed to Locke, who, we are told, was the first that fully unfolded and established a truth, of which his predecessors had only an imperfect glimpse. La Harpe, in his Lycée, has, on this account, justly censured the metaphysical phraseology of the Encyclopédie, as tending to degrade the intellectual nature of man; while, with a strange inconsistency, he bestows the most unqualified praise on the writings of Condillac. Little did he suspect, when he wrote the following sentences, how much the reasonings of his favourite logician had contributed to pave the way for those conclusions which he reprobates with so much asperity in Diderot and D'Alembert.

"La gloire de Condillac est d'avoir été le premier disciple de Locke; mais si Condillac eut un maître, il merita d'en servir à tous les autres; il répandit même une plus grande lumière sur les découvertes du philosophe Anglois; il les rendit pour ainsi dire sensibles, et c'est grâce à lui qu'elles sont devenues communes et familières. En un mot, la saine Métaphysique ne date en France, que des ouvrages de Condillac, et à ce titre il doit être compté dans le petit nombre d'hommes qui ont avancé la science qu'ils ont cultivée."—(Lycée, Tome XV. pp. 136, 137.)

La Harpe proceeds in the same panegyrical strain through more than seventy pages, and concludes his eulogy of Condillac with these words: "Le style de Condillac est clair et pur comme ses conceptions; c'est en général l'esprit le plus juste et le plus lumineux qui ait contribué, dans ce siècle, aux progrès de la bonne philosophie."—(Ibid. p. 214.)

La Harpe's account of the power of Reflection will form an appropriate supplement to his comments on Condillac. "L'impression sentie des objets se nomme perception; l'action de l'âme qui les considère, se nomme reflection. Ce mot, il est vrai, exprime un mouvement physique, celui de se replier sur soi-même ou sur quelque chose; mais toutes nos idées venant des sens, nous sommes souvent obligés de nous servir de termes physiques pour exprimer les opérations de l'âme."—(Ibid. p. 158.) In another passage, he defines Reflection as follows: "La faculté de reflection, c'est-à-dire, le pouvoir qu'a notre âme, de comparer, d'assembler, de combiner les perceptions."—(Ibid. p. 183.) How widely do these definitions of reflection differ from that given by Locke; and how exactly do they accord with the Philosophy of Gassendi, of Hobbes, and of Diderot!

In a lately published sketch Of the State of French Literature during the eighteenth century (a work, to which the Author's taste and powers as a writer have attracted a degree of public attention something beyond what was due to his philosophical depth and discernment), there are some shrewd, and, in my opinion, sound remarks, on the moral tendency of that metaphysical system to which Condillac gave so much

ty of moral distinctions. The consideration of such questions, it may at first sight be thought, belongs rather to the history of Ethics than of Metaphysics; but it must be recollected, that, in introducing them here, I follow the example of Locke himself, who has enlarged upon them at considerable length, in his Argument against the Theory of Innate Ideas. An Ethical disquisition of this sort formed, it must be owned, an awkward introduction to a work on the Human Understanding; but the conclusion on which it is meant to bear is purely of a Metaphysical nature; and, when combined with the premises from which it is deduced, affords a good illustration of the impossibility, in tracing the progress of these two sciences, of separating completely the history of the one from that of the other.

In what sense Locke's reasonings against Innate Ideas have been commonly understood, may be collected from the following passage of an author, who had certainly no wish to do injustice to Locke's opinions.

"The First Book (says Dr Beattie) of the Essay on Human Understanding, which, with submission, I think the worst, tends to establish this dangerous doctrine, that the human mind, previous to education and habit, is as susceptible of any one impression as of any other:—a doctrine which, if true, would go near to prove, that truth and virtue are

circulation and celebrity. I shall quote some of his strictures which bear more particularly on the foregoing argument.

"Autrefois, négligeant d'examiner tout ce mécanisme des sens, tous ces rapports directs du corps avec les objets, les philosophes ne s'occupoient que de ce qui se passe au-dedans de l'homme. La science de l'âme, telle a été la noble étude de Descartes, de Pascal, de Malebranche, de Leibnitz. (Why omit in this list the name of Locke?) . . . . Peut-être se perdoient-ils quelquefois dans les nuages des hautes régions ou ils avoient pris leur vol; peut-être leurs travaux étoient-ils sans application directe; mais du moins ils suivoient une direction élevée, leur doctrine étoit en rapport avec les pensées qui nous agitent quand nous réfléchissons profondément sur nous-mêmes. Cette route conduisoit nécessairement au plus nobles des sciences, à la religion, et à la morale. Elle supposoit dans ceux qui la cultivoient un génie élevé et de vastes méditations.

"On se laissa de les suivre; on traita de vaines subtilités, on flétrit du titre de rêveries scholastiques les travaux de ces grandes esprits. On se jeta dans la science des sensations, espérant qu'elle seroit plus à la portée de l'intelligence humaine. On s'occupa de plus en plus des rapports mécaniques de l'homme avec les objets, et de l'influence de son organisation physique. De cette sorte, la métaphysique alla toujours se rabaisant, au point que maintenant, pour quelques personnes, elle se confond presque avec la physiologie. . . . Le dix-huitième siècle a voulu faire de cette manière d'envisager l'homme un de ses principaux titres de gloire. . . .

"Condillac est le chef de cette école. C'est dans ses ouvrages que cette métaphysique exerce toutes les séductions de la méthode, et de la lucidité; d'autant plus claire, qu'elle est moins profonde. Peu d'écrivains ont obtenu plus de succès. Il réduisit à la portée du vulgaire la science de la pensée, en retranchant tout ce qu'elle avoit d'élevée. Chacun fut surpris et glorieux de pouvoir philosopher si facilement; et l'on eut une grande reconnaissance pour celui à qui l'on devoit ce bienfait. On ne s'aperçut pas qu'il avoit rabaisse la science, au lieu de rendre ses disciples capable d'y atteindre."—(Tableau de la Littérature Française pendant le dix-huitième Siècle, pp. 87, 88, 89, 92.)

no better than human contrivances ; or, at least, that they have nothing permanent in their nature ; but may be as changeable as the inclinations and capacities of men.” Dr Beattie, however, candidly and judiciously adds, “ Surely this is not the doctrine that Locke meant to establish ; but his zeal against innate ideas, and innate principles, put him off his guard, and made him allow too little to instinct, for fear of allowing too much.”

In this last remark, I perfectly agree with Dr Beattie ; although I am well aware, that a considerable number of Locke’s English disciples have not only chosen to interpret the first book of his Essay in that very sense in which it appeared to Dr Beattie to be of so mischievous a tendency, but have avowed Locke’s doctrine, when thus interpreted, as their own ethical creed. In this number, I am sorry to say, the respectable name of Paley must be included.¹

It is fortunate for Locke’s reputation, that, in other parts of his Essay, he has disavowed, in the most unequivocal terms, those dangerous conclusions which, it must be owned, the general strain of his first book has too much the appearance of favouring. “ He that hath the idea (he observes on one occasion) of an intelligent, but frail and weak being, made by and depending on another, who is omnipotent, perfectly wise, and good, will as certainly know, that man is to honour, fear, and obey God, as that the sun shines when he sees it ; nor can he be surer, in a clear morning, that the sun is risen, if he will but open his eyes, and turn them that way. But yet these truths being never so certain, never so clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties as he should to inform himself about them.” To the same purpose, he has elsewhere said, that “ there is a Law of Nature, as intelligible to a rational creature and studier of that law, as the positive laws of commonwealths.” Nay, he has himself, in the most explicit terms, anticipated and disclaimed those dangerous consequences which, it has been so often supposed, it was the chief scope of this introductory chapter to establish. “ I would not be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there were none but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference between an innate law and a law of nature ; between something imprinted on our minds in their very original, and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally forsake the truth, who, running into the contrary extremes, either affirm an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature, without the help of a positive revelation.” (Vol. I. p. 44.) Nor was Locke unaware of the influence on men’s lives of their

speculative tenets concerning these metaphysical and ethical questions. On this point, which can alone render such discussions interesting to human happiness, he has expressed himself thus: "Let that principle of some of the philosophers, that all is matter, and that there is nothing else, be received for certain and indubitable, and it will be easy to be seen, by the writings of some that have revived it again in our days, what consequences it will lead into. . . . Nothing can be so dangerous as principles thus taken up without due questioning or examination; especially if they be such as influence men's lives, and give a bias to all their actions. He that with Archelaus shall lay it down as a principle, that right and wrong, honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws, and not by nature, will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity, than those who take it for granted, that we are under obligations antecedent to all human constitutions." (Vol. III. p. 75.) Is not the whole of this passage evidently pointed at the Epicurean maxims of Hobbes and of Gassendi?¹

Lord Shaftesbury was one of the first who sounded the alarm against what he conceived to be the drift of that philosophy which denies the existence of innate principles. Various strictures on this subject occur in the Characteristics; particularly in the treatise entitled Advice to an Author; but the most direct of all his attacks upon Locke is to be found in his 8th Letter, addressed to a Student at the University. In this letter he observes, that "all those called free writers now-a-days have espoused those principles which Mr Hobbes set a foot in this last age."—"Mr Locke (he continues), as much as I honour him on account of other writings (on Government, Policy, Trade, Coin, Education, Toleration, &c.), and as well as I knew him, and can answer for his sincerity as a most zealous Christian and believer, did however go in the self-same tract; and is followed by the Tindals, and all the other free authors of our times!"

"'Twas Mr Locke that struck the home blow: for Mr Hobbes's character, and base slavish principles of government, took off the poison of his philosophy. 'Twas Mr Locke that struck at all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of these (which are the same with those of God) unnatural, and without foundation in our minds. Innate is a word he poorly plays upon: the right word, though less

used, is connatural. For what has birth or progress of the fœtus out of the womb to do in this case?—the question is not about the time the ideas entered, or the moment that one body came out of the other; but whether the constitution of man be such, that, being adult and grown up,¹ at such a time, sooner or later (no matter when), the idea and sense of order, administration, and a God, will not infallibly, inevitably, necessarily spring up in him.”

In this last remark Shaftesbury appears to me to place the question about innate ideas upon the right and only philosophical footing; and to afford a key to all the confusion running through Locke’s argument against their existence. The sequel of the above quotation is not less just and valuable—but I must not indulge myself in any farther extracts. It is sufficient to mention the perfect coincidence between the opinion of Shaftesbury, as here stated by himself, and that formerly quoted in the words of Locke; and, of consequence, the injustice of concluding, from some unguarded expressions of the latter, that there was, at bottom, any essential difference between their real sentiments.²

The rough draught of Mr Locke’s reply to these afflicting acknowledgments was kindly communicated to me by a friend some years ago. It is written with the magnanimity of a philosopher, and with the good-humoured forbearance of a man of the world; and it breathes throughout so tender and so unaffected a veneration for the good as well as great qualities of the excellent person to whom it is addressed, as demonstrates at once the conscious integrity of the writer, and the superiority of his mind to the irritation of little passions. I know of nothing from Locke’s pen which does more honour to his temper and character; and I introduce it with peculiar satisfaction, in connection with those strictures which truth has extorted from me on that part of his system which to the moralist stands most in need of explanation and apology.

“I have been ever since I first knew you so kindly and sincerely your friend, and thought you so much mine, that I could not have believed what you tell me of yourself, had I had it from any body else. And

Under the title of Locke's Metaphysical (or, to speak with more strict precision, his Logical) writings, may also be classed his tracts on Education, and on the Conduct of the Understanding. These tracts are entirely of a practical nature, and were plainly intended for a wider circle of readers than his Essay; but they everywhere bear the strongest marks of the same zeal for extending the empire of Truth and of Reason, and may be justly regarded as parts of the same great design.¹ It has been often remarked, that they display less originality than might have been expected from so bold and powerful a thinker; and, accordingly, both of them have long fallen into very general neglect. It ought, however, to be remembered, that, on the most important points discussed in them, new suggestions are not now to be looked for; and that the great object of the reader should be, not to learn something which he never heard of before, but to learn, among the multi-

though I cannot but be mightily troubled that you should have had so many wrong and unjust thoughts of me, yet, next to the return of good offices, such as from a sincere good will I have ever done you, I receive your acknowledgment of the contrary as the kindest thing you could have done me, since it gives me hopes I have not lost a friend I so much valued. After what your letter expresses, I shall not need to say any thing to justify myself to you: I shall always think your own reflection on my carriage both to you and all mankind will sufficiently do that. Instead of that, give me leave to assure you, that I am more ready to forgive you than you can be to desire it; and I do it so freely and fully that I wish for nothing more than the opportunity to convince you that I truly love and esteem you; and that I have still the same good will for you as if nothing of this had happened. To confirm this to you more fully, I should be glad to meet you anywhere, and the rather, because the conclusion of your letter makes me apprehend it would not be wholly useless to you. I shall always be ready to serve you to my utmost, in any way you shall like, and shall only need your commands or permission to do it.

"My book is going to press for a second edition; and, though I can answer for the design with which I writ it, yet, since you have so opportunely given me notice of what you have said of it, I should take it as a favour if you would point out to me the places that gave occasion to that censure, that, by explaining myself better, I may avoid being mistaken by others, or unwillingly doing the least prejudice to truth or virtue. I am sure you are so much a friend to both, that, were you none to me, I could expect this from you. But I cannot doubt but you would do a great deal more than this for my sake, who, after all, have all the concern of a friend for you, wish you extremely well, and am, without compliment," &c. &c.

(For the preservation of this precious memorial of Mr Locke, the public is indebted to the descendants of his friend and relation the Lord Chancellor King, to whom his papers and library were bequeathed. The original is still in the possession of the present representative of that noble family; for whose flattering permission to enrich my Dissertation with the above extracts, I feel the more grateful, as I have not the honour of being personally known to his Lordship.)

plicity of discordant precepts current in the world, which of them were sanctioned, and which reprobated by the judgment of Locke. The candid and unreserved thoughts of such a writer upon such subjects as Education, and the culture of the intellectual powers, possess an intrinsic value, which is not diminished by the consideration of their triteness. They not only serve to illustrate the peculiarities of the author's own character and views, but, considered in a practical light, come recommended to us by all the additional weight of his discriminating experience. In this point of view, the two tracts in question, but more especially that on the Conduct of the Understanding, will always continue to be interesting manuals to such as are qualified to appreciate the mind from which they proceeded.¹

It must not, however, be concluded from the apparent triteness of some of Locke's remarks, to the present generation of readers, that they were viewed in the same light by his own contemporaries. On the contrary, Leibnitz speaks of the Treatise on Education as a work of still greater merit than the Essay on Human Understanding.² Nor will this judgment be wondered at by those who, abstracting from the habits of thinking in which they have been reared, transport themselves in imagination to the state of Europe a hundred years ago. How flat and nugatory seem now the cautions to parents about watching over those associations on which the dread of spirits in the dark is founded! But how different was the case (even in Protestant countries) till a very recent period of the last century!

I have, on a former occasion, taken notice of the slow but (since the invention of printing) certain steps by which Truth makes its way in the world; "the discoveries, which, in one age, are confined to the studious and enlightened few, becoming, in the next, the established creed of the learned; and, in the third, forming part of the elementary princi-

ples of education." The harmony, in the meantime, which exists among truths of all descriptions, tends perpetually, by blending them into one common mass, to increase the joint influence of the whole; the contributions of individuals to this mass (to borrow the fine allusion of Middleton) "resembling the drops of rain, which, falling separately into the water, mingle at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current." Hence the ambition, so natural to weak minds, to distinguish themselves by paradoxical and extravagant opinions; for these, having no chance to incorporate themselves with the progressive reason of the species, are the more likely to immortalize the eccentricity of their authors, and to furnish subjects of wonder to the common compilers of literary history. This ambition is the more general, as so little expence of genius is necessary for its gratification. "Truth (as Mr Hume has well observed) is one thing, but errors are numberless;" and hence (he might have added) the difficulty of seizing the former, and the facility of swelling the number of the latter.¹

Having said so much in illustration of Locke's philosophical merits, and in reply to the common charge against his metaphysical and ethical principles, it now only remains for me to take notice of one or two defects in his intellectual character, which exhibit a strong contrast to the general vigour of his mental powers.

Among these defects, the most prominent is, the facility with which he listens to historical evidence, when it happens to favour his own conclusions. Many remarkable instances of this occur in his long and rambling argument (somewhat in the style of Montaigne) against the existence of innate practical principles; to which may be added, the degree of credit he appears to have given to the popular tales about mermaids, and to Sir William Temple's idle story of Prince Maurice's "rational and intelligent parrot." Strange! that the same person who, in matters of reasoning, had divested himself, almost to a fault, of all reverence for the opinions of others, should have failed to perceive, that, of all the various sources of error, one of the most copious and fatal is an unreflecting faith in human testimony!

The disrespect of Locke for the wisdom of antiquity, is another prejudice which has frequently given a wrong bias to his judgment. The idolatry in which the Greek and Roman writers were held by his immediate predecessors, although it may help to account for this weakness, cannot altogether excuse it in a man of so strong and enlarged an understanding. Locke (as we are told by Dr Warton) "affected to depreciate the ancients; which circumstance (he adds), as I am informed from undoubted authority, was the source of perpetual discontent and dispute betwixt him and his pupil, Lord Shaftesbury; who, in many parts of the Characteristics, has ridiculed Locke's philosophy, and endeavoured to represent him as a disciple of Hobbes." To those who are aware of the direct opposition between the principles of Hobbes, of Montaigne, of Gassendi, and of the other minute philosophers with whom Locke sometimes seems unconsciously to unite his strength,—and the principles of Socrates, of Plato, of Cicero, and of all the soundest moralists, both of ancient and of modern times, the foregoing anecdote will serve at once to explain and to palliate the acrimony of some of Shaftesbury's strictures on Locke's Ethical paradoxes.¹

With this disposition of Locke to depreciate the ancients, was intimately connected that contempt which he everywhere expresses for the study of Eloquence, and that perversion of taste which led him to consider Blackmore as one of the first of our English poets.² That his own imagination was neither sterile nor torpid, appears sufficiently from the agreeable colouring and animation which it has not unfrequently imparted to his style: but this power of the mind he seems to have regarded with a peculiarly jealous and unfriendly eye; confining his view exclusively to its occasional effects in misleading the judgment, and overlooking altogether the important purposes to which it is subservient, both in our intellectual and moral frame. Hence, in all his writings, an inattention to those more attractive aspects of the mind, the study of which (as Burke has well observed), "while it communicates to the taste a sort of philosophical solidity, may be expected to reflect back on the severer sciences some of those graces and elegancies, without which the greatest proficiency in these sciences will always have the appearance of something illiberal."

To a certain hardness of character, not unfrequently united with an insensibility to the charms of poetry and of eloquence, may partly be ascribed the severe and forbidding spirit

which has suggested some of the maxims in his Tract on Education.¹ He had been treated, himself, it would appear, with very little indulgence by his parents; and probably was led by that filial veneration which he always expressed for their memory, to ascribe to the early habits of self-denial imposed on him by their ascetic system of ethics, the existence of those moral qualities which he owed to the regulating influence of his own reason in fostering his natural dispositions; and which, under a gentler and more skilful culture, might have assumed a still more engaging and amiable form. His father, who had served in the Parliament's army, seems to have retained through life that austerity of manners which characterized his puritanical associates; and, notwithstanding the comparative enlargement and cultivation of Mr Locke's mind, something of this hereditary leaven, if I am not mistaken, continued to operate upon many of his opinions and habits of thinking. If, in the Conduct of the Understanding, he trusted (as many have thought) too much to nature, and laid too little stress on logical rules, he certainly fell into the opposite extreme in everything connected with the culture of the heart; distrusting nature altogether, and placing his sole confidence in the effects of a systematical and vigilant discipline. That the great object of education is not to thwart and disturb, but to study the aim, and to facilitate the accomplishment of her beneficial arrangements, is a maxim, one should think, obvious to common sense; and yet it is only of late years that it has begun to gain ground even among philosophers. It is but justice to Rousseau to acknowledge, that the zeal and eloquence with which he has enforced it, go far to compensate the mischievous tendency of some of his other doctrines.

To the same causes it was probably owing, that Locke has availed himself so little in his Conduct of the Understanding, of his own favourite doctrine of the Association of Ideas. He has been, indeed, at sufficient pains to warn parents and guardians of the mischievous consequences to be apprehended from this part of our constitution, if not diligently watched over in our infant years. But he seems to have altogether overlooked the positive and immense resources which might be derived from it, in the culture and amelioration, both of our intellectual and moral powers;—in strengthening (for instance), by early habits of right thinking, the authority of reason and of conscience;—in blending with our best feelings the congenial and ennobling sympathies of taste and of fancy;—and in identifying, with the first workings of the imagination, those pleasing views of the order of the universe,

which are so essentially necessary to human happiness. A law of our nature, so mighty and so extensive in its influence, was surely not given to man in vain; and the fatal purchase which it has, in all ages, afforded to Machiavellian statesmen, and to political religionists, in carrying into effect their joint conspiracy against the improvement and welfare of our species, is the most decisive proof of the manifold uses to which it might be turned in the hands of instructors, well disposed and well qualified humbly to co-operate with the obvious and unerring purposes of Divine Wisdom.

A more convenient opportunity will afterwards occur for taking some notice of Locke's writings on Money and Trade, and on the Principles of Government. They appear to me to connect less naturally and closely with the literary history of the times when they appeared, than with the systematical views which were opened on the same subjects about fifty years afterwards, by some speculative politicians in France and in England. I shall, therefore, delay any remarks on them which I have to offer, till we arrive at the period, when the questions to which they relate began everywhere to attract the attention of the learned world, and to be discussed on those general principles of expediency and equity, which form the basis of the modern science of Political Economy. With respect to his merits as a logical and metaphysical reformer, enough has been already said for this introductory section: but I shall have occasion, more than once, to recur to them in the following pages, when I come to review those later theories, of which the germs or rudiments may be distinctly traced in his works; and of which he is, therefore, entitled to divide the praise with such of his successors as have reared to maturity the prolific seeds scattered by his hand.¹

INDEPENDENTLY of the pre-eminent rank, which the versatile talents, and the universal learning of Leibnitz entitle him to hold among the illustrious men who adorned the Continent of Europe during the eighteenth century, there are other considerations which have

determined me to unite his name with that of Locke, in fixing the commencement of the period, on the history of which I am now to enter. The school of which he was the founder was strongly discriminated from that of Locke, by the general spirit of its doctrines; and to this school a large proportion of the metaphysicians, and also of the mathematicians of Germany, Holland, France, and Italy, have, ever since his time, had a decided leaning. On the fundamental question, indeed, concerning the Origin of our Knowledge, the philosophers of the Continent (with the exception of the Germans, and a few eminent individuals in other countries) have, in general, sided with Locke, or rather with Gassendi; but, in most other instances, a partiality for the opinions, and a deference for the authority of Leibnitz, may be traced in their speculations, both on metaphysical and physical subjects. Hence a striking contrast between the characteristical features of the continental philosophy, and those of the contemporary systems which have succeeded each other in our own island; the great proportion of our most noted writers, notwithstanding the opposition of their sentiments on particular points, having either attached themselves, or professed to attach themselves, to the method of inquiry recommended and exemplified by Locke.

But the circumstance which chiefly induced me to assign to Leibnitz so prominent a place in this historical sketch, is the extraordinary influence of his industry and zeal, in uniting, by a mutual communication of intellectual lights and of moral sympathies, the most powerful and leading minds scattered over Christendom. Some preliminary steps towards such an union had been already taken by Wallis in England, and by Mersenne in France; but the literary commerce, of which they were the centres, was confined almost exclusively to Mathematics and to Physics; while the comprehensive correspondence of Leibnitz extended alike to every pursuit interesting to man, either as a speculative or as an active being. From this time forward, accordingly, the history of philosophy involves, in a far greater degree than at any former period, the general history of the human mind; and we shall find, in our attempts to trace its farther progress, our attention more and more irresistibly withdrawn from local details to more enlarged views of the globe which we inhabit. A striking change in this literary commerce among nations took place, at least in the western parts of Europe, before the death of Leibnitz; but, during the remainder of the last century, it continued to proceed with an accelerated rapidity over the whole face of the civilized world. A multitude of causes, undoubtedly, conspired to produce it; but I know of no individual whose name is better entitled, than that of Leibnitz, to mark the era of its commencement.¹

I have already, in treating of the philosophy of Locke, said enough, and perhaps more than enough, of the opinion of Leibnitz concerning the origin of our knowledge. Although expressed in a different phraseology, it agrees in the most essential points with the innate ideas of the Cartesians; but it approaches still more nearly to some of the mystical speculations of Plato. The very exact coincidence between the language of Leibnitz on this question, and that of his contemporary Cudworth, whose mind, like his own, was deeply tinctured with the Platonic Metaphysics, is not unworthy of notice here, as an historical fact; and it is the only remark on this part of his system which I mean to add at present to those in the preceding history.

"The seeds of our acquired knowledge," says Leibnitz, "or, in other words, our ideas, and the eternal truths which are derived from them, are contained in the mind itself; nor is this wonderful, since we know by our own consciousness, that we possess within ourselves the ideas of existence, of unity, of substance, of action, and other ideas of a similar nature." To the same purpose, we are told by Cudworth, that "the mind contains in itself virtually (as the future plant or tree is contained in the seed) general notions of all things which unfold and discover themselves as occasions invite, and proper circumstances occur."

The metaphysical theories, to the establishment of which Leibnitz chiefly directed the force of his genius, are the doctrine of Pre-established Harmony; and the scheme of Optimism, as new modelled by himself. On neither of these heads will it be necessary for me long to detain my readers.

1. According to the system of Pre-established Harmony, the human mind and human body are two independent but constantly correspondent machines;—adjusted to each other like two unconnected clocks, so constructed, that, at the same instant, the one should point the hour, and the other strike it. Of this system the following summary and illustration are given by Leibnitz himself, in his Essay entitled Theodicæa:

"I cannot help coming into this notion, that God created the soul in such manner at first, that it should represent within itself all the simultaneous changes in the body; and that he has made the body also in such manner, as that it must of itself do what the soul wills:—So that the laws which make the thoughts of the soul follow each other in regular

succession, must produce images which shall be coincident with the impressions made by external objects upon our organs of sense; while the laws by which the motions of the body follow each other, are likewise so coincident with the thoughts of the soul, as to give to our volitions and actions the very same appearance, as if the latter were really the natural and the necessary consequences of the former." (Leib. Op. I. p. 163.) Upon another occasion he observes, that "everything goes on in the soul as if it had no body, and that everything goes on in the body as if it had no soul." (Ibid. II. p. 44.)

To convey his meaning still more fully, Leibnitz borrows from Mr Jaquelot¹ a comparison, which, whatever may be thought of its justness, must be at least allowed some merit in point of ingenuity. "Suppose that an intelligent and powerful being, who knew, beforehand, every particular thing that I should order my footman to do to-morrow, should make a machine to resemble my footman exactly, and punctually to perform, all day, whatever I directed. On this supposition, would not my will, in issuing all the details of my orders, remain, in every respect, in the same circumstances as before? And would not my machine-footman, in performing his different movements, have the appearance of acting only in obedience to my commands?" The inference to be drawn from this comparison is, that the movements of my body have no direct dependence whatever on the volitions of my mind, any more than the actions of my machine-footman would have on the words issuing from my lips. The same inference is to be extended to the relation which the impressions made on my different senses bear to the co-existent perceptions arising in my mind. The impressions and perceptions have no mutual connection, resembling that of physical causes with their effects; but the one series of events is made to correspond invariably with the other, in consequence of an eternal harmony between them, pre-established by their common Creator.

From this outline of the scheme of Pre-established Harmony, it is manifest, that it took its rise from the very same train of thinking which produced Malebranche's doctrine of Occasional Causes. The authors of both theories saw clearly the impossibility of tracing the mode in which mind acts on body, or body on mind; and hence were led rashly to conclude, that the connection or union which seems to exist between them is not real, but apparent. The inferences, however, which they drew from this common principle were directly opposite; Malebranche maintaining, that the communication between mind and body was carried on by the immediate and incessant agency of the Deity; while Leibnitz conceived, that the agency of God was employed only in the original contrivance and

mutual adjustment of the two machines;—all the subsequent phenomena of each, being the necessary results of its own independent mechanism, and, at the same time, the progressive evolutions of a comprehensive design, harmonizing the laws of the one with those of the other.

Of these two opposite hypotheses, that of Leibnitz is by far the more unphilosophical and untenable. The chief objection to the doctrine of occasional causes is, that it presumes to decide upon a question of which human reason is altogether incompetent to judge;—our ignorance of the mode in which matter acts upon mind, or mind upon matter, furnishing not the shadow of a proof that the one may not act directly and immediately on the other, in some way incomprehensible by our faculties.¹ But the doctrine of

Pre-established Harmony, besides being equally liable to this objection, labours under the additional disadvantage of involving a perplexed and totally inconsistent conception of the nature of Mechanism;—an inconsistency, by the way, with which all those philosophers are justly chargeable, who imagine that, by likening the universe to a machine, they get rid of the necessity of admitting the constant agency of powers essentially different from the known qualities of matter. The word Mechanism properly expresses a combination of natural powers to produce a certain effect. When such a combination is successful, a machine, once set a going, will sometimes continue to perform its office for a considerable time, without requiring the interposition of the artist: And hence we are led to conclude, that the case may perhaps be similar with respect to the universe, when once put into motion by the Deity. This idea Leibnitz carried so far as to exclude the supposition of any subsequent agency in the first contriver and mover, excepting in the case of a miracle. But the falseness of the analogy appears from this, that the moving force in every machine is some natural power, such as gravity or elasticity; and, consequently, the very idea of mechanism assumes the existence of those active powers, of which it is the professed object of a mechanical theory of the universe to give an explanation. Whether, therefore, with Malebranche, we resolve every effect into the immediate agency of God, or suppose, with the great majority of Newtonians, that he employs the instrumentality of second causes to accomplish his purposes, we are equally forced to admit with Bacon, the necessity not only of a first contriver and mover, but of his constant and efficient concurrence (either immediately or mediately) in carrying his design into execution: —“ Opus (says Bacon) quod operatur Deus a primordio usque ad finem.”

In what I have now said I have confined myself to the idea of Mechanism as it applies to the material universe; for, as to this word, when applied by Leibnitz to the mind, which he calls a Spiritual Automaton, I confess myself quite unable to annex a meaning to it: I shall not, therefore, offer any remarks on this part of his system.¹

point by my narrow conceptions. ***** And, therefore, in the next edition of my book, I will take care to have that passage rectified.”

It is a circumstance that can only be accounted for by the variety of Mr Locke's other pursuits, that in all the later editions of the Essay which have fallen in my way, the proposition in question has been allowed to remain as it originally stood.

To these visionary speculations of Leibnitz, a strong and instructive contrast is exhibited in the philosophy of Locke; a philosophy, the main object of which is less to enlarge our knowledge, than to make us sensible of our ignorance; or (as the author himself expresses it) "to prevail with the busy mind of man to be cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things, which, upon examination, are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities." . . . . "My right hand writes," says Locke, in another part of his Essay, "whilst my left hand is still. What causes rest in one, and motion in the other? Nothing but my will, a thought of my mind; my thought only changing, my right hand rests, and the left hand moves. This is matter of fact which cannot be denied. Explain this and make it intelligible, and then the next step will be to understand Creation. . . . . In the meantime, it is an overvaluing ourselves, to reduce all to the narrow measure of our capacities; and to conclude all things impossible to be done, whose manner of doing exceeds our comprehension. . . . . If you do not understand the operations of your own finite Mind, that thinking thing within you, do not deem it strange that you cannot comprehend the operations of that eternal infinite Mind, who made and governs all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain."¹ (Vol. II. pp. 249, 250.)

This contrast between the philosophical characters of Locke and of Leibnitz is the more deserving of notice, as something of the same sort has ever since continued to mark and to discriminate the metaphysical researches of the English and of the German schools. Various exceptions to this remark may, no doubt, be mentioned; but these exceptions will be found of trifling moment, when compared with the indisputable extent of its general application.

The theory of pre-established harmony led, by a natural and obvious transition, to the scheme of Optimism. As it represented all events, both in the physical and moral

and speculative, and (in all those branches of knowledge where imagination has no influence over the judgment) profound and inventive nature.

¹ That this is a fair representation of the scope of Locke's philosophy, according to the author's own view of it, is demonstrated by the two mottos prefixed to the Essay on Human Understanding. The one is a passage of the book of Ecclesiastes, which, from the place it occupies in the front of his work, may be presumed to express what he himself regarded as the most important moral to be drawn from his speculations. "As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so, thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all things." The other motto (from Cicero) strongly expresses a sentiment which every competent judge must feel on comparing the above quotations from Locke, with the monads and the pre-established harmony of Leibnitz. "Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias, quam ista effutientem nauseare, atque ipsum sibi displicere!" See Note (H.)

worlds, as the necessary effects of a mechanism originally contrived and set a-going by the Deity, it reduced its author to the alternative of either calling in question the Divine power, wisdom, and goodness, or of asserting that the universe which he had called into being was the best of all possible systems. This last opinion, accordingly, was eagerly embraced by Leibnitz; and forms the subject of a work entitled Theodicæa, in which are combined together, in an extraordinary degree, the acuteness of the logician, the imagination of the poet, and the impenetrable, yet sublime darkness, of the metaphysical theologian.¹

The modification of Optimism, however, adopted by Leibnitz, was, in some essential respects, peculiar to himself. It differed from that of Plato, and of some other sages of antiquity, in considering the human mind in the light of a spiritual machine, and, of consequence, in positively denying the freedom of human actions. According to Plato, every thing is right, so far as it is the work of God;—the creation of beings endowed with free will, and consequently liable to moral delinquency;—and the government of the world by general laws, from which occasional evils must result,—furnishing no objection to the perfection of the universe, to which a satisfactory reply may not be found in the partial and narrow views of it, to which our faculties are at present confined. But he held at the same time, that, although the permission of moral evil does not detract from the goodness of God, it is nevertheless imputable to man as a fault, and renders him justly obnoxious to punishment. This system (under a variety of forms) has been in all ages maintained by the wisest and best philosophers, who, while they were anxious to vindicate the perfections of God, saw the importance of stating their doctrine in a manner not inconsistent with man's free will and moral agency.

The scheme of Optimism, on the contrary, as proposed by Leibnitz, is completely subversive of these cardinal truths. It was, indeed, viewed by the great and excellent author in a very different light; but in the judgment of the most impartial and profound inquirers, it leads, by a short and demonstrative process, to the annihilation of all moral distinctions.²

It is of great importance to attend to the distinction between these two systems; because it has, of late, become customary among sceptical writers, to confound them studiously together, in order to extend to both that ridicule to which the latter is justly entitled.

I am perfectly aware, at the same time, that different opinions have been entertained of Plato's real sentiments on this subject; and I readily grant that passages with respect to Fate and Necessity may be collected from his works, which it would be very difficult to reconcile with any one consistent scheme. (See the Notes of Mosheim on his Latin Version of Cudworth's Intellectual System, Tome I. pp. 10, 310, et seq. Lugd. Batav. 1773.)

Without entering at all into this question, I may be permitted here to avail myself, for the sake of conciseness, of Plato's name, to distinguish that modification of optimism which I have opposed in the text to the optimism of Leibnitz. The following sentence, in the 10th Book De Republica, seems sufficient of itself to authorize this liberty: Ἀγαθὴ δ' ἀνθρώποισιν, ἢ τιμῶν καὶ ἀγαθῶν, πλὴν καὶ ἰδαντῶν αὐτῶν ἴζει. αὐτὰ ἰδαντῶν. ὅτι ἀνατῶν. Virtus inviolabilis ac libera quam prout honorabit quis aut negliget, ita plus aut minus ex ea possidebit. Eligentis quidem culpa est omnis. Deus vero extra culpam.

A short abstract of the allegory with which Leibnitz concludes his Theodicea, will convey a clearer idea of the scope of that work, than I could hope to do by any metaphysical comment. The ground-work of this allegory is taken from a dialogue on Free-Will, written by Laurentius Valla, in opposition to Boethius;—in which dialogue, Sextus, the son of Tarquin the Proud, is introduced as consulting Apollo about his destiny. Apollo predicts to him that he is to violate Lucretia, and afterwards, with his family, to be expelled from Rome. (Exul inopsque cades iratâ pulsus ab urbe.) Sextus complains of the prediction. Apollo replies, that the fault is not his; that he has only the gift of seeing into futurity; * that all things are regulated by Jupiter; and that it is to him his complaint should be addressed. (Here finishes the allegory of Valla, which Leibnitz thus continues, agreeably to his own principles.) In consequence of the advice of the Oracle, Sextus goes to Dodona to complain to Jupiter of the crime which he is destined to perpetrate. "Why (says he), oh Jupiter! have you made me wicked and miserable? Either change my lot and my will, or admit that the fault is yours, not mine." Jupiter replies to him: "Renounce all thoughts of Rome and of the crown; be wise, and you shall be happy. If you return to Rome you are undone." Sextus, unwilling to submit to such a sacrifice, quits the Temple, and abandons himself to his fate.

After his departure, the high priest, Theodorus, asks Jupiter why he had not given another Will to Sextus. Jupiter sends Theodorus to Athens to consult Minerva. The goddess shows him the Palace of the Destinies, where are representations of all possible worlds, † each of then containing a Sextus Tarquinus with a different Will, leading to a catastrophe more or less happy. In the last and best of these worlds, forming the summit of the pyramid composed by the others, the high priest sees Sextus go to Rome, throw every thing into confusion, and violate the wife of his friend. "You see" (says the Goddess of Wisdom) "it was not my father that made Sextus wicked. He was wicked from all eternity, and he was always so in consequence of his own will. ‡ Jupiter has only bestowed on him that existence which he could not refuse him in the best of all possible worlds. He only transferred him from the region of possible to that of actual beings. What great events does the crime of Sextus draw after it? The liberty of Rome—the rise of a government fertile in civil and military virtues, and of an empire destined to conquer and to civilize the earth." Theodorus returns thanks to the goddess, and acknowledges the justice of Jupiter.

This, in particular, was the case with Voltaire, who, in many parts of his later works, and more especially in his Candide, has, under the pretence of exposing the extravagancies of Leibnitz, indulged his satirical raillery against the order of the universe. The success of his attempt was much aided by the confused and inaccurate manner in which the scheme of optimism had been recently stated by various writers, who, in their zeal to "vindicate the ways of God," had been led to hazard principles more dangerous in their consequences, than the prejudices and errors which it was their aim to correct.¹

The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which (as I have already remarked) he uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of Materialism. Such, however, is the fact, and I believe it to be quite unprecedented in the previous history of philosophy. Spinoza himself has not pushed the argument for necessity further than Leibnitz,—the reasonings of both concluding

If plagues and earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline ?—
Who knows but He whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce ambition on a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge Mankind ?—
* * * * *
—The general order, since the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

This approaches very nearly to the optimism of Leibnitz, and has certainly nothing in common with the optimism of Plato. Nor is it possible to reconcile it with the sentiments inculcated by Pope in other parts of the same poem.

What makes all physical and moral ill ?
There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will.

In this last couplet he seems to admit, not only that Will may wander, but that Nature herself may deviate from the general order ; whereas the doctrine of his universal prayer is, that, while the material world is subjected to established laws, man is left to be the arbiter of his own destiny :

Yet gav'st me in this dark estate
To know the good from ill,
And, binding Nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.

In the Dunciad, too, the scheme of Necessity is coupled with that of Materialism, as one of the favourite doctrines of the sect of free-thinkers.

Of nought so certain as our Reason still,
Of nought so doubtful as of Soul and Will.

"Two things" (says Warburton, who professes to speak Pope's sentiments) "the most self-evident, the existence of our souls and the freedom of our will !"

not less forcibly against the free-will of God than against the free-will of man, and, of consequence, terminating ultimately in this proposition, that no event in the universe could possibly have been different from what has actually taken place. The distinguishing feature of this article of the Leibnizian creed is, that, while the Hobbists and Spinosists were employing their ingenuity in connecting together Materialism and Necessity, as branches springing from one common root, Leibnitz always speaks of the soul as a machine purely spiritual,²—a machine, however, as necessarily regulated by pre-ordained and immutable laws as the movements of a clock or the revolutions of the planets. In consequence of holding this language, he seemed to represent Man in a less degrading light than other necessitarians; but, in as far as such speculative tenets may be supposed to have any practical effect on human conduct, the tendency of his doctrines is not less dangerous than that of the most obnoxious systems avowed by his predecessors.³

The scheme of necessity was still farther adorned and sublimed in the Theodicea of Leibnitz, by an imagination nurtured and trained in the school of Plato. "May there not exist" (he asks on one occasion) "an immense space beyond the region of the stars?"

and may not this empyrean heaven be filled with happiness and glory? It may be conceived to resemble an ocean, where the rivers of all those created beings that are destined for bliss shall finish their course, when arrived in the starry system, at the perfection of their respective natures." (Leib. Op. Tom. I. p. 135.)¹

In various other instances, he rises from the deep and seemingly hopeless abyss of Fatalism, to the same lofty conceptions of the universe; and has thus invested the most humiliating article of the atheistic creed, with an air of Platonic mysticism. The influence of his example appears to me to have contributed much to corrupt the taste and to bewilder the speculations of his countrymen; giving birth, in the last result, to that heterogeneous combination of all that is pernicious in Spinozism, with the transcendental eccentricities of a heated and exalted fancy, which, for many years past, has so deeply tinctured both their philosophy and their works of fiction.²

In other parts of Europe, the effects of the Theodicæa have not been equally unfavourable. In France, more particularly, it has furnished to the few who have cultivated with success the Philosophy of Mind, new weapons for combating the materialism of the Gas-sendists and Hobbists; and, in England, we are indebted to it for the irresistible reasonings by which Clarke subverted the foundations on which the whole superstructure of Fatalism rests.¹

when the Fairy-tales then in fashion (among which number must have been included those of Count Anthony Hamilton) would be supplanted by the revival of such reasonable Romances as the Grand Clelia. In neither of these instances does there seem to be much probability at present, that his prediction will be ever verified.

The German writers, who, of late years, have made the greatest noise among the sciolists of this country, will be found less indebted for their fame to the new lights which they have struck out, than to the unexpected and grotesque forms in which they have combined together the materials supplied by the invention of former ages, and of other nations. It is this combination of truth and error in their philosophical systems, and of right and wrong in their works of fiction, which has enabled them to perplex the understandings, and to unsettle the principles of so many, both in Metaphysics and Ethics. In point of profound and extensive erudition, the scholars of Germany still continue to maintain their long established superiority over the rest of Europe.

¹ A very interesting account is given by Leibnitz, of the circumstances which gave occasion to his Theodicæa, in a letter to a Scotch gentleman, Mr Burnet of Kenney; to whom he seems to have unbosomed himself on all subjects without any reserve: "Mon livre intitulé, Essais de Theodicée, sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme, et l'origine de mal, sera bientôt achevé. La plus grande partie de cet ouvrage avoit été faite par lambeaux, quand je me trouvois chez la feue Reine de Prusse, ou ces matières étoient souvent agitées à l'occasion du Dictionnaire et des autres ouvrages de M. Bayle, qu'on y lisoit beaucoup. Après la mort de cette grande Princesse, j'ai rassemblé et augmenté ces pièces sur l'exhortation des amis qui en étoient informés, et j'en ai fait l'ouvrage dont je viens de parler. Comme j'ai médité sur cette matière depuis ma jeunesse, je pretends de l'avoir discutée à fond." (Leibnitz, Opera, Tom. VI. p. 284.)

In another letter to the same correspondent, he expresses himself thus:

"La plupart de mes sentimens ont été enfin arrêtés après une délibération de 20 ans: car j'ai commencé bien jeune à méditer, et je n'avois pas encore 15 ans, quand je me promenois des journées entières dans un bois, pour prendre parti entre Aristote et Democrite. Cependant j'ai changé et réchangé sur des nouvelles lumières, et ce n'est que depuis environ 12 ans que je me trouve satisfait, et que je suis arrivé à des démonstrations sur ces matières qui n'en paroissent point capables: Cependant de la manière que je m'y prends, ces démonstrations peuvent être sensibles comme celles des nombres, quoique le sujet passe l'imagination." (Ibid. p. 253.)

The letter from which this last paragraph is taken is dated in the year 1697.

My chief reason for introducing these extracts, was to do away an absurd suspicion, which has been countenanced by some respectable writers (among others by Le Clerc), that the opinions maintained in the Theodicée of Leibnitz were not his real sentiments, and that his own creed, on the most important questions there discussed, was not very different from that of Bayle. Gibbon has even gone so far as to say, that "in his defence of the attributes and providence of the Deity, he was suspected of a secret correspondence with his adversary." (Antiquities of the House of Brunswick.) In support of this very improbable charge, I do not know that any evidence has ever been produced, but the following passage, in a letter of his, addressed to a Professor of Theology in the University of Tübingen (Pfaffius): "Ita prorsus est, vir summe reverende, uti scribis, de Theodicæa mea. Rem acu tetigisti; et miror, neminem hactenus fuisse,

It may be justly regarded as a proof of the progress of reason and good sense among the Metaphysicians of this country since the time of Leibnitz, that the two theories of which I have been speaking, and which, not more than a century ago, were honoured by the opposition of such an antagonist as Clarke, are now remembered only as subjects of literary history.—In the arguments, however, alleged in support of these theories, there are some logical principles involved, which still continue to have an extensive influence over the reasonings of the learned, on questions seemingly the most remote from all metaphysical conclusions. The two most prominent of these are, the principle of the Sufficient Reason, and the Law of Continuity; both of them so intimately connected with some of the most celebrated disputes of the last century, as to require a more particular notice than may, at first sight, seem due to their importance.

I. Of the principle of the Sufficient Reason, the following succinct account is given by Leibnitz himself, in his controversial correspondence with Dr Clarke: “The great foundation of Mathematics is the principle of contradiction or identity; that is, that a proposition cannot be true and false at the same time. But, in order to proceed from Mathematics to Natural Philosophy, another principle is requisite (as I have observed in my Theodicea); I mean, the principle of the Sufficient Reason; or, in other words, that nothing happens without a reason why it should be so, rather than otherwise: And, accordingly, Archimedes was obliged, in his book De Æquilibrium, to take for granted, that if there be a balance, in which every thing is alike on both sides, and if equal weights are hung on the two ends of that balance, the whole will be at rest. It is because no reason can be given why one side should weigh down rather than the other. Now, by this single

qui sensum hunc meum senserit. Neque enim Philosophorum est rem serio semper agere; qui in fingendis hypothesibus, uti bene mones, ingenii sui vires experiuntur. Tu, qui Theologus, in refutandis erroribus Theologum agis.” In reply to this it is observed, by the learned editor of Leibnitz’s works, that it is much more probable that Leibnitz should have expressed himself on this particular occasion in jocular and ironical terms, than that he should have wasted so much ingenuity and learning in support of an hypothesis to which he attached no faith whatever; an hypothesis (he might have added) with which the whole principles of his philosophy are systematically, and, as he conceived, mathematically connected. It is difficult to believe, that, among the innumerable correspondents of Leibnitz, he should have selected a Professor of Theology at Tübingen, as the sole depository of a secret which he was anxious to conceal from all the rest of the world.

Surely a solitary document such as this weighs less than nothing, when opposed to the details quoted in the beginning of this note; not to mention its complete inconsistency with the character of Leibnitz, and with the whole tenor of his writings.

For my own part, I cannot help thinking, that the passage in question has far more the air of persiflage provoked by the vanity of Pfaffius, than of a serious compliment to his sagacity and penetration. No injunction to secrecy, it is to be observed, is here given by Leibnitz to his correspondent.

principle of the Sufficient Reason, may be demonstrated the being of a God, and all the other parts of Metaphysics or Natural Theology; and even, in some measure, those physical truths that are independent upon Mathematics, such as the Dynamical Principles, or the Principles of Forces.”

Some of the inferences deduced by Leibnitz from this almost gratuitous assumption are so paradoxical, that one cannot help wondering he was not a little staggered about its certainty. Not only was he led to conclude, that the mind is necessarily determined in all its elections by the influence of motives, insomuch that it would be impossible for it to make a choice between two things perfectly alike; but he had the boldness to extend this conclusion to the Deity, and to assert, that two things perfectly alike could not have been produced even by Divine Power. It was upon this ground that he rejected a vacuum, because all the parts of it would be perfectly like to each other; and that, he also rejected the supposition of atoms, or similar particles of matter, and ascribed to each particle a monad, or active principle, by which it is discriminated from every other particle.¹ The application of his principle, however, on which he evidently valued himself the most, was that to which I have already alluded; the demonstrative evidence with which he conceived it to establish the impossibility of free-agency, not only in man, but in any other intelligent being;² a conclusion which, under whatever form of words it may be disguised, is liable to every objection which can be urged against the system of Spinoza.

With respect to the principle from which these important consequences were deduced, it is observable, that it is stated by Leibnitz in terms so general and vague, as to extend to all the different departments of our knowledge; for he tells us, that there must be a

sufficient reason for every existence, for every event, and for every truth. This use of the word reason is so extremely equivocal, that it is quite impossible to annex any precise idea to the proposition. Of this it is unnecessary to produce any other proof than the application which is here made of it to things so very different as existences, events, and truths; in all of which cases, it must of necessity have different meanings. It would be a vain attempt, therefore, to combat the maxim in the form in which it is commonly appealed to: Nor, indeed, can we either adopt or reject it, without considering particularly how far it holds in the various instances to which it may be applied.

The multifarious discussions, however, of a physical, a metaphysical, and a theological nature,¹ necessarily involved in so detailed an examination, would, in the present times (even if this were a proper place for introducing them), be equally useless and uninteresting; the peculiar opinions of Leibnitz on most questions connected with these sciences having already fallen into complete neglect. But as the maxim still continues to be quoted by the latest advocates for the scheme of necessity, it may not be altogether superfluous to observe, that, when understood to refer to the changes that take place in the material universe, it coincides entirely with the common maxim, that "every change implies the operation of a cause;" and that it is in consequence of its intuitive evidence in this particular case, that so many have been led to acquiesce in it, in the unlimited terms in which Leibnitz has announced it. One thing will be readily granted, that the maxim, when applied to the determinations of intelligent and moral agents, is not quite so obvious and indisputable, as when applied to the changes that take place in things altogether inanimate and passive.

What then, it may be asked, induced Leibnitz, in the enunciation of his maxim, to depart from the form in which it has generally been stated, and to substitute, instead of the word cause, the word reason, which is certainly not only the more unusual, but the more ambiguous expression of the two? Was it not evidently a perception of the impropriety of calling the motives from which we act the causes of our actions; or, at least of the inconsistency of this language with the common ideas and feelings of mankind? The word rea-

son is here much less suspicious, and much more likely to pass current without examination. It was therefore with no small dexterity, that Leibnitz contrived to express his general principle in such a manner, that the impropriety of his language should be most apparent in that case in which the proposition is instantaneously admitted by every reader as self-evident; and to adapt it, in its most precise and definite shape, to the case in which it was in the greatest danger of undergoing a severe scrutiny. In this respect, he has managed his argument with more address than Collins, or Edwards, or Hume, all of whom have applied the maxim to mind, in the very same words in which it is usually applied to inanimate matter.

But on this article of Leibnitz's philosophy, which gave occasion to his celebrated controversy with Clarke, I shall have a more convenient opportunity to offer some strictures, when I come to take notice of another antagonist, more formidable still, whom Clarke had soon after to contend with on the same ground. The person I allude to is Anthony Collins; a writer certainly not once to be compared with Leibnitz, in the grasp of his intellectual powers; but who seems to have studied this particular question with greater attention and accuracy, and who is universally allowed to have defended his opinions concerning it in a manner far more likely to mislead the opinions of the multitude.

II. The same remark which has been already made on the principle of the Sufficient Reason may be extended to that of the Law of Continuity. In both instances the phraseology is so indeterminate, that it may be interpreted in various senses essentially different from each other; and, accordingly, it would be idle to argue against either principle as a general theorem, without attending separately to the specialties of the manifold cases which it may be understood to comprehend. Where such a latitude is taken in the enunciation of a proposition, which, so far as it is true, must have been inferred from an induction of particulars, it is at least possible that, while it holds in some of its applications, it may yet be far from possessing any claim to that universality which seems necessarily to belong to it, when considered in the light of a metaphysical axiom, resting on its own intrinsic evidence.

Whether this vagueness of language was the effect of artifice, or of a real vagueness in the author's notions, may perhaps be doubted; but that it has contributed greatly to extend his reputation among a very numerous class of readers, may be confidently asserted. The possession of a general maxim, sanctioned by the authority of an illustrious name, and in which, as in those of the schoolmen, more seems to be meant than meets the ear, affords of itself no slight gratification to the vanity of many; nor is it inconvenient for a disputant, that the maxims to which he is to appeal should be stated in so dubious a shape, as to en-

able him, when pressed in an argument, to shift his ground at pleasure, from one interpretation to another. The extraordinary popularity which, in our own times, the philosophy of Kant enjoyed, for a few years, among the countrymen of Leibnitz, may, in like manner, be in a great degree ascribed to the imposing aspect of his enigmatical oracles, and to the consequent facility of arguing without end, in defence of a system so transmutable and so elusive in its forms.

The extension, however, given to the Law of Continuity, in the later publications of Leibnitz, and still more by some of his successors, has been far greater than there is any reason to think was originally in the author's contemplation. It first occurred to him in the course of one of his physical controversies, and was probably suggested by the beautiful exemplifications of it which occur in pure geometry. At that time it does not appear that he had the slightest idea of its being susceptible of any application to the objects of natural history; far less to the succession of events in the intellectual and moral worlds. The supposition of bodies perfectly hard, having been shown to be inconsistent with two of his leading doctrines, that of the constant maintenance of the same quantity of force in the Universe, and that of the proportionality of forces to the squares of the velocities,—he found himself reduced to the necessity of asserting, that all changes are produced by insensible gradations, so as to render it impossible for a body to have its state changed from motion to rest, or from rest to motion, without passing through all the intermediate states of velocity. From this assumption he argued, with much ingenuity, that the existence of atoms, or of perfectly hard bodies, is impossible; because, if two of them should meet with equal and opposite motions, they would necessarily stop at once, in violation of the law of continuity. It would, perhaps, have been still more logical, had he argued against the universality of a law so gratuitously assumed, from its incompatibility with an hypothesis, which, whether true or false, certainly involves nothing either contradictory or improbable: but as this inversion of the argument would have undermined some of the fundamental principles of his physical system, he chose rather to adopt the other alternative, and to announce the law of continuity as a metaphysical truth, which admitted of no exception whatever. The facility with which this law has been adopted by subsequent philosophers is not easily explicable; more especially, as it has been maintained by many who reject those physical errors, in defence of which Leibnitz was first led to advance it.

One of the earliest, and certainly the most illustrious, of all the partizans and defenders of this principle, was John Bernouilli, whose discourse on motion first appeared at Paris in 1727, having been previously communicated to the Royal Academy of Sciences, in

1724 and 1726.¹ It was from this period it began to attract the general attention of the learned; although many years were yet to elapse, before it was to acquire that authority which it now possesses among our most eminent mathematicians.

Mr Maclaurin, whose Memoir on the Percussion of Bodies gained the prize from the Royal Academy of Sciences, in 1724, continued from that time, till his death, the steady opposer of this new law. In his Treatise of Fluxions, published in 1742, he observes, that "the existence of hard bodies void of elasticity has been rejected for the sake of what is called the Law of Continuity; a law which has been supposed to be general, without sufficient ground."² And still more explicitly, in his Posthumous Account of Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, he complains of those who "have rejected hard bodies as impossible, from far-fetched and metaphysical considerations;" proposing to his adversaries this unanswerable question, "Upon what grounds is the law of continuity assumed as an universal law of nature?"³

In the speculations hitherto mentioned, the law of continuity is applied merely to such successive events in the material world as are connected together by the relation of cause and effect; and, indeed, chiefly to the changes which take place in the state of bodies with respect to motion and rest. But in the philosophy of Leibnitz, we find the same law appealed to as an indisputable principle in all his various researches, physical, metaphysical, and theological. He extends it with the same confidence to mind as to matter, urging it as a demonstrative proof, in opposition to Locke, that the soul never ceases to think even in sleep or in a deliquium; ¹ nay, inferring from it the impossibility that, in the case of any animated being, there should be such a thing as death, in the literal sense of that word.² It is by no means probable that the author was at all aware, when he first introduced this principle into the theory of motion, how far it was to lead him in his researches concerning other questions of greater moment; nor does it appear that it attracted much notice from the learned, but as a new mechanical axiom, till a considerable time after his death.

Charles Bonnet of Geneva, a man of unquestionable talents and of most exemplary worth, was, as far as I know, the first who entered fully into the views of Leibnitz on this point; perceiving how inseparably the law of continuity (as well as the principle of the sufficient reason) was interwoven with his scheme of universal concatenation and mechanism; and inferring from thence not only all the paradoxical corollaries deduced from it by its author, but some equally bold conclusions of his own, which Leibnitz either did not foresee in their full extent, or to which the course of his inquiries did not particularly attract his attention. The most remarkable of these conclusions was, that all the various beings which compose the universe, form a scale descending downwards without any chasm or saltus, from the Deity to the simplest forms of unorganised matter; ³ a proposi-

tion not altogether new in the history of philosophy, but which I do not know that any writer before Bonnet had ventured to assert as a metaphysical and necessary truth. With what important limitations and exceptions it must be received, even when confined to the comparative anatomy of animals, has been fully demonstrated by Cuvier;¹ and it is of material consequence to remark, that these exceptions, how few soever, to a metaphysical principle, are not less fatal to its truth than if they exceeded in number the instances which are quoted in support of the general rule.²

At a period somewhat later, an attempt has been made to connect the same law of continuity with the history of human improvement, and more particularly with the progress of invention in the sciences and arts. Helvetius is the most noted writer in whom I have observed this last extension of the Leibnizian principle; and I have little doubt, from his

mence ou finit: toutes les espèces qui bordent ou qui occupent, pour ainsi dire, les régions d'inflection, et de rebroussement, doivent être équivoques et douées de caractères qui peuvent se rapporter aux espèces voisines également. Ainsi, l'existence des zoophytes ou Plant-Animal n'a rien de monstrueux; mais il est même convenable à l'ordre de la nature qu'il y en ait. Et telle est la force du principe de continuité chez moi, que non seulement je ne serois point étonné d'apprendre, qu'on eût trouvé des êtres, qui par rapport à plusieurs propriétés, par exemple, celle de se nourrir ou de se multiplier, puissent passer pour des végétaux à aussi bon droit que pour des animaux, ... J'en serois si peu étonné dis-je, que même je suis convaincu qu'il doit y en avoir de tels, que l'Histoire Naturelle parviendra peut-être à connaître un jour," &c. &c. (Contemplation de la Nature, pp. 341, 342.)

Bonnet, in the sequel of this passage, speaks of the words of Leibnitz, as a prediction of the discovery of the Polypus, deduced from the Metaphysical principle of the Law of Continuity. But would it not be more philosophical to regard it as a query founded on the analogy of nature, as made known to us by experience and observation?

known opinions, that, when it occurred to him, he conceived it to afford a new illustration of the scheme of necessity, and of the mechanical concatenation of all the phenomena of human life. Arguing in support of his favourite paradox concerning the original equality of all men in point of mental capacity, he represents the successive advances made by different individuals in the career of discovery, as so many imperceptible or infinitesimal steps, each individual surpassing his predecessor by a trifle, till at length nothing is wanting but an additional mind (not superior to the others in natural powers) to combine together, and to turn to its own account, their accumulated labours. "It is upon this mind," he observes, "that the world is always ready to bestow the attribute of genius. From the tragedies of The Passion, to the poets Hardy and Rotrou, and to the Marianne of Tristan, the French theatre was always acquiring successively an infinite number of inconsiderable improvements. Corneille was born at a moment, when the addition he made to the art could not fail to form an epoch; and accordingly Corneille is universally regarded as a Genius. I am far from wishing," Helvetius adds, "to detract from the glory of this great poet. I wish only to prove, that Nature never proceeds PER SALTUM, and that the Law of Continuity is always exactly observed. The remarks, therefore, now made on the dramatic art, may also be applied to the sciences which rest on observation."¹ (De l'Esprit, Dis. IV. Chap. 1.)

With this last extension of the Law of Continuity, as well as with that of Bonnet, a careless reader is the more apt to be dazzled, as there is a large mixture in both of unquestionable truth. The mistake of the ingenious writers lay in pushing to extreme cases a doctrine, which, when kept within certain limits, is not only solid but important; a mode of reasoning, which, although it may be always safely followed out in pure Mathematics (where the principles on which we proceed are mere definitions), is a never-failing source

of error in all the other sciences; and which, when practically applied to the concerns of life, may be regarded as an infallible symptom of an understanding better fitted for the subtle contentions of the schools, than for those average estimates of what is expedient and practicable in the conduct of affairs, which form the chief elements of political sagacity and of moral wisdom.¹

If on these two celebrated principles of Leibnitz, I have enlarged at greater length than may appear to some of my readers to be necessary, I must remind them, 1st, Of the illustration they afford of what Locke has so forcibly urged with respect to the danger of adopting, upon the faith of reasonings a priori, metaphysical conclusions concerning the laws by which the universe is governed: 2dly, Of the proof they exhibit of the strong bias of the human mind, even in the present advanced stage of experimental knowledge, to grasp at general maxims, without a careful examination of the grounds on which they rest; and of that less frequent, but not less unfortunate bias, which has led some of our most eminent mathematicians to transfer to sciences, resting ultimately on an appeal to facts, those habits of thinking which have been formed amidst the hypothetical abstractions of pure geometry: Lastly, Of the light they throw on the mighty influence which the name and authority of Leibnitz has, for more than a century past, exercised over the strongest and acutest understandings in the most enlightened countries of Europe.

It would be improper to close these reflections on the philosophical speculations of Leibnitz, without taking some notice of his very ingenious and original thoughts on the etymological study of languages, considered as a guide to our conclusions concerning the origin and migrations of different tribes of our species. These thoughts were published in 1710, in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy; and form the first article of the first

volume of that justly celebrated collection. I do not recollect any author of an earlier date, who seems to have been completely aware of the important consequences to which the prosecution of this inquiry is likely to lead; nor, indeed, was much progress made in it by any of Leibnitz's successors, till towards the end of the last century; when it became a favourite object of pursuit to some very learned and ingenious men, both in France, Germany, and England. Now, however, when our knowledge of the globe, and of its inhabitants, is so wonderfully enlarged by commerce, and by conquest; and when so great advances have been made in the acquisition of languages, the names of which, till very lately, were unheard of in this quarter of the world;—there is every reason to hope for a series of farther discoveries, strengthening progressively, by the multiplication of their mutual points of contact, the common evidence of their joint results; and tending more and more to dissipate the darkness in which the primeval history of our race is involved. It is a field, of which only detached corners have hitherto been explored; and in which, it may be confidently presumed, that unthought of treasures still lie hid, to reward sooner or later the researches of our posterity.¹

My present subject does not lead me to speak of the mathematical and physical researches, which have associated so closely the name of Leibnitz with that of Newton, in the history of modern science; of the inexhaustible treasures of his erudition, both classical and scholastic; of his vast and manifold contributions towards the elucidation of German antiquities and of Roman jurisprudence; or of those theological controversies, in which, while he combated with one hand the enemies of revelation, he defended, with the other, the orthodoxy of his own dogmas against the profoundest and most learned divines of Europe. Nor would I have digressed so far as to allude here to these particulars, were it not for the unparalleled example they display, of what a vigorous and versatile genius, seconded by habits of persevering industry, may accomplish, within the short span of human life. Even the relaxations with which he was accustomed to fill up his moments of leisure, partook of the general character of his more serious engagements. By early and long habit, he had acquired a singular facility in the composition of Latin verses; and he seems to have delighted in loading his muse with new fetters of his own contrivance, in addition to those imposed by the laws of classical prosody.² The number, besides, of his literary correspondents

was immense; including all that was most illustrious in Europe: and the rich materials everywhere scattered over his letters are sufficient of themselves to show, that his amusements consisted rather in a change of objects, than in a suspension of his mental activity. Yet while we admire these stupendous monuments of his intellectual energy, we must not forget (if I may borrow the language of Gibbon) that "even the powers of Leibnitz were dissipated by the multiplicity of his pursuits. He attempted more than he could finish; he designed more than he could execute; his imagination was too easily satisfied with a bold and rapid glance on the subject which he was impatient to leave; and he may be compared to those heroes whose empire has been lost in the ambition of universal conquest."¹

From some expressions which Leibnitz has occasionally dropped, I think it probable, that he himself became sensible, as he advanced in life, that his time might have been more profitably employed, had his studies been more confined in their aim. "If the whole earth (he has observed on one occasion) had continued to be of one language and of one speech, human life might be considered as extended beyond its present term, by the addition of all that part of it which is devoted to the acquisition of dead and foreign tongues. Many other branches of knowledge, too, may, in this respect, be classed with the languages; such as Positive Laws, Ceremonies, the Styles of Courts, and a great proportion of what is called critical erudition. The utility of all these arises merely from opinion; nor is there to be found, in the innumerable volumes that have been written to illustrate them, a hundredth part, which contains anything subservient to the happiness or improvement of mankind."

The most instructive lesson, however, to be drawn from the history of Leibnitz, is the incompetency of the most splendid gifts of the understanding, to advance essentially the interests either of Metaphysical or of Ethical Science, unless accompanied with that rare devotion to truth, which may be regarded, if not as the basis, at least as one of the most indispensable elements, of moral genius. The chief attraction to the study of philosophy, in his mind, seems to have been (what many French critics have considered as a chief source of the charms of the imitative arts) the pride of conquering difficulties: a feature of his character which he had probably in his own eye, when he remarked (not without some degree of conscious vanity), as a peculiarity in the turn or cast of his intellect, that to him "all difficult

things were easy, and all easy things difficult."¹ Hence the disregard manifested in his writings to the simple and obvious conclusions of experience and common sense; and the perpetual effort to unriddle mysteries over which an impenetrable veil is drawn. "Scilicet sublime et erectum ingenium, pulchritudinem ac speciem excelsæ magnæque gloriæ vehementius quam caute appetebat." It is to be regretted, that the sequel of this fine eulogy does not equally apply to him. "Mox mitigavit ratio et ætas; retinuitque, quod est difficillimum, et in sapientia modum."² How happily does this last expression characterize the temperate wisdom of Locke, when contrasted with that towering, but impotent ambition, which, in the Theories of Optimism and of Pre-established Harmony, seemed to realize the fabled revolt of the giants against the sovereignty of the gods!

After all, a similarity may be traced between these two great men in one intellectual weakness common to both; a facility in the admission of facts, stamped sufficiently (as we should now think) by their own intrinsic evidence, with the marks of incredibility. The observation has been often made with respect to Locke; but it would be difficult to find in Locke's writings, any thing so absurd as an account gravely transmitted by Leibnitz to the Abbé de St Pierre, and by him communicated to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, of a dog who spoke.³ No person liberally educated could, I believe, be found at present in any Protestant country of Christendom, capable of such credulity. By what causes so extraordinary a revolution in the minds of men has been effected, within the short space of a hundred years, I must not here stop to inquire. Much, I apprehend, must be ascribed to our enlarged knowledge of nature, and more particularly to those scientific voyages and travels which have annihilated so many of the prodigies which exercised the wonder and subdued the reason of our ancestors. But, in whatever manner the revolution is to be explained, there can be no doubt that this growing disposition to weigh scrupulously the probability of alleged facts against the faith due to the testimonies brought to attest them, and, even in some cases, against the apparent evidence of our own senses, enters largely and essentially into the composition of that philosophical spirit or temper, which so strongly distinguishes the eighteenth century from all those which preceded it.⁴ It is no small consolation to reflect, that some important maxims of good sense have been thus familiarized to the most ordinary understandings, which, at so very recent a period, failed in producing their due effect on two of the most powerful minds in Europe.

On reviewing the foregoing paragraphs, I am almost tempted to retract part of what I have written, when I reflect on the benefits which the world has derived even from the errors of Leibnitz. It has been well and justly said, that "every desideratum is an imperfect discovery ;" to which it may be added, that every new problem which is started, and still more every attempt, however abortive, towards its solution, strikes out a new path, which must sooner or later lead to the truth. If the problem be solvable, a solution will in due time be obtained : If insoluble, it will soon be abandoned as hopeless by general consent ; and the legitimate field of scientific research will become more fertile, in proportion as a more accurate survey of its boundaries adapts it better to the limited resources of the cultivators.

In this point of view, what individual in modern times can be compared to Leibnitz ! To how many of those researches, which still usefully employ the talents and industry of the learned, did he not point out and open the way ! From how many more did he not warn the wise to withhold their curiosity, by his bold and fruitless attempts to burst the barriers of the invisible world !

The best elogie of Leibnitz is furnished by the literary history of the eighteenth century ;—a history which, whoever takes the pains to compare with his works, and with his epistolary correspondence, will find reason to doubt whether, at the singular era when he appeared, he could have more accelerated the advancement of knowledge by the concentration of his studies, than he has actually done by the universality of his aims ; and whether he does not afford one of the few instances to which the words of the poet may literally be applied :

"Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus."

Of the Metaphysical Speculations of Newton and Clarke.—Digression with respect to the System of Spinoza.—Collins and Jonathan Edwards.—Anxiety of both to reconcile the Scheme of Necessity with Man's Moral Agency.—Departure of some later Necessitarians from their views.²

THE foregoing review of the philosophical writings of Locke and of Leibnitz naturally leads our attention, in the next place, to those of our illustrious countrymen Newton and

Clarke; the former of whom has exhibited, in his Principia and Optics, the most perfect exemplifications which have yet appeared, of the cautious logic recommended by Bacon and Locke; while the other, in defending against the assaults of Leibnitz the metaphysical principles on which the Newtonian philosophy proceeds, has been led, at the same time, to vindicate the authority of various other truths, of still higher importance, and more general interest.

The chief subjects of dispute between Leibnitz and Clarke, so far as the principles of the Newtonian philosophy are concerned, have been long ago settled, to the entire satisfaction of the learned world. The monads, and the plenum, and the pre-established harmony of Leibnitz, already rank, in the public estimation, with the vortices of Descartes, and the plastic nature of Cudworth; while the theory of gravitation prevails everywhere over all opposition; and (as Mr Smith remarks) "has advanced to the acquisition of the most universal empire that was ever established in philosophy." On these points, therefore, I have only to refer my readers to the collection published by Dr Clarke, in 1717, of the controversial papers which passed between him and Leibnitz during the two preceding years; a correspondence equally curious and instructive; and which, it is to be lamented, that the death of Leibnitz in 1716 prevented from being longer continued.¹

sophy; passing over a multitude of other names well worthy to be recorded in the annals of metaphysical science. Among these, I shall only mention the name of Boyle, to whom the world is indebted, beside some very acute remarks and many fine illustrations of his own upon metaphysical questions of the highest moment, for the philosophical arguments in defence of religion, which have added so much lustre to the names of Derham and Bentley; and, far above both, to that of Clarke. * The remarks and illustrations, which I here refer to, are to be found in his Inquiry into the Vulgar Notion of Nature, and in his Essay, inquiring whether, and how, a Naturalist should consider Final Causes. Both of these tracts display powers which might have placed their author on a level with Descartes and Locke, had not his taste and inclination determined him more strongly to other pursuits. I am inclined to think, that neither of them is so well known as were to be wished. I do not even recollect to have seen it anywhere noticed, that some of the most striking and beautiful instances of design in the order of the material world, which occur in the Sermons preached at Boyle's Lecture, are borrowed from the works of the founder.†

Notwithstanding, however, these great merits, he has written too little on such abstract subjects to entitle him to a place among English metaphysicians; nor has he, like Newton, started any leading thoughts which have since given a new direction to the studies of metaphysical inquirers. From the slight specimens he has left, there is reason to conclude, that his mind was still more happily turned than that of Newton, for the prosecution of that branch of science to which their contemporary Locke was then beginning to invite the attention of the public.

I have already taken notice of Clarke's defence of moral liberty in opposition to Leibnitz; but soon after this controversy was brought to a conclusion by the death of his antagonist, he had to resume the same argument, in reply to his countryman, Anthony Collins; who, following the footsteps of Hobbes, with logical talents not inferior to those of his master, and with a weight of personal character in his favour, to which his master had no pretensions; ¹ gave to the cause which he so warmly espoused, a degree of credit among sober and serious inquirers, which it had never before possessed in England. I have reserved, therefore, for this place, the few general reflections which I have to offer on this endless subject of controversy. In stating these, I shall be the less anxious to condense my thoughts, as I do not mean to return to the discussion in the sequel of this historical sketch. Indeed, I do not know of anything that has been advanced by later writers, in support of the scheme of necessity, of which the germ is not to be found in the inquiry of Collins.

In order to enter completely into the motives which induced Clarke to take so zealous and so prominent a part in the dispute about Free Will, it is necessary to look back to the system of Spinoza; an author, with whose peculiar opinions I have hitherto avoided to distract my readers' attention. At the time when he wrote, he does not appear to have made

ed by a Black or a Davy. The ultimate appeal, after all, must be made by every person to his own consciousness; but when we have the experience of Locke on the one hand, and that of Priestley and Belsham on the other, the contrast is surely sufficient to induce every cautious inquirer to re-examine his feelings before he allows himself to listen to the statements of the latter in preference to that of the former.

For the information of some of my readers, it may be proper to mention that it has of late become fashionable among a certain class of metaphysicians, boldly to assert, that the evidence of their consciousness is decidedly in favour of the scheme of necessity.

But to return to Mr Locke. The only consideration on this subject which seems to have staggered him, was the difficulty of reconciling this opinion with the prescience of God. As to this theological difficulty, I have nothing to say at present. The only question which I consider as of any consequence, is the matter of fact; and, on this point, nothing can be more explicit and satisfactory than the words of Locke. In examining these, the attentive reader will be satisfied, that Locke's declaration is not (as Priestley asserts) in favour of the Liberty of Spontaneity, but in favour of the Liberty of Indifference, for, as to the former, there seems to be no difficulty in reconciling it with the prescience of God. "I own (says Mr Locke) freely to you the weakness of my understanding, that though it be unquestionable that there is omnipotence and omniscience in God our Maker, and though I cannot have a clearer perception of anything than that I am free; yet I cannot make freedom in man consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in God, though I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truth I most firmly assent to; and therefore I have long since given off the consideration of that question; resolving all into this short conclusion, that, if it be possible for God to make a free agent, then man is free, though I see not the way of it."

¹ In speaking disrespectfully of the personal character of Hobbes, I allude to the base servility of his political principles, and to the suppleness with which he adapted them to the opposite interests of the three successive governments under which his literary life was spent. To his private virtues the most honourable testimony has been borne, both by his friends and by his enemies.

many proselytes; the extravagant and alarming consequences in which his system terminated, serving with most persons as a sufficient antidote against it. Clarke was probably the first who perceived distinctly the logical accuracy of his reasoning; and that, if the principles were admitted, it was impossible to resist the conclusions deduced from them. It seems to have been the object both of Leibnitz and of Collins, to obviate the force of this indirect argument against the scheme of necessity, by attempting to reconcile it with the moral agency of man; a task which, I think, it must be allowed, was much less ably and plausibly executed by the former than by the latter. Convinced, on the other hand, that Spinoza had reasoned from his premises much more rigorously than either Collins or Leibnitz, Clarke bent the whole force of his mind to demonstrate that these premises were false; and, at the same time, to put incautious reasoners on their guard against the seducing sophistry of his antagonists, by showing, that there was no medium between admitting the free-agency of man, and of acquiescing in all the monstrous absurdities which the creed of Spinoza involves.

Spinoza,² it may be proper to mention, was an Amsterdam Jew of Portuguese extraction, who (with a view probably to gain a more favourable reception to his philosophical dogmas) withdrew himself from the sect in which he had been educated, and afterwards appears to have lived chiefly in the society of Christians;³ without, however, making any public profession of the Christian faith, or even submitting to the ceremony of baptism. In his philosophical creed, he at first embraced the system of Descartes, and began his literary career with

Although Newton does not appear to have devoted much of his time to Metaphysical researches, yet the general spirit of his physical investigations has had a great, though indirect, influence on the metaphysical studies of his successors. It is justly and profoundly remarked by Mr Hume, that "while Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed, at the same time, the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy, and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity in which they ever did, and ever will remain." In this way, his discoveries have co-operated powerfully with the reasonings of Locke in producing a general conviction of the inadequacy of our faculties to unriddle those sublime enigmas on which Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibnitz, had so recently wasted their strength, and which, in the ancient world, were regarded as the only fit objects of philosophical curiosity. It is chiefly too since the time of Newton, that the ontology and pneumatology of the dark ages have been abandoned for inquiries resting on the solid basis of experience and analogy; and that philosophers have felt themselves emboldened by his astonishing discoveries concerning the more distant parts of the material universe, to argue from the known to the unknown parts of the moral world. So completely has the prediction been verified which he himself hazarded, in the form of a query, at the end of his Optics, that "if natural philosophy should continue to be improved in its various branches, the bounds of moral philosophy would be enlarged also."

How far the peculiar cast of Newton's genius qualified him for prosecuting successfully the study of Mind, he has not afforded us sufficient data for judging; but such was the admiration with which his transcendent powers as a Mathematician and Natural Philosopher were universally regarded, that the slightest of his hints on other subjects have been eagerly seized upon as indisputable axioms, though sometimes with little other evidence in their favour but the supposed sanction of his authority.¹ The part of his works, however, which chiefly led me to connect his name with that of Clarke, is a passage in the

Scholium annexed to his Principia,¹ which may be considered as the germ of the celebrated argument a priori for the existence of God, which is commonly, though, I apprehend, not justly, regarded as the most important of all Clarke's contributions to Metaphysical Philosophy. I shall quote the passage in Newton's own words, to the oracular conciseness of which no English version can do justice.

“Æternus est et infinitus, omnipotens et omnisciens; id est, durat ab æterno in æternum, et adest ab infinito in infinitum. . . . Non est æternitas et infinitas, sed æternus et infinitus; non est duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper et adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique durationem et spatium constituit.”² Proceeding on these

It appears from this passage, that Newton had no intention, like his predecessor Descartes, to supersede, by any new argument of his own for the existence of God, the common one drawn from the consideration of final causes; and, therefore, nothing could be more uncandid than the following sarcasm pointed by Pope at the laudable attempts of his two countrymen to add to the evidence of this conclusion, by deducing it from other principles:

“Let others creep by timid steps and slow,
On plain experience lay foundations low,
By common sense to common knowledge bred,
And last to Nature's cause thro' Nature led:
We nobly take the high priori-road,
And reason downwards till we doubt of God.”

That Pope had Clarke in his eye when he wrote these lines, will not be doubted by those who recollect the various other occasions in which he has stepped out of his way, to vent an impotent spleen against this excellent person.

“Let Clarke live half his life the poor's support,
But let him live the other half at court.”

And again:

“Even in an ornament its place remark;
Nor in a hermitage set Dr Clarke!”

in which last couplet there is a manifest allusion to the bust of Clarke, placed in a hermitage by Queen Caroline, together with those of Newton, Boyle, Locke, and Wollaston. See some fine verses on these busts in a poem called the Grotto, by Matthew Green.

² Thus translated by Dr Clarke, “God is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from everlasting to everlasting, and is present from infinity to infinity. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures always, and is present everywhere, and by existing always and everywhere, constitutes duration and space.” (See Clarke's Fourth Reply to Leibnitz.)

principles, Dr Clarke argued, that, as immensity and eternity (which force themselves irresistibly on our belief as necessary existences, or, in other words, as existences of which the annihilation is impossible) are not substances, but attributes, the immense and eternal Being, whose attributes they are, must exist of necessity also. The existence of God, therefore, according to Clarke, is a truth that follows with demonstrative evidence from those conceptions of space and time which are inseparable from the human mind. . . . . "These (says Dr Reid) are the speculations of men of superior genius; but whether they be as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond the limits of the human understanding, I am at a loss to determine." After this candid acknowledgment from Dr Reid, I need not be ashamed to confess my own doubts and difficulties on the same question.¹

But although the argument, as stated by Clarke, does not carry complete satisfaction to my mind, I think it must be granted that there is something peculiarly wonderful and overwhelming in those conceptions of immensity and eternity, which it is not less impossible to banish from our thoughts, than the consciousness of our own existence. Nay, further, I think that these conceptions are very intimately connected with the fundamental principles of Natural Religion. For when once we have established, from the evidences of design everywhere manifested around us, the existence of an intelligent and powerful cause, we are unavoidably led to apply to this cause our conceptions of immensity and eternity, and to conceive Him as filling the infinite extent of both with his presence and with his power. Hence we associate with the idea of God those awful impressions which are naturally produced by the idea of infinite space, and perhaps still more by the idea of endless duration. Nor is this all. It is from the immensity of space that the notion of infinity is originally derived; and it is hence that we transfer the expression, by a sort of metaphor, to other subjects. When we speak, therefore, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, our notions, if not wholly borrowed from space, are at least greatly aided by this analogy; so that the conceptions of Immensity and Eternity, if they do not of themselves demonstrate the existence of God, yet necessarily enter into the ideas we form of his nature and attributes.

To these various considerations it may be added, that the notion of necessary existence which we derive from the contemplation of Space and of Time, renders the same notion,

when applied to the Supreme Being, much more easy to be apprehended than it would otherwise be.

It is not, therefore, surprising, that Newton and Clarke should have fallen into that train of thought which encouraged them to attempt a demonstration of the being of God from our conceptions of Immensity and Eternity; and still less is it to be wondered at, that, in pursuing this lofty argument, they should have soared into regions where they were lost in the clouds.

I have said above, that Clarke's demonstration seems to have been suggested to him by a passage in Newton's Scholium. It is, however, more than probable that he had himself struck into a path very nearly approaching to it, at a much earlier period of his life. The following anecdote of his childhood, related, upon his own authority, by his learned and authentic, though, in many respects, weak and visionary biographer (Whiston), exhibits an interesting example of an anomalous development of the powers of reflection and abstraction, at an age when, in ordinary cases, the attention is wholly engrossed with sensible objects. Such an inversion of the common process of nature in unfolding our different faculties, is perhaps one of the rarest phenomena in the intellectual world; and, wherever it occurs, may be regarded as strongly symptomatic of something peculiar and decided in the philosophical character of the individual:

"One of his parents," says Whiston, "asked him when he was very young, Whether God could do every thing? He answered, Yes! He was asked again, Whether God could tell a lie? He answered, No! And he understood the question to suppose, that this was the only thing that God could not do; nor durst he say, so young was he then, that he thought there was any thing else which God could not do; while yet, well he remembered, that he had, even then, a clear conviction in his own mind, that there was one thing which God could not do;—that he could not annihilate that space which was in the room where they were."¹

With this early and deep impression on his mind, it is easy to conceive how Newton's Scholium should have encouraged him to resume the musings of his boyish days, concerning the necessary existence of space; and to trace, as far as he could, its connection with the principles of natural theology. But the above anecdote affords a proof how strongly his habits of thought had long before predisposed him for the prosecution of a metaphysical idea, precisely the same with that on which this scholium proceeds.

It would be superfluous to dwell longer on the history of these speculations, which, whatever value they may possess in the opinion of persons accustomed to deep and abstract reasoning, are certainly not well adapted to ordinary or to uncultivated understandings. This consideration furnishes, of itself, no slight presumption, that they were not intended to be the media by which the bulk of mankind were to be led to the knowledge of truths so essential to human happiness; and, accordingly, it was on this very ground, that Bishop Butler, and Dr Francis Hutcheson, were induced to strike into a different and more popular path for establishing the fundamental principles of religion and morality. Both of these writers appear to have communicated, in very early youth, their doubts and objections to Dr Clarke; and to have had, even then, a glimpse of those inquiries by which they were afterwards to give so new and so fortunate a direction to the ethical studies of their countrymen. It is sufficient here to remark this circumstance as an important step

s'il n'y avoit rien? Ces questions viennent, ce me semble, de ce qu'on suppose au temps et à l'espace plus de réalité qu'ils n'en ont. . . . Les enfants, qui disent que le vide n'est rien, ont raison parce qu'ils s'en tiennent aux simples notions du sens commun; * et les philosophes, qui veulent réaliser le vide se perdent dans leurs spéculations: le vide a été enfanté par les abstractions, et voilà l'abus d'une méthode si utile à bien des égards. S'il n'y avoit point de corps et de succession, l'espace et le temps seroient possibles, mais ils n'existeroient pas." (Mélanges, &c. T. V. § xvi.) Bailly, a writer by no means partial to D'Alembert, quotes, with entire approbation, the foregoing observations; subjoining to them, in the following terms, his own judgment on the merits of this branch of the controversy between Clarke and Leibnitz. "La notion du temps et de l'espace, est un des points sur lesquels Leibnitz a combattu contre Clarke; mais il nous semble que l'Anglois n'a rien opposé de satisfaisant aux raisons de Leibnitz." (Eloge de Leibnitz.)

As for the point here in dispute, I must own, that it does not seem to me a fit subject for argument; inasmuch as I cannot even form a conception of the proposition contended for by Leibnitz. The light in which the question struck Clarke in his childhood, is the same in which I am still disposed to view it; or rather, I should say, is the light in which I must ever view it, while the frame of my understanding continues unaltered. Of what data is human reason possessed, from which it is entitled to argue in opposition to truths, the contrary of which it is impossible not only to prove, but to express in terms comprehensible by our faculties?

For some remarks on the scholastic controversies concerning space and time, see the First Part of this Dissertation, Note I. See also Locke's Essay, Book ii. Chap. 13. §§ 16, 17, 18.

in the progress of moral philosophy. The farther illustration of it properly belongs to another part of this discourse.

The chief glory of Clarke, as a metaphysical author, is due to the boldness and ability with which he placed himself in the breach against the Necessitarians and Fatalists of his times. With a mind far inferior to that of Locke, in comprehensiveness, in originality, and in fertility of invention, he was nevertheless the more wary and skilful disputant of the two, possessing, in a singular degree, that reach of thought in grasping remote consequences, which effectually saved him from those rash concessions into which Locke was frequently betrayed by the greater warmth of his temperament, and vivacity of his fancy. This logical foresight (the natural result of his habits of mathematical study) rendered him peculiarly fit to contend with adversaries, eager and qualified to take advantage of every vulnerable point in his doctrines; but it gave, at the same time, to his style a tameness, and monotony, and want of colouring, which never appear in the easy and spirited, though often unfinished and unequal, sketches of Locke. Voltaire has somewhere said of him, that he was a mere reasoning machine (un moulin à raisonnement), and the expression (though doubtless much too unqualified) possesses a merit, in point of just discrimination, of which Voltaire was probably not fully aware.¹

¹ In the extent of his learning, the correctness of his taste, and the depth of his scientific acquirements, Clarke possessed indisputable advantages over Locke; with which advantages he combined another not less important, the systematical steadiness with which his easy fortune and unbroken leisure enabled him to pursue his favourite speculations through the whole course of his life.

On the subject of Free-will, Locke is more indistinct, undecided, and inconsistent, than might have been expected from his powerful mind, when directed to so important a question. This was probably owing to his own strong feelings in favour of man's moral liberty, struggling with the deep impression left on his philosophical creed by the writings of Hobbes, and with his deference for the talents of his own intimate friend, Anthony Collins.* That Locke conceived himself to be an advocate for free-will, appears indisputably from many expressions in his Chapter on Power; and yet, in that very chapter, he has made various concessions to his adversaries, in which he seems to yield all that was contended for by Hobbes and Collins: And, accordingly, he is ranked, with some appearance of truth, by Priestley, with those who, while they opposed verbally the scheme of necessity, have adopted it substantially, without being aware of their mistake.

In one of Locke's letters to Mr Molyneux, he has stated, in the strongest possible terms, his conviction of man's free agency; resting this conviction entirely on our indisputable consciousness of the fact. This declaration of Locke I consider as well worthy of attention in the argument about Free-will; for, although in questions of pure speculation, the authority of great names is entitled to no weight, excepting in so far as it is supported by solid reasonings, the case is otherwise with facts relating to the phenomena of the human mind. The patient attention with which Mr Locke had studied these very nice phenomena during the course of a long life, gives to the results of his metaphysical experience a value of the same sort, but much greater in degree, with that which we attach to a delicate experiment in chemistry, when vouch-

a work entitled, Renati Descartes Principiorum Philosophiæ, Pars Prima et Secunda, More Geometrico Demonstrata, 1663. It was, however, in little else than his physical principles that he agreed with Descartes; for no two philosophers ever differed more widely in their metaphysical and theological tenets. Fontenelle characterizes his system as a "Cartesianism pushed to extravagance" (une Cartesianisme outrée); an expression which, although far from conveying a just or adequate idea of the whole spirit of his doctrines, applies very happily to his boldness and pertinacity in following out his avowed principles to the most paradoxical consequences which he conceived them to involve. The reputation of his writings, accordingly, has fallen entirely (excepting perhaps in Germany and in Holland) with the philosophy on which they were grafted; although some of the most obnoxious opinions contained in them are still, from time to time, obtruded on the world, under the disguise of a new form, and of a phraseology less revolting to modern taste.

In no part of Spinoza's works has he avowed himself an atheist; but it will not be disputed, by those who comprehend the drift of his reasonings, that, in point of practical tendency, Atheism and Spinozism are one and the same. In this respect, we may apply to Spinoza (and I may add to Vanini also) what Cicero has said of Epicurus; Verbis reliquit Deos, re sustulit;—a remark which coincides exactly with an expression of Newton's in the Scholium at the end of the Principia: "DEUS sine dominio, providentia, et causis finalibus, nihil aliud est quam FATUM et NATURA."¹

Among other doctrines of natural and revealed religion, which Spinoza affected to embrace, was that of the Divine Omnipresence; a doctrine which, combined with the Plenum of Descartes, led him, by a short and plausible process of reasoning, to the revival of the old theory which represented God as the soul of the world; or rather to that identification of God and of the material universe, which I take to be still more agreeable to the idea of Spinoza.² I am particularly anxious to direct the attention of my readers to this part of

his system, as I conceive it to be at present very generally misrepresented, or, at least, very generally misunderstood; a thing not to be wondered at, considering the total neglect

an essential attribute of God. "Per Corpus intelligo modum, qui Dei essentiam quatenus ut res extensa consideratur, certo et determinato modo exprimit." (Ethica ordine Geometrico Demonstrata. Pars 2. Defin. 1. See also Ethic. Pars 1. Prop. 14.) With respect to the other attributes of God, he held, that God is the cause of all things; but that he acts, not from choice, but from necessity; and, of consequence, that he is the involuntary author of all the good and evil, virtue and vice, which are exhibited in human life. "Res nullo alio modo, neque alio ordine a Deo produci potuerunt, quam productæ sunt." (Ibid. Pars 1. Prop. 33.) In one of his letters to Mr Oldenburgh (Letter 21), he acknowledges, that his ideas of God and of nature were very different from those entertained by modern Christians; adding by way of explanation, "Deum rerum omnium causam immanentem, non vero transeuntem statuo;"—an expression to which I can annex no other meaning but this, that God is inseparably and essentially united with his works, and that they form together but one being.

The diversity of opinions entertained concerning the nature of Spinozism has been chiefly owing to this, that some have formed their notions of it from the books which Spinoza published during his life, and others from his posthumous remains. It is in the last alone (particularly in his Ethics) that his system is to be seen completely unveiled and undisguised. In the former, and also in the letters addressed to his friends, he occasionally accommodates himself, with a very temporizing spirit, to what he considered as the prejudices of the world. In proof of this, see his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, and his epistolary correspondence, passim; above all, his letter to a young friend who had apostatized from Protestantism to the Catholic Church. The letter is addressed, Nobilissimo Juveni, Alberto Burgh. (Spin. Op. T. II. p. 695.)

The edition of Spinoza's works, to which my references are made, is the complete and very accurate one published at Jena in 1802, by Henr. Eberh. Gottlob Paulus, who styles himself Doctor and Professor of Theology.

This learned divine is at no pains to conceal his admiration of the character as well as talents of his author; nor does he seem to have much to object to the system of Spinozism, as explained in his posthumous work upon Ethics; a work which, the editor admits, contains the only genuine exposition of Spinoza's creed. "Sedes systematis quod sibi condidit in ethica est." (Præf. Iteratæ Editionis, p. ix.) In what manner all this was reconciled in his theological lectures with the doctrines either of natural or of revealed religion, it is not very easy to imagine. Perhaps he only affords a new example of what Dr Clarke long ago remarked, that "Believing too much and too little have commonly the luck to meet together, like two things moving contrary ways in the same circle." (Third Letter to Dodwell.)

A late German writer, who, in his own opinions, has certainly no leaning towards Spinozism, has yet spoken of the moral tendency of Spinoza's writings, in terms of the warmest praise. "The morality of Spinoza (says M. Fred. Schlegel) is not indeed that of the Bible, for he himself was no Christian, but it is still a pure and noble morality, resembling that of the ancient Stoics, perhaps possessing considerable advantages over that system. That which makes him strong when opposed to adversaries, who do not understand or feel his depth, or who unconsciously have fallen into errors not much different from his, is not merely the scientific clearness and decision of his intellect, but in a much higher degree the openheartedness, strong feeling, and conviction, with which all that he says seems to gush from his heart and soul." (Lect. of Fred. Schlegel, Eng. Trans. Vol. II. p. 244.) The rest of the passage, which contains a sort of apology for the system of Spinoza, is still more curious.

Although it is with the metaphysical tenets of Spinoza alone that we are immediately concerned at pre-

into which his works have long fallen. It is only in this way I can account for the frequent use which has most unfairly been made of the term Spinozism to stigmatise and discredit some doctrines, or rather some modes of speaking, which have been sanctioned, not only by the wisest of the ancients, but by the highest names in English philosophy and literature; and which, whether right or wrong, will be found, on a careful examination and comparison, not to have the most distant affinity to the absurd creed with which they have been confounded. I am afraid that Pope, in the following lines of the Dunciad, suffered himself so far to be misled by the malignity of Warburton, as to aim a secret stab at Newton and Clarke, by associating their figurative, and not altogether unexceptionable language,

sent, it is not altogether foreign to my purpose to observe, that he had also speculated much about the principles of government; and that the coincidence of his opinions with those of Hobbes, on this last subject, was not less remarkable than the similarity of their views on the most important questions of metaphysics and ethics. Unconnected as these different branches of knowledge may at first appear, the theories of Spinoza and of Hobbes concerning all of them, formed parts of one and the same system; the whole terminating ultimately in the maxim with which (according to Plutarch) Anaxarchus consoled Alexander after the murder of Clytus: Παν το πράγμα αυτό τα κράντα δόξαναι. Even in discussing the question about Liberty and Necessity, Hobbes cannot help glancing at this political corollary. "The power of God alone is a sufficient justification of any action he doth.".... "That which he doth is made just by his doing it.".... "Power irresistible justifies all actions really and properly, in whomsoever it be found." (Of Liberty and Necessity, addressed to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle.) Spinoza has expressed himself exactly to the same purpose. (See his Tractatus Politicus, Cap. 2. §§ 3, 4.) So steadily, indeed, is this practical application of their abstract principles kept in view by both these writers, that not one generous feeling is ever suffered to escape the pen of either in favour of the rights, the liberties, or the improvement of their species.

* The close affinity between those abstract theories which tend to degrade human nature, and that accommodating morality which prepares the minds of men for receiving passively the yoke of slavery, although too little attended to by the writers of literary history, has not been overlooked by those deeper politicians who are disposed (as has been alleged of the first of the Cæsars) to consider their fellow-creatures "but as rubbish in the way of their ambition, or tools to be employed in removing it." This practical tendency of the Epicurean philosophy is remarked by one of the wisest of the Roman statesmen; and we learn from the same high authority, how fashionable this philosophy was in the higher circles of his countrymen, at that disastrous period which immediately preceded the ruin of the Republic. "Nunquam audiui in Epicuri schola, Lycurgum, Solonem, Miltiadem, Themistoclem, Epaminondam nominari; qui in ore sunt ceterorum omnium philosophorum." (De Fin. Lib. ii. c. 21.) "Nec tamen Epicuri licet oblivisci, si cupiam; cujus imaginem non modo in tabulis nostri familiares, sed etiam in poculis, et annulis habent." (Ibid. Lib. v. c. 1.)

The prevalence of Hobbism at the court of Charles II. (a fact acknowledged by Clarendon himself) is but one of the many instances which might be quoted from modern times in confirmation of these remarks.

The practical tendency of such doctrines as would pave the way to universal scepticism, by holding up to ridicule the extravagancies and inconsistencies of the learned, is precisely similar. We are told by Tacitus (Annal. Lib. 14), that Nero was accustomed, at the close of a banquet, to summon a party of philosophers, that he might amuse himself with listening to the endless diversity and discordancy of their respective systems; nor were there wanting philosophers at Rome, the same historian adds, who were flattered

concerning space (when they called it the sensorium of the Deity), with the opinion of Spinoza, as I have just explained it. ¹

"Thrust some Mechanic Cause into His place,
Or bind in matter, or diffuse in space."

How little was it suspected by the poet, when this sarcasm escaped him, that the charge of Spinozism and Pantheism was afterwards to be brought against himself, for the sublimest passage to be found in his writings!

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

— — — — —
Lives through all Life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent."²

Bayle was, I think, the writer who first led the way to this misapplication of the term Spinozism; and his object in doing so, was plainly to destroy the effect of the most refined and philosophical conceptions of the Deity which were ever formed by the unassisted power of human reason.

to be thus exhibited as a spectacle at the table of the Emperor. What a deep and instructive moral is conveyed by this anecdote! and what a contrast does it afford to the sentiment of one of Nero's successors, who was himself a philosopher in the best sense of the word, and whose reign furnishes some of the fairest pages in the annals of the human race! "I search for truth (says Marcus Antoninus), by which no person has ever been injured." Ζῆν γὰρ τὴν ἀληθείαν, ὑπ' ἧς οὖν πωπὸς ἐπλαῖη.

¹ Warburton, indeed, always professes great respect for Newton, but of his hostility to Clarke it is unnecessary to produce any other proof than his note on the following line of the Dunciad:

"Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores."

B. iv. l. 492.

May I venture to add, that the noted line of the Essay on Man,

"And showed a Newton as we show an ape,"

could not possibly have been written by any person impressed with a due veneration for this glory of his species?

² This passage (as Warton has remarked) bears a very striking analogy to a noble one in the old Orphic verses quoted in the treatise Περὶ κοσμῶν, ascribed to Aristotle; and it is not a little curious, that the same ideas occur in some specimens of Hindoo poetry, translated by Sir W. Jones; more particularly in the Hymn to Narayna, or the Spirit of God, taken, as he informs us, from the writings of their ancient authors:

Omniscient Spirit, whose all-ruling power
Bids from each sense bright emanations beam;
Glow in the rainbow, sparkles in the stream,
&c. &c.

"Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer,
Et cælum, et virtus? Superos quid quaerimus ultra?
Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quocumque moveris."

"Is there a place that God would choose to love
Beyond this earth, the seas, yon Heaven above
And virtuous minds, the noblest throne for Jove?
Why seek we farther then? Behold around,
How all thou seest does with the God abound,
Jove is alike to all, and always to be found."

Rowe's Lucan.

Who, but Bayle, could have thought of extracting anything like Spinozism from such verses as these!

On a subject so infinitely disproportioned to our faculties, it is vain to expect language which will bear a logical and captious examination. Even the Sacred Writers themselves are forced to adapt their phraseology to the comprehension of those to whom it is addressed, and frequently borrow the figurative diction of poetry to convey ideas which must be interpreted, not according to the letter, but the spirit of the passage. It is thus that thunder is called the voice of God; the wind, His breath; and the tempest, the blast of His nostrils. Not attending to this circumstance, or rather not choosing to direct to it the attention of his readers, Spinoza has laid hold of the well known expression of St Paul, that "in God we live, and move, and have our being," as a proof that the ideas of the apostle, concerning the Divine Nature, were pretty much the same with his own; a consideration which, if duly weighed, might have protected some of the passages above quoted from the uncharitable criticisms to which they have frequently been exposed.¹

observes, that "the mind which is INFUSED into the different parts of matter, and which MINGLES ITSELF with the mighty mass, scarcely retains any property of a spiritual substance, and bears too near an affinity to the principles which the impious Spinoza revived rather than invented." He adds, however, that "the poverty of human language, and the obscurity of human ideas, make it difficult to speak worthily of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE; and that our most religious poets (particularly Pope and Thomson), in striving to express the presence and energy of the Deity in every part of the universe, deviate unwarily into images which require a favourable construction. But these writers (he candidly remarks) deserve that favour, by the sublime manner in which they celebrate the Great Father of the universe, and by those effusions of love and gratitude which are inconsistent with the materialist's system." (Misc. Works, Vol. II. pp. 509, 510.)

May I be permitted here to remark, that it is not only difficult but impossible to speak of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, without deviating into such images?

With the doctrine of the Anima Mundi, some philosophers, both ancient and modern, have connected

To return, however, to Collins, from whose controversy with Clarke I was insensibly led aside into this short digression about Spinoza: I have already said, that it seems to have been the aim of Collins to vindicate the doctrine of Necessity from the reproach brought on it by its supposed alliance with Spinozism; and to retort upon the partizans of free-will the charges of favouring atheism and immorality. In proof of this I have only to quote the account, given by the author himself, of the plan of his work:

“Too much care cannot be taken to prevent being misunderstood and prejudged, in handling questions of such nice speculation as those of Liberty and Necessity; and, therefore, though I might in justice expect to be read before any judgment be passed on me, I think it proper to premise the following observations:

“1. First, Though I deny liberty in a certain meaning of that word, yet I contend for liberty, as it signifies a power in man to do as he wills or pleases.

“2. Secondly, When I affirm necessity, I contend only for moral necessity; meaning thereby, that man, who is an intelligent and sensible being, is determined by his reason and his senses; and I deny man to be subject to such necessity, as is in clocks, watches, and such other beings, which, for want of sensation and intelligence, are subject to an absolute, physical, or mechanical necessity.

“3. Thirdly, I have undertaken to show, that the notions I advance are so far from being inconsistent with, that they are the sole foundations of morality and laws, and of rewards and punishments in society; and that the notions I explode are subversive of them.”¹

In the prosecution of his argument on this question, Collins endeavours to show, that man is a necessary agent, 1. From our experience. (By experience he means our own

another theory, according to which the souls of men are portions of the Supreme Being, with whom they are re-united at death, and in whom they are finally absorbed and lost. To assist the imagination in conceiving this theory, death has been compared to the breaking of a phial of water, immersed in the ocean. It is needless to say, that this incomprehensible jargon has no necessary connection with the doctrine which represents God as the soul of the world, and that it would have been loudly disclaimed, not only by Pope and Thomson, but by Epictetus, Antoninus, and all the wisest and soberest of the Stoical school. Whatever objections, therefore, may be made to this doctrine, let not its supposed consequences be charged upon any but those who may expressly avow them. On such a subject (as Gibbon has well remarked), “we should be slow to suspect, and still slower to condemn.” (Ibid. p. 510.)

Sir William Jones mentions a very curious modification of this theory of absorption, as one of the doctrines of the Vedanta school. “The Vedanta school represent Elysian happiness as a total absorption, though not such as to destroy consciousness, in the Divine Essence.” (Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India.)

consciousness that we are necessary agents.) 2. From the impossibility of liberty.¹ 3. From the consideration of the Divine prescience. 4. From the nature and use of rewards and punishments; and, 5. From the nature of morality.²

In this view of the subject, and, indeed, in the very selection of his premises, it is remarkable how completely Collins has anticipated Dr Jonathan Edwards, the most celebrated and indisputably the ablest champion of the scheme of Necessity who has since appeared. The coincidence is so perfect, that the outline given by the former, of the plan of his work, might have served with equal propriety as a preface to that of the latter.

From the above summary, and still more from the whole tenor of the Philosophical Inquiry, it is evident, that Collins (one of the most obnoxious writers of his day to divines of all denominations) was not less solicitous than his successor Edwards to reconcile his metaphysical notions with man's accountableness and moral agency. The remarks, accordingly, of Clarke upon Collins's work, are equally applicable to that of Edwards. It is to be regretted that they seem never to have fallen into the hand of this very acute and honest reasoner. As for Collins, it is a remarkable circumstance, that he attempted no reply to this tract of Clarke's, although he lived twelve years after its publication. The reasonings contained in it, together with those on the same subject in his correspondence with Leibnitz, and in his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, form, in my humble opinion, the most important as well as powerful of all his metaphysical arguments.³ The adversaries with whom he had to contend were, both of them, eminently distinguished by ingenuity and subtlety, and he seems to have put forth to the utmost his logical strength, in contending with such antagonists. "The liberty or moral agency of man (says his friend Bishop Hoadly) was a darling point to him. He excelled always, and showed a superiority to all, whenever it came into private discourse or public debate. But he never more excelled than when he was pressed with the strength Leibnitz was master of; which made him exert all his talents to set it once again in a clear light, to guard it against the evil of metaphysical obscurities, and to give the finishing stroke to a subject which must ever be the foundation of morality in man, and is the ground of the accountableness of intelligent creatures for all their actions."⁴

It is needless to say, that neither Leibnitz nor Collins admitted the fairness of the inferences which Clarke conceived to follow from the scheme of necessity: But almost every page in the subsequent history of this controversy may be regarded as an additional illustration of the soundness of Clarke's reasonings, and of the sagacity with which he anticipated the fatal errors likely to issue from the system which he opposed.

"Thus (says a very learned disciple of Leibnitz, who made his first appearance as an author about thirty years after the death of his master)¹—Thus, the same chain embraces the physical and moral worlds, binds the past to the present, the present to the future, the future to eternity."

"That wisdom which has ordained the existence of this chain, has doubtless willed that of every link of which it is composed. A CALIGULA is one of those links, and this link is of iron: A MARCUS AURELIUS is another link, and this link is of gold. Both are necessary parts of one whole, which could not but exist. Shall God then be angry at the sight of the iron link? What absurdity! God esteems this link at its proper value: He sees it in its cause, and he approves this cause, for it is good. God beholds moral monsters as he beholds physical monsters. Happy is the link of gold! Still more happy if he know that he is only fortunate.² He has attained the highest degree of moral perfection, and is nevertheless without pride, knowing that what he is, is the necessary result of the place which he must occupy in the chain."

"The gospel is the allegorical exposition of this system; the simile of the potter is its summary."³ (Bonnet, T. VIII. pp. 237, 238.)

In what essential respect does this system differ from that of Spinoza? Is it not even more dangerous in its practical tendency, in consequence of the high strain of mystical devotion by which it is exalted?⁴

tion, has given to the concluding paragraphs of his remarks on Collins, an earnestness and a solemnity of which there are not many instances in his writings. These paragraphs cannot be too strongly recommended to the attention of those well-meaning persons, who, in our own times, have come forward as the apostles of Dr Priestley's "great and glorious Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity."

This objection, however, does not apply to the quotations which follow. They exhibit, without any colourings of imagination or of enthusiasm, the scheme of necessity pushed to the remotest and most alarming conclusions which it appeared to Clarke to involve; and as they express the serious and avowed creed of two of our contemporaries (both of them men of distinguished talents), may be regarded as a proof, that the zeal displayed by Clarke against the metaphysical principles which led ultimately to such results, was not so unfounded as some worthy and able inquirers have supposed.

May I be permitted to observe farther on this head, that, as one of these writers spent his life in the pay of a German prince, and as the other was the favourite philosopher of another sovereign, still more illustrious, the sentiments which they were so anxious to proclaim to the world, may be presumed to have been not very offensive (in their judgments) to the ears of their protectors?

"All that is must be (says the Baron de Grimm, addressing himself to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha), All that is must be, even because it is; this is the only sound philosophy; as long as we do not know this universe a priori (as they say in the schools), ALL IS NECESSITY.¹ Liberty is a word without meaning, as you shall see in the letter of M. Diderot."

The following passage is extracted from Diderot's letter here referred to:

"I am now, my dear friend, going to quit the tone of a preacher to take, if I can, that of a philosopher. Examine it narrowly, and you will see that the word Liberty is a word devoid of meaning;² that there are not, and that there cannot be free beings; that we

long and so warmly on the meanness and worthlessness of created things, and on the all-sufficiency of the Supreme Being, that it slides insensibly from comparative to absolute language, and in the eagerness of its zeal to magnify the Deity, seems to annihilate everything else." (See Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. II. p. 529, 2d Ed.)

This excellent observation may serve to account for the zeal displayed by Bonnet, and many other devout men, in favour of the Scheme of Necessity. "We have nothing (they frequently and justly remind us) but what we have received."—But the question here is simply a matter of fact, whether we have or have not received from God the gift of Free-Will; and the only argument, it must be remembered, which they have yet been able to advance for the negative proposition, is, that this gift was impossible, even for the power of God; nay, the same argument which annihilates the power of Man, annihilates that of God also, and subjects him, as well as all his creatures, to the control of causes which he is unable to resist. So completely does this scheme defeat the pious views in which it has sometimes originated.—I say sometimes; for the very same argument against the liberty of the Will is employed by Spinoza, according to whom the free-agency of man involves the absurd supposition of an imperium in imperio in the universe. (Tractat. Polit. Cap. II. § 6.)

are only what accords with the general order, with our organization, our education, and the chain of events. These dispose of us invincibly. We can no more conceive a being acting without a motive, than we can one of the arms of a balance acting without a weight. The motive is always exterior and foreign, fastened upon us by some cause distinct from ourselves. What deceives us, is the prodigious variety of our actions, joined to the habit which we catch at our birth, of confounding the voluntary and the free. We have been so often praised and blamed, and have so often praised and blamed others, that we contract an inveterate prejudice of believing that we and they will and act freely. But if there is no liberty, there is no action that merits either praise or blame; neither vice nor virtue, nothing that ought either to be rewarded or punished. What then is the distinction among men? The doing of good and the doing of ill! The doer of ill is one who must be destroyed, not punished. The doer of good is lucky, not virtuous. But though neither the doer of good or of ill be free, man is nevertheless a being to be modified; it is for this reason the doer of ill should be destroyed upon the scaffold. From thence the good effects of education, of pleasure, of grief, of grandeur, of poverty, &c.; from thence a philosophy full of pity, strongly attached to the good, nor more angry with the wicked, than with the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with dust. Strictly speaking, there is but one sort of causes, that is, physical causes. There is but one sort of necessity, which is the same for all beings. This is what reconciles me to humankind: it is for this reason I exhorted you to philanthropy. Adopt these principles if you think them good, or show me that they are bad. If you adopt them, they will reconcile you too with others and with yourself: you will neither be pleased nor angry with yourself for being what you are. Reproach others for nothing, and repent of nothing; this is the first step to wisdom. Besides this, all is prejudice and false philosophy.¹

The prevalence of the principles here so earnestly inculcated among the higher orders in France, at a period somewhat later in the history of the monarchy, may be judged of from the occasional allusions to them in the dramatic pieces then chiefly in request at Paris. In the Mariage de Figaro (the popularity of which was quite unexampled), the hero of

the piece, an intriguing valet in the service of a Spanish courtier, is introduced as thus moralizing, in a soliloquy on his own free-agency and personal identity. Such an exhibition upon the English stage would have been universally censured as out of character and extravagant, or rather, would have been completely unintelligible to the crowds by which our theatres are filled.

“ Oh bizarre suite d'évènemens ! Comment cela m'a-t-il arrivé ? Pourquoi ces choses et non pas d'autres ? Qui les a fixées sur ma tête ? Forcé de parcourir la route où je suis entré sans le savoir, comme j'en sortirai sans le vouloir, je l'ai jonchée d'autant de fleurs que ma gaieté me la permit ; encore je dis ma gaieté, sans savoir si elle est à moi plus que le reste, ni même qui est ce moi dont je m'occupe.”

That this soliloquy, though put into the mouth of Figaro, was meant as a picture of the philosophical jargon at that time affected by courtiers and men of the world, will not be doubted by those, who have attended to the importance of the roles commonly assigned to confidential valets in French comedies ; and to the habits of familiarity in which they are always represented as living with their masters. The sentiments which they are made to utter may, accordingly, be safely considered as but an echo of the lessons which they have learned from their superiors.¹

My anxiety to state, without any interruption, my remarks on some of the most important questions to which the attention of the public was called by the speculations of Locke, of Leibnitz, of Newton, and of Clarke, has led me, in various instances, to depart from the strict order of chronology. It is time for me, however, now to pause, and, before I proceed farther, to supply a few chasms in the foregoing sketch.

Of some Authors who have contributed, by their Critical or Historical Writings, to diffuse a Taste for Metaphysical Studies—Bayle—Fontenelle—Addison. Metaphysical Works of Berkeley.

AMONG the many eminent persons who were either driven from France, or who went into voluntary exile, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, the most illustrious by far was Bayle;¹ who, fixing his residence in Holland, and availing himself, to the utmost extent, of the religious toleration then enjoyed in that country, diffused from thence, over Europe, a greater mass of accurate and curious information, accompanied by a more splendid display of acute and lively criticism, than had ever before come from the pen of a single individual.² Happy! if he had been able to restrain within due bounds his passion for sceptical and licentious discussion, and to respect the feelings of the wise and good, on topics connected with religion and morality. But, in the peculiar circumstances in which he was educated, combined with the seducing profession of a literary adventurer, to which his hard fortune condemned him, such a spirit of moderation was rather to be wished than expected.

When Bayle first appeared as an author, the opinions of the learned still continued to be divided between Aristotle and Descartes. A considerable number leaned, in secret, to the metaphysical creed of Spinoza and of Hobbes; while the clergy of the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches, instead of uniting their efforts in defence of those truths which they professed in common, wasted their strength against each other in fruitless disputes and recriminations.

In the midst of these controversies, Bayle, keeping aloof as far as possible from all the parties, indulged his sceptical and ironical humour at the common expence of the various combatants. Unattached himself to any system, or, to speak more correctly, unfixed in his opinions on the most fundamental questions, he did not prosecute any particular study

with sufficient perseverance to add materially to the stock of useful knowledge. The influence, however, of his writings on the taste and views of speculative men of all persuasions, has been so great, as to mark him out as one of the most conspicuous characters of his age; and I shall accordingly devote to him a larger space than may, at first sight, appear due to an author who has distinguished himself only by the extent of his historical researches, and by the sagacity and subtlety of his critical disquisitions.

We are informed by Bayle himself, that his favourite authors, during his youth, were Plutarch and Montaigne; and from them, it has been alleged by some of his biographers, he imbibed his first lessons of scepticism. In what manner the first of these writers should have contributed to inspire him with this temper of mind, is not very obvious. There is certainly no heathen philosopher or historian whose morality is more pure or elevated; and none who has drawn the line between superstition and religion with a nicer hand.¹ Pope has with perfect truth said of him, that "he abounds more in strokes of good nature than any other author;" to which it may be added, that he abounds also in touches of simple and exquisite pathos, seldom to be met with among the greatest painters of antiquity. In all these respects what a contrast does Bayle present to Plutarch!

Considering the share which Bayle ascribes to Montaigne's Essays in forming his literary taste, it is curious, that there is no separate article allotted to Montaigne in the Historical and Critical Dictionary. What is still more curious, there is more than one reference to this article, as if it actually existed; without any explanation of the omission (as far as I recollect) from the author or the publisher of the work. Some very interesting particulars, however, concerning Montaigne's life and writings, are scattered over the Dictionary, in the notices of other persons, with whom his name appeared to Bayle to have a sufficient connection to furnish an apology for a short episode.

It does not seem to me a very improbable conjecture, that Bayle had intended, and perhaps attempted, to write an account of Montaigne; and that he had experienced greater

difficulties than he was aware of, in the execution of his design. Notwithstanding their common tendency to Scepticism, no two characters were ever more strongly discriminated in their most prominent features; the doubts of the one resulting from the singular coldness of his moral temperament, combined with a subtlety and over-refinement in his habits of thinking, which rendered his ingenuity, acuteness, and erudition, more than a match for his good sense and sagacity;—the indecision of the other partaking more of the shrewd and soldier-like étourderie of Henry IV. when he exclaimed, after hearing two lawyers plead on opposite sides of the same question, “Ventre St Gris! il me semble que tous les deux ont raison.”

Independently of Bayle's constitutional bias towards Scepticism, some other motives, it is probable, conspired to induce him, in the composition of his Dictionary, to copy the spirit and tone of the old academic school. On these collateral motives a strong and not very favourable light is thrown by his own candid avowal in one of his letters. “In truth (says he to his correspondent Minutoli), it ought not to be thought strange, that so many persons should have inclined to Pyrrhonism; for of all things in the world it is the most convenient. You may dispute with impunity against every body you meet, without any dread of that vexatious argument which is addressed ad hominem. You are never afraid of a retort; for as you announce no opinion of your own, you are always ready to abandon those of others to the attacks of sophists of every description. In a word, you may dispute and jest on all subjects, without incurring any danger from the lex talionis.”¹ It is amusing to think, that the Pyrrhonism which Bayle himself has here so ingeniously accounted for, from motives of convenience and of literary cowardice, should have been mistaken by so many of his disciples for the sportive triumph of a superior intellect over the weaknesses and errors of human reason.²

The profession of Bayle, which made it an object to him to turn to account even the sweepings of his study, affords an additional explanation of the indigested mass of heterogeneous and inconsistent materials contained in his Dictionary. Had he adopted any one system exclusively, his work would have shrunk in its dimensions into a comparatively narrow compass.¹

When these different considerations are maturely weighed, the omission by Bayle of the article Montaigne will not be much regretted by the admirers of the Essays. It is extremely doubtful if Bayle would have been able to seize the true spirit of Montaigne's character; and, at any rate, it is not in the delineation of character that Bayle excels. His critical acumen, indeed, in the examination of opinions and arguments, is unrivalled; but his portraits of persons commonly exhibit only the coarser lineaments which obtrude themselves on the senses of ordinary observers; and seldom, if ever, evince that discriminating and divining eye, or that sympathetic penetration into the retirements of the heart, which lend to every touch of a master artist, the never to be mistaken expression of truth and nature.

which, though it seldom fails in copiousness, in poignancy, or in that grave argumentative irony, by which it is still more characteristically marked, is commonly as deficient in gaiety and delicacy as that of Warburton himself.

Leibnitz seems perfectly to have entered into the peculiar temper of his adversary Bayle, when he said of him, that "the only way to make Bayle write usefully, would be to attack him when he advances propositions that are sound and true; and to abstain from attacking him, when he says anything false or pernicious."

"Le vrai moyen de faire écrire utilement M. Bayle, ce seroit de l'attaquer, lorsqu'il écrit des bonnes choses et vraies, car ce seroit le moyen de le piquer pour continuer. Au lieu qu'il ne faudroit point l'attaquer quand il en dit de mauvaises, car cela l'engagera à en dire d'autres aussi mauvaises pour soutenir les premières." (Tom. VI. p. 273.)

Leibnitz elsewhere says of him: Ubi bene, nemo melius. (Tom. I. p. 257.)

¹ "The inequality of Bayle's voluminous works (says Gibbon) is explained by his alternately writing for himself, for the bookseller, and for posterity; and if a severe critic would reduce him to a single folio, that relic, like the books of the sybils, would become still more valuable." (Gibbon's Mem. p. 50.)

Mr Gibbon observes in another place, that, "if Bayle wrote his Dictionary to empty the various collections he had made, without any particular design, he could not have chosen a better plan. It permitted him everything, and obliged him to nothing. By the double freedom of a Dictionary and of Notes, he could pitch on what articles he pleased, and say what he pleased on those articles." (Extrait Raisonnés de mes Lectures, p. 64.)

"How could such a genius as Bayle," says the same author, "employ three or four pages, and a great apparatus of learning, to examine whether Achilles was fed with marrow only; whether it was the marrow of lions and stags, or that of lions only," &c. ? (Ibid. p. 66.)

For a long and interesting passage with respect to Bayle's history and character, see Gibbon's Memoirs, &c. Vol. I, pp. 49, 50, 51.

It furnishes some apology for the unsettled state of Bayle's opinions, that his habits of thinking were formed prior to the discoveries of the Newtonian School. Neither the vortices of Descartes, nor the monads and pre-established harmony of Leibnitz, were well calculated to inspire him with confidence in the powers of the human understanding; nor does he seem to have been led, either by taste or by genius, to the study of those exacter sciences in which Kepler, Galileo, and others, had, in the preceding age, made such splendid advances. In Geometry he never proceeded beyond a few of the elementary propositions; and it is even said (although I apprehend with little probability) that his farther progress was stopped by some defect in his intellectual powers, which disqualified him for the successful prosecution of the study.

It is not unworthy of notice, that Bayle was the son of a Calvinist minister, and was destined by his father for his own profession; that during the course of his education in a college of Jesuits, he was converted to the Roman Catholic persuasion:¹ and that finally he went to Geneva, where, if he was not recalled to the Protestant faith, he was at least most thoroughly reclaimed from the errors of popery.²

To these early fluctuations in his religious creed, may be ascribed his singularly accurate knowledge of controversial theology, and of the lives and tenets of the most distinguished divines of both churches,—a knowledge much more minute than a person of his talents could well be supposed to accumulate from the mere impulse of literary curiosity. In these respects he exhibits a striking resemblance to the historian of the Decline and Fall of

the Roman Empire : Nor is the parallel between them less exact in the similar effects produced on their minds, by the polemical cast of their juvenile studies. Their common propensity to indulge in indecency is not so easily explicable. In neither does it seem to have originated in the habits of a dissolute youth ; but in the wantonness of a polluted and distempered imagination. Bayle, it is well known, led the life of an anchoret ; and the licentiousness of his pen is, on that very account, the more reprehensible. But (everything considered) the grossness of Gibbon is certainly the more unaccountable, and perhaps the more unpardonable of the two.²

On the mischievous tendency of Bayle's work to unsettle the principles of superficial readers, and (what is worse) to damp the moral enthusiasm of youth, by shaking their faith in the reality of virtue, it would be superfluous to enlarge. The fact is indisputable, and is admitted even by his most partial admirers. It may not be equally useless to remark the benefits which (whether foreseen or not by the author, is of little consequence) have actually resulted to literature from his indefatigable labours. One thing will, I apprehend, be very generally granted in his favour, that, if he has taught men to suspend their judgment, he has taught them also to think and to reason for themselves ; a lesson which appeared to a late philosophical divine of so great importance, as to suggest to him a doubt, whether it would not be better for authors to state nothing but premises, and to leave to their readers the task of forming their own conclusions.³ Nor can Bayle be candidly accused of often discovering a partiality for any particular sect of philosophers. He opposes Spinoza and Hobbes with the same spirit and ability, and apparently with the same good faith, with which he controverts the doctrines of Anaxagoras and of Plato. Even the ancient sceptics, for whose mode of philosophizing he might be supposed to have felt some degree of tenderness, are treated with as little ceremony as the most extravagant of the dogmatists. He has been often accused of a leaning to the most absurd of all systems,

that of the Manicheans; and it must be owned, that there is none in defence of which he has so often and so ably¹ exerted his talents; but it is easy to perceive, that, when he does so, it is not from any serious faith which he attaches to it (perhaps the contrary supposition would be nearer the truth), but from the peculiarly ample field which it opened for the display of his controversial subtlety, and of his inexhaustible stores of miscellaneous information.² In one passage he has pronounced with a tone of decision which he seldom assumes, that "it is absurd, indefensible, and inconsistent with the regularity and order of the universe; that the arguments in favour of it are liable to be retorted; and that, granting it to be true, it would afford no solution of the difficulties in question."³ The apparent zeal with which, on various occasions, he has taken up its defence, may, I think, be reasonably accounted for, by the favourable opportunity it afforded him of measuring his logical powers with those of Leibnitz.⁴

To these considerations it may be added, that, in consequence of the progress of the sciences since Bayle's time, the unlimited scepticism commonly, and perhaps justly imputed to him, is much less likely to mislead than it was a century ago; while the value of his researches, and of his critical reflections, becomes every day more conspicuous, in proportion as more enlarged views of nature, and of human affairs, enable us to combine together that mass of

rich but indigested materials, in the compilation of which his own opinions and principles seem to have been totally lost. Neither comprehension, indeed, nor generalization, nor metaphysical depth,¹ are to be numbered among the characteristical attributes of his genius. Far less does he ever anticipate, by the moral lights of the soul, the slow and hesitating decisions of the understanding; or touch with a privileged hand those mysterious chords to which all the social sympathies of our frame are responsive. Had his ambition, however, been more exalted, or his philanthropy more warm and diffusive, he would probably have attempted less than he actually accomplished; nor would he have stooped to enjoy that undisputed pre-eminence which the public voice has now unanimously assigned him, among those inestimable though often ill requited authors, whom Johnson has called "the pioneers of literature."

The suspense of judgment which Bayle's Dictionary inspires with respect to facts, is, perhaps, still more useful than that which it encourages in matters of abstract reasoning. Fontenelle certainly went much too far, when he said of history, that it was only a collection of Fables Convenues;—a most significant and happy phrase, to which I am sorry that I cannot do justice in an English version. But, though Fontenelle pushed his maxim to an extreme, there is yet a great deal of important truth in the remark; and of this I believe every person's conviction will be stronger, in proportion as his knowledge of men and of books is profound and extensive.

Of the various lessons of historical scepticism to be learned from Bayle, there is none more practically valuable (more especially in such revolutionary times as we have witnessed) than that which relates to the biographical portraits of distinguished persons, when drawn by their theological and political opponents. In illustration of this, I have only to refer to the copious and instructive extracts which he has produced from Roman Catholic writers, concerning the lives, and still more concerning the deaths, of Luther, Knox,² Buchanan, and various other leaders or partizans of the Reformation. It would be impossible for any well-informed Protestant to read these extracts, without indulging a smile at their incredible absurdity, if every feeling of levity were not lost in a sentiment of deep indignation at the effrontery and falsehood of their authors. In stating this observation, I have taken my examples from Roman Catholic libellers, without any illiberal prejudices against the members of that church. The injustice done by Pro-

testants to some of the conscientious defenders of the old faith has been, in all probability, equally great; but this we have no opportunity of ascertaining here, by the same direct evidence to which we can fortunately appeal, in vindication of the three characters mentioned above. With the history of two of them every person in this country is fully acquainted; and I have purposely selected them in preference to others, as their names alone are sufficient to cover with disgrace the memory of their calumniators.¹

A few years before the death of Bayle, Fontenelle began to attract the notice of Europe.² I class them together on account of the mighty influence of both on the literary taste of their contemporaries; an influence in neither case founded on any claims to original genius, or to important improvements; but on the attractions which they possessed in common (though in very different ways) as popular writers; and on the easy and agreeable access which their works opened to the opinions and speculations of the learned. Nor do I depart so far, as might at first be supposed, from the order of chronology, in passing from the one to the other. For though Fontenelle survived almost to our own times (having very nearly completed a century at the time of his death), the interval between his birth and that of Bayle was only ten years, and he had actually published several volumes, both in prose and verse, before the Dictionary of Bayle appeared.

But my chief reason for connecting Fontenelle rather with the contemporaries of his youth than with those of his old age is, that, during the latter part of his life, he was left far behind in his philosophical creed (for he never renounced his faith as a Cartesian³) by

those very pupils to whose minds he had given so powerful an impulse, and whom he had so long taught by his example, the art (till then unknown in modern times) of blending the truths of the severer sciences with the lights and graces of eloquence. Even this eloquence, once so much admired, had ceased, before his death, to be regarded as a model, and was fast giving way to the purer and more manly taste in writing, recommended by the precepts, and exemplified in the historical compositions of Voltaire.

Fontenelle was a nephew of the great Corneille; but his genius was, in many respects, very strongly contrasted with that of the author of the Cid. Of this he has himself enabled us to judge by the feeble and unsuccessful attempts in dramatic poetry, by which he was first known to the world. In these, indeed, as in all his productions, there is an abundance of ingenuity, of elegance, and of courtly refinement; but not the faintest vestige of the mens divinior, or of that sympathy with the higher and nobler passions which enabled Corneille to reanimate and to reproduce on the stage the heroes of ancient Rome. The circumstance, however, which more peculiarly marks and distinguishes his writings, is the French mould in which education and habit seem to have recast all the original features of his mind;—identifying, at the same time, so perfectly the impressions of art with the workmanship of nature, that one would think the PARISIAN, as well as the MAN, had started fresh and finished from her creative hand. Even in his Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, the dry discussions with the Marchioness about the now forgotten vortices of Descartes, are enlivened throughout by a never-failing spirit of light and national gallantry, which will for ever render them an amusing picture of the manners of the times, and of the character of the author. The gallantry, it must be owned, is often strained and affected; but the affectation sits so well on Fontenelle, that he would appear less easy and graceful without it.

The only other production of Fontenelle's youth which deserves to be noticed is his History of Oracles; a work of which the aim was, to combat the popular belief that the oracles of antiquity were uttered by evil spirits, and that all these spirits became dumb at the moment of the Christian æra. To this work Fontenelle contributed little more than the agreeable and lively form in which he gave it to the world; the chief materials being derived from a dull and prolix dissertation on the same subject, by a learned Dutchman. The publication excited a keen opposition among divines, both Catholic and Protestant; and, in particular, gave occasion to a very angry, and (it is said) not contemptible criticism,

noître leur origine. Cependant qui voudra prendre le fil et le suivre exactement, retournera toujours de l'idée la plus sublime et la plus élevée, à quelque idée sensible et grossière."

from a member of the Society of Jesuits.¹ It is mentioned by La Harpe, as an illustration of the rapid change in men's opinions which took place during Fontenelle's life, that a book which, in his youth, was censured for its impiety, was regarded before his death as a proof of his respect for religion.

The most solid basis of Fontenelle's fame is his History of the Academy of Sciences, and his Eloges of the Academicians. Both of these works, but more especially the latter, possess, in an eminent degree, all the charms of his former publications, and are written in a much simpler and better taste than any of the others. The materials, besides, are of inestimable value, as succinct and authentic records of one of the most memorable periods in the history of the human mind; and are distinguished by a rare impartiality towards the illustrious dead, of all countries, and of all persuasions. The philosophical reflections, too, which the author has most skilfully interwoven with his literary details, discover a depth and justness of understanding far beyond the promise of his juvenile Essays; and afford many proofs of the soundness of his logical views,² as well as of his acute and fine discrimination of the varieties and shades of character, both intellectual and moral.

The chief and distinguishing merit of Fontenelle, as the historian of the Academy, is the happy facility with which he adapts the most abstruse and refined speculations to the comprehension of ordinary readers. Nor is this excellence purchased by any sacrifice of scientific precision. What he aims at is nothing more than an outline; but this outline is always executed with the firm and exact hand of a master. "When employed in com-

position (he has somewhere said) my first concern is to be certain that I myself understand what I am about to write ;” and on the utility of this practice every page of his Historical Memoirs may serve as a comment.¹

As a writer of Eloges, he has not been equalled (if I may be allowed to hazard my own opinion) by any of his countrymen. Some of those, indeed, by D’Alembert and by Condorcet, manifest powers of a far higher order than belonged to Fontenelle ; but neither of these writers possessed Fontenelle’s incommunicable art of interesting the curiosity and the feelings of his readers in the fortunes of every individual whom he honoured by his notice. In this art it is not improbable that they might have succeeded better had they imitated Fontenelle’s self-denial in sacrificing the fleeting praise of brilliant colouring, to the fidelity and lasting effect of their portraits ; a self-denial which in him was the more meritorious, as his great ambition plainly was to unite the reputation of a bel-esprit with that of a philosopher. A justly celebrated academician of the present times (M. Cuvier), who has evidently adopted Fontenelle as his model, has accordingly given an interest and truth to his Eloges which the public had long ceased to expect in that species of composition.²

But the principal charm of Fontenelle’s Eloges arises from the pleasing pictures which they everywhere present of genius and learning in the scenes of domestic life. In this respect, it has been justly said of them by M. Suard,³ that “they form the noblest monument ever raised to the glory of the sciences and of letters.” Fontenelle himself, in his

Eloge of Varignon, after remarking, that in him the simplicity of his character was only equalled by the superiority of his talents, finely adds, "I have already bestowed so often the same praise on other members of this Academy, that it may be doubted whether it is not less due to the individuals, than to the sciences which they cultivated in common." What a proud reply does this reflection afford to the Machiavellian calumniators of philosophy!

The influence of these two works of Fontenelle on the studies of the rising generation all over Europe, can be conceived by those alone who have compared them with similar productions of an earlier date. Sciences which had long been immured in colleges and cloisters, began at length to breathe the ventilated and wholesome air of social life. The union of philosophy and the fine arts, so much boasted of in the schools of ancient Greece, seemed to promise a speedy and invigorated revival. Geometry, Mechanics, Physics, Metaphysics, and Morals, became objects of pursuit in courts and in camps; the accomplishments of a scholar grew more and more into repute among the other characteristics of a gentleman: and (what was of still greater importance to the world) the learned discovered the secret of cultivating the graces of writing, as a necessary passport to truth, in a refined but dissipated age.

Nor was this change of manners confined to one of the sexes. The other sex, to whom nature has entrusted the first development of our intellectual and moral powers, and who may, therefore, be regarded as the chief medium through which the progress of the mind is continued from generation to generation, shared also largely in the general improvement. Fontenelle aspired above all things to be the philosopher of the Parisian circles; and certainly contributed not a little to diffuse a taste for useful knowledge among women of all conditions in France, by bringing it into vogue among the higher classes. A reformation so great and so sudden could not possibly take place, without giving birth to much affectation, extravagance, and folly; but the whole analogy of human affairs encourages us to hope, that the inconveniences and evils connected with it will be partial and temporary, and its beneficial results permanent and progressive.¹

Among the various moral defects imputed to Fontenelle, that of a complete apathy and insensibility to all concerns but his own is by far the most prominent. A letter of the Baron de Grimm, written immediately after Fontenelle's death, but not published till lately, has given a new circulation in this country to some anecdotes injurious to his memory, which had long ago fallen into oblivion or contempt in France. The authority, however, of this adventurer, who earned his subsistence by collecting and retailing, for the amusement of a German Prince, the literary scandal of Paris, is not much to be relied on in estimating a character with which he does not appear to have had any opportunity of becoming personally acquainted; more especially as, during Fontenelle's long decline, the great majority of men of letters in France were disposed to throw his merits into the shade, as an acceptable homage to the rising and more dazzling glories of Voltaire.¹ It is in the

speculations, indeed, are not always just and satisfactory; but they are seldom deficient in novelty or refinement. Their principal fault, perhaps, arises from the author's disposition to carry his refinements too far; in consequence of which, his theories become chargeable with that sort of sublimated ingenuity which the French epithet Alambiqué expresses more precisely and forcibly than any word in our language.

Something of the same philosophical spirit may be traced in Fenelon's Dialogues on Eloquence, and in his Letter on Rhetoric and Poetry. The former of these treatises, besides its merits as a speculative discussion, contains various practical hints, well entitled to the attention of those who aspire to eminence as public speakers; and of which the most apparently trifling claim some regard, as the results of the author's reflections upon an art which few ever practised with greater success.

Let me add, that both of these eminent men (who may be regarded as the fathers of philosophical criticism in France) were zealous partizans and admirers of the Cartesian metaphysics. It is this critical branch of metaphysical science which, in my opinion, has been most successfully cultivated by French writers; although too many of them have been infected (after the example of Fontenelle) with the disease of sickly and of hyper-metaphysical subtlety.

From this censure, however, must be excepted the Abbé Dubos, whose Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting is one of the most agreeable and instructive works that can be put into the hands of youth. Few books are better calculated for leading their minds gradually from literature to philosophy. The author's theories, if not always profound or just, are in general marked with good sense as well as with ingenuity; and the subjects to which they relate are so peculiarly attractive, as to fix the attention even of those readers who have but little relish for speculative discussions. "Ce qui fait la bonté de cet ouvrage (says Voltaire) c'est qu'il n'y a que peu d'erreurs, et beaucoup de réflexions vraies, nouvelles, et profondes. Il manque cependant d'ordre et sur-tout de précision; il auroit pu être écrit avec plus de feu, de grâce et d'élégance; mais l'écrivain pense et fait penser." (Siècle de Louis XIV.)

¹ As to Voltaire himself, it must be mentioned, to his honour, that though there seems never to have been much cordiality between him and Fontenelle, he had yet the magnanimity to give a place to this Nestor of French literature in his catalogue of the eminent persons who adorned the reign of Louis XIV.; a tribute of respect the more flattering, as it is the single instance in which he has departed from his general rule of excluding from his list the names of all his living contemporaries. Even Fontenelle's most devoted admirers ought to be satisfied with the liberality of Voltaire's eulogy, in which, after pronouncing Fon-

Academical Memoirs of D'Alembert and Condorcet (neither of whom can be suspected of any unjust prejudice against Voltaire, but who were both too candid to sacrifice truth to party feelings) that we ought to search for Fontenelle's real portrait :¹ Or rather (if it be true, as Dr Hutcheson has somewhere remarked, that "men have commonly the good or bad qualities which they ascribe to mankind") the most faithful Eloge on Fontenelle himself is to be found in those which he has pronounced upon others.

That the character of Fontenelle would have been more amiable and interesting, had his virtues been less the result of cold and prudent calculation, it is impossible to dispute. But his conduct through life was pure and blameless; and the happy serenity of his temper, which prolonged his life till he had almost completed his hundredth year, served as the best comment on the spirit of that mild and benevolent philosophy, of which he had laboured so long to extend the empire.

It is a circumstance almost singular in his history, that, since the period of his death, his reputation, both as a man and as an author, has been gradually rising. The fact has been as remarkably the reverse with most of those who have calumniated his memory.

While the circle of mental cultivation was thus rapidly widening in France, a similar progress was taking place, upon a larger scale, and under still more favourable circumstances, in England. To this progress nothing contributed more powerfully than the periodical papers published under various titles by Addison² and his associates. The

tenelle "the most universal genius which the age of Louis XIV. had produced," he thus sums up his merits as an author: "Enfin on l'a regardé comme le premier des hommes dans l'art nouveau de répandre de la lumière et des graces sur les sciences abstraites, et il a eu du mérite dans tous les autres genres qu'il a traités. Tant de talens ont été soutenus par la connoissance des langues et de l'histoire, et il a été sans contredit au-dessus de tous les savans qui n'ont pas eu le don de l'invention."

¹ Condorcet has said expressly, that his apathy was confined entirely to what regarded himself; and that he was always an active, though frequently a concealed friend, where his good offices could be useful to those who deserved them. "On a cru Fontenelle insensible, parce que sachant maîtriser les mouvemens de son âme il se conduisoit d'après son esprit, toujours juste et toujours sage. D'ailleurs, il avoit consenti sans peine à conserver cette réputation d'insensibilité; il avoit souffert les plaisanteries de ses sociétés sur sa froideur, sans chercher à les détruire, parce que, bien sur que les vraies amis n'en seroit pas la dupe, il voyoit dans cette réputation un moyen commode de se délivrer des indifférens sans blesser leur amour propre." (Eloge de Fontenelle, par Condorcet.)

Many of Fontenelle's sayings, the import of which must have depended entirely on circumstances of time and place unknown to us, have been absurdly quoted to his disadvantage, in their literal and most obvious acceptance. "I hate war (said he), for it spoils conversation." Can any just inference be drawn from the levity of this convivial sally, against the humanity of the person who uttered it? Or rather, when connected with the characteristical fineness of Fontenelle's wit, does it not lead to a conclusion precisely opposite?

effect of these in reclaiming the public taste from the licentiousness and grossness introduced into England at the period of the Restoration; in recommending the most serious and important truths by the united attractions of wit, humour, imagination, and eloquence; and, above all, in counteracting those superstitious terrors which the weak and ignorant are so apt to mistake for religious and moral impressions—has been remarked by numberless critics, and is acknowledged even by those who felt no undue partiality in favour of the authors.¹ Some of the papers of Addison, however, are of an order still higher, and bear marks of a mind which, if early and steadily turned to philosophical pursuits, might have accomplished much more than it ventured to undertake. His frequent references to the Essay on Human Understanding, and the high encomiums with which they are always accompanied, show how successfully he had entered into the spirit of that work; and how completely he was aware of the importance of its object. The popular nature of his publications, indeed, which rendered it necessary for him to avoid everything that might savour of scholastic or of metaphysical discussion, has left us no means of estimating his philosophical depth, but what are afforded by the results of his thoughts on the particular topics which he has occasion to allude to, and by some of his incidental comments on the scientific merits of preceding authors. But these means are sufficiently ample to justify a very high opinion of his sound and unprejudiced judgment, as well as of the extent and correctness of his literary information. Of his powers as a logical reasoner he has not enabled us to form an estimate; but none of his contemporaries seem to have been more completely tinctured with all that is most valuable in the metaphysical and ethical systems of his time.²

But what chiefly entitles the name of Addison to a place in this Discourse, is his Essays on the Pleasures of Imagination; the first attempt in England to investigate the

principles of the fine arts; and an attempt which, notwithstanding many defects in the execution, is entitled to the praise of having struck out a new avenue to the study of the human mind, more alluring than any which had been opened before. In this respect, it forms a most important supplement to Locke's Survey of the Intellectual Powers; and it has, accordingly, served as a text, on which the greater part of Locke's disciples have been eager to offer their comments and their corrections. The progress made by some of these in exploring this interesting region has been great; but let not Addison be defrauded of his claims as a discoverer.

Similar remarks may be extended to the hints suggested by Addison on Wit, on Humour, and on the Causes of Laughter. It cannot, indeed, be said of him, that he exhausted any one of these subjects; but he had at least the merit of starting them as Problems for the consideration of philosophers; nor would it be easy to name among his successors, a single writer who has made so important a step towards their solution, as the original proposer.

The philosophy of the papers, to which the foregoing observations refer, has been pronounced to be slight and superficial, by a crowd of modern metaphysicians who were but ill entitled to erect themselves into judges on such a question.¹ The singular simplicity and perspicuity of Addison's style have contributed much to the prevalence of this prejudice. Eager for the instruction, and unambitious of the admiration of the multitude, he everywhere studies to bring himself down to their level; and even when he thinks with the greatest originality, and writes with the most inimitable felicity, so easily do we enter into the train of his ideas, that we can hardly persuade ourselves that we could not have thought and written in the same manner. He has somewhere said of "fine writing," that it "consists of sentiments which are natural, without being obvious:" and his definition has been applauded by Hume, as at once concise and just. Of the thing defined, his own periodical essays exhibit the most perfect examples.

To this simplicity and perspicuity, the wide circulation which his works have so long maintained among all classes of readers, is in a great measure to be ascribed. His periods are not constructed, like those of Johnson, to "elevate and surprise," by filling the ear and dazzling the fancy; but we close his volumes with greater reluctance, and return to the perusal of them with far greater alacrity. Franklin, whose fugitive publications on political topics have had so extraordinary an influence on public opinion, both in the Old and New Worlds, tells us that his style in writing was formed upon the model of Ad-

dison: Nor do I know anything in the history of his life which does more honour to his shrewdness and sagacity. The copyist, indeed, did not possess the gifted hand of his master,—Museo contingens cuncta lepore;—but such is the effect of his plain and seemingly artless manner, that the most profound conclusions of political economy assume, in his hands, the appearance of indisputable truths; and some of them, which had been formerly confined to the speculative few, are already current in every country of Europe, as proverbial maxims.¹

To touch (however slightly) on Addison's other merits, as a critic, as a wit, as a speculative politician, and, above all, as a moralist, would lead me completely astray from my present object. It will not be equally foreign to it to quote the two following short passages, which, though not strictly metaphysical, are, both of them, the result of metaphysical habits of thinking, and bear a stronger resemblance than anything I recollect among the wits of Queen Anne's reign, to the best philosophy of the present age. They approach, indeed, very nearly to the philosophy of Turgot and of Smith.

“Among other excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this subject, though it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass. In a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full-blown, and incapable of farther enlargement, I would imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progress of improvement, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries?”²

The philosophy of the other passage is not unworthy of the author of the Wealth of Nations. The thought may be traced to earlier writers, but certainly it was never before

presented with the same fulness and liveliness of illustration ; nor do I know, in all Addison's works, a finer instance of his solicitude for the improvement of his fair readers, than the address with which he here insinuates one of the sublimest moral lessons, while apparently aiming only to amuse them with the geographical history of the muff and the tippet.

"Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to the mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind ; that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes ; the infusion of a China plant, sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippine Islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of a hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the opposite ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan."

But I must not dwell longer on the fascinating pages of Addison. Allow me only, before I close them, to contrast the last extract with a remark of Voltaire, which, shallow and contemptible as it is, occurs more than once, both in verse and in prose, in his voluminous writings.

Il murit, a Moka, dans le sable Arabique,
Ce Caffé nécessaire aux pays des frimats ;
Il met la Fièvre en nos climats,
Et le remède en Amerique.

(Épitre au Roi du Prusse, 1750.)

And yet Voltaire is admired as a philosopher by many who will smile to hear this title bestowed upon Addison!

It is observed by Akenside, in one of the notes to the Pleasures of Imagination, that "Philosophy and the Fine Arts can hardly be conceived at a greater distance from each other than at the Revolution, when Locke stood at the head of one party, and Dryden of the other." He observes, also, that "a very great progress towards their re-union had been made within these few years." To this progress the chief impulse was undoubtedly given by Addison and Shaftesbury.

Notwithstanding, however, my strong partiality for the former of these writers, I should be truly sorry to think, with Mr Hume, that "Addison will be read with plea-

sure when Locke shall be entirely forgotten." (Essay on the Different Species of Philosophy.)

A few years before the commencement of these periodical works, a memorable accession was made to metaphysical science, by the publication of Berkeley's New Theory of Vision; and of his Principles of Human Knowledge. Possessed of a mind which, however inferior to that of Locke in depth of reflection and in soundness of judgment, was fully its equal in logical acuteness and invention, and in learning, fancy, and taste, far its superior,—Berkeley was singularly fitted to promote that reunion of Philosophy and of the Fine Arts which is so essential to the prosperity of both. Locke, we are told, despised poetry; and we know from one of his own letters, that, among our English poets, his favourite author was Sir Richard Blackmore. Berkeley, on the other hand, courted the society of all, from whose conversation and manners he could hope to add to the embellishments of his genius; and although himself a decided and High Church Tory,¹ lived in habits of friendship with Steele and Addison, as well as with Pope and Swift. Pope's admiration of him seems to have risen to a sort of enthusiasm. He yielded to Berkeley's decision on a very delicate question relating to the exordium of the Essay on Man; and on his moral qualities he has bestowed the highest and most unqualified eulogy to be found in his writings.

" Even in a Bishop I can spy desert,
Secker is decent; Rundle has a heart;
Manners with candour are to Benson given;
To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven."

With these intellectual and moral endowments, admired and blazoned as they were by the most distinguished wits of his age, it is not surprising that Berkeley should have given a popularity and fashion to metaphysical pursuits, which they had never before acquired in England. Nor was this popularity diminished by the boldness of some of his paradoxes: on the contrary, it was in no small degree the effect of them; the great bulk of mankind being always prone to mistake a singularity or eccentricity of thinking, for the originality of a creative genius.

The solid additions, however, made by Berkeley to the stock of human knowledge were important and brilliant. Among these, the first place is unquestionably due to his New Theory of Vision; a work abounding with ideas so different from those commonly received, and, at the same time, so profound and refined, that it was regarded by all but a few accustomed to deep metaphysical reflection, rather in the light of a philosophical romance, than of a sober inquiry after truth. Such, however, has been since the progress and diffusion of this sort of knowledge, that the leading and most abstracted doctrines contained in it, form now an essential part of every elementary treatise of optics, and are adopted by the most superficial smatterers in science as fundamental articles of their faith.

Of a theory, the outlines of which cannot fail to be familiar to a great majority of my readers, it would be wholly superfluous to attempt any explanation here, even if it were consistent with the limits within which I am circumscribed. Suffice it to observe, that its chief aim is to distinguish the immediate and natural objects of sight from the seemingly instantaneous conclusions which experience and habit teach us to draw from them in our earliest infancy; or (in the more concise metaphysical language of a later period) to draw the line between the original and the acquired perceptions of the eye. They who wish to study it in detail, will find ample satisfaction, and (if they have any relish for such studies) an inexhaustible fund of entertainment, in Berkeley's own short but masterly exposition of his principles, and in the excellent comments upon it by Smith of Cambridge; by Porterfield; by Reid; and, still more lately, by the author of the Wealth of Nations.¹

That this doctrine, with respect to the acquired perceptions of sight, was quite unknown to the best metaphysicians of antiquity, we have direct evidence in a passage of Aristotle's Nicomachian Ethics, where he states the distinction between those endowments which are the immediate gift of nature, and those which are the fruit of custom and habit. In the former class, he ranks the perceptions of sense, mentioning particularly the senses of seeing and of hearing. The passage (which I have transcribed in a Note) is curious, and seems to me decisive on the subject.²

The misapprehensions of the ancients on this very obscure question will not appear surprising, when it is considered, that forty years after the publication of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, and sixty years after the date of Locke's Essay, the subject was so imperfectly understood in France, that Condillac (who is, to this day, very generally regarded by his countrymen as the father of genuine logic and metaphysics) combated at great length the conclusions of the English philosophers concerning the acquired perceptions of sight; affirming that "the eye judges naturally of figures, of magnitudes, of situations, and of distances." His argument in support of this opinion is to be found in the sixth section of his Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge.

It is difficult to suppose, that a person of mature years, who had read and studied Locke and Berkeley with as much care and attention as Condillac appears to have bestowed on them, should have reverted to this ancient and vulgar prejudice; without suspecting that his metaphysical depth has been somewhat overrated by the world.¹ It is but justice, however, to Condillac to add, that, in a subsequent work, he had the candour to acknowledge and to retract his error;—a rare example of that disinterested love of truth, which is so becoming in a philosopher. I quote the passage (in a literal, though somewhat abridged version), not only to show, that, in the above statement, I have not misrepresented his opinion, but because I consider this remarkable circumstance in his literary history as a peculiarly amiable and honourable trait in his character.

"We cannot recall to our memory the ignorance in which we were born: It is a state

instead of getting them by using them, we use them because we have got them."

Had Aristotle been at all aware of the distinction so finely illustrated by Berkeley, instead of appealing to the perceptions of these two senses, as instances of endowments coëval with our birth, he would have quoted them as the most striking of all examples of the effects of Custom in apparently identifying our acquired powers with our original faculties.

¹ Voltaire, at an earlier period, had seized completely the scope of Berkeley's theory; and had explained it with equal brevity and precision, in the following passage of his Elements of the Newtonian Philosophy:

"Il faut absolument conclure, que les distances, les grandeurs, les situations ne sont pas, à proprement parler, des choses visibles, c'est à dire, ne sont pas les objets propres et immédiats de la vue. L'objet propre et immédiat de la vue n'est autre chose que la lumière colorée: tout le reste, nous ne le sentons qu'à la longue et par expérience. Nous apprenons à voir, précisément comme nous apprenons à parler et à lire. La différence est, que l'art de voir est plus facile, et que la nature est également à tous notre maître.

"Les jugemens soudains, presque uniformes, que toutes nos âmes à un certain âge portent des distances des grandeurs, des situations, nous font penser, qu'il n'y a qu'à ouvrir les yeux pour voir la manière dont nous voyons. On se trompe, il y faut le secours des autres sens. Si les hommes n'avoient que le sens de la vue, ils n'auoient aucun moyen pour connoître l'étendue en longueur, largeur et profondeur, et un pur esprit ne la connoitroit peut être, à moins que Dieu ne la lui révélât."—Phys. Newton, Chap. 7.

which leaves no trace behind it. We only recollect our ignorance of those things, the knowledge of which we recollect to have acquired; and to remark what we acquire, some previous knowledge is necessary. That memory which now renders us so sensible of the step from one acquisition to another, cannot remount to the first steps of the progress; on the contrary, it supposes them already made; and hence the origin of our disposition to believe them connate with ourselves. To say that we have learnt to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch, appears a most extraordinary paradox. It seems to us that nature gave us the complete use of our senses the moment she formed them, and that we have always made use of them without study, because we are no longer obliged to study in order to use them. I retained these prejudices at the time I published my Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge; the reasonings of Locke on a man born blind, to whom the sense of sight was afterwards given, did not undeceive me; and I maintained against this philosopher that the eye judges naturally of figures, of sizes, of situations, and of distances."—Nothing short of his own explicit avowal could have convinced me, that a writer of so high pretensions and of such unquestionable ingenuity as Condillac, had really commenced his metaphysical career under so gross and unaccountable a delusion.

In bestowing the praise of originality on Berkeley's Theory of Vision, I do not mean to say, that the whole merit of this Theory is exclusively his own. In this, as in most other cases, it may be presumed, that the progress of the human mind has been gradual: And, in point of fact, it will, on examination, be found, that Berkeley only took up the inquiry where Locke dropped it; following out his principles to their remoter consequences, and placing them in so great a variety of strong and happy lights, as to bring a doctrine till then understood but by a few, within the reach of every intelligent and attentive reader. For my own part, on comparing these two philosophers together, I am at a loss whether most to admire the powerful and penetrating sagacity of the one, or the fertility of invention displayed in the illustrations of the other. What can be more clear and forcible than the statement of Locke quoted in the Note below; and what an idea does it convey of his superiority to Condillac, when it is considered, that he anticipated a priori the same doctrine which was afterwards confirmed by the fine analysis of Berkeley, and demonstrated by the judicious experiments of Cheselden; while the French metaphysician, with all this accumulation of evidence before him, relapsed into a prejudice transmitted to modern times, from the very infancy of optical science!¹

I believe it would be difficult to produce from any writer prior to Locke, an equal number of important facts relating to the intellectual phenomena, as well observed, and as unexceptionably described, as those which I have here brought under my reader's eye. It must appear evident, besides, to all who have studied the subject, that Locke has, in this passage, enunciated, in terms the most precise and decided, the same general conclusion

tion are often in grown people altered by the judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round globe, of any uniform colour, v. g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted in our mind is of a flat circle, variously shadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness coming to our eyes. But we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in the reflections of light by the difference of the sensible figure of bodies; the judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the appearances into their causes, so that, from what truly is variety of shadow or colour, collecting the figure it makes it pass for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure, and an uniform colour; when the idea we receive from thence is only a plane variously coloured, as is evident in painting. * * * *

"But this is not, I think, usual in any of our ideas, but those received by sight; * because sight, the most comprehensive of all our senses, conveying to our minds the ideas of lights and colours, which are peculiar only to that sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, or motion, the several varieties whereof change the appearances of its proper objects, viz. light and colours, we bring ourselves by use to judge of the one by the other. This, in many cases, by a settled habit in things whereof we have frequent experience, is performed so constantly and so quick, that we take that for the perception of our sensation, which is an idea formed by our judgment; so that one, viz. that of sensation, serves only to excite the other, and is scarce taken notice of itself: as a man who reads or hears with attention or understanding, takes little notice of the characters or sounds, but of the ideas that are excited in him by them.

"Nor need we wonder that is done with so little notice, if we consider how very quick the actions of the mind are performed, for as itself is thought to take up no space, to have no extension; so its actions seem to require no time, but many of them seem to be crowded into an instant. I speak this in comparison to the actions of the body. Any one may easily observe this in his own thoughts, who will take the pains to reflect on them. How, as it were in an instant, do our minds with one glance see all the parts of a demonstration, which may very well be called a long one, if we consider the time it will require to put it into words, and step by step show it to another? Secondly, we shall not be so much surprised, that this is done in us with so little notice, if we consider how the facility which we get of doing things by a custom of doing makes them often pass in us without our notice. Habits, especially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions in us, which often escape our observations. How frequently do we in a day cover our eyes with our eye-lids, without perceiving that we are at all in the dark? Men that have by custom got the use of a bye-word, do almost in every sentence pronounce sounds, which, though taken notice of by others, they themselves neither hear nor observe; and, therefore, it is not so strange, that our mind should often change the idea of its sensation into that of its judgment, and make one serve only to excite the other, without our taking notice of it." (Locke's Works, Vol. I. p. 123, et seq.)

* Mr Locke might, however, have remarked something very similar to it in the perceptions of the ear; a very large proportion of its appropriate objects being rather judged of than actually perceived. In the rapidity (for example) of common conversation, how many syllables, and even words, escape the notice of the most attentive hearer; which syllables and words are so quickly supplied from the relation which they bear to the rest of the sentence, that it is quite impossible to distinguish between the audible and the inaudible sounds! A very palpable instance of this occurs in the difficulty experienced by the most acute ear in catching proper names or arithmetical sums, or words borrowed from unknown tongues, the first time they are pronounced.

concerning the effect of constant and early habits, which it was the great object of Berkeley's Theory of Vision to establish, and which, indeed, gives to that work its chief value, when considered in connection with the Philosophy of the Human Mind.

Berkeley himself, it is to be observed, by no means lays claim to that complete novelty in his Theory of Vision, which has been ascribed to it by many who, in all probability, derived their whole information concerning it from the traditional and inexact transcripts of book-making historians. In the introductory sentences of his Essay, he states very clearly and candidly the conclusions of his immediate predecessors on this class of our perceptions; and explains, with the greatest precision, in what particulars his own opinion differs from theirs. "It is, I think, agreed by all, that distance, of itself, cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed end-wise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter.

"I find it also acknowledged, that the estimate we make of the distance of objects considerably remote, is rather an act of judgment grounded on experience, than of sense. For example, when I perceive a great number of intermediate objects, such as houses, fields, rivers, and the like, which I have experienced to take up a considerable space; I thence form a judgment or conclusion, that the object I see beyond them is at a great distance. Again, when an object appears faint and small, which, at a near distance, I have experienced to make a vigorous and large appearance, I instantly conclude it to be far off. And this, 'tis evident, is the result of experience; without which, from the faintness and littleness, I should not have inferred anything concerning the distance of objects.

"But when an object is placed at so near a distance, as that the interval between the eyes bears any sensible proportion to it, it is the received opinion that the two optic axes, concurring at the object, do there make an angle, by means of which, according as it is greater or less, the object is perceived to be nearer or farther off.

"There is another way mentioned by the optic writers, whereby they will have us judge of those distances, in respect of which the breadth of the pupil hath any sensible bigness; and that is, the greater or less divergency of the rays, which, issuing from the visible point, do fall on the pupil; that point being judged nearest, which is seen by most diverging rays, and that remoter, which is seen by less diverging rays."

These (according to Berkeley) are the "common and current accounts" given by mathematicians of our perceiving near distances by sight. He then proceeds to show, that they are unsatisfactory; and that it is necessary, for the solution of this problem, to avail

ourselves of principles borrowed from a higher philosophy : After which, he explains, in detail, his own theory concerning the ideas (sensations) which, by experience, become signs of distance ;¹ or (to use his own phraseology) "by which distance is suggested² to the mind." The result of the whole is, that, "a man born blind, being made to see, would not at first have any idea of distance by sight. The sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the nearest, would all seem to be in his Eye, or rather in his Mind."³

From this quotation it appears, that, before Berkeley's time, philosophers had advanced greatly beyond the point at which Aristotle stopped, and towards which Condillac, in his first publication, made a retrograde movement. Of this progress some of the chief steps may be traced as early as the twelfth century in the Optics of Alhazen ;⁴ and they may be

perceived still more clearly and distinctly in various optical writers since the revival of letters; particularly in the Optica Promota of James Gregory.¹ Father Malebranche went still farther, and even anticipated some of the metaphysical reasonings of Berkeley concerning the means by which experience enables us to judge of the distances of near objects. In proof of this, it is sufficient to mention the explanation he gives of the manner in which a comparison of the perceptions of sight and of touch teaches us gradually to estimate by the eye the distances of all those objects which are within reach of our hands, or of which we are accustomed to measure the distance, by walking over the intermediate ground.

In rendering this justice to earlier writers, I have no wish to detract from the originality of Berkeley. With the single exception, indeed, of the passage in Malebranche which I have just referred to, and which it is more than probable was unknown to Berkeley when his theory first occurred to him,² I have ascribed to his predecessors nothing more than what he has himself explicitly acknowledged to belong to them. All that I wished to do was, to supply some links in the historical chain, which he has omitted.

The influence which this justly celebrated work has had, not only in perfecting the theory of optics, but in illustrating the astonishing effects of early habit on the mental phenomena in general, will sufficiently account to my intelligent readers for the length to which the foregoing observations upon it have extended.

Next in point of importance to Berkeley's New Theory of Vision, which I regard as by far the most solid basis of his philosophical fame, may be ranked his speculations concerning the Objects of General Terms, and his celebrated argument against the existence of the Material World. On both of these questions I have elsewhere explained my own ideas so fully, that it would be quite superfluous for me to resume the consideration of them here.³ In neither instance are his reasonings so entirely original as has been commonly supposed. In the former, they coincide in substance, although with immense improvements in the form, with those of the scholastic nominalists, as revived and modified by Hobbes and Leibnitz. In the latter instance, they amount to little more than an ingenious and elegant development of some principles of Malebranche, pushed to certain paradoxical but obvious consequences, of which Malebranche, though unwilling to avow them, appears to have been fully aware. These consequences, too, had been previously pointed out by

Mr Norris, a very learned divine of the Church of England, whose name has unaccountably failed in obtaining that distinction to which his acuteness as a logician, and his boldness as a theorist, justly entitled him.¹

The great object of Berkeley in maintaining his system of idealism, it may be proper to remark in passing, was to cut up by the roots the scheme of materialism. "Matter (he tells us himself) being once expelled out of nature, drags with it so many sceptical and impious notions. * * * * Without it, your Epicureans, Hobbists, and the like, have not even the shadow of a pretence, but become the most cheap and easy triumph in the world."

Not satisfied with addressing these abstract speculations to the learned, Berkeley conceived them to be of such moment to human happiness, that he resolved to bring them, if possible, within the reach of a wider circle of readers, by throwing them into the more popular and amusing form of dialogues.² The skill with which he has executed this very difficult and unpromising task cannot be too much admired. The characters of his speakers are strongly marked and happily contrasted; the illustrations exhibit a singular combination of logical subtlety and of poetical invention; and the style, while it everywhere abounds with the rich, yet sober colourings of the author's fancy, is perhaps superior, in point of purity and of grammatical correctness, to any English composition of an earlier date.³

The impression produced in England by Berkeley's Idealism was not so great as might have been expected; but the novelty of his paradoxes attracted very powerfully the attention of a set of young men who were then prosecuting their studies at Edinburgh, and who formed themselves into a Society for the express purpose of soliciting from the author an explanation of some parts of his theory which seemed to them obscurely or equivocally expressed. To this correspondence the amiable and excellent prelate appears to have given every encouragement; and I have been told by the best authority, that he was accustomed to say, that his reasonings had been nowhere better understood than by this club of young Scotsmen.¹ The ingenious Dr Wallace, author of the Discourse on the Numbers of Mankind, was one of the leading members; and with him were associated several other individuals, whose names are now well known and honourably distinguished in the learned world. Mr Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, which was published in 1739, affords sufficient evidence of the deep impression which Berkeley's writings had left upon his mind; and to this juvenile essay of Mr Hume's may be traced the origin of the most important metaphysical works which Scotland has since produced.

It is not, however, my intention to prosecute farther, at present, the history of Scottish philosophy. The subject may be more conveniently, and I hope advantageously resumed, after a slight review of the speculations of some English and French writers, who, while they professed a general acquiescence in the doctrines of Locke, have attempted to modify his fundamental principles in a manner totally inconsistent with the views of their master. The remarks which I mean to offer on the modern French school will afford me, at the same time, a convenient opportunity of introducing some strictures on the metaphysical systems which have of late prevailed in other parts of the Continent.

vision."—(Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, Vol. II. p. 264.)—If I were called on to point out the most ingenious and original part of the whole work, it would be the argument contained in the passages here so contemptuously alluded to, by this learned and (on all questions of taste) most respectable critic.

¹ The authority I here allude to is that of my old friend and preceptor, Dr John Stevenson, who was himself a member of the Rankenian Club, and who was accustomed for many years to mention this fact in his Academical Prelections.

THE English writers to whom I have alluded in the last paragraph, I shall distinguish by the title of Dr Hartley's School; for although I by no means consider this person as the first author of any of the theories commonly ascribed to him (the seeds of all of them having been previously sown in the university where he was educated), it was nevertheless reserved for him to combine them together, and to exhibit them to the world in the imposing form of a system.

Among the immediate predecessors of Hartley, Dr Law, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, seems to have been chiefly instrumental in preparing the way for a schism among Locke's disciples. The name of Law was first known to the public by an excellent translation, accompanied by many learned, and some very judicious notes, of Archbishop King's work on the Origin of Evil; a work of which the great object was to combat the Optimism of Leibnitz, and the Manicheism imputed to Bayle. In making this work more generally known, the translator certainly rendered a most acceptable and important service to the world, and, indeed, it is upon this ground that his best claim to literary distinction is still founded.¹ In his own original speculations, he is weak, paradoxical, and oracular;² af-

fecting, on all occasions, the most profound veneration for the opinions of Locke, but much more apt to attach himself to the errors and oversights of that great man, than to enter into the general spirit of his metaphysical philosophy.

To this translation, Dr Law prefixed a Dissertation concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue, by the Reverend Mr Gay; a performance of considerable ingenuity, but which would now be entitled to little notice, were it not for the influence it appears to have had in suggesting to Dr Hartley the possibility of accounting for all our intellectual pleasures and pains, by the single principle of the Association of Ideas. We are informed by Dr Hartley himself, that it was in consequence of hearing some account of the contents of this dissertation, he was first led to engage in those inquiries which produced his celebrated Theory of Human Nature.

The other principle on which this theory proceeds (that of the vibrations and vibruncles in the medullary substance of the brain) is also of Cambridge origin. It occurs in the form of a query in Sir Isaac Newton's Optics; and a distinct allusion to it, as a principle likely to throw new light on the phenomena of mind, is to be found in the concluding sentence of Smith's Harmonics.

Very nearly about the time when Hartley's Theory appeared, Charles Bonnet of Geneva published some speculations of his own, proceeding almost exactly on the same assumptions. Both writers speak of vibrations (ébranlemens) in the nerves; and both of them have recourse to a subtle and elastic ether, co-operating with the nerves in carrying on the communication between soul and body.¹ This fluid Bonnet conceived to be contained in the nerves, in a manner analogous to that in which the electric fluid is contained in the solid bodies which conduct it; differing in this respect from the Cartesians as well as from the ancient physiologists, who considered the nerves as hollow tubes, or pipes, within which the animal spirits were included. It is to this elastic ether that Bonnet ascribes the vibrations of which he supposes the nerves to be susceptible; for the nerves themselves (he justly observes) have no resemblance to the stretched cords of a musical instrument.²

mind of Gravesande acquiesced many years after the publication of the Essay on Human Understanding, has probably contributed not a little to force some authors into the opposite extreme of maintaining, with Leibnitz and Dr Law, that our idea of space does not imply any external ideatum or objective reality. Gravesande's words are these: "Substantiæ sunt aut cogitantes, aut non cogitantes; cogitantes duas novimus, Deum et Mentem nostram: præter has et alias dari in dubium non revocamus. Duæ etiam substantiæ, quæ non cogitant, nobis notæ sunt Spatium et Corpus."—Gravesande, Introd. ad Philosophiam, § 19.

Hartley's Theory differs in one respect from this, as he speaks of vibrations and vibratiuncles in the medullary substance of the brain and nerves. He agrees, however, with Bonnet in thinking, that to these vibrations in the nerves the co-operation of the ether is essentially necessary; and, therefore, at bottom the two hypothesis may be regarded as in substance the same. As to the trifling shade of difference between them, the advantage seems to me to be in favour of Bonnet.

Nor was it only in their Physiological Theories concerning the nature of the union between soul and body, that these two philosophers agreed. On all the great articles of metaphysical theology, the coincidence between their conclusions is truly astonishing. Both held the doctrine of Necessity in its fullest extent; and both combined with it a vein of mystical devotion, setting at defiance the creeds of all established churches. The intentions of both are allowed, by those who best knew them, to have been eminently pure and worthy; but it cannot be said of either, that his metaphysical writings have contributed much to the instruction or to the improvement of the public. On the contrary, they have been instrumental in spreading a set of speculative tenets very nearly allied to that senti-

exciteroient-ils donc les vibrations analogues à celle d'une corde pincée? Ces vibrations se communiqueroient-elles à l'instant au siège de l'âme? La chose paroît difficile à concevoir. Mais si l'on admet dans les nerfs un fluide dont la subtilité et l'élasticité approche de celle de la lumière ou de l'éther, on expliquera facilement par le secours de ce fluide, et la célérité avec laquelle les impressions se communiquent à l'âme, et celle avec laquelle l'âme exécute tant d'operations différentes." (Essai Anal. Chap. v.)

"Au reste, les physiologistes qui avoient cru que les filets nerveux étoient solides, avoient cédé à des apparences trompeuses. Ils vouloient d'ailleurs faire osciller les nerfs pour rendre raison des sensations, et les nerfs ne peuvent osciller. Ils sont mous, et nullement élastiques. Un nerf coupé ne se retire point. C'est le fluide invisible que les nerfs renferment, qui est doué de cette élasticité qu'on leur attribuoit, et d'une plus grande élasticité encore." (Contemp. de la Nature, VII Partie, Chap. i. Note at the end of the chapter.)

M. Quesnai, the celebrated author of the Economical System, has expressed himself to the same purpose concerning the supposed vibrations of the nerves: "Plusieurs physiciens ont pensé que le seul ébranlement des nerfs, causé par les objets qui touchent les organes des corps, suffit pour occasioner le mouvement et le sentiment dans les parties où les nerfs sont ébranlés. Ils se représentent les nerfs comme des cordes fort tendus, qu'un léger contact met en vibration dans toute leur étendue. Des philosophes, peu instruits en anatomie, ont pu se former une telle idée . . . . Mais cette tension qu'on suppose dans les nerfs, et qui les rend si susceptibles d'ébranlement et de vibration, est si grossièrement imaginée qu'il seroit ridicule de s'occuper sérieusement à la refuter." (Econ. Animale, sect. 3. c. 13.)

As this passage from Quesnai is quoted by Condillac, and sanctioned by his authority (Traité des Animaux, Chap. iii.), it would appear that the hypothesis which supposes the nerves to perform their functions by means of vibrations was going fast into discredit, both among the metaphysicians and the physiologists of France, at the very time when it was beginning to attract notice in England, in consequence of the visionary speculations of Hartley.

mental and fanatical modification of Spinozism, which, for many years past, has prevailed so much, and produced such mischievous effects in some parts of Germany.

But it is chiefly by his application of the associating principle to account for all the mental phenomena that Hartley is known to the world; and upon this I have nothing to add to what I have already stated in another work. (Phil. Essays, Essay IV.) His Theory seems to be already fast passing into oblivion; the temporary popularity which it enjoyed in this country having, in a great measure, ceased with the life of its zealous and indefatigable apostle Dr Priestley.¹

It would be unfair, however, to the translator of Archbishop King, to identify his opinions with those of Hartley and Priestley. The zeal with which he contends for man's free agency is sufficient, of itself, to draw a strong line of distinction between his Ethical System and their's. (See his Notes on King, passim.) But I must be allowed to say of him, that the general scope of his writings tends, in common with that of the two other metaphysicians, to depreciate the evidences of Natural Religion, and more especially to depreciate the evidences which the light of nature affords of a life to come; "a doctrine equally necessary to comfort the weakness, and to support our lofty ideas of the grandeur of human nature;"² and of which it seems hard to confine exclusively the knowledge to that portion of mankind who have been favoured with the light of Revelation. The influence of the same fundamental error, arising, too, from the same mistaken idea, of thus strengthening the cause of Christianity, may be traced in various passages of the posthumous work of the late Bishop of Llandaff. It is wonderful that the reasonings of Clarke and of Butler did not teach these eminent men a sounder and more consistent logic; or, at least, open their eyes to the inevitable consequences of the rash concessions which they made to their adversaries.³

Among the disciples of Law, one illustrious exception to these remarks occurs in Dr Paley, whose treatise on Natural Theology is unquestionably the most instructive as well as interesting publication on that subject which has appeared in our times. As the book was intended for popular use, the author has wisely avoided, as much as possible, all metaphysical discussions; but I do not know that there exists any other work where the argument from final causes is placed in so great a variety of pleasing and striking points of view.

WHILE Hartley and Bonnet were indulging their imagination in theorizing concerning the nature of the union between soul and body, Condillac was attempting to draw the attention of his countrymen to the method of studying the phenomena of Mind recommended and exemplified by Locke.¹ Of the vanity of expecting to illustrate, by physiolo-

itself does suppose these for its foundations; and can signify nothing to us unless they be first known and believed; so that the principles of natural religion are the foundation of that which is revealed." (Sermon 41.) "There is an intrinsic good and evil in things, and the reasons and respects of moral good and evil are fixed and immutable, eternal and indispensable. Nor do they speak safely who make the Divine will the rule of moral good and evil, as if there were nothing good or evil in its own nature antecedently to the will of God; but, that all things are therefore good and evil because God wills them to be so." (Sermon 88.) "Natural religion is obedience to the natural law, and the performance of such duties as natural light, without any express and supernatural revelation, doth dictate to men. These lie at the bottom of all religion, and are the great fundamental duties which God requires of all mankind. These are the surest and most sacred of all other laws; those which God hath rivetted in our souls and written upon our hearts; and these are what we call moral duties, and most valued by God, which are of eternal and perpetual obligation, because they do naturally oblige, without any particular and express revelation from God; and these are the foundation of revealed and instituted religion; and all revealed religion does suppose them and build upon them." Sermons 48, 49.

gical conjectures, the manner in which the intercourse between the thinking principle and the external world is carried on, no philosopher seems ever to have been more completely aware; and, accordingly, he confines himself strictly, in all his researches concerning this intercourse, to an examination of the general laws by which it is regulated. There is, at the same time, a remarkable coincidence between some of his views and those of the other two writers. All of the three, while they profess the highest veneration for Locke, have abandoned his account of the origin of our ideas for that of Gassendi; and, by doing so, have, with the best intentions, furnished arms against those principles which it was their common aim to establish in the world.¹ It is much to be regretted, that by far the greater part of those French writers who have since speculated about the human mind, have acquired the whole of their knowledge of Locke's philosophy through this mistaken comment upon its fundamental principle. On this subject I have already exhausted all that I have to offer on the effect of Condillac's writings; and I flatter myself have sufficiently shown how widely his commentary differs from the text of his author. It is this commentary, however, which is now almost universally received on the Continent as the doctrine of Locke, and which may justly be regarded as the sheet-anchor of those systems which are commonly stigmatised in England with the appellation of French philosophy. Had Condillac been sufficiently aware of the consequences which have been deduced (and I must add logically deduced) from his account of the origin of our knowledge, I am per-

something to the fund of observations collected by their predecessors, and already the common property of mankind. This branch of science, which the English themselves neglect at present, appears to have been recently transported into France. I discover some traces of it not only in the Encyclopédie, but in the Theory of Agreeable Sensations, by M. de Pouilly; and much more in the late discourse of M. Rousseau, On the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Ranks among Men.

Although I perfectly agree with Mr Smith in his general remark on the sterility of invention among the French metaphysicians posterior to Descartes, when compared to those of England, I cannot pass over the foregoing quotation without expressing my surprise, 1st, To find the name of Malebranche (one of the highest in modern philosophy) degraded to a level with that of Regius; and, 2dly, To observe Mr Smith's silence with respect to Buffier and Condillac, while he mentions the author of the Theory of Agreeable Sensations as a metaphysician of original genius. Of the merits of Condillac, whose most important works were published several years before this paper of Mr Smith's, I am about to speak in the text; and those of Buffier I shall have occasion to mention in a subsequent part of this discourse. In the mean time, I shall only say of him, that I regard him as one of the most original as well as sound philosophers of whom the eighteenth century has to boast.

¹ Condillac's earliest work appeared three years before the publication of Hartley's Theory. It is entitled, "Essai sur l'Origine des Connoissances Humaines. Ouvrage où l'on réduit à un seul principe tout ce qui concerne l'entendement humain." This seul principe is the association of ideas. The account which both authors give of the transformation of sensations into ideas is substantially the same.

suaded, from his known candour and love of truth, that he would have been eager to acknowledge and to retract his error.

In this apparent simplification and generalization of Locke's doctrine, there is, it must be acknowledged, something, at first sight, extremely seducing. It relieves the mind from the painful exercise of abstracted reflection, and amuses it with analogy and metaphor when it looked only for the severity of logical discussion. The clearness and simplicity of Condillac's style add to the force of this illusion, and flatter the reader with an agreeable idea of the powers of his own understanding, when he finds himself so easily conducted through the darkest labyrinths of metaphysical science. It is to this cause I would chiefly ascribe the great popularity of his works. They may be read with as little exertion of thought as a history or a novel; and it is only when we shut the book, and attempt to express in our own words, the substance of what we have gained, that we have the mortification to see our supposed acquisitions vanish into air.

The philosophy of Condillac was, in a more peculiar manner, suited to the taste of his own country, where (according to Mad. de Stael) "few read a book but with a view to talk of it."¹ Among such a people, speculations which are addressed to the power of reflection can never expect to acquire the same popularity with theories expressed in a metaphorical language, and constantly recalling to the fancy the impressions of the external senses. The state of society in France, accordingly, is singularly unfavourable to the inductive philosophy of the human mind; and of this truth no proof more decisive can be produced, than the admiration with which the metaphysical writings of Condillac have been so long regarded.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Condillac has, in many instances, been eminently successful, both in observing and describing the mental phenomena; but, in such cases, he commonly follows Locke as his guide; and, wherever he trusts to his own judgment, he seldom fails to wander from his way. The best part of his works relates to the action and reaction of thought and language on each other, a subject which had been previously very profoundly treated by Locke, but which Condillac has had the merit of placing in many new and happy points of view. In various cases, his conclusions are pushed too far; and in others are expressed without due precision; but, on the whole, they form a most valuable accession to this important branch of logic; and (what not a

little enhances their value) they have been instrumental in recommending the subject to the attention of other inquirers, still better qualified than their author to do it justice.

In the speculation, too, concerning the origin and the theoretical history of language, Condillac was one of the first who made any considerable advances; nor does it reflect any discredit on his ingenuity, that he has left some of the principal difficulties connected with the inquiry very imperfectly explained. The same subject was soon after taken up by Mr Smith, who, I think, it must be owned, has rather slurred over these difficulties, than attempted to remove them; an omission on his part the more remarkable, as a very specious and puzzling objection had been recently stated by Rousseau, not only to the theory of Condillac, but to all speculations which have for their object the solution of the same problem. "If language" (says Rousseau) "be the result of human convention, and if words be essential to the exercise of thought, language would appear to be necessary for the invention of language."¹—"But" (continues the same author) "when, by means which I cannot conceive, our new grammarians began to extend their ideas, and to generalize their words, their ignorance must have confined them within very narrow bounds. . . . . How, for example, could they imagine or comprehend such words as matter, mind, substance, mode, figure, motion, since our philosophers, who have so long made use of them, scarcely understand them, and since the ideas attached to them, being purely metaphysical, can have no model in nature?"

"I stop at these first steps" (continues Rousseau), "and entreat my judges to pause, and consider the distance between the easiest part of language, the invention of physical substantives, and the power of expressing all the thoughts of man, so as to speak in public, and influence society. I entreat them to reflect upon the time and knowledge it must have required to discover numbers, abstract words, aorists, and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the art of connecting propositions and arguments, and how to form the whole logic of discourse. As for myself, alarmed at these multiplying difficulties, and convinced of the almost demonstrable impossibility of language having been formed and established by means merely human, I leave to others the discussion of the problem, "Whether a so-

ciety already formed was more necessary for the institution of language, or a language already invented for the establishment of society?"¹

Of the various difficulties here enumerated, that mentioned by Rousseau, in the last sentence, was plainly considered by him as the greatest of all; or rather as comprehending under it all the rest. But this difficulty arises merely from his own peculiar and paradoxical theory about the artificial origin of society; a theory which needs no refutation, but the short and luminous aphorism of Montesquieu, that "man is born in society, and there he remains." The other difficulties touched upon by Rousseau, in the former part of this quotation, are much more serious, and have never yet been removed in a manner completely satisfactory: And hence some very ingenious writers have been led to conclude, that language could not possibly have been the work of human invention. This argument has been lately urged with much acuteness and plausibility by Dr Magee of Dublin, and by M. de Bonald of Paris.² It may, however, be reasonably questioned, if these philosophers would not have reasoned more logically, had they contented themselves with merely affirming, that the problem has not yet been solved, without going so far as to pronounce it to be absolutely insolvable. For my own part, when I consider its extreme difficulty, and the short space of time during which it has engaged the attention of the learned, I am more disposed to wonder at the steps which have been already gained in the research, than at the number of desiderata which remain to employ the ingenuity of our successors. It is justly remarked by Dr Ferguson, that, "when language has attained to that perfection to which it arrives in the progress of society, the speculative mind, in comparing the first and the last stages of the progress, feels the same sort of amazement with a traveller, who, after rising insensibly on the slope of a hill, comes to look down from a precipice, to the summit of which he scarcely believes he could have ascended without supernatural aid."³

With respect to some of the difficulties pointed out by Rousseau and his commentators, it may be here remarked in passing (and the observation is equally applicable to various passages in Mr Smith's dissertation on the same subject), that the difficulty of explaining the theory of any of our intellectual operations affords no proof of any difficulty in applying that operation to its proper practical purpose; nor is the difficulty of explaining the metaphysical nature of any part of speech a proof, that, in its first origin, it implied any extraordinary effort of intellectual capacity. How many metaphysical difficulties might be raised about the mathematical notion of a line? And yet this notion is perfectly comprehended by every peasant, when he speaks of the distance between two places; or of the length, breadth, or height of his cottage. In like manner, although it may be difficult to give a satisfactory account of the origin and import of such words, as of or by, we ought not to conclude, that the invention of them implied any metaphysical knowledge in the individual who first employed them.¹ Their import, we see, is fully understood by children of three or four years of age.

In this view of the History of Language I have been anticipated by Dr Ferguson.

quired. We are not, therefore, warranted to affirm, that it was received by inspiration, and there is no internal evidence in language to lead us to such a supposition. On this side, then, of the question, we have nothing but uncertainty; but on a subject, the causes of which are so remote, nothing is more convenient than to refer them to inspiration, and to recur to that easy and comprehensive argument,

Διὸς δὲ τὸ πρῶτον βούλη

that is, man enjoyed the great privilege of speech, which distinguished him at first, and still continues to distinguish him as a rational creature, so eminently from the brute creation, without exerting those reasoning faculties, by which he was in other respects enabled to raise himself so much above their level. Inspiration, then, seems to have been an argument adopted and made necessary by the difficulty of accounting for it otherwise; and the name of inspiration carries with it an awfulness, which forbids the unhallowed approach of inquisitive discussion." (Essay on the Study of Antiquities, by Dr Burgess, 2d edit. Oxford, 1782. Pp. 85, 86.)

It is farther remarked very sagaciously, and I think very decisively, by the same author, that "the supposition of man having received a language ready formed from his Creator, is actually inconsistent with the evidence of the origin of our ideas, which exists in language. For, as the origin of our ideas is to be traced in the words through which the ideas are conveyed, so the origin of language is referable to the source from whence our (first) ideas are derived, namely, natural and external objects." (Ibid. pp. 83, 84.)

“Parts of speech” (says this profound and original writer), “which, in speculation, cost the grammarian so much study, are, in practice, familiar to the vulgar. The rudest tribes, even the idiot and the insane, are possessed of them. They are soonest learned in childhood, insomuch that we must suppose human nature, in its lowest state, competent to the use of them; and, without the intervention of uncommon genius, mankind, in a succession of ages, qualified to accomplish in detail this amazing fabric of language, which, when raised to its height, appears so much above what could be ascribed to any simultaneous effort of the most sublime and comprehensive abilities.”¹

¹ The following judicious reflections, with which M. Raynouard concludes the introduction to his Éléments de la Langue Romane, may serve to illustrate some of the above observations. The modification of an existing language is, I acknowledge, a thing much less wonderful than the formation of a language entirely new; but the processes of thought, it is reasonable to think, are, in both cases, of the same kind; and the consideration of the one is at least a step gained towards the elucidation of the other.

“La langue Romane est peut-être la seule à la formation de laquelle il soit permis de remonter ainsi, pour découvrir et expliquer le secret de son industrieux mécanisme. . . . J’ose dire que l’esprit philosophique, consulté sur le choix des moyens qui devraient épargner à l’ignorance beaucoup d’études pénibles et fastidieuses, n’eût pas été aussi heureux que l’ignorance elle-même; il est vrai qu’elle avoit deux grands maîtres; la NÉCESSITÉ et le TEMS.

“En considérant à quelle époque d’ignorance et de barbarie s’est formé et perfectionné ce nouvel idiôme, d’après des principes indiqués seulement par l’analogie et l’euphonie, on se dira peut-être comme je me le suis dit; l’homme porte en soi-même les principes d’une logique naturelle, d’un instinct régulateur, que nous admirons quelquefois dans les enfans. Oui, la providence nous a doté de la faculté indestructible et des moyens ingénieux d’exprimer, de communiquer, d’éterniser par la parole, et par les signes permanens ou elle se reproduit, cette pensée qui est l’un de nos plus beaux attributs, et qui nous distingue si éminemment et si avantageusement dans l’ordre de la création.” (Éléments de la Grammaire de la Langue Romane avant l’An. 1000. Pp. 104, 105, à Paris, 1816.)

In the theoretical history of language, it is more than probable, that some steps will remain to exercise the ingenuity of our latest posterity. Nor will this appear surprising, when we consider how impossible it is for us to judge, from our own experience, of the intellectual processes which pass in the minds of savages. Some instincts, we know, possessed both by them and by infants (that of imitation, for example, and the use of natural signs), disappear in by far the greater number of individuals, almost entirely in the maturity of their reason. It does not seem at all improbable, that other instincts connected with the invention of speech, may be confined to that state of the intellectual powers which requires their guidance; nor is it quite impossible, that some latent capacities of the understanding may be evolved by the pressure of necessity. The facility with which infants surmount so many grammatical and metaphysical difficulties, seems to me to add much weight to these conjectures.

In tracing the first steps of the invention of language, it ought never to be forgotten, that we undertake a task more similar than might at first be supposed, to that of tracing the first operations of the infant mind. In both cases, we are apt to attempt an explanation from reason alone, of what requires the co-operation of very different principles. To trace the theoretical history of geometry, in which we know for certain, that all the transitions have depended on reasoning alone, is a problem which has not yet been completely solved. Nor has even any satisfactory account been hitherto given of the experimental steps by which men were gradually led to the use of iron. And yet how simple are these problems, when compared with that relating to the origin and progress of language!

It is, however, less in tracing the first rudiments of speech, than in some collateral inquiries concerning the genius of different languages, that Condillac's ingenuity appears to advantage. Some of his observations, in particular, on the connection of natural signs with the growth of a systematical prosody, and on the imitative arts of the Greeks and Romans, as distinguished from those of the moderns, are new and curious; and are enlivened with a mixture of historical illustration, and of critical discussion, seldom to be met with among metaphysical writers.

But through all his researches, the radical error may, more or less, be traced, which lies at the bottom of his system; ¹ and hence it is, that, with all his skill as a writer, he never elevates the imagination, or touches the heart. That he wrote with the best intentions, we have satisfactory evidence; and yet hardly a philosopher can be named, whose theories have had more influence in misleading the opinions of his contemporaries. ² In

France, he very early attained to a rank and authority not inferior to those which have been so long and so deservedly assigned to Locke in England ; and even in this country, his works have been more generally read and admired, than those of any foreign metaphysician of an equally recent date.

The very general sketches to which I am here obliged to confine myself, do not allow me to take notice of various contributions to metaphysical science, which are to be collected from writers professedly intent upon other subjects. I must not, however, pass over in silence the name of Buffon, who, in the midst of those magnificent views of external nature, which the peculiar character of his eloquence fitted him so admirably to delineate, has frequently indulged himself in ingenious discussions concerning the faculties both of men and of brutes. His subject, indeed, led his attention chiefly to man, considered as an animal ; but the peculiarities which the human race exhibit in their physical condition, and the manifest reference which these bear to their superior rank in the creation, unavoidably engaged him in speculations of a higher aim, and of a deeper interest. In prosecuting these, he has been accused (and perhaps with some justice) of ascribing too much to the effects of bodily organization on the intellectual powers ; but he leads his reader in so pleasing a manner from matter to mind, that I have no doubt he has attracted the curiosity of many to metaphysical inquiries, who would never otherwise have thought of them. In his theories concerning the nature of the brutes, he has been commonly considered as leaning to the opinion of Descartes ; but I cannot help thinking, without any good reason. Some of his ideas on the complicated operations of insects appear to me just and satisfactory ; and while they account for the phenomena, without ascribing to the animal any

seau, ni Voltaire, et que la manière de raisonner et la direction philosophique de l'esprit s'étendent à tout." (Recherches Phil. Tome I. pp. 187, 188.)

The following criticism on the supposed perspicuity of Condillac's style is so just and philosophical, that I cannot refrain from giving it a place here : " Condillac est, ou paroît être, clair et méthodique ; mais il faut prendre garde que la clarté des pensées, comme la transparence des objets physiques, peut tenir d'un défaut de profondeur, et que la méthode dans les écrits, qui suppose la patience de l'esprit, n'en prouve pas toujours la justesse ; et moins encore la fécondité. Il y a aussi une clarté de style en quelque sorte toute matérielle, qui n'est pas incompatible avec l'obscurité dans les idées. Rien de plus facile à entendre que les mots de sensations transformées dont Condillac s'est servi, parce que ces mots ne parlent qu'à l'imagination, qui se figure à volonté des transformations et des changemens. Mais cette transformation, appliquée aux opérations de l'esprit, n'est qu'un mot vide de sens ; et Condillac lui-même, auroit été bien embarrassé d'en donner une explication satisfaisante. Ce philosophe me paroît plus heureux dans ses aperçus que dans ses démonstrations : La route de la vérité semble quelquefois s'ouvrir devant lui, mais retenu par la circonspection naturelle à un esprit sans chaleur, et intimidé par la faiblesse de son propre système, il n'ose s'y engager." (Ibid. Tome I. pp. 33, 34.)

deep or comprehensive knowledge, are far from degrading him to an insentient and unconscious machine.

In his account of the process by which the use of our external senses (particularly that of sight) is acquired, Buffon has in general followed the principles of Berkeley; and, notwithstanding some important mistakes which have escaped him in his applications of these principles, I do not know that there is anywhere to be found so pleasing or so popular an exposition of the theory of vision. Nothing certainly was ever more finely imagined, than the recital which he puts into the mouth of our first parent, of the gradual steps by which he learned the use of his perceptive organs; and although there are various parts of it which will not bear the test of a rigorous examination, it is impossible to read it without sharing in that admiration, with which we are told the author himself always regarded this favourite effusion of his eloquence.

Nor are these the only instances in which Buffon has discovered the powers of a metaphysician. His thoughts on probabilities, (a subject widely removed from his favourite studies,) afford a proof how strongly some metaphysical questions had laid hold of his curiosity, and what new lights he was qualified to throw on them, if he had allowed them to occupy more of his attention.¹ In his observations too, on the peculiar nature of mathematical evidence, he has struck into a train of the soundest thinking, in which he has been very generally followed by our later logicians.² Some particular expressions in the passage I refer to are exceptionable; but his remarks on what he calls Vérités de Définition are just and important; nor do I remember any modern writer, of an earlier date, who has touched on the same argument. Plato, indeed, and after him Proclus, had called the definitions of geometry Hypotheses; an expression which may be considered as involving the doctrine which Buffon and his successors have more fully unfolded.

What the opinions of Buffon were on those essential questions, which were then in dispute among the French philosophers, his writings do not furnish the means of judging with certainty. In his theory of Organic Molecules, and of Internal Moulds, he has been accused of entertaining views not very different from those of the ancient atomists; nor would it perhaps be easy to repel the charge, if we were not able to oppose to this wild and unintelligible hypothesis the noble and elevating strain, which in general so peculiarly characterizes his descriptions of nature. The eloquence of some of the finest passages in his works has manifestly been inspired by the same sentiment which dictated to one of his

favourite authors the following just and pathetic reflection: "Le spectacle de la nature, si vivant, si animé pour ceux qui reconnoissent un Dieu, est mort aux yeux de l'athée, et dans cette grande harmonie des êtres où tout parle de Dieu d'une voix si douce, il n'aperçoit qu'un silence éternel."¹

I have already mentioned the strong bias towards materialism, which the authors of the Encyclopédie derived from Condillac's comments upon Locke. These comments they seem to have received entirely upon credit, without ever being at pains to compare them with the original. Had D'Alembert exercised freely his own judgment, no person was more likely to have perceived their complete futility; and, in fact, he has thrown out various observations which strike at their very root. Notwithstanding, however, these occasional glimpses of light, he invariably reverts to the same error, and has once and again repeated it in terms as strong as Condillac or Gassendi.

The author who pushed this account of the origin of our knowledge to the most extraordinary and offensive consequences was Helvetius. His book, De l'Esprit, is said to have been composed of materials collected from the conversations of the society in which he habitually lived; and it has accordingly been quoted as an authentic record of the ideas then in fashion among the wits of Paris. The unconnected and desultory composition of the work certainly furnishes some intrinsic evidence of the truth of this anecdote.

According to Helvetius, as all our ideas are derived from the external senses,² the

causes of the inferiority of the souls of brutes to those of men, are to be sought for in the difference between them with respect to bodily organization. In illustration of this remark, he reasons as follows :

“ 1. The feet of all quadrupeds terminate either in horn, as those of the ox and the deer ; or in nails, as those of the dog and the wolf ; or in claws, as those of the lion and the cat. This peculiar organization of the feet of these animals deprives them not only of the sense of touch, considered as a channel of information with respect to external objects, but also of the dexterity requisite for the practice of the mechanical arts.

“ 2. The life of animals, in general, being of a shorter duration than that of man, does not permit them to make so many observations, or to acquire so many ideas.

“ 3. Animals being better armed and better clothed by nature than the human species, have fewer wants, and consequently fewer motives to stimulate or to exercise their invention. If the voracious animals are more cunning than others, it is because hunger, ever inventive, inspires them with the art of stratagems to surprise their prey.

“ 4. The lower animals compose a society that flies from man, who, by the assistance of weapons made by himself, is become formidable to the strongest amongst them.

“ 5. Man is the most prolific and versatile animal upon earth. He is born and lives in every climate ; while many of the other animals, as the lion, the elephant, and the rhinoceros, are found only in a certain latitude. And the more any species of animals capable of making observations is multiplied, the more ideas and the greater ingenuity is it likely to possess.

“ But some may ask (continues Helvetius), why monkeys, whose paws are nearly as dexterous as our hands, do not make a progress equal to that of man ? A variety of causes (he observes) conspire to fix them in that state of inferiority in which we find them : 1.

Car elles ne sont que des sensations ou des portions extraites de quelque sensation pour être considérées à part ; ce qui produit deux sortes d'idées, les sensibles et les abstraites.” (Traité des Systèmes, Chap. vi.) “ Puisque nous avons vu que le souvenir n'est qu'une manière de sentir, c'est une conséquence, que les idées intellectuelles ne diffèrent pas essentiellement des sensations mêmes.” (Traité des Sensations, Chap. viii. § 33.) Is not this precisely the doctrine and even the language of Helvetius ?

In the same passage of the Lycée, from which the above quotation is taken from La Harpe, there is a sweeping judgment pronounced on the merits of Locke, which may serve as a specimen of the author's competency to decide on metaphysical questions : “ Locke a prouvé autant qu'il est possible à l'homme, que l'ame est une substance simple et indivisible, et par conséquent immaterielle. Cependant, il ajoute, qu'il n'oseroit affirmer que Dieu ne puisse douer la matière de pensée. Condillac est de son avis sur le premier article, et le combat sur le second. Je suis entièrement de l'avis de Condillac, et tous les bons métaphysiciens conviennent que c'est la seule inexactitude qu'on puisse relever dans l'ouvrage de Locke.” (Cours de Littérat., Tome XV, p. 149.)

Men are more multiplied upon the earth. 2. Among the different species of monkeys, there are few whose strength can be compared with that of man; and, accordingly, they form only a fugitive society before the human race. 3. Monkeys being frugivorous, have fewer wants, and, therefore, less invention than man. 4. Their life is shorter. And, finally, the organical structure of their bodies keeping them, like children, in perpetual motion, even after their desires are satisfied, they are not susceptible of lassitude (ennui), which ought to be considered (as I shall prove afterwards) as one of the principles to which the human mind owes its improvement.

“By combining (he adds) all these differences between the nature of man and of beast, we may understand why sensibility and memory, though faculties common to man and to the lower animals, are in the latter only sterile qualities.”¹

The foregoing passage is translated literally from a note on one of the first paragraphs of the book De l'Esprit; and in the sentence of the text to which the note refers, the author triumphantly asks, “Who can doubt, that if the wrist of a man had been terminated by the hoof of a horse, the species would still have been wandering in the forest?”

Without attempting any examination of this shallow and miserable theory, I shall content myself with observing, that it is not peculiar to the philosophers of modern France. From the Memorabilia of Xenophon it appears, that it was current among the sophists of Greece; and the answer given it by Socrates is as philosophical and satisfactory as any thing that could possibly be advanced in the present state of the sciences.

“And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath not the privilege of an erect form been bestowed on him alone? Other animals they have provided with feet, by which they may be removed from one place to another; but to man they have also given the use of the hand. A tongue hath been bestowed on every other animal; but what animal, except man, hath the power of making his thoughts intelligible to others?”

“Nor is it with respect to the body alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Who seeth not, that he is as it were a god in the midst of this visible crea-

tion? So far doth he surpass all animals whatever in the endowments of his body and his mind. For if the body of the ox had been joined to the mind of man, the invention of the latter would have been of little avail, while unable to execute his purposes with facility. Nor would the human form have been of more use to the brute, so long as he remained destitute of understanding. But in thee, Aristodemus, hath been joined to a wonderful soul, a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no care of me? What wouldst thou then more to convince thee of their care?"¹

A very remarkable passage to the same purpose occurs in Galen's treatise, De Usu Partium. "But as of all animals man is the wisest, so hands are well fitted for the purposes of a wise animal. For it is not because he had hands that he is therefore wiser than the rest, as Anaxagoras alleged; but because he was wiser than the rest that he had therefore hands, as Aristotle has most wisely judged. Neither was it his hands but his reason which instructed man in the arts. The hands are only the organs by which the arts are practised."²

The contrast, in point of elevation, between the tone of French philosophy, and that of the best heathen moralists, was long ago remarked by Addison; and of this contrast, it would be difficult to find a better illustration than the passages which have just been quoted.

The disposition of ingenious men to pass suddenly from one extreme to another in matters of controversy, has, in no instance, been more strikingly exemplified than in the opposite theories concerning the nature of the brutes, which successively became fashionable in France during the last century. While the prevailing creed of French materialists leads to the rejection of every theory which professes to discriminate the rational mind from the animal principle of action, it is well known that, but a few years before, the disciples of Descartes allowed no one faculty to belong to man and brutes in common; and even went so far as to consider the latter in the light of mere machines. To this paradox the author was probably led, partly by his anxiety to elude the objection which the faculties of the lower animals have been supposed to present to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and partly by the difficulty of reconciling their sufferings with the Divine Goodness.

Absurd as this idea may now appear, none of the tenets of Descartes were once adopted with more implicit faith by some of the profoundest thinkers in Europe. The great Pascal admired it as the finest and most valuable article of the Cartesian system; and of the

deep impression it made on the mind of Malebranche, a most decisive proof was exhibited by himself in the presence of Fontenelle. "M. de Fontenelle contoit (says one of his intimate friends') qu'un jour étant allé voir Malebranche aux P. P. de l'Oratoire de la Rue St Honoré, une grosse chienne de la maison, et qui étoit pleine, entra dans la salle où ils se promenoient, vint caresser le P. Malebranche, et se rouler à ses pieds. Après quelques mouvemens inutiles pour la chasser, le philosophe lui donna un grand coup de pied, qui fit jeter à la chienne un cri de douleur, et à M. de Fontenelle un cri de compassion. Eh quoi (lui dit froidement le P. Malebranche) ne savez-vous pas bien que cela ne se sent point?"

On this point Fontenelle, though a zealous Cartesian, had the good sense to dissent openly from his master, and even to express his approbation of the sarcastic remark of La Motte, que cette opinion sur les animaux étoit une débauche de raisonnement. Is not the same expression equally applicable to the opposite theory quoted from Helvetius?

From those representations of human nature which tend to assimilate to each other the faculties of man and of the brutes, the transition to atheism is not very wide. In the present instance, both conclusions seem to be the necessary corollaries of the same fundamental maxim. For if all the sources of our knowledge are to be found in the external senses, how is it possible for the human mind to rise to a conception of the Supreme Being, or to that of any other truth either of natural or of revealed religion?

To this question Gassendi and Condillac, it cannot be doubted, were both able to return an answer, which seemed to themselves abundantly satisfactory. But how few of the multitude are competent to enter into these refined explanations? And how much is it to be dreaded, that the majority will embrace, with the general principle, all the more obvious consequences which to their own gross conceptions it seems necessarily to involve? Something of the same sort may be remarked in the controversy about the freedom of the human will. Among the multitudes whom Leibnitz and Edwards have made converts to the scheme of necessity, how comparatively inconsiderable is the number who have acquiesced in their subtle and ingenious attempts to reconcile this scheme with man's accountableness and moral agency?

Of the prevalence of atheism at Paris, among the higher classes, at the period of which we are now speaking, the Memoirs and Correspondance of the Baron de Grimm afford the most unquestionable proofs.¹ His friend Diderot seems to have been one of its most zealous abettors; who, it appears from various accounts, contributed to render it fashionable, still more by the extraordinary powers of his conversation, than by the odd combination of eloquence and of obscurity displayed in all his metaphysical productions.²

In order, however, to prevent misapprehension of my meaning, it is proper for me to caution my readers against supposing that all the eminent French philosophers of this period were of the same school with Grimm and Diderot. On this subject many of our English writers have been misled by taking for granted that to speak lightly of final causes is, of itself, sufficient proof of atheism. That this is a very rash as well as uncharitable conclusion, no other proof is necessary than the manner in which final causes are spoken of by Descartes himself, the great object of whose metaphysical writings plainly was, to establish by demonstration the existence of God. The following vindication of this part of the Cartesian philosophy has been lately offered by a French divine, and it may be ex-

tended with equal justice to Buffon and many others of Descartes's successors: "Quelques auteurs, et particulièrement Leibnitz, ont critiqué cette partie de la doctrine de Descartes; mais nous la croyons irréprochable, si on veut bien l'entendre, et remarquer que Descartes ne parle que des Fins totales de Dieu. Sans doute, le soleil par exemple, et les étoiles, ont été faits pour l'homme, dans ce sens, que Dieu, en les créant, a eu en vue l'utilité de l'homme; et cette utilité a été sa fin. Mais cette utilité a-t-elle été l'unique fin de Dieu? Croit-on qu'en lui attribuant d'autres fins, on affoiblirait la reconnaissance de l'homme, et l'obligation ou il est de louer et de bénir Dieu dans toutes ses œuvres? Les auteurs de la vie spirituelle, les plus mystiques même, et les plus accrédités, ne l'ont pas cru." (M. l'Abbé Emery, Editor of the Thoughts of Descartes upon Religion and Morals, Paris, 1811, p. 79.)

As to the unqualified charge of atheism, which has been brought by some French ecclesiastics against all of their countrymen that have presumed to differ from the tenets of the Catholic church, it will be admitted, with large allowances, by every candid Presbyterian, when it is recollected that something of the same illiberality formerly existed under the comparatively enlightened establishment of England. In the present times, the following anecdote would appear incredible, if it did not rest on the unquestionable testimony of Dr Jortin: "I heard Dr B. say in a sermon, if any one denies the uninterrupted succession of bishops, I shall not scruple to call him a downright atheist. This, when I was young (Jortin adds), was sound, orthodox, and fashionable doctrine." (Tracts, Vol. I. p. 436.)¹

How far the effects of that false philosophy of which Grimm's correspondence exhibits so dark and so authentic a picture, were connected with the awful revolution which soon after followed, it is not easy to say. That they contributed greatly to blacken its atrocities, as well as to revolt against it the feelings of the whole Christian world, cannot be disputed. The experiment was indeed tremendous, to set loose the passions of all classes of men from the restraints imposed by religious principles; and the result exceeded, if possible, what could have been anticipated in theory. The lesson it has afforded has been dearly purchased; but let us indulge the hope that it will not be thrown away on the generations which are to come.

A prediction, which Bishop Butler hazarded many years before, does honour to his political sagacity, as well as to his knowledge of human nature;—that the spirit of irreligion

would produce, some time or other, political disorders, similar to those which arose from religious fanaticism in the seventeenth century.

Nearly about the time that the Encyclopédie was undertaken, another set of philosophers, since known by the name of Economists, formed themselves into an association for the purpose of enlightening the public on questions of political economy. The object of their studies seemed widely removed from all abstract discussion; but they had, nevertheless, a metaphysical system of their own, which, if it had been brought forward with less enthusiasm and exaggeration, might have been useful in counteracting the gloomy ideas then so generally prevalent about the order of the universe. The whole of their theory proceeds on the supposition that the arrangements of nature are wise and benevolent, and that it is the business of the legislator to study and co-operate with her plans in all his own regulations. With this principle, another was combined, that of the indefinite improvement of which the human mind and character are susceptible; an improvement which was represented as a natural and necessary consequence of wise laws; and which was pointed out to legislators as the most important advantage to be gained from their institutions.

These speculations, whatever opinion may be formed of their solidity, are certainly as remote as possible from any tendency to atheism, and still less do they partake of the spirit of that philosophy which would level man with the brute creation. With their practical tendency in a political view we are not at present concerned; but it would be an unpardonable omission, after what has been just said of the metaphysical theories of the same period, not to mention the abstract principles involved in the economical system, as a remarkable exception to the general observation. It may be questioned, too, if the authors of this system, by incorporating their ethical views with their political disquisitions,

“Is there no danger that all this may raise somewhat like that levelling spirit, upon atheistical principles, which, in the last age, prevailed upon enthusiastic ones? Not to speak of the possibility, that different sorts of people may unite in it upon these contrary principles.” (Sermon preached before the House of Lords, January 30, 1741.)

As the fatal effects of both these extremes have, in the course of the two last centuries, been exemplified on so gigantic a scale in the two most civilized countries of Europe, it is to be hoped that mankind may in future derive some salutary admonitions from the experience of their predecessors. In the meantime, from that disposition common both to the higher and lower orders to pass suddenly from one extreme to another, it is at least possible that the strong reaction produced by the spirit of impiety during the French Revolution may, in the first instance, impel the multitude to something approaching to the puritanical fanaticism and frenzy of the Cromwellian Commonwealth.

did not take a more effectual step towards discountenancing the opinions to which they were opposed, than if they had attacked them in the way of direct argument.¹

On the metaphysical theories which issued from the French press during the latter half of the last century, I do not think it necessary for me to enlarge, after what I have so fully stated in some of my former publications. To enter into details with respect to particular works would be superfluous, as the remarks made upon any one of them are nearly applicable to them all. The excellent writings of M. Prevost, and of M. Degerando, will, it is to be hoped, gradually introduce into France a sounder taste in this branch of philosophy.² At present, so far as I am acquainted with the state of what is called Idéologie in that country, it does not appear to me to furnish much matter either for the instruction or amusement of my readers.

The works of Rousseau have, in general, too slight a connection with metaphysical science, to come under review in this part of my discourse. But to his Emile, which has been regarded as a supplement to Locke's Treatise on Education, some attention is justly due, on account of various original and sound suggestions on the management of the infant mind, which, among many extravagancies, savouring strongly both of intellectual and moral insanity, may be gathered by a sober and discriminating inquirer. The estimate of the merits of this work, formed by Mr Gray, appears to me so just and impartial, that I shall adopt it here without a comment.

"I doubt" (says he, in a letter to a friend) "you have not yet read Rousseau's Emile. Every body that has children should read it more than once; for though it abounds with his usual glorious absurdity, though his general scheme of education be an impracticable

chimera, yet there are a thousand lights struck out, a thousand important truths better expressed than ever they were before, that may be of service to the wisest men. Particularly, I think he has observed children with more attention, knows their meaning, and the working of their little passions, better than any other writer. As to his religious discussions, which have alarmed the world, and engaged their thoughts more than any other parts of his book, I set them all at nought, and wish they had been omitted." (Gray's Works by Mason, Letter 49.)

The most valuable additions made by French writers to the Philosophy of the Human Mind are to be found, not in their systematical treatises on metaphysics, but in those more popular compositions, which, professing to paint the prevailing manners of the times, touch occasionally on the varieties of intellectual character. In this most interesting and important study, which has been hitherto almost entirely neglected in Great Britain,¹ France must be allowed not only to have led the way, but to remain still unrivalled. It would be endless to enumerate names; but I must not pass over those of Vauvenargues²

and Duclos.¹ Nor can I forbear to remark, in justice to an author whom I have already very freely censured, that a variety of acute and refined observations on the different modifications of genius may be collected from the writings of Helvetius. The soundness of some of his distinctions may perhaps be questioned; but even his attempts at classification may serve as useful guides to future observers, and may supply them with a convenient nomenclature, to which it is not always easy to find corresponding terms in other languages. As examples of this it is sufficient to mention the following phrases: Esprit juste, Esprit borné, Esprit étendu, Esprit fin, Esprit délié, Esprit de lumière. The peculiar richness of the French tongue in such appropriate expressions (a circumstance, by the way, which not unfrequently leads foreigners to overrate the depth of a talkative Frenchman) is itself a proof of the degree of attention which the ideas they are meant to convey have attracted in that country among the higher and more cultivated classes.

The influence, however, of the philosophical spirit on the general habits of thinking among men of letters in France, was in no instance displayed to greater advantage, than in the numerous examples of theoretical or conjectural history, which appeared about the middle of last century. I have already mentioned the attempts of Condillac and others, to trace upon this plan the first steps of the human mind in the invention of language. The same sort of speculation has been applied with greater success to the mechanical and other necessary arts of civilized life; and still more ingeniously and happily to the different branches of pure and mixed mathematics. To a philosophical mind, no study certainly can be more delightful than this species of history; but as an organ of instruction, I am not disposed to estimate its practical utility so highly as D'Alembert. It does

que ses divins écrits." And, on a different occasion, he speaks of him thus: "Doux, sensible, compatissant, il tenait nos âmes dans ses mains. Une sérénité inaltérable dérobaient ses douleurs aux yeux de l'amitié. Pour soutenir l'adversité, on n'avoit besoin que de son exemple; et témoin de l'égalité de son âme, on n'osoit être malheureux avec lui."

If the space allotted to him in this note should be thought to exceed what is due to his literary eminence, the singular circumstances of his short and unfortunate life, and the deep impression which his virtues, as well as his talents, appear to have left on the minds of all who knew him, will, I trust, be a sufficient apology for my wish to add something to the celebrity of a name, hitherto, I believe, very little known in this country.

¹ The work of Duclos, here referred to, has for its title, Considérations sur les Moeurs de ce Siècle. Gibbon's opinion of this book is, I think, not beyond its merits: "L'ouvrage en général est bon. Quelques chapitres (le rapport de l'esprit et du caractère) me paroissent excellent." (Extrait du Journal.)

I have said nothing of La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère, as their attention was chiefly confined to manners, and to moral qualities. Yet many of their remarks show, that they had not wholly overlooked the diversities among men in point of intellect. An observer of sagacity equal to their's might, I should think, find a rich field of study in this part of human nature, as well as in the other.

not seem to me at all adapted to interest the curiosity of novices; nor is it so well calculated to engage the attention of those who wish to enlarge their scientific knowledge, as of persons accustomed to reflect on the phenomena and laws of the intellectual world.

Of the application of theoretical history, to account for the diversities of laws and modes of government among men, I shall have occasion afterwards to speak. At present I shall only remark the common relation in which all such researches stand to the Philosophy of the Human Mind, and their common tendency to expand and to liberalize the views of those who are occupied in the more confined pursuits of the subordinate sciences.

After what has been already said of the general tone of French philosophy, it will not appear surprising, that a system so mystical and spiritual as that of Leibnitz never struck its roots deeply in that country. A masterly outline of its principles was published by Madame du Chatelet, at a period of her life when she was an enthusiastic admirer of the author; and a work on such a subject, composed by a lady of her rank and genius, could not fail to produce at first a very strong sensation at Paris; but not long after she herself abandoned the German philosophy, and became a zealous partisan of the Newtonian school. She even translated into French, and enriched with a commentary, the Principia of Newton; and by thus renouncing her first faith, contributed more to discredit it, than she had previously done to bring it into fashion. Since that time, Leibnitz has had few, if any, disciples in France, although some of his peculiar tenets have occasionally found advocates there, among those who have rejected the great and leading doctrines, by which his system is more peculiarly characterized. His opinions and reasonings in particular, on the necessary concatenation of all events, both physical and moral (which accorded but too well with the philosophy professed by Grimm and Diderot), have been long incorporated with the doctrines of the French materialists, and they have been lately adopted and sanctioned, in all their extent, by a living author, the unrivalled splendour of whose mathematical genius may be justly suspected, in the case of some of his admirers, to throw a false lustre on the dark shades of his philosophical creed.¹

Notwithstanding, however, this important and unfortunate coincidence, no two systems can well be imagined more strongly contrasted on the whole, than the lofty metaphysics of Leibnitz, and that degrading theory concerning the origin of our ideas, which has been fashionable in France since the time of Condillac. In proof of this, I have only to refer to the account of both, which has been already given.

The same contrast, it would appear, still continues to exist between the favourite doctrines of the German and of the French schools. "In the French empiricism" (says a most impartial, as well as competent judge, M. Ancillon), "the faculty of feeling, and the faculty of knowing, are one and the same. In the new philosophy of Germany, there is no faculty of knowing, but reason. In the former, taking our departure from individuals, we rise by degrees to ideas, to general notions, to principles. In the latter, be-

contraire est une illusion de l'esprit qui perdant de vue les raisons fugitives du choix de la volonté dans les choses indifférentes, se persuade qu'elle s'est déterminée d'elle-même et sans motifs.

"Nous devons donc envisager l'état présent de l'univers comme l'effet de son état antérieur et comme la cause de celui qui va suivre. Une intelligence qui pour un instant donnât connoître toutes les forces dont la nature est animée, et la situation respective des êtres qui la composent, si d'ailleurs elle étoit assez vaste pour soumettre ces données à l'analyse, embrasserait dans la même formule, les mouvemens des plus grands corps de l'univers et ceux du plus léger atome. Rien ne seroit incertain pour elle, et l'avenir comme le passé, seroit présent à ses yeux." (Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, par Laplace.)

Is not this the very spirit of the Theodicea of Leibnitz, and, when combined with the other reasonings in the Essay on Probabilities, the very essence of Spinozism?

This, indeed, is studiously kept by the author out of the reader's view; and hence the facility with which some of his propositions have been admitted by many of his mathematical disciples, who, it is highly probable, were not aware of the consequences which they necessarily involve.

I cannot conclude this note without recurring to an observation ascribed in the above quotation from Laplace to Leibnitz, "that the blind chance of the Epicureans involves the supposition of an effect taking place without a cause." This, I apprehend, is a very incorrect statement of the philosophy taught by Lucretius, which nowhere gives the slightest countenance to such a supposition. The distinguishing tenet of this sect was, that the order of the universe does not imply the existence of intelligent causes; but may be accounted for by the active powers belonging to the atoms of matter; which active powers, being exerted through an indefinitely long period of time, might produce, nay, must have produced, exactly such a combination of things, as that with which we are surrounded. This, it is evident, does not call in question the necessity of a cause to produce every effect, but, on the contrary, virtually assumes the truth of that axiom. It only excludes from these causes the attribute of intelligence. It is in the same way when I apply the words blind chance (hazard aveugle) to the throw of a die, I do not mean to deny that I am ultimately the cause of the particular event that is to take place; but only to intimate that I do not here act as a designing cause, in consequence of my ignorance of the various accidents to which the die is subjected, while shaken in the box. If I am not mistaken, this Epicurean Theory approaches very nearly to the scheme, which it is the main object of the Essay on Probabilities to inculcate; and, therefore, it was not quite fair in Laplace to object to the supposition of man's free agency, as favouring those principles which he himself was labouring indirectly to insinuate.

From a passage in Plato's Sophist, it is very justly inferred by Mr Gray, that, according to the common

ginning with what is most general, or rather with what is universal, we descend to individual existences, and to particular cases. In the one, what we see, what we touch, what we feel, are the only realities. In the other nothing is real, but what is invisible and purely intellectual."

"Both these systems (continues M. Ancillon) result from the exaggeration of a sound principle. They are both true and both false in part; true in what they admit, false in what they reject. All our knowledge begins, or appears to begin, in sensation; but it does not follow from this that it is all derived from sensation, or that sensation constitutes its whole amount. The proper and innate activity of the mind has a large share in the origin of our representations, our sentiments, our ideas. Reason involves principles which she does not borrow from without, which she owes only to herself, which the impressions of the senses call forth from their obscurity, but which, far from owing their origin to sensations, serve to appreciate them, to judge of them, to employ them as instruments. It would be rash, however, to conclude from hence, that there is no certainty but in reason, that reason alone can seize the mystery of existences, and the intimate nature of beings, and that experience is nothing but a vain appearance, destitute of every species of reality."¹

With this short and comprehensive estimate of the new German philosophy, pronounced by one of the most distinguished members of the Berlin Academy, I might perhaps be pardoned for dismissing a subject, with which I have, in some of my former publications, acknowledged myself (from my total ignorance of the German language) to be very imperfectly acquainted; but the impression which it produced for a few years in England

opinion then entertained, "the creation of things was the work of blind unintelligent matter; whereas the contrary was the result of philosophical reflection and disquisition believed by a few people only." (Gray's Works by Matthias, Vol. II. p. 414.) On the same subject, see Smith's Posthumous Essays, p. 106.

¹ Mélanges de Littérature et de Philosophie, par F. Ancillon, Préface. (à Paris, 1809.) The intimacy of M. Ancillon's literary connections both with France and with Germany entitle his opinions on the respective merits of their philosophical systems to peculiar weight. If he anywhere discovers a partiality for either, the modest account which he gives of himself would lead us to expect his leaning to be in favour of his countrymen. "Placé entre la France et l'Allemagne, appartenant à la première par la langue dans laquelle je hasarde d'écrire, à la seconde par ma naissance, mes études, mes principes, mes affections, et j'ose le dire, par la couleur de ma pensée, je désirerois pouvoir servir de médiateur littéraire, ou d'interprète philosophique entre les deux nations."

In translating from M. Ancillon, the passage quoted in the text, I have adhered as closely as possible to the words of the original; although I cannot help imagining that I could have rendered it still more intelligible to the English reader by laying aside some of the peculiarities of his German phraseology. My chief reason for retaining these, was to add weight to the strictures which a critic, so deeply tinctured with the German habits of thinking and of writing has offered, on the most prominent faults of the systems in which he had been educated.

(more particularly while our intercourse with the Continent was interrupted), makes it proper for me to bestow on it a little more notice in this Dissertation, than I should otherwise have judged necessary or useful.

THE long reign of the Leibnitzian Philosophy in Germany was owing, in no inconsiderable degree, to the zeal and ability with which it was taught in that part of Europe, for nearly half a century, by his disciple Wolfus,² a man of little genius, originality, or taste, but whose extensive and various learning, seconded by a methodical head,³ and by an

incredible industry and perseverance, seem to have been peculiarly fitted to command the admiration of his countrymen. Wolfius, indeed, did not profess to follow implicitly the opinions of his master, and, on some points, laid claim to peculiar ideas of his own; but the spirit of his philosophy is essentially the same with that of Leibnitz,¹ and the particulars in which he dissented from him are too trifling to deserve any notice in the history of literature.²

The high reputation so long maintained by Wolfius in Germany suggested, at different times, to the book-makers at Paris, the idea of introducing into France the philosophy which he taught. Hence a number of French abridgments of his logical and metaphysical writings. But an attempt, which had failed in the hands of Madame du Chatelet, was not likely to succeed with the admirers and abridgers of Wolfius.³

of Pure Reason, he is called "Summus omnium dogmaticorum Philosophus." (Kantii Opera ad Philosophiam Criticam, Vol. I. Præf. Auctoris Posterior, p. xxxvi. Latine Vertit. Fred. Born. Lipsiæ, 1796.) And by one of Kant's best commentators, his name is advantageously contrasted with that of David Hume: "Est autem scientifica methodus aut dogmatica, aut sceptica. Primi generis autorem celeberrimum Wolfium, alterius Davidem Humeum nominasse sat est." (Expositio Philos. Criticæ. Autore Conrado Friderico a Schmidt-Phiseldek. Hafniæ, 1796.)

¹ On the great question of Free Will, Wolfius adopted implicitly the principles of the Theodicæa; considering man merely in the light of a machine; but (with the author of that work) dignifying this machine by the epithet spiritual. This language, which is still very prevalent among German philosophers, may be regarded as a relic of the doctrines of Leibnitz and of Wolfius; and affords an additional proof of the difficulty of eradicating errors sanctioned by illustrious and popular names.

When the system of Pre-established Harmony was first introduced by Wolfius into the University of Halle, it excited an alarm which had very nearly been attended with fatal consequences to the professor. The following anecdote on the subject is told by Euler: "Lorsque du temps du feu Roi de Prusse, M. Wolf enseignoit à Halle le système de l'Harmonie Pré-établie, le Roi s'informa de cette doctrine, qui faisoit grand bruit alors; et un courtisan répondit à sa Majesté, que tous les soldats, selon cette doctrine, n'étoient que des machines; que quand il en désertoit c'étoit une suite nécessaire de leur structure, et qu'on avoit tort par conséquent de les punir, comme on l'auroit si on punissoit une machine pour avoir produit tel ou tel mouvement. Le Roi se facha si fort sur ce rapport, qu'il donna ordre de chasser M. Wolf de Halle sous peine d'être pendu s'il s'y trouvoit au bout de 24 heures. Le philosophe se refugia alors à Marbourg, où je lui ai parlé peu de temps après." (Lettres à une Princesse d'Allemagne, Lettre 84me.) We are informed by Condorcet, that some reparation was afterwards made for this injustice by Frederic the Great. "Le Roi de Prusse, qui ne croit pas pourtant à l'Harmonie Pré-établie, s'est empressé de rendre justice à Wolf dès le premier jour de son regne."

² Among other novelties affected by Wolfius, was a new modification of the Theory of the Monads. A slight outline of it, but quite sufficient, I should suppose, to gratify the curiosity of most readers, may be found in Euler's Letters to a German Princess.

³ To what was before remarked, of the opposition in matters of philosophy between the taste of the French and that of the Germans, I shall here add a short passage from an author intimately acquainted with the literature of both nations.

"L'école Allemande reconnoit Leibnitz pour chef. Son fameux disciple Wolf régna dans les universités

From the time of Wolfius till the philosophy of Kant began to attract general notice, I know of no German metaphysician whose speculations seem to have acquired much celebrity in the learned world.¹ Lambert² is perhaps the most illustrious name which occurs during this interval. As a mathematician and natural philosopher, his great merits are universally known and acknowledged, but the language in which his metaphysical and logical works were written, has confined their reputation within a comparatively narrow circle. I am sorry that I cannot speak of these from my own knowledge; but I have heard them mentioned in terms of the highest praise, by some very competent judges, to whose testimony I am disposed to give the greater credit, from the singular vein of originality which runs through all his mathematical and physical publications.³

pendant près d'un demi siècle avec une autorité non contestée. On connoit en France cette philosophie par un grand nombre d'abrégés dont quelques-uns sont faits par des auteurs qui seuls auroient suffi pour lui donner de la célébrité.

“Malgré l'appui de tous ces noms, jamais en France cette philosophie ne s'est soutenue même quelques instans. La profondeur apparente des idées, l'air d'ensemble et de système, n'ont jamais pu y suppléer à ce qui a paru lui manquer pour en faire une doctrine solide et digne d'être accueillie. Outre quelque défaut de clarté, qui probablement en a écarté des esprits pour qui cette qualité de style et de la pensée est devenue un heureux besoin, la forme sous laquelle elle se présente a rebuté bien des lecteurs. Quoi qu'aient pu faire les interprètes, il a toujours perçu quelque chose de l'appareil incommode qui l'entoure à son origine. Condillac tourne plus d'une fois en ridicule ces formes et ce jargon scientifique, et il s'applique à montrer qu'ils ne sont pas plus propres à satisfaire la raison que le goût. Il est au moins certain, que le lecteur Français les repousse par instinct, et qu'il y trouve un obstacle très difficile à surmonter.” (Reflexions sur les Œuvres Posthumes d'Adam Smith, par M. Prevost de Genève, à Paris, 1794.)

¹ Madame de Staël mentions Lessing, Hemsterhuis, and Jacobi, as precursors of Kant in his philosophical career. She adds, however, that they had no school, since none of them attempted to found any system; but they began the war against the doctrines of the Materialists. (Allemagne, Tome III. p. 98.) I am not acquainted with the metaphysical works of any of the three. Those of Hemsterhuis, who wrote wholly in French, were, I understand, first published in a collected form at Paris, in 1792. He was son of the celebrated Greek scholar and critic, Tiberius Hemsterhusius, Professor of Latin Literature at Leyden.

² Born at Mulhausen in Alsace in 1728. Died at Berlin in 1777.

³ The following particulars, with respect to Lambert's literary history, are extracted from a Mémoire annexed by M. Prevost to his translation of Mr Smith's Posthumous Works: “Cet ingénieux et puissant Lambert, dont les mathématiques, qui lui doivent beaucoup, ne purent épuiser les forces, et qui ne toucha aucun sujet de physique ou de philosophie rationnelle, sans le couvrir de lumière. Ses lettres cosmologiques, qu'il écrivit par forme de délassement, sont pleines d'idées sublimes, entées sur la philosophie la plus saine et la plus savante tout-à-la-fois. Il avoit aussi dressé sous le titre d'Architectonique un tableau des principes sur lesquels se fondent les connoissances humaines. Cet ouvrage au jugement des hommes les plus versés dans l'étude de leur langue, n'est pas exempt d'obscurité. Elle peut tenir en partie à la nature du sujet. Il est à regretter que sa logique, intitulé Organon, ne soit traduite ni en Latin, ni en Français, ni je pense en aucune langue. Un extrait bien fait de cet ouvrage, duquel on écarteroit ce qui répugne au goût national, exciteroit l'attention des philosophes, et la porteroit sur une multitude d'objets qu'ils se sont accoutumés à regarder avec indifférence.” (Prevost, Tome II. pp. 267, 268.)

The Critique of Pure Reason (the most celebrated of Kant's metaphysical works) appeared in 1781.¹ The idea annexed to the title by the author, is thus explained by himself: "Criticam rationis puræ non dico censuram librorum et Systematum, sed facultatis rationalis in universum, respectu cognitionum omnium, ad quas, ab omni experientia libera, possit anniti, proinde dijudicationem possibilitatis aut impossibilitatis metaphysices in genere, constitutionemque tum fontium, tum ambitus atque compagis, tum vero terminorum illius, sed cuncta hæc ex principiis." (Kantii, Opera ad Philosophiam Criticam, Vol. I. Præfatio Auctoris Prior. pp. xi. xii.) To render this somewhat more intelligible, I shall subjoin the comment of one of his intimate friends,² whose work, we are informed by Dr Willich, had received the sanction of Kant himself. "The aim of Kant's Critique is no less than to lead Reason to the true knowledge of itself; to examine the titles upon which it founds the supposed possession of its metaphysical knowledge; and by means of this examination to mark the true limits, beyond which it cannot venture to speculate, without wandering into the empty region of pure fancy." The same author adds, "The whole Critique of Pure Reason is established upon this principle, that there is a free reason, independent of all experience and sensation."

When the Critique of Pure Reason first came out, it does not seem to have attracted much notice,³ but such has been its subsequent success, that it may be regarded (according

In the article Lambert, inserted in the twenty-third volume of the Biographie Universelle (Paris, 1819), the following account is given of Lambert's logic: "Wolf, d'après quelques indications de Leibnitz, avoit retiré de l'oubli la syllogistique d'Aristote, science que les scholastiques avoient tellement avilie que ni Bacon ni Locke n'avoient osé lui accorder un regard d'intérêt. Il étoit réservé à Lambert de la montrer sous le plus beau jour et dans la plus riche parure. C'est ce qu'il a fait dans son Novum Organon, ouvrage qui est un des principaux titres de gloire de son auteur." From the writer of this article (M. Servois) we farther learn, that the Novum Organon of Lambert was translated into Latin from the German original by a person of the name of Pfeiderer, and that this translation was in the hands of an English nobleman (the late Earl of Stanhope) as lately as 1782. I quote the words of M. Servois, in the hope that they may attract some attention to the manuscript, if it be still in existence. The publication of it would certainly be a most acceptable present to the learned world. "D'après le conseil de Le Sage de Geneve, l'ouvrage fut traduit en Latin par Pfeiderer, aux frais d'un savant Italien; cette traduction passa, on ne sait comment, entre les mains de Milord Mahon qui la possédoit encore en 1782; on ignore quel est son sort ultérieur."

to Madame de Staël)¹ "as having given the impulse to all that has been since done in Germany, both in literature and in philosophy." (Allemagne, Vol. III. pp. 68, 69.)

soupçonassent seulement la grande révolution que cet ouvrage et les productions suivantes de son auteur dévoient opérer dans la science." (Buhle, Hist. de la Phil. Mod. Tom. VI. p. 573. Paris, 1816.)

As early, however, as the year 1783, the philosophy of Kant appears to have been adopted in some of the German schools. The ingenious M. Trembley, in a memoir then read before the Academy of Berlin, thus speaks of it: "La philosophie de Kant, qui à la honte de l'esprit humain, paroît avoir acquis tant de faveur dans certaines écoles." (Essai sur les Préjugés. Reprinted at Neufchatel in 1790.)

We are farther told by Buhle, that the attention of the public to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was first attracted by an excellent analysis of the work, which appeared in the General Gazette of Literature, and by the Letters on Kant's Philosophy, which Reinhold inserted in the German Mercury. (Buhle, Tom. VI. p. 573.) Of this last philosopher, who appears, in the first instance, to have entered with enthusiasm into Kant's views, and who afterwards contributed much to open the eyes of his countrymen to the radical defects of his system, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Degerando, as well as Buhle, bestows high praise not only on his clearness, but on his eloquence, as a writer in his own language. "Il a traduit les oracles Kantiens dans une langue élégante, harmonieuse, et pure * * * Il a su exprimer avec un langage éloquent, des idées jusqu'alors inintelligibles," &c. (Histoire Comparée, &c. Tom. II. p. 271.) That this praise is not undeserved I am very ready to believe, having lately had an opportunity (through the kindness of my learned and revered friend Dr Parr) of reading, in the Latin version of Fredericus Gottlob Born, Reinhold's principal work, entitled Periculum Novæ Theoriæ Facultatis Repræsentativæ Humanæ. In point of perspicuity, he appears to me to be greatly superior to Kant; and of this I conceive myself to be not altogether incompetent to judge, as the Latin versions of both authors are by the same hand.

¹ The following quotation, from the advertisement prefixed to Madame de Staël's posthumous work (Considérations sur la Révolution Française), will at once account to my readers for the confidence with which I appeal to her historical statements on the subject of German philosophy. Her own knowledge of the language was probably not so critically exact, as to enable her to enter into the more refined details of the different systems which she has described; but her extraordinary penetration, joined to the opportunities she enjoyed of conversing with all that was then most illustrious in Germany, qualified her in an eminent degree to seize and to delineate their great outlines. And if, in executing this task, any considerable mistakes could have been supposed to escape her, we may be fully assured, that the very accomplished person, to whose revision we learn that her literary labours at this period of her life were submitted, would prevent them from ever meeting the public eye. I except, of course, those mistakes into which she was betrayed by her admiration of the German school. Of some of the most important of these, I shall take notice as I proceed; a task which I feel incumbent on me, as it is through the medium of her book that the great majority of English readers have acquired all their knowledge of the new German philosophy, and as her name and talents have given it a temporary consequence in this country which it could not otherwise have acquired.

"Le travail des éditeurs s'est borné uniquement à la révision des épreuves, et à la correction de ces légères inexactitudes de style, qui échappent à la vue dans le manuscrit le plus soigné. Ce travail c'est fait sous les yeux de M. A. W. de Schlegel, dont la rare supériorité d'esprit et de savoir justifie la confiance avec laquelle Madame de Staël le consultoit dans tous ses travaux littéraires, autant que son honorable caractère mérite l'estime et l'amitié qu'elle n'a pas cessé d'avoir pour lui pendant une liaison de treize années."

If any farther apology be necessary for quoting a French lady as an authority on German metaphysics, an

“ At the epoch when this work was published (continues the same writer), there existed among thinking men only two systems concerning the human understanding : The one, that of Locke, ascribed all our ideas to our sensations ;¹ the other, that of Descartes and of Leibnitz, had for its chief objects to demonstrate the spirituality and activity of the soul, the freedom of the will,² and, in short, the whole doctrines of the idealists. . . . .

obvious one is suggested by the extraordinary and well merited popularity of her Allemagne in this country. I do not know, if, in any part of her works, her matchless powers have been displayed to greater advantage. Of this no stronger proof can be given, than the lively interest she inspires, even when discussing such systems as those of Kant and of Fichte.

¹ That this is a very incorrect account of Locke's philosophy, has been already shown at great length ; but in this mistake Madame de Staël has only followed Leibnitz, and a very large proportion of the German philosophers of the present day. “ The philosophy of sensation (says Frederick Schlegel), which was unconsciously bequeathed to the world by Bacon, and reduced to a methodical shape by Locke, first displayed in France the true immorality and destructiveness of which it is the parent, and assumed the appearance of a perfect system of Atheism.” (Lectures on the History of Literature, from the German of Fred. Schlegel. Edin. 1818, Vol. II. p. 22.) It is evident, that the system of Locke is here confounded with that of Condillac. May not the former be called the philosophy of reflection, with as great propriety as the philosophy of sensation ?

² In considering Leibnitz as a partisan of the freedom of the will, Madame de Staël has also followed the views of many German writers, who make no distinction between Materialists and Necessitarians, imagining, that to assert the spirituality of the soul, is to assert its free-agency. On the inaccuracy of these conceptions it would be superfluous to enlarge, after what was formerly said in treating of the metaphysical opinions of Leibnitz.

In consequence of this misapprehension, Madame de Staël, and many other late writers on the Continent, have been led to employ, with a very exceptionable latitude, the word Idealist, to comprehend not only the advocates for the immateriality of the mind, but those also who maintain the Freedom of the Human Will. Between these two opinions, there is certainly no necessary connection ; Leibnitz, and many other German metaphysicians, denying the latter with no less confidence than that with which they assert the former.

In England, the word Idealist is most commonly restricted to such as (with Berkeley) reject the existence of a material world. Of late, its meaning has been sometimes extended (particularly since the publications of Reid) to all those who retain the theory of Descartes and Locke, concerning the immediate objects of our perceptions and thoughts, whether they admit or reject the consequences deduced from this theory by the Berkeleians. In the present state of the science, it would contribute much to the distinctness of our reasonings were it to be used in this last sense exclusively.

There is another word to which Madame de Staël and other writers on the German philosophy annex an idea peculiar to themselves ; I mean the word experimental or empirical. This epithet is often used by them to distinguish what they call the philosophy of Sensations, from that of Plato and of Leibnitz. It is accordingly generally, if not always, employed by them in an unfavourable sense. In this country, on the contrary, the experimental or inductive philosophy of the human mind denotes those speculations concerning mind, which, rejecting all hypothetical theories, rest solely on phenomena for which we have the evidence of consciousness. It is applied to the philosophy of Reid, and to all that is truly valuable in the metaphysical works of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

Nor are the words Experimental and Empirical by any means synonymous in our language. The latter word is now almost exclusively appropriated to the practice of Medicine ; and when so understood always

Between these extremes reason continued to wander, till Kant undertook to trace the limits of the two empires ; of the senses and of the soul ; of the external and of the internal worlds. The force of meditation and of sagacity, with which he marked these limits, had not perhaps any example among his predecessors." (Allemagne, Vol. III. pp. 70, 72.)

The praise bestowed on this part of Kant's philosophy, by one of his own pupils, is not less warm than that of Madame de Staël. I quote the passage, as it enters into some historical details which she has omitted, and describes more explicitly than she has done one of the most important steps, which Kant is supposed by his disciples to have made beyond his predecessors. In reading it, some allowances must be made for the peculiar phraseology of the German school.

" Kant discovered that the intuitive faculty of man is a compound of very dissimilar ingredients ; or, in other words, that it consists of parts very different in their nature, each of which performs functions peculiar to itself ; namely, the sensitive faculty, and the understanding. . . . . Leibnitz, indeed, had likewise remarked the distinction subsisting between the sensitive faculty and the understanding ; but he entirely overlooked the essential difference between their functions, and was of opinion that the faculties differed from one another only in degree. . . . . In the works of the English and French philosophers, we find this essential distinction between the sensitive and the intellectual faculties, and their combination towards producing one synthetical intuition scarcely mentioned. Locke only alludes to the accidental limitations of both faculties ; but to inquire into the essential difference between them does not at all occur to him. . . . . This distinction, then, between the sensitive and the intellectual faculties, forms an essential feature in the philosophy of Kant, and is, indeed, the basis upon which most of his subsequent inquiries are established." (Elements of the Cri. Phil. by A. F. M. Willich, M. D. pp. 68, 69, 70.)

It is a circumstance not easily explicable, that, in the foregoing historical sketch, no mention is made of the name of Cudworth, author of the treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality ; a book which could scarcely fail to be known, before the period in question, to

every German scholar, by the admirable Latin version of it published by Dr Mosheim.¹ In this treatise, Cudworth is at much pains to illustrate the Platonic doctrine concerning the difference between sensation and intellection; asserting that "some ideas of the mind proceed not from outward sensible objects, but arise from the inward activity of the mind itself;" that "even simple corporeal things, passively perceived by sense, are known and understood only by the active power of the mind;" and that, besides αιδεια and φαντασματα, there must be νοηματα or intelligible ideas, the source of which can be traced to the understanding alone.²

In the course of his speculations on these subjects, Cudworth has blended, with some very deep and valuable discussions, several opinions to which I cannot assent, and not a few

propositions which I am unable to comprehend ; but he seems to have advanced at least as far as Kant, in drawing the line between the provinces of the senses and of the understanding ; and although not one of the most luminous of our English writers, he must be allowed to be far superior to the German metaphysician, both in point of perspicuity and of precision. A later writer, too, of our own country (Dr Price), a zealous follower both of Plato and of Cudworth, afterwards resumed the same argument, in a work which appeared long before the Critique of Pure Reason ;¹ and urged it with much force against those modern metaphysicians, who consider the senses as the sources of all our knowledge. At a period somewhat earlier, many very interesting quotations of a similar import had been produced by the learned Mr Harris, from the later commentators of the Alexandrian school on the philosophy of Aristotle ; and had been advantageously contrasted by him with the account given of the origin of our ideas, not only by Hobbes and Gassendi, but by many of the professed followers of Locke. If this part of the Kantian system, therefore, was new in Germany, it certainly could have no claim to the praise of originality, in the estimation of those at all acquainted with English literature.²

In order, however, to strike at the root of what the Germans call the philosophy of sensation, it was necessary to trace, with some degree of systematical detail, the origin of our most important simple notions; and for this purpose it seemed reasonable to begin with an analytical view of those faculties and powers, to the exercise of which the development of these notions is necessarily subsequent. It is thus that the simple notions of time and motion presuppose the exercise of the faculty of memory; and that the simple notions of truth, of belief, of doubt, and many others of the same kind, necessarily presuppose the exercise of the power of reasoning. I do not know, that, in this anatomy of the mind, much progress has hitherto been made by the German metaphysicians. A great deal certainly has been accomplished by the late Dr Reid; and something, perhaps, has been added to his labours by those of his successors.

According to Kant himself, his metaphysical doctrines first occurred to him while employed in the examination of Mr Hume's Theory of Causation. The train of thought by which he was led to them will be best stated in his own words; for it is in this way alone that I can hope to escape the charge of misrepresentation from his followers. Some of his details would perhaps have been more intelligible to my readers, had my plan allowed me to prefix to them a slight outline of Hume's philosophy. But this the general arrangement of my discourse rendered impossible; nor can any material inconvenience result, in this instance, from the order which I have adopted, inasmuch as Hume's Theory of Causation, how new soever it may have appeared to Kant, is fundamentally the same with that of Malebranche, and of a variety of other old writers, both French and English.

¹ "Since the Essays (says Kant) of Locke and of Leibnitz, or rather since the origin of metaphysics, as far as their history extends, no circumstance has occurred, which might have been more decisive of the fate of this science than the attack made upon it by David Hume.² He proceeded upon a single but important idea in metaphysics, the connection of cause and effect, and the concomitant notions of power and action. He challenged reason to answer him what title she had to imagine, that any thing may be so constituted

as that, if it be given, something else is also thereby inferred ; for the idea of cause denotes this. He proved beyond contradiction, that it is impossible for reason to think of such a connection à priori, for it contains necessity ; but it is not possible to perceive how, because something is, something else must necessarily be ; nor how the idea of such a connection can be introduced à priori.

“ Hence, he concluded, that reason entirely deceives herself with this idea, and that she erroneously considers it as her own child, when it is only the spurious offspring of imagination, impregnated by experience ; a subjective necessity, arising from habit and the association of ideas being thus substituted for an objective one derived from perception. . . . However hasty and unwarrantable Hume’s conclusion might appear, yet it was founded upon investigation ; and this investigation well deserved, that some of the philosophers of his time should have united to solve, more happily if possible, the problem in the sense in which he delivered it : A complete reform of the science might have resulted from this solution. But it is a mortifying reflection, that his opponents, Reid, Beattie, Oswald, and, lastly, Priestley himself, totally misunderstood the tendency of his problem. The question was not, whether the idea of cause be in itself proper and indispensable to the illustration of all natural knowledge, for this Hume had never doubted ; but whether this idea be an object of thought through reasoning à priori ; and whether, in this manner, it possesses internal evidence, independently of all experience ; consequently, whether its utility be not limited to objects of sense alone. It was upon this point that Hume expected an explanation. ²

“ I freely own it was these suggestions of Hume’s which first, many years ago, roused me from my dogmatical slumber, and gave to my inquiries quite a different direction in the field of speculative philosophy. I was far from being carried away by his conclusions, the fallacy of which chiefly arose from his not forming to himself an idea of the whole of his problem, but merely investigating a part of it, the solution of which was impossible without a comprehensive view of the whole. When we proceed on a well founded,

though not thoroughly digested thought, we may expect, by patient and continued reflection, to prosecute it farther than the acute genius had done to whom we are indebted for the first spark of this light. I first inquired, therefore, whether Hume's objection might not be a general one, and soon found, that the idea of cause and effect is far from being the only one, by which the understanding a priori thinks of the connection of things; but rather that the science of metaphysics is altogether founded upon these connections. I endeavoured to ascertain their number; and, having succeeded in this attempt, I proceeded to the examination of those general ideas, which, I was now convinced, are not, as Hume apprehended, derived from experience, but arise out of the pure understanding. This deduction, which seemed impossible to my acute predecessor, and which nobody besides him had ever conceived, although every one makes use of these ideas, without asking himself upon what their objective validity is founded; this deduction, I say, was the most difficult which could have been undertaken for the behoof of metaphysics; and what was still more embarrassing, metaphysics could not here offer me the smallest assistance, because that deduction ought first to establish the possibility of a system of metaphysics. As I had now succeeded in the explanation of Hume's problem, not merely in a particular instance, but with a view of the whole power of pure reason, I could advance with sure though tedious steps, to determine completely, and upon general principles, the compass of Pure Reason, both what is the sphere of its exertion, and what are its limits; which was all that was required for erecting a system of metaphysics upon a proper and solid foundation."

It is difficult to discover any thing in the foregoing passage on which Kant could found a claim to the slightest originality. A variety of English writers had, long before this work appeared, replied to Mr Hume, by observing that the understanding is itself a source of new ideas, and that it is from this source that our notions of cause and effect are derived. "Our certainty (says Dr Price) that every new event requires some cause, depends no more on experience than our certainty of any other the most obvious subject of intuition. In the idea of every change, is included that of its being an effect."¹ In the works of Dr Reid, many remarks of the same nature are to be found; but, instead of quoting any of these, I shall produce a passage from a much older author, whose mode of thinking and writing may perhaps be more agreeable to the taste of Kant's countrymen than the simplicity and precision aimed at by the disciples of Locke.

“That there are some ideas of the mind (says Dr Cudworth), which were not stamped or imprinted upon it from the sensible objects without, and therefore must needs arise from the innate vigour and activity of the mind itself, is evident, in that there are, First, Ideas of such things as are neither affections of bodies, nor could be imprinted or conveyed by any local motions, nor can be pictured at all by the fancy in any sensible colours; such as are the ideas of wisdom, folly, prudence, imprudence, knowledge, ignorance, verity, falsity, virtue, vice, honesty, dishonesty, justice, injustice, volition, cogitation, nay of sense itself, which is a species of cogitation, and which is not perceptible by any sense; and many other such like notions as include something of cogitation in them, or refer to cogitative beings only; which ideas must needs spring from the active power and innate fecundity of the mind itself,¹ because the corporeal objects of sense can imprint no such things upon it. Secondly, In that there are many relative notions and ideas, attributed as well to corporeal as incorporeal things, that proceed wholly from the activity of the mind comparing one thing with another. Such as are CAUSE, EFFECT, means, end, order, proportion, similitude, dissimilitude, equality, inequality, aptitude, inaptitude, symmetry, asymmetry, whole and part, genus and species, and the like.”—Immutable Morality, pp. 148, 149.

It is not my business at present to inquire into the solidity of the doctrine here maintained. I would only wish to be informed what additions have been made by Kant to the reply given to Mr Hume by our English philosophers, and to direct the attention of my readers to the close resemblance between this part of Kant's system, and the argument which Cudworth opposed to Hobbes and Gassendi considerably more than a century ago. *

The following passage, from the writer last quoted, approaches so nearly to what Kant and other Germans have so often repeated of the distinction between subjective and objective truth, that I am tempted to connect it with the foregoing extract, as an additional proof that there are, at least, some metaphysical points, on which we need not search for instruction beyond our own island.

“If there were no other perceptive power, or faculty, distinct from external sense, all our perceptions would be merely relative, seeming, and fantastical, and not reach to the absolute and certain truth of any thing; and every one would but, as Protagoras expounds,

"think his own private and relative thoughts truths," and all our cogitations being nothing but appearances, would be indifferently alike true phantoms, and one as another.

"But we have since also demonstrated, that there is another perceptive power in the soul superior to outward sense, and of a distinct nature from it, which is the power of knowing or understanding, that is, an active exertion from the mind itself. And, therefore, has this grand eminence above sense, that it is no idiopathy, not a mere private, relative, seeming, and fantastical thing, but the comprehension of that which absolutely is and is not."¹

After enlarging on the distinction between the sensitive faculty and the understanding, Kant proceeds to investigate certain essential conditions, without which neither the sensitive faculty nor its objects are conceivable. These conditions are time and space, which, in the language of Kant, are the forms of all phenomena. What his peculiar ideas are concerning their nature and attributes, my readers will find stated in his own words at the end of this Discourse, in an extract from one of his Latin publications.² From that extract, I cannot promise them much instruction; but it will at least enable them to judge for themselves of the peculiar character of Kant's metaphysical phraseology. In the mean time, it will be sufficient to mention here, for the sake of connection, that he denies the objective reality both of time and of space. The former he considers merely as a subjective condition, inseparably connected with the frame of the human mind, in consequence of which, it arranges sensible phenomena according to a certain law, in the order of succession. As to the latter, he asserts, that it is nothing objective or real, inasmuch as it is neither a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation; that its existence, therefore, is only subjective and ideal, depending on a fixed law, inseparable from the frame of the human mind. In consequence of this law, we are led to conceive all external things as placed in space; or (as Kant expresses it) we are led to consider space as the fundamental form of every external sensation.

In selecting Kant's speculations concerning time and space, as a specimen of his mode of writing, I was partly influenced by the consideration, that it furnishes, at the same time, a remarkable example of the concatenation which exists between the most remote and seemingly the most unconnected parts of his system. Who could suppose that his opinions on these subjects, the most abstract and the most controverted of any in the whole compass of metaphysics, bore on the great practical question of the freedom of the Human Will? The combination appears, at first sight, so very extraordinary, that I have no

doubt I shall gratify the curiosity of some of my readers by mentioning a few of the intermediate steps which, in this argument, lead from the premises to the conclusion.

That Kant conceived the free agency of man to be necessarily implied in his moral nature (or, at least, that he was anxious to offer no violence to the common language of the world on this point), appears from his own explicit declarations in various parts of his works. "Voluntas libera (says he in one instance) eadem est cum voluntate legibus moralibus obnoxia."¹

In all the accounts of Kant's philosophy, which have yet appeared from the pens of his admirers in this country, particular stress is laid on the ingenuity with which he has unloosed this knot, which had baffled the wisdom of all his predecessors. The following are the words of one of his own pupils, to whom we are indebted for the first, and, I think, not the least intelligible, view of his principles which has been published in our language.

"Professor Kant is decidedly of opinion, that, although many strong and ingenious arguments have been brought forward in favour of the freedom of the will, they are yet very far from being decisive. Nor have they refuted the arguments urged by the Necessitarians, but by an appeal to mere feeling, which, on such a question, is of no avail. For this purpose, it is indispensably necessary to call to our assistance the principles of Kant."

"In treating this subject (continues the same author), Kant begins with showing that the notion of a Free Will is not contradictory. In proof of this he observes, that, although every human action, as an event in time, must have a cause, and so on ad infinitum; yet it is certain, that the laws of cause and effect can have a place there only where time is, for the effect must be consequent on the cause. But neither time nor space are properties of things; they are only the general forms under which man is allowed to view himself and the world. It follows, therefore, that man is not in time nor in space, al-

though the forms of his intuitive ideas are time and space. But if man exist not in time and space, he is not influenced by the laws of time and space, among which those of cause and effect hold a distinguished rank; it is, therefore, no contradiction to conceive, that, in such an order of things, man may be free.¹

In this manner Kant establishes the possibility of man's freedom; and, farther than this, he does not conceive himself warranted to proceed on the principles of the critical philosophy. The first impression, certainly, which his argument produces on the mind is, that his own opinion was favourable to the scheme of necessity. For if the reasonings of the Necessitarians be admitted to be satisfactory, and if nothing can be opposed to them but the incomprehensible proposition, that man neither exists in space nor in time, the natural inference is, that this proposition was brought forward rather to save appearances, than as a serious objection to the universality of the conclusion.

Here, however, Kant calls to his aid the principles of what he calls practical reason. Deeply impressed with a conviction that morality is the chief concern of man, and that morality and the freedom of the human will must stand or fall together, he exerts his ingenuity to show, that the metaphysical proof already brought of the possibility of free-agency, joined to our own consciousness of a liberty of choice, affords evidence of the fact fully sufficient for the practical regulation of our conduct, although not amounting to what is represented as demonstration in the Critique of Pure Reason.²

It is impossible to combine together these two parts of the Kantian system, without being struck with the resemblance they bear to the deceitful sense of liberty to which Lord Kames had recourse (in the first edition of his Essays on Morality and Natural Religion), in order to reconcile our consciousness of free-agency with the conclusions of the Necessitarians. In both cases, the reader is left in a state of most uncomfortable scepticism, not confined to this particular question, but extending to every other subject which can give employment to the human faculties.¹

In some respects, the functions ascribed by Kant to his practical reason are analogous to those ascribed to common sense in the writings of Beattie and Oswald. But his view of the subject is, on the whole, infinitely more exceptionable than theirs, inasmuch as it sanctions the supposition, that the conclusions of pure reason are, in certain instances, at variance with that modification of reason which was meant by our Maker to be our guide in life; whereas the constant language of the other writers is, that all the different parts of our intellectual frame are in the most perfect harmony with each other. The motto which Beattie has prefixed to his book,

“Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit,”

expresses, in a few significant words, the whole substance of his philosophy.

It is to the same practical modification of reason that Kant appeals in favour of the existence of the Deity, and of a future state of retribution, both of which articles of belief he thinks derive the whole of their evidence from the moral nature of man. His system, therefore, as far as I am able to comprehend it, tends rather to represent these as useful credenda, than as certain or even as probable truths. Indeed, the whole of his moral superstructure will be found to rest ultimately on no better basis than the metaphysical conundrum, that the human mind (considered as a noumenon and not as a phenomenon) neither exists in space nor in time.

à l'ordre morale, ou une détermination produit un effet, sans que pour expliquer cette volition et son résultat, on soit renvoyé à un état antécédent.”

The author of the above passage is M. Staffer, to whom we are indebted for the article Kant in the same work. For Kant's own view of the subject consult his Critique of Pure Reason, passim, particularly p. 99, et seq. of Born's Translation, Vol. III.

That it was Kant's original aim to establish a system of scepticism, I am far from being disposed to think.¹ The probability is, that he began with a serious wish to refute the doctrines of Hume; and that, in the progress of his inquiries, he met with obstacles of which he was not aware. It was to remove these obstacles that he had recourse to practical reason; an idea which has every appearance of being an afterthought, very remote from his views when he first undertook his work. This, too, would seem, from the following passage (which I translate from Degerando), to have been the opinion of one of Kant's ablest German commentators, M. Reinhold: "Practical Reason (as Reinhold ingeniously observes) is a wing which Kant has prudently added to his edifice, from a sense of the inadequacy of the original design to answer the intended purpose. It bears a manifest resemblance to what some philosophers call an appeal to sentiment, founding belief on the necessity of acting. Whatever contempt Kant may affect for popular systems of philosophy, this manner of considering the subject is not unlike the disposition of those who, feeling their inability to obtain, by the exercise of their reason, a direct conviction of their religious creed, cling to it nevertheless with a blind eagerness, as a support essential to their morals and their happiness." (Hist. Comparée, Vol. II. pp. 243, 244.)

The extraordinary impression produced for a considerable time in Germany, by the Critique of Pure Reason, is very shrewdly, and I suspect justly, accounted for by the writer last quoted: "The system of Kant was well adapted to flatter the weaknesses of the hu-

perinde, ac voluntas ejus etiam per se ipsam, et in philosophia theoretica probata, libera declaretur." (Kantii Opera, Vol. II. p. 326.)

This is also the creed professed by the Abbé Galiani, a much more dangerous moralist than Kant, because he is always intelligible, and often extremely lively and amusing. "L'homme est donc libre, puisqu'il est intimement persuadé de l'être, et que cela vaut tout autant que la liberté. Voilà donc le mécanisme de l'univers expliqué clair comme de l'eau de roche." The same author farther remarks, "La persuasion de la liberté constitue l'essence de l'homme. On pourroit même définir l'homme un animal qui se croit libre, et ce seroit une définition complète." (Correspondance inédite de l'Abbé Galiani, Tome I. pp. 339, 340. A Paris, 1818.)

man mind. Curiosity was excited, by seeing paths opened which had never been trodden before. The love of mystery found a secret charm in the obscurity which enveloped the doctrine. The long and troublesome period of initiation was calculated to rouse the ambition of bold and adventurous spirits. Their love of singularity was gratified by the new nomenclature; while their vanity exulted in the idea of being admitted into a privileged sect, exercising, and entitled to exercise, the supreme censorship in philosophy. Even men of the most ordinary parts, on finding themselves called to so high functions, lost sight of their real mediocrity, and conceived themselves transformed into geniuses destined to form a new era in the history of reason.

“Another inevitable effect resulted from the universal change operated by Kant in his terms, in his classifications, in his methods, and in the enunciation of his problems. The intellectual powers of the greater part of the initiated were too much exhausted in the course of their long noviciate, to be qualified to judge soundly of the doctrine itself. They felt themselves, after so many windings, lost in a labyrinth, and were unable to dispense with the assistance of the guide who had conducted them so far. Others, after so great a sacrifice, wanted the courage to confess to the world, or to themselves, the disappointment they had met with. They attached themselves to the doctrine in proportion to the sacrifice they had made, and estimated its value by the labour it had cost them. As for more superficial thinkers, they drew an inference from the novelty of the form in favour of the novelty of the matter, and from the novelty of the matter in favour of its importance.

“It is a great advantage for a sect to possess a distinguishing garb and livery. It was thus that the Peripatetics extended their empire so widely, and united their subjects in one common obedience. Kant had, over and above all this, the art of insisting, that his disciples should belong exclusively to himself. He explicitly announced, that he was not going to found a school of Eclectics, but a school of his own; a school not only independent, but in some measure hostile to every other; that he could admit of no compromise with any sect whatever; that he was come to overturn every thing which existed in philosophy, and to erect a new edifice on these immense ruins. The more decided and arrogant the terms were in which he announced his design, the more likely was it to succeed; for the human mind submits more easily to an unlimited than to a partial faith, and yields itself up without reserve, rather than consent to cavil about restrictions and conditions even in favour of its own independence.”

With these causes of Kant's success another seems to have powerfully conspired; the indissoluble coherence and concatenation of all the different parts of his philosophy. “It is on this concatenation (says M. Prevost) that the admiration of Kant's followers is

chiefly founded." Grant only (they boast) the first principles of the Critical Philosophy, and you must grant the whole system. The passage quoted on this occasion by M. Prevost is so forcibly expressed, that I cannot do it justice in an English version: "Ab hinc enim capitibus fluere necesse est omnem philosophiæ criticæ rationis puræ vim atque virtutem; namque in ea contextus rerum prorsus mirabilis est, ita ut extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus respondeant; si prima dederis danda sunt omnia."¹ No worse account could well have been given of a philosophical work on such a subject; nor could any of its characteristical features have been pointed out more symptomatic of its ephemeral reputation. Supposing the praise to be just, it represented the system, however fair and imposing in its first aspect, as vitally and mortally vulnerable (if at all vulnerable) in every point; and, accordingly, it was fast approaching to its dissolution before the death of its author. In Germany, at present, we are told, that a pure Kantian is scarcely to be found.² But there are many Semi-Kantians and Anti-Kantians, as well as partisans of other schemes built out of the ruins of the Kantian philosophy.³ "In fine (says a late author), the Critique of Pure Reason, announced with pomp, received with fanaticism, disputed about with fury, after having accomplished the overthrow of the doctrines taught by Leibnitz and Wolff, could no longer support itself upon its own foundations, and has produced no permanent result, but divisions and enmities, and a general disgust at all systematical creeds."⁴ If this last effect has really resulted from it (of which some doubts may perhaps be entertained), it may be regarded as a favourable symptom of a sounder taste in matters of abstract science, than has ever yet prevailed in that country.⁵

To these details, I have only to add a remark of Degerando's, which I have found amply confirmed within the circle of my own experience. It might furnish matter for some useful reflections, but I shall leave my readers to draw their own conclusions from it. "Another remarkable circumstance is, that the defence of the Kantians turned, in general, not upon the truth of the disputed proposition, but upon the right interpretation of their master's meaning, and that their reply to all objections has constantly begun and ended with these words, You have not understood us."

Among the various schools which have emanated from that of Kant, those of Fichte and Schelling seem to have attracted among their countrymen the greatest number of proselytes. Of neither am I able to speak from my own knowledge; nor can I annex any distinct idea to the accounts which are given of their opinions by others. Of Fichte's speculations about the philosophical import of the pronoun I (Qu'est-ce que le moi? as Degerando translates the question), I cannot make any thing. In some of his remarks, he approaches to the language of those Cartesians who, in the progress of their doubts, ended in absolute egoism: but the ego¹ of Fichte has a creative power. It creates existence, and it creates science; two things (by the way) which, according to him, are one and the same. Even my own existence, he tells me, commences only with the reflex act, by which I think of the pure and primitive ego. On this identity of the intelligent ego and the existing ego (which Fichte expresses by the formula ego = ego) all science ultimately rests. — But on this part of his metaphysics it would be idle to enlarge, as the author acknowledges, that it is not to be understood without the aid of a certain transcendental sense, the want of which is wholly irreparable; a singular admission enough (as Degerando observes), on the part of those critical philosophers who have treated with so much contempt the appeal to Common Sense in the writings of some of their predecessors.*

Hutcheson, and the Complete System of Optics by Smith, titles which, when compared with the subsequent progress of these two sciences, reflect some degree of ridicule upon their authors.

When this affectation of systematical method began, in consequence of the more enlarged views of philosophers, to give way to that aphoristical style so strongly recommended and so happily exemplified by Lord Bacon, we find some writers of the old school complaining of the innovation, in terms not unlike those in which the philosophy of the English has been censured by some German critics. "The best way (says Dr Watts) to learn any science, is to begin with a regular system. Now (he continues), we deal much in essays, and unreasonably despise systematical learning; whereas our fathers had a just value for regularity and systems." Had Dr Watts lived a few years later, I doubt not that his good sense would have led him to retract these hasty and inconsiderate decisions.

"In the history of beings there are (according to Fichte) three grand epochs; the first belongs to the empire of chance; the second is the reign of nature; the third will be the epoch of the existence of God. For God does not exist yet; he only manifests himself as preparing to exist. Nature tends to an apotheosis, and may be regarded as a sort of divinity in the germ."¹

The account given by Madame de Staël of this part of Fichte's system is considerably different: "He was heard to say, upon one occasion, that in his next lecture he 'was going to create God,'—an expression which, not without reason, gave general offence. His meaning was, that he intended to show how the idea of God arose and unfolded itself in the mind of man."² How far this apology is well-founded, I am not competent to judge.

The system of Schelling is, in the opinion of Degerando, but an extension of that of Fichte; connecting with it a sort of Spinozism grafted on Idealism. In considering the primitive ego as the source of all reality as well as of all science, and in thus transporting the mind into an intellectual region, inaccessible to men possessed only of the ordinary number of senses, both agree; and to this vein of transcendental mysticism may probably be ascribed the extraordinary enthusiasm with which their doctrines appear to have been received by the German youth. Since the time when Degerando wrote, a new and very unexpected revolution is said to have taken place among Schelling's disciples; many of them, originally educated in the Protestant faith, having thrown themselves into the bosom of the Catholic church³ . . . . . "The union of the faithful of this school forms an invi-

sible church, which has adopted for its symbol and watch-word, the Virgin Mary; and hence rosaries are sometimes to be seen in the hands of those who reckon Spinoza among the greatest prophets." It is added, however, with respect to this invisible church, that "its members have embraced the Catholic religion, not as the true religion, but as the most poetical;" a thing not improbable among a people who have so strong a disposition to mingle together poetry and metaphysics in the same compositions.¹ But it is painful to contemplate these sad aberrations of human reason; nor would I have dwelt on them so long as I have done, had I not been anxious to convey to my readers a general, but I trust not unfaithful, idea of the style and spirit of a philosophy, which, within the short period of our recollection, rose, flourished, and fell; and which, in every stage of its history, furnished employment to the talents of some of the most learned and able of our contemporaries.²

The space which I have allotted to Kant has so far exceeded what I intended he should occupy, that I must pass over the names of many of his countrymen much more worthy of public attention. In the account given by Degerando of the opponents to the Kantian system, some remarks are quoted from different writers, which convey a very favourable idea of the works from which they are borrowed. Among these I would more particularly distinguish those ascribed to Jacobi and to Reinhold. In the Memoirs, too, of the Berlin Academy, where (as Degerando justly observes) the philosophy of Locke found an asylum, while banished from the rest of Germany, there is a considerable number of metaphysical articles of the highest merit.³ Nor must I omit to mention the con-

tributions to this science by the university of Goettingen; more especially on questions connected with the philosophy of language. I have great pleasure, also, in acknowledging the entertainment I have received, and the lights I have borrowed from the learned labours of Meiners and of Herder; but none of these are so closely connected with the history of metaphysics as to justify me in entering into particular details with respect to them. I am ashamed to say that, in Great Britain, the only one of these names which has been much talked of is that of Kant, a circumstance which, I trust, will apologize for the length to which the foregoing observations have extended.¹

The only other country of Europe from which any contributions to metaphysical philosophy could be reasonably looked for, during the eighteenth century, is Italy; and to this particular branch of science I do not know that any Italian of much celebrity has, in these later times, turned his attention. The metaphysical works of Cardinal Gerdil (a native of Savoy) are extolled by some French writers; but none of them have ever happened to fall in my way.² At a more recent period, Genovesi, a Neapolitan philosopher³ (best known as a political economist), has attracted a good deal of notice by some metaphysical publications. Their chief object is said to be to reconcile, as far as possible, the opinions of Leibnitz with those of Locke. "Pendant que Condillac donnait inutilement

are three profound and important Memoirs on Probabilities, by M. Prevost and M. l'Huillier. Neither of these authors, I am aware, is of German origin, but as the Academy of Berlin has had the merit to bring their papers before the public, I could not omit this opportunity of recommending them to the attention of my readers. To a very important observation made by MM. Prevost and l'Huillier, which has been the subject of some dispute, I am happy to avail myself of the same opportunity to express my unqualified assent. (See pp. 15 and 31 of the memoirs belonging to the Classe de Philosophie Spéculative.)

des leçons à un Prince d'Italie, Genovesi en donnait avec plus de succès à ses élèves Napolitans : il combinait le mieux qu'il lui étoit possible les theories de Leibnitz, pour lequel il eut toujours une prevention favorable, avec celle de Locke, qu'il accrédita le premier en Italie."¹ Various other works of greater or less celebrity, from Italian authors, seem to announce a growing taste in that part of Europe for these abstract researches. The names of Francisco Soave, of Biagioli, and of Mariano Gigli, are advantageously mentioned by their countrymen ; but none of their works, as far as I can learn, have yet reached Scotland. Indeed, with the single exception of Boscovich, I recollect no writer on the other side of the Alps, whose metaphysical speculations have been heard of in this island. This is the more to be regretted, as the specimens he has given, both of originality and soundness in some of his abstract discussions, convey a very favourable idea of the schools in which he received his education. The authority to which he seems most inclined to lean is that of Leibnitz ; but, on all important questions he exercises his own judgment, and often combats Leibnitz with equal freedom and success. Remarkable instances of this occur in his strictures on the principle of the sufficient reason, and in the limitations with which he has admitted the law of continuity.

The vigour, and, at the same time, the versatility of talents, displayed in the voluminous works of this extraordinary man, reflect the highest honour on the country which gave

him birth, and would almost tempt one to give credit to the theory which ascribes to the genial climates of the south a beneficial influence on the intellectual frame. Italy is certainly the only part of Europe where mathematicians and metaphysicians of the highest rank have produced such poetry as has proceeded from the pens of Boscovich and Stay. It is in this rare balance of imagination, and of the reasoning powers, that the perfection of the human intellect will be allowed to consist; and of this balance a far greater number of instances may be quoted from Italy (reckoning from Galileo¹ downwards), than in any other corner of the learned world.

The sciences of ethics, and of political economy, seem to be more suited to the taste of the modern Italians, than logic or metaphysics, properly so called. And in the two former branches of knowledge, they have certainly contributed much to the instruction and improvement of the eighteenth century. But on these subjects we are not yet prepared to enter.

In the New World, the state of society and of manners has not hitherto been so favourable to abstract science as to pursuits which come home directly to the business of human life. There is, however, one metaphysician of whom America has to boast, who, in logical acuteness and subtlety, does not yield to any disputant bred in the universities of Europe. I need not say, that I allude to Jonathan Edwards. But, at the time when he wrote, the state of America was more favourable than it now is, or can for a long period be expected to be, to such inquiries as those which engaged his attention; inquiries (by the way) to which his thoughts were evidently turned, less by the impulse of speculative curiosity, than by his anxiety to defend the theological system in which he had been educated, and to which he was most conscientiously and zealously attached. The effect of this anxiety in sharpening his faculties, and in keeping his polemical vigilance constantly on the alert, may be traced in every step of his argument.²

In the mean time, a new and unexpected mine of intellectual wealth has been opened to the learned of Europe, in those regions of the East, which, although in all probability the cradle of civilization and science, were, till very lately, better known in the annals of commerce than of philosophy. The metaphysical and ethical remains of the Indian sages are, in a peculiar degree, interesting and instructive; inasmuch as they seem to have furnished the germs of the chief systems taught in the Grecian schools. The favourite theories, however, of the Hindoos will, all of them, be found, more or less, tinctured with those ascetic habits of abstract and mystical meditation which seem to have been, in all ages, congenial to their constitutional temperament. Of such habits, an Idealism, approaching to that of Berkeley and Malebranche, is as natural an offspring, as Materialism is of the gay and dissipated manners, which, in great and luxurious capitals, are constantly inviting the thoughts abroad.

To these remains of ancient science in the East, the attention of Europe was first called by Bernier, a most intelligent and authentic traveller, of whom I formerly took notice as a favourite pupil of Gassendi. But it is chiefly by our own countrymen that the field which he opened has been subsequently explored; and of their meritorious labours in the prosecution of this task, during the reign of our late Sovereign, it is scarcely possible to form too high an estimate.

Much more, however, may be yet expected, if such a prodigy as Sir William Jones should again appear, uniting, in as miraculous a degree, the gift of tongues with the spirit of philosophy. The structure of the Sanscrit, in itself, independently of the treasures locked up in it, affords one of the most puzzling subjects of inquiry that was ever presented to human ingenuity. The affinities and filiations of different tongues, as evinced

intimate acquaintance with the philological researches of Adelung, Vater, Humboldt, and other German scholars. All this evinces an enlightened curiosity, and an extent of literary information, which could scarcely have been expected in these rising states for many years to come.

The rapid progress which the Americans have lately made in the art of writing has been remarked by various critics, and it is certainly a very important fact in the history of their literature. Their state papers were, indeed, always distinguished by a strain of animated and vigorous eloquence; but as most of them were composed on the spur of the occasion, their authors had little time to bestow on the niceties, or even upon the purity of diction. An attention to these is the slow offspring of learned leisure, and of the diligent study of the best models. This I presume was Gray's meaning, when he said, that "good writing not only required great parts, but the very best of those parts;"^* a maxim which, if true, would point out the state of the public taste with respect to style, as the surest test among any people of the general improvement which their intellectual powers have received; and which, when applied to our Trans-atlantic brethren, would justify sanguine expectations of the attainments of the rising generation.

in their corresponding roots and other coincidences, are abundantly curious, but incomparably more easy in the explanation, than the systematical analogy which is said to exist between the Sanscrit and the Greek (and also between the Sanscrit and the Latin, which is considered as the most ancient dialect of the Greek), in the conjugations and flexions of their verbs, and in many other particulars of their mechanism; an analogy which is represented as so complete, that, in the versions which have been made from the one language into the other, "Sanskrit," we are told, "answers to Greek, as face to face in a glass."¹ That the Sanscrit did not grow up to the perfection which it now exhibits, from popular and casual modes of speech, the unexampled regularity of its forms seems almost to demonstrate; and yet, should this supposition be rejected, to what other hypothesis shall we have recourse, which does not involve equal, if not greater improbabilities? The problem is well worthy of the attention of philosophical grammarians; and the solution of it, whatever it may be, can scarcely fail to throw some new lights on the history of the human race, as well as on that of the human mind.

It now only remains for me to take a slight survey of the rise and progress of the Metaphysical Philosophy of Scotland; and if, in treating of this, I should be somewhat more minute than in the former parts of this Historical Sketch, I flatter myself that allowances will be made for my anxiety to supply some chasms in the literary history of my country, which could not be so easily, nor perhaps so authentically, filled up by a younger hand.

The Metaphysical Philosophy of Scotland, and, indeed, the literary taste in general, which so remarkably distinguished this country during the last century, may be dated from the lectures of Dr Francis Hutcheson, in the University of Glasgow. Strong indications of the same speculative spirit may be traced in earlier writers; ² but it was from this period

that Scotland, after a long slumber, began again to attract general notice in the republic of letters.¹

The writings of Dr Hutcheson, however, are more closely connected with the history of Ethical than of Metaphysical Science; and I shall, accordingly, delay any remarks which I have to offer upon them till I enter upon that part of my subject. There are, indeed, some very original and important metaphysical hints scattered over his works; but it is chiefly as an ethical writer that he is known to the world, and that he is entitled to a place among the philosophers of the eighteenth century.²

I was somewhat surprised to meet with the foregoing observations in the work of a foreigner, but, wherever he acquired his information, it evinces, in those from whom it was derived, a more intimate acquaintance with the traditional history of letters in this country than has fallen to the share of most of our own authors who have treated of that subject. I have heard it conjectured, that the materials of his section on Scottish literature had been communicated to him by Mr Hume.

Another foreign writer, much better qualified than Denina to appreciate the merits of Hutcheson, has expressed himself upon this subject with his usual precision. "L'école Ecossaise a en quelque sorte pour fondateur Hutcheson maître et prédécesseur de Smith. C'est ce philosophe qui lui a imprimé son caractère, et qui a commencé à lui donner de l'éclat." In a note upon this passage, the author observes,—"C'est en ce seul sens qu'on peut donner un chef à une école de philosophie qui, comme on le verra, professe d'ailleurs la plus parfaite indépendance de l'autorité."—(See the excellent reflections upon the posthumous works of Adam Smith, annexed by M. Prevost to his translation of that work.)

Dr Hutcheson's first course of lectures at Glasgow was given in 1730. He was a native of Ireland, and is accordingly called by Denina "un dotto Irlandese;" but he was of Scotch extraction (his father or grandfather having been a younger son of a respectable family in Ayrshire), and he was sent over when very young to receive his education in Scotland.

² One of the chief objects of Hutcheson's writings was to oppose the licentious system of Mandeville; a system which was the natural offspring of some of Locke's reasonings against the existence of innate practical principles.

As a moralist, Hutcheson was a warm admirer of the ancients, and seems to have been particularly smitten with that favourite doctrine of the Socratic school which identifies the good with the beautiful. Hence he was led to follow much too closely the example of Shaftesbury, in considering moral distinctions as founded more on sentiment than on reason, and to speak vaguely of virtue as a sort of noble enthusiasm; but he was led, at the same time, to connect with his ethical speculations some collateral inquiries concerning Beauty and Harmony, in which he pursued, with considerable success, the path recently struck out by Addison in his Essays on the Pleasures of the Imagination. These inquiries of Hutcheson, together with his Thoughts on Laughter, although they may not be very highly prized for their depth, bear everywhere the marks of an enlarged and cultivated mind, and, whatever may have been their effects elsewhere, certainly contri-

Among the contemporaries of Dr Hutcheson, there was one Scottish metaphysician (Andrew Baxter, author of the Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul), whose name it would be improper to pass over without some notice, after the splendid eulogy bestowed on his work by Warburton. "He who would see the justest and precisest notions of God and the soul may read this book, one of the most finished of the kind, in my humble opinion, that the present times, greatly advanced in true philosophy, have produced."¹

To this unqualified praise, I must confess, I do not think Baxter's Inquiry altogether entitled, although I readily acknowledge that it displays considerable ingenuity, as well as learning. Some of the remarks on Berkeley's argument against the existence of matter are acute and just, and, at the time when they were published, had the merit of novelty.

One of his distinguishing doctrines is, that the Deity is the immediate agent in producing the phenomena of the Material World; but that, in the Moral World, the case is different,—a doctrine which, whatever may be thought of it in other respects, is undoubtedly a great improvement on that of Malebranche, which, by representing God as the only agent in the universe, was not less inconsistent than the scheme of Spinoza with the moral nature of Man. "The Deity (says Baxter) is not only at the head of Nature, but in every part of it. A chain of material causes betwixt the Deity and the effect produced, and much more a series of them, is such a supposition as would conceal the Deity from the knowledge of mortals for ever. We might search for matter above matter, till we were lost in a labyrinth out of which no philosopher ever yet found his way.—This way of bringing in second causes is borrowed from the government of the moral world, where free agents act a part; but it is very improperly applied to the material universe, where matter and motion only (or mechanism, as it is called) comes in competition with the Deity."²

Notwithstanding, however, these and other merits, Baxter has contributed so little to the advancement of that philosophy which has since been cultivated in Scotland, that I am afraid the very slight notice I have now taken of him may be considered as an unseasonable digression. The great object of his studies plainly was, to strengthen the old argument for the soul's immateriality, by the new lights furnished by Newton's discoveries.

buted powerfully, in our Northern seats of learning, to introduce a taste for more liberal and elegant pursuits than could have been expected so soon to succeed to the intolerance, bigotry, and barbarism of the preceding century.

To the intellectual and moral phenomena of Man, and to the laws by which they are regulated, he seems to have paid but little attention.¹

While Dr Hutcheson's reputation as an author, and still more as an eloquent teacher, was at its zenith in Scotland, Mr Hume began his literary career, by the publication of his Treatise of Human Nature. It appeared in 1739, but seems at that time to have attracted little or no attention from the public. According to the author himself, "never literary attempt was more unfortunate. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots." It forms, however, a very important link in this Historical Sketch, as it has contributed, either directly or indirectly, more than any other single work, to the subsequent progress of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. In order to adapt his principles better to the public taste, the author afterwards threw them into the more popular form of Essays; but it is in the original work that philosophical readers will always study his system, and it is there alone that the relations and bearings of its different parts, as well as its connection with the speculations of his immediate predecessors, can be distinctly traced. It is there, too, that his metaphysical talents appear, in my opinion, to the greatest advantage; nor am I certain that he has anywhere else displayed more skill or a sounder taste in point of composition.²

The great objects of Mr Hume's Treatise of Human Nature will be best explained in his own words.

" 'Tis evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature, and that, however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of Man, since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties. . . . . If, therefore, the sciences of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, have such a dependence on the knowledge of man, what may be expected in the other sciences, whose connection with human nature is more close and intimate? The sole end of logic is to explain the principles and operations of our reasoning faculty, and the nature of our ideas: Morals and criticism regard our tastes and sentiments, and politics consider men as united in society, and dependent on each other. . . . . Here, then, is the only expedient from

volumes, called A Treatise of Human Nature; a work which the author had projected before he left College, and which he wrote and published not long after. But not finding it successful, he was sensible of his error in going to the press too early, and he cast the whole anew in the following pieces, where some negligencies in his former reasoning, and some in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected. Yet several writers, who have honoured the author's philosophy with answers, have taken care to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work, which the author never acknowledged, and have affected to triumph in any advantage which they imagined they had obtained over it; a practice very contrary to all rules of candour and fair dealing, and a strong instance of those polemical artifices which a bigoted zeal thinks itself authorized to employ. Henceforth, the author desires, that the following pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles."

After this declaration, it certainly would be highly uncandid to impute to Mr Hume any philosophical sentiments or principles not to be found in his Philosophical Essays, as well as in his Treatise. But where is the unfairness of replying to any plausible arguments in the latter work, even although Mr Hume may have omitted them in his subsequent publications; more especially where these arguments supply any useful lights for illustrating his more popular compositions? The Treatise of Human Nature will certainly be remembered as long as any of Mr Hume's philosophical writings; nor is any person qualified either to approve or to reject his doctrines, who has not studied them in the systematical form in which they were originally cast. That Mr Hume's remonstrance may be just with respect to some of his adversaries, I believe to be true; but it is surely expressed in a tone more querulous and peevish than is justified by the occasion.

I shall take this opportunity of preserving another judgment of Mr Hume's (still more fully stated) on the merits of this juvenile work. I copy it from a private letter written by himself to Sir Gilbert Elliot, soon after the publication of his Philosophical Essays.

" I believe the Philosophical Essays contain every thing of consequence relating to the Understanding, which you would meet with in the Treatise; and I give you my advice against reading the latter. By shortening and simplifying the questions I really render them more complete. Addo dum minuo. The philosophical principles are the same in both; but I was carried away by the heat of youth and invention to publish too precipitately. So vast an undertaking, planned before I was one and twenty, and composed before twenty-five, must necessarily be very defective. I have repented my haste a hundred and a hundred times."

which we can hope for success in our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious lingering method which we have hitherto followed, and, instead of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier, to march up directly to the capital or centre of these sciences, to human nature itself; which, being once masters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory. From this station we may extend our conquests over all those sciences which more intimately concern human life, and may afterwards proceed at leisure to discover more fully those which are the objects of pure curiosity. There is no question of importance whose decision is not comprised in the Science of Man, and there is none which can be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted with that science. In pretending, therefore, to explain the principles of Human Nature, we, in effect, propose a complete system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security.

“And, as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on experience and observation. ’Tis no astonishing reflection to consider, that the application of experimental philosophy to moral subjects should come after that to natural, at the distance of above a whole century; since we find, in fact, that there was about the same interval betwixt the origin of these sciences; and that, reckoning from Thales to Socrates, the space of time is nearly equal to that betwixt my Lord Bacon and some late philosophers in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing, and have engaged the attention, and excited the curiosity of the public.”

I am far from thinking, that the execution of Mr Hume’s work corresponded with the magnificent design sketched out in these observations; nor does it appear to me that he had formed to himself a very correct idea of the manner in which the experimental mode of reasoning ought to be applied to moral subjects. He had, however, very great merit in separating entirely his speculations concerning the philosophy of the mind from all physiological hypotheses about the nature of the union between soul and body; and although, from some of his casual expressions, it may be suspected that he conceived our intellectual operations to result from bodily organization,² he had yet much too large a share

of good sense and sagacity to suppose, that, by studying the latter, it is possible for human ingenuity to throw any light upon the former. His works, accordingly, are perfectly free from those gratuitous and wild conjectures, which a few years afterwards were given to the world with so much confidence by Hartley and Bonnet. And in this respect his example has been of infinite use to his successors in this northern part of the island. Many absurd theories have, indeed, at different times been produced by our countrymen; but I know of no part of Europe where such systems as those of Hartley and Bonnet have been so uniformly treated with the contempt they deserve as in Scotland.¹

Nor was it in this respect alone, that Mr Hume's juvenile speculations contributed to forward the progress of our national literature. Among the many very exceptionable doctrines involved in them, there are various discussions, equally refined and solid, in which he has happily exemplified the application of metaphysical analysis to questions connected with taste, with the philosophy of jurisprudence, and with the theory of government. Of these discussions some afterwards appeared in a more popular form in his philosophical and literary Essays, and still retain a place in the latest editions of his works; but others, not less curious, have been suppressed by the author, probably from an idea, that they were too abstruse to interest the curiosity of ordinary readers. In some of these practical applications of metaphysical principles, we may perceive the germs of several inquiries which have since been successfully prosecuted by Mr Hume's countrymen; and, among others, of those which gave birth to Lord Kames's Historical Law Tracts, and to his Elements of Criticism.

The publication of Mr Hume's Treatise was attended with another important effect in Scotland. He had cultivated the art of writing with much greater success than any of his predecessors, and had formed his taste on the best models of English composition. The influence of his example appears to have been great and general; and was in no instance more remarkable than in the style of his principal antagonists, all of whom, in studying his system, have caught, in no inconsiderable degree, the purity, polish, and precision of his diction. Nobody, I believe, will deny, that Locke himself, considered as an English writer, is far surpassed, not only by Hume, but by Reid, Campbell, Gerard, and Beattie; and of this fact it will not be easy to find a more satisfactory explanation, than in the critical eye with which they were led to canvass a work, equally distinguished by the depth of its reasonings, and by the attractive form in which they are exhibited.

The fundamental principles from which Mr Hume sets out, differ more in words than in substance from those of his immediate predecessors. According to him, all the objects of our knowledge are divided into two classes, impressions and ideas: the former, comprehending our sensations, properly so called, and also our perceptions of sensible qualities (two things betwixt which Mr Hume's system does not lead him to make any distinction); the latter, the objects of our thoughts when we remember or imagine, or in general exercise any of our intellectual powers on things which are past, absent, or future. These ideas he considers as copies of our impressions, and the words which denote them as the only signs entitled to the attention of a philosopher; every word professing to denote an idea, of which the corresponding impressions cannot be pointed out, being ipso facto unmeaning and illusory. The obvious result of these principles is, that what Mr Hume calls impressions, furnish, either immediately or mediately, the whole materials about which our thoughts can be employed; a conclusion coinciding exactly with the account of the origin of our ideas borrowed by Gassendi from the ancient Epicureans.

With this fundamental principle of the Gassendists, Mr Hume combined the logical method recommended by their great antagonists the Cartesians, and (what seemed still more remote from his Epicurean starting ground) a strong leaning to the idealism of Malebranche and of Berkeley. Like Descartes, he began with doubting of every thing, but he was too quick-sighted to be satisfied, like Descartes, with the solutions given by that philosopher of his doubts. On the contrary, he exposes the futility not only of the solutions proposed by Descartes himself, but of those suggested by Locke and others among his successors; ending at last where Descartes began, in considering no one proposition as more certain, or even as more probable than another. That the proofs alleged by Descartes of the existence of the material world are quite inconclusive, had been already remarked by many. Nay, it had been shown by Berkeley and others, that if the principles be admitted on which Descartes, in common with all philosophers, from Aristotle downwards, proceeded, the existence of the material world is impossible. A few bold thinkers, distinguished by the name of Egoists, had gone still farther than this, and had pushed their scepticism to such a length, as to doubt of every thing but their own existence. According to these, the proposition, cogito, ergo sum, is the only truth which can be regarded as absolutely certain. It was reserved for Mr Hume to call in question even this proposition, and to admit only the existence of impressions and ideas. To dispute against the existence of these he conceived to be impossible, inasmuch as they are the immediate subjects of consciousness. But to admit the existence of the thinking and perceptive I, was to admit the existence of that imaginary substance called Mind, which (according to him)

is no more an object of human knowledge, than the imaginary and exploded substance called Matter.

From what has been already said, it may be seen, that we are not to look in Mr Hume's Treatise for any regular or connected system. It is neither a scheme of Materialism, nor a scheme of Spiritualism; for his reasonings strike equally at the root of both these theories. His aim is to establish a universal scepticism, and to produce in the reader a complete distrust in his own faculties. For this purpose he avails himself of the data assumed by the most opposite sects, shifting his ground skilfully from one position to another, as best suits the scope of his present argument. With the single exception of Bayle, he has carried this sceptical mode of reasoning farther than any other modern philosopher. Cicero, who himself belonged nominally to the same school, seems to have thought, that the controversial habits imposed on the Academical sect by their profession of universal doubt, required a greater versatility of talent and fertility of invention, than were necessary for defending any particular system of tenets;¹ and it is not improbable, that Mr Hume, in the pride of youthful genius, was misled by this specious but very fallacious idea. On the other hand, Bayle has the candour to acknowledge, that nothing is so easy as to dispute after the manner of the sceptics;² and to this proposition every man of reflection will find himself more and more disposed to assent, as he advances in life. It is experience alone that can convince us, how much more difficult it is to make any real progress in the search after truth, than to acquire a talent for plausible disputation.³

That this spirit of sceptical argument has been carried to a most pernicious excess in modern Europe, as well as among the ancient Academics, will, I presume, be now very generally allowed; but in the form in which it appears in Mr Hume's Treatise, its mischievous tendency has been more than compensated by the importance of those results for which it has prepared the way. The principles which he assumes were sanctioned in common by Gassendi, by Descartes, and by Locke; and from these, in most instances, he reasons with great logical accuracy and force. The conclusions to which he is thus led are often so extravagant and dangerous, that he ought to have regarded them as a proof of the unsoundness of his data; but if he had not the merit of drawing this inference himself, he at least forced it so irresistibly on the observation of his successors, as to be entitled to share with them in the honour of their discoveries. Perhaps, indeed, it may be questioned if the errors which he adopted from his predecessors would not have kept their ground till this day, had not his sagacity displayed so clearly the consequences which they necessarily involve. It is in this sense that we must understand a compliment paid to him by the ablest of his adversaries, when he says, that "Mr Hume's premises often do more than atone for his conclusions."¹

The bias of Mr Hume's mind to scepticism seems to have been much encouraged, and the success of his sceptical theories in the same proportion promoted, by the recent attempts of Descartes and his followers to demonstrate Self-evident Truths,—attempts which Mr Hume clearly perceived to involve, in every instance, that sort of paralogism which logicians call reasoning in a circle. The weakness of these pretended demonstrations is triumphantly exposed in the Treatise of Human Nature; and it is not very wonderful that the author, in the first enthusiasm of his victory over his immediate predecessors, should have fancied that the inconclusiveness of the proofs argued some unsound-

ing up that ground where he was most likely to provoke opposition. If any inference is to be drawn from the conversation of such an individual, with respect to his real creed, it is in favour of those opinions which he controverts. These opinions, at least, we may confidently conclude to be agreeable to the general belief of the country where he lives.

¹ Mr Hume himself (to whom Dr Reid's Inquiry was communicated previous to its publication by their common friend Dr Blair) seems not to have been dissatisfied with this apology for some of his speculations. "I shall only say (he observes in a letter addressed to the author), that if you have been able to clear up these abstruse and important subjects, instead of being mortified, I shall be so vain as to pretend to a share of the praise, and shall think that my errors, by having at least some coherence, had led you to make a more strict review of my principles, which were the common ones, and to perceive their futility."—(For the whole of Mr Hume's letter, see Biographical Memoirs of Smith, Robertson, and Reid, by the author of this Dissertation, p. 417.)

ness in the propositions which they were employed to support. It would, indeed, have done still greater honour to his sagacity if he had ascribed this to its true cause—the impossibility of confirming, by a process of reasoning, the fundamental laws of Human belief; but (as Bacon remarks) it does not often happen to those who labour in the field of science, that the same person who sows the seed should reap the harvest.

From that strong sceptical bias which led this most acute reasoner, on many important questions, to shift his controversial ground according to the humour of the moment, one favourable consequence has resulted—that we are indebted to him for the most powerful antidotes we possess against some of the most poisonous errors of modern philosophy. I have already made a similar remark in speaking of the elaborate refutation of Spinozism by Bayle; but the argument stated by Hume, in his Essay on the Idea of Necessary Connection (though brought forward by the author with a very different view), forms a still more valuable accession to metaphysical science, as it lays the axe to the very root from which Spinozism springs. The cardinal principle on which the whole of that system turns is, that all events, physical and moral, are necessarily linked together as causes and effects; from which principle all the most alarming conclusions adopted by Spinoza follow as unavoidable and manifest corollaries. But, if it be true, as Mr Hume contends, and as most philosophers now admit, that physical causes and effects are known to us merely as antecedents and consequents; still more, if it be true that the word necessity, as employed in this discussion, is altogether unmeaning and insignificant, the whole system of Spinoza is nothing better than a rope of sand, and the very proposition which it professes to demonstrate is incomprehensible by our faculties. Mr Hume's doctrine, in the unqualified form in which he states it, may lead to other consequences not less dangerous; but, if he had not the good fortune to conduct metaphysicians to the truth, he may at least be allowed the merit of having shut up for ever one of the most frequented and fatal paths which led them astray.

In what I have now said, I have supposed my readers to possess that general acquaintance with Mr Hume's Theory of Causation which all well-educated persons may be presumed to have acquired. But the close connection of this part of his work with some of the historical details which are immediately to follow, makes it necessary for me, before I proceed farther, to recapitulate a little more particularly some of his most important conclusions.

It was, as far as I know, first shown in a satisfactory manner by Mr Hume, that "every demonstration which has been produced for the necessity of a cause to every new existence is fallacious and sophistical."¹ In illustration of this assertion, he examines three different

arguments which have been alleged as proofs of the proposition in question; the first by Mr Hobbes; the second by Dr Clarke; and the third by Mr Locke. And I think it will now be readily acknowledged by every competent judge, that his objections to all these pretended demonstrations are conclusive and unanswerable.

When Mr Hume, however, attempts to show that the proposition in question is not intuitively certain, his argument appears to me to amount to nothing more than a logical quibble. Of this one would almost imagine that he was not insensible himself, from the short and slight manner in which he hurries over the discussion. "All certainty (he observes) arises from the comparison of ideas, and from the discovery of such relations as are unalterable, so long as the ideas continue the same. These relations are resemblance, proportions in quantity and number, degrees of any quality, and contrariety; none of which are implied in this proposition, whatever has a beginning has also a cause of existence. That proposition, therefore, is not intuitively certain. At least, any one who would assert it to be intuitively certain, must deny these to be the only infallible relations, and must find some other relation of that kind to be implied in it, which it will be then time enough to examine."

Upon this passage, it is sufficient for me to observe, that the whole force of the reasoning hinges on two assumptions, which are not only gratuitous, but false. 1st, That all certainty arises from the comparison of ideas. 2dly, That all the unalterable relations among our ideas are comprehended in his own arbitrary enumeration; Resemblance, proportions in quantity and numbers, degrees of any quality, and contrariety. When the correctness of these two premises shall be fully established, it will be time enough (to borrow Mr Hume's own words) to examine the justness of his conclusion.

From this last reasoning, however, of Mr Hume, it may be suspected, that he was aware of the vulnerable point against which his adversaries were most likely to direct their attacks. From the weakness, too, of the entrenchments which he has here thrown up for his own security, he seems to have been sensible, that it was not capable of

of his predecessors, in calling the attention of philosophers to this discussion, his opinion on the subject does not possess the merit, in point of originality, which was supposed to belong to it either by himself or by his antagonists. See the passages which I have quoted in proof of this, in the first volume of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, p. 542, et seq. fourth edit. and also in the second volume of the same work, p. 556, et seq. second edit. Among these, I request the attention of my readers more particularly to a passage from a book entitled, The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of the Human Understanding, published two years before the Treatise of Human Nature, and commonly ascribed to Dr Browne, Bishop of Cork. The coincidence is truly wonderful, as it can scarcely, by any possibility, be supposed that this book was ever heard of by Mr Hume.

a long or vigorous resistance. In the mean time, he betrays no want of confidence in his original position; but repeating his assertion, that "we derive the opinion of the necessity of a cause to every new production, neither from demonstration nor from intuition," he boldly concludes, that "this opinion must necessarily arise from observation and experience." (Vol. I. p. 147.) Or, as he elsewhere expresses himself; "All our reasonings concerning causes and effects are derived from nothing but custom; and, consequently, belief is more properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogitative part of our natures." (Ibid. p. 321.)

The distinction here alluded to between the sensitive and the cogitative parts of our nature (it may be proper to remind my readers) makes a great figure in the works of Cudworth and of Kant. By the former it was avowedly borrowed from the philosophy of Plato. To the latter, it is not improbable, that it may have been suggested by this passage in Hume. Without disputing its justness or its importance, I may be permitted to express my doubts of the propriety of stating, so strongly as has frequently been done, the one of these parts of our nature in contrast with the other. Would it not be more philosophical, as well as more pleasing, to contemplate the beautiful harmony between them; and the gradual steps by which the mind is trained by the intimations of the former, for the deliberate conclusions of the latter? If, for example, our conviction of the permanence of the laws of nature be not founded on any process of reasoning (a proposition which Mr Hume seems to have established with demonstrative evidence), but be either the result of an instinctive principle of belief, or of the association of ideas, operating at a period when the light of reason has not yet dawned, what can be more delightful than to find this suggestion of our sensitive frame,¹ verified by every step which our reason afterwards makes in the study of physical science; and confirmed with mathematical accuracy by the never-failing accordance of the phenomena of the heavens with the previous calculations of astronomers! Does not this afford a satisfaction to the mind, similar to what it experiences, when we consider the adaptation of the instinct of suction, and of the organs of respiration, to the physical properties of the atmosphere? So far from encouraging scepticism, such a view of human nature seems peculiarly calculated to silence every doubt about the veracity of our faculties.²

It is not my business at present to inquire into the soundness of Mr Hume's doctrines on this subject. The rashness of some of them has, in my opinion, been sufficiently shown by more than one of his antagonists. I wish only to remark the important step which he made, in exposing the futility of the reasonings by which Hobbes, Clarke, and Locke, had attempted to demonstrate the metaphysical axiom, that "every thing which begins to exist must have a cause;" and the essential service which he rendered to true philosophy, by thus pointing out indirectly to his successors, the only solid ground on which that principle is to be defended. It is to this argument of Hume's, according to Kant's own acknowledgment, that we owe the Critique of Pure Reason; and to this we are also indebted for the far more luminous refutations of scepticism by Mr Hume's own countrymen.

In the course of Mr Hume's very refined discussions on this subject, he is led to apply

be eminently philosophical and beautiful, I beg leave to recommend to the particular attention of Kant's disciples:

"Here, then, is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces by which the former is governed be wholly unknown to us, yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train with the other works of nature. Custom is that principle by which this correspondence has been effected; so necessary to the subsistence of our species, and the regulation of our conduct in every circumstance and occurrence of human life. Had not the presence of an object instantly excited the idea of those objects commonly conjoined with it, all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of our memory and senses; and we should never have been able to adjust means to ends, or employ our natural powers, either to the producing of good, or avoiding of evil. Those who delight in the discovery and contemplation of final causes have here ample subject to employ their wonder and admiration.

"I shall add, for a further confirmation of the foregoing theory, that, as this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations, appears not in any degree, during the first years of infancy; and at best is, in every age and period of human life, extremely liable to error and mistake. It is more conformable to the ORDINARY WISDOM OF NATURE to secure so necessary an act of the mind by some instinct or mechanical tendency which may be infallible in its operations, may discover itself at the first appearance of life and thought, and may be independent of all the laboured deductions of the understanding. As nature has taught us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the muscles and nerves by which they are actuated, so has she implanted in us an instinct which carries forward the thoughts in a correspondent course to that which she has established among external objects; though we are ignorant of those powers and forces on which this regular course and succession of objects totally depends." (See, in the last editions of Mr Hume's Philosophical Essays, published during his own lifetime, the two sections entitled Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding; and Sceptical Solution of these Doubts. The title of the latter of these sections has, not altogether without reason, incurred the ridicule of Dr Beattie, who translates it, Doubtful Solution of Doubtful Doubts. But the essay contains much sound and important matter, and throws a strong light on some of the chief difficulties which Mr Hume himself had started. Sufficient justice has not been done to it by his antagonists.)

them to one of the most important principles of the mind,—our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature; or, in other words, our belief that the future course of nature will resemble the past. And here, too (as I already hinted), it is very generally admitted, that he has succeeded completely in overturning all the theories which profess to account for this belief by resolving it into a process of reasoning.¹ The only difference which seems to remain among philosophers is, whether it can be explained, as Mr Hume imagined, by means of the association of ideas; or, whether it must be considered as an original and fundamental law of the human understanding;—a question, undoubtedly abundantly curious, as a problem connected with the Theory of the Mind; but to which more practical importance has sometimes been attached than I conceive to be necessary.²

That Mr Hume himself conceived his refutation of the theories which profess to assign a reason for our faith in the permanence of the laws of nature, to be closely connected with his sceptical conclusions concerning causation, is quite evident from the general strain of his argument; and it is, therefore, not surprising that this refutation should have been looked on with a suspicious eye by his antagonists. Dr Reid was, I believe, the first of these who had the sagacity to perceive, not only that it is strictly and incontrovertibly logical, but that it may be safely admitted, without any injury to the doctrines which it was brought forward to subvert.

Another of Mr Hume's attacks on these doctrines was still bolder and more direct. In conducting it he took his vantage ground from his own account of the origin of our ideas. In this way he was led to expunge from his Philosophical Vocabulary every word of which the meaning cannot be explained by a reference to the impression from which the corresponding idea was originally copied. Nor was he startled in the application of this rule, by the consideration, that it would force him to condemn, as insignificant, many words which are to be found in all languages, and some of which express what are commonly regarded as the most important objects of human knowledge. Of this number are the words cause and effect; at least, in the sense in which they are commonly understood both by the vulgar and by philosophers. "One event (says he) follows another, but we never observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connection or power at all; and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life." (Hume's Essays, Vol. II. p. 79. Ed. of Lond. 1784.)

When this doctrine was first proposed by Mr Hume, he appears to have been very strongly impressed with its repugnance to the common apprehensions of mankind. "I am sensible (he observes) that of all the paradoxes which I have had, or shall hereafter have occasion to advance in the course of this treatise, the present one is the most violent." (Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. I. p. 291.) It was probably owing to this impression that he did not fully unfold in that work all the consequences which, in his subsequent publications, he deduced from the same paradox; nor did he even apply it to invalidate the argument which infers the existence of an intelligent cause from the order of the universe. There cannot, however, be a doubt that he was aware, at this period of his life, of the conclusions to which it unavoidably leads, and which are indeed too obvious to escape the notice of a far less acute inquirer.

In a private letter of Mr Hume's to one of his most intimate friends,¹ some light is thrown on the circumstances which first led his mind into this train of sceptical speculation. As his narrative has every appearance of the most perfect truth and candour, and contains several passages which I doubt not will be very generally interesting to my readers, I shall give it a place, together with some extracts from the correspondence to which it gave rise, in the Notes at the end of this Dissertation. Every thing connected with the origin and composition of a work which has had so powerful an influence on the direction which metaphysical pursuits have since taken, both in Scotland² and in Germany, will be allowed to form an important article of philosophical history; and this history I need not offer any apology for choosing to communicate to the public rather in Mr Hume's words than in my own.³

In treating of literary and historical subjects, Mr Schlegel seems to be more in his element, than when he ventures to pronounce on philosophical questions. But even in cases of the former description, some of his dashing judgments on English writers can be accounted for only by haste, caprice, or prejudice. "The English themselves (we are told) are now pretty well convinced, that Robertson is a careless, superficial, and blundering historian: although they study his works, and are right in doing so, as models of pure composition, extremely deserving of attention during the present declining state of English style. . . . With all the abundance of his Italian elegance, what is the overloaded and affected Roscoe when compared with Gibbon? Coxe, although master of a good and classical style, resembles Robertson in no respect so much as in the superficialness of his researches; and the statesman Fox has nothing in common with Hume but the bigotry of his party zeal." Such criticisms may perhaps be applauded by a German auditory, but in this country they can injure the reputation of none but their author.

From the reply to this letter by Mr Hume's very ingenious and accomplished correspondent, we learn that he had drawn from Mr Hume's metaphysical discussions the only sound and philosophical inference: that the lameness of the proofs offered by Descartes and his successors, of some fundamental truths universally acknowledged by mankind, proceeded, not from any defect in the evidence of these truths, but, on the contrary, from their being self-evident, and consequently unsusceptible of demonstration. We learn, farther, that the same conclusion had been adopted, at this early period, by another of Mr Hume's friends, Mr Henry Home, who, under the name of Lord Kames, was afterwards so well known in the learned world. Those who are acquainted with the subsequent publications of this distinguished and most respectable author will immediately recognize, in the account here given of the impression left on his mind by Mr Hume's scepticism, the rudiments of a peculiar logic, which runs more or less through all his later works; and which, it must be acknowledged, he has, in various instances, carried to an unphilosophical extreme.¹

The light in which Mr Hume's scepticism appears from these extracts to have struck his friends, Sir Gilbert Elliot and Lord Kames, was very nearly the same with that in which it was afterwards viewed by Reid, Oswald, and Beattie, all of whom have manifestly aimed, with greater or less precision, at the same logical doctrine which I have just alluded to. This, too, was the very ground on which Father Buffier had (even before the publication of the Treatise of Human Nature) made his stand against similar theories, built by his predecessors on the Cartesian principles. The coincidence between his train of thinking, and that into which our Scottish metaphysicians soon after fell is so very remarkable, that it has been considered by many as amounting to a proof that the plan of their works was, in some measure, suggested by his; but it is infinitely more probable, that the argument which runs, in common, through the speculations of all of them, was the natural result of the state of metaphysical science when they engaged in their philosophical inquiries.²

The answer which Mr Hume made to this argument, when it was first proposed to him in the easy intercourse of private correspondence, seems to me an object of so much curiosity, as to justify me for bringing it under the eye of my readers in immediate connection with the foregoing details. Opinions thus communicated in the confidence of friendly discussion, possess a value which seldom belongs to propositions hazarded in those public controversies where the love of victory is apt to mingle, more or less, in the most candid minds, with the love of truth.

"Your notion of correcting subtlety by sentiment is certainly very just with regard to morals, which depend upon sentiment: And in politics and natural philosophy, whatever conclusion is contrary to certain matters of fact, must certainly be wrong, and there must some error lie somewhere in the argument, whether we be able to show it or not. But, in metaphysics or theology, I cannot see how either of these plain and obvious standards of truth can have place. Nothing there can correct bad reasoning but good reasoning; and sophistry must be opposed by syllogism.¹ About seventy or eighty years ago,² I observe a principle like that which you advance prevailed very much in France, amongst some philosophers and beaux esprits. The occasion of it was this: The famous M. Nicole of the Port Royal, in his Perpetuité de la Foi, pushed the Protestants very hard upon the impossibility of the people's reaching a conviction of their religion by the way of private judgment, which required so many disquisitions, reasonings, researches, erudition, impartiality, and penetration, as not one of a hundred, even among men of education, is capable of. M. Claude and the Protestants answered him, not by solving his difficulties (which seems impossible), but by retorting them (which is very easy). They showed, that to reach the way of authority which the Catholics insist on, as long a train of acute reasoning, and as great erudition was requisite, as would be sufficient for a Protestant. We must first prove all the truths of natural religion, the foundation of morals, the divine

acquainted with them at an earlier period of his studies. Condillac, he also observes, might have profited greatly by the same lights, if he had availed himself of their guidance, in his inquiries concerning the human understanding. "Dumois est il certain que pour ma part, je suis fort faché de ne connoître que depuis très peu de temps ces opinions du Père Buffier; si je les avais vues plutôt énoncées quelque part, elles m'auraient épargné beaucoup de peines et d'hésitations."—"Je regrette beaucoup que Condillac, dans ses profondes et sagaces méditations sur l'intelligence humaine, n'ait pas fait plus d'attention aux idées du Père Buffier," &c. &c.—Éléments d'Idéologie, par M. Destutt-Tracy, Tom. III. pp. 136, 137. (See Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. II. pp. 88, 89, 2d edit.)

authority of the scripture, the deference which it commands to the church, the tradition of the church, &c. &c. The comparison of these controversial writings begat an idea in some, that it was neither by reasoning nor authority we learn our religion, but by sentiment; and this was certainly a very convenient way, and what a philosopher would be very well pleased to comply with, if he could distinguish sentiment from education. But, to all appearance, the sentiment of Stockholm, Geneva, Rome, ancient and modern, Athens, and Memphis, have the same characters; and no thinking man can implicitly assent to any of them, but from the general principle, that, as the truth on these subjects is beyond human capacity, and that, as for one's own ease, he must adopt some tenets, there is more satisfaction and convenience in holding to the catechism we have been first taught. Now, this I have nothing to say against. I would only observe, that such a conduct is founded on the most universal and determined scepticism. For more curiosity and research give a direct opposite turn from the same principles."

On this careless effusion of Mr Hume's pen, it would be unpardonable to offer any critical strictures. It cannot, however, be considered as improper to hint, that there is a wide and essential difference between those articles of faith, which formed the subjects of dispute between Nicole and Claude, and those laws of belief, of which it is the great object of the Treatise of Human Nature to undermine the authority. The reply of Mr Hume, therefore, is evasive, and although strongly marked with the writer's ingenuity, does not bear upon the point in question.

As to the distinction alleged by Mr Hume between the criteria of truth in natural philosophy and in metaphysics, I trust it will now be pretty generally granted, that, however well founded it may be when confined to the metaphysics of the schoolmen, it will by no means hold when extended to the inductive philosophy of the human mind. In this last science, no less than in natural philosophy, Mr Hume's logical maxim may be laid down as a fundamental principle, that "whatever conclusion is contrary to matter of fact must be wrong, and there must some error lie somewhere in the argument, whether we be able to show it or not."

It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of Mr Hume's literary life, and a proof of the sincerity with which he was then engaged in the search of truth, that, previous to the publication of his Treatise of Human Nature, he discovered a strong anxiety to submit it to the examination of the celebrated Dr Butler, author of the Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. For this purpose he applied to Mr Henry Home, between whom and Dr Butler some friendly letters appear to have passed before this period. "Your thoughts and mine (says Mr Hume to his

correspondent) agree with respect to Dr Butler, and I would be glad to be introduced to him. I am at present castrating my work, that is, cutting off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I could not pretend to put it into the doctor's hands."¹ In another letter, he acknowledges Mr Home's kindness in recommending him to Dr Butler's notice. "I shall not trouble you with any formal compliments or thanks, which would be but an ill return for the kindness you have done me in writing in my behalf, to one you are so little acquainted with as Dr Butler; and, I am afraid, stretching the truth in favour of a friend. I have called on the doctor, with a design of delivering your letter, but find he is at present in the country. I am a little anxious to have the doctor's opinion. My own I dare not trust to; both because it concerns myself, and because it is so variable, that I know not how to fix it. Sometimes it elevates me above the clouds; at other times it depresses me with doubts and fears; so that, whatever be my success, I cannot be entirely disappointed."

Whether Mr Hume ever enjoyed the satisfaction of a personal interview with Dr Butler, I have not heard. From a letter of his to Mr Home, dated London, 1739, we learn, that if any intercourse took place between them, it must have been after the publication of the Treatise of Human Nature. "I have sent the Bishop of Bristol a copy; but could not wait upon him with your letter after he had arrived at that dignity. At least, I thought it would be to no purpose after I began the printing."² In a subsequent letter to the same correspondent, written in 1742, he expresses his satisfaction at the favourable opinion which he understood Dr Butler had formed of his volume of Essays, then recently published, and augurs well from this circumstance of the success of his book. "I am told that Dr Butler has every where recommended them, so that I hope they will have some success."³

These particulars, trifling as they may appear to some, seemed to me, for more reasons than one, not unworthy of notice in this sketch. Independently of the pleasing record they afford of the mutual respect entertained by the eminent men to whom they relate, for each other's philosophical talents, they have a closer connection with the history of metaphysical and moral inquiry in this island, than might be suspected by those who have not

a very intimate acquaintance with the writings of both. Dr Butler was, I think, the first of Mr Locke's successors who clearly perceived the dangerous consequences likely to be deduced from his account of the origin of our ideas literally interpreted; and although he has touched on this subject but once, and that with his usual brevity, he has yet said enough to show, that his opinion with respect to it was the same with that formerly contended for by Cudworth, in opposition to Gassendi and Hobbes, and which has since been revived in different forms by the ablest of Mr Hume's antagonists.¹ With these views, it may be reasonably supposed, that he was not displeased to see the consequences of Locke's doctrine so very logically and forcibly pushed to their utmost limits, as the most effectual means of rousing the attention of the learned to a re-examination of this fundamental principle. That he was perfectly aware, before the publication of Mr Hume's work, of the encouragement given to scepticism by the logical maxims then in vogue, is evident from the concluding paragraph of his short Essay on Personal Identity. Had it been published a few years later, nobody would have doubted, that it had been directly pointed at the general strain and spirit of Mr Hume's philosophy.

“But though we are thus certain, that we are the same agents or living beings now, which we were as far back as our remembrance reaches; yet it is asked, Whether we may not possibly be deceived in it? And this question may be asked at the end of any demonstration whatever, because it is a question concerning the truth of perception by memory. And he who can doubt, whether perception by memory can in this case be depended on, may doubt also whether perception by deduction and reasoning, which also includes memory, or indeed whether intuitive perception can. Here then we can go no farther. For it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the truth of those perceptions whose truth we can no otherwise prove than by other perceptions of exactly the same kind with them, and which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved, than by the use or means of those very suspected faculties themselves.”²

It is, however, less as a speculative metaphysician, than as a philosophical inquirer into

the principles of morals, that I have been induced to associate the name of Butler with that of Hume. And, on this account, it may be thought that it would have been better to delay what I have now said of him till I come to trace the progress of Ethical Science during the eighteenth century. To myself it seemed more natural and interesting to connect this historical or rather biographical digression, with the earliest notice I was to take of Mr Hume as an author. The numerous and important hints on metaphysical questions which are scattered over Butler's works, are sufficient of themselves to account for the space I have allotted to him among Locke's successors; if, indeed, any apology for this be necessary, after what I have already mentioned, of Mr Hume's ambition to submit to his judgment the first fruits of his metaphysical studies.

The remarks hitherto made on the Treatise of Human Nature are confined entirely to the first volume. The speculations contained in the two others, on Morals, on the Nature and Foundations of Government, and on some other topics connected with political philosophy, will fall under our review afterwards.

Dr Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (published in 1764) was the first direct attack which appeared in Scotland upon the sceptical conclusions of Mr Hume's philosophy. For my own opinion of this work I must refer to one of my former publications.¹ It is enough to remark here, that its great object is to refute the Ideal Theory which was then in complete possession of the schools, and upon which Dr Reid conceived that the whole of Mr Hume's philosophy, as well as the whole of Berkeley's reasonings against the existence of matter, was founded. According to this theory we are taught, that "nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it; that we do not really perceive things that are external, but only certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which are called impressions and ideas."—"This doctrine (says Dr Reid on another occasion) I once believed so firmly, as to embrace the whole of Berkeley's system along with it; till finding other consequences to follow from it, which gave me more uneasiness than the want of a material world, it came into my mind, more than forty years ago, to put the question, What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all the objects of my knowledge are ideas in my own mind? From that time to the present, I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the evidence of this principle; but can find none, excepting the authority of philosophers."

On the refutation of the ideal theory, contained in this and his other works, Dr Reid himself was disposed to rest his chief merit as an author. "The merit (says he in a letter

to Dr James Gregory) of what you are pleased to call my Philosophy, lies, I think, chiefly in having called in question the common theory of ideas or images of things in the mind being the only objects of thought; a theory founded on natural prejudices, and so universally received as to be interwoven with the structure of language. Yet were I to give you a detail of what led me to call in question this theory, after I had long held it as self-evident and unquestionable, you would think, as I do, that there was much of chance in the matter. The discovery was the birth of time, not of genius; and Berkeley and Hume did more to bring it to light than the man that hit upon it. I think there is hardly any thing that can be called mine in the philosophy of the mind, which does not follow with ease from the detection of this prejudice.

"I must, therefore, beg of you, most earnestly, to make no contrast in my favour to the disparagement of my predecessors in the same pursuits. I can truly say of them, and shall always avow, what you are pleased to say of me, that, but for the assistance I have received from their writings, I never could have wrote or thought what I have done." ¹

When I reflect on the stress thus laid by Dr Reid on this part of his writings, and his frequent recurrence to the same argument whenever his subject affords him an opportunity of forcing it upon the attention of his readers, I cannot help expressing my wonder, that Kant and other German philosophers, who appear to have so carefully studied those passages in Reid, which relate to Hume's Theory of Causation, should have overlooked en-

tirely what he himself considered as the most original and important of all his discussions; more especially as the conclusion to which it leads has been long admitted, by the best judges in this island, as one of the few propositions in metaphysical science completely established beyond the reach of controversy. Even those who affect to speak the most lightly of Dr Reid's contributions to the philosophy of the human mind, have found nothing to object to his reasonings against the ideal theory, but that the absurdities involved in it are too glaring to require a serious examination.¹ Had these reasonings been considered in the same light in Germany, it is quite impossible that the analogical language of Leibnitz, in which he speaks of the soul as a living mirror of the universe, could have been again revived; a mode of speaking liable to every objection which Reid has urged against the ideal theory. Such, however, it would appear, is the fact. The word Representation (Vorstellung) is now the German substitute for Idea; nay, one of the most able works which Germany has produced since the commencement of its new philosophical era, is entitled Nova Theoria Facultatis Representativæ Humanæ. In the same work, the author has prefixed, as a motto to the second book, in which he treats of "the Representative Faculty in general," the following sentence from Locke, which he seems to have thought himself entitled to assume as a first principle: "Since the mind, in

all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas (representations), which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them."—(Locke's Essay, B. IV. ch. 1.) In a country where this metaphysical jargon still passes current among writers of eminence, it is vain to expect that any solid progress can be made in the inductive philosophy of the human mind. A similar remark may be extended to another country, where the title of Idéologie (a word which takes for granted the truth of the hypothesis which it was Reid's great aim to explode) has been lately given to the very science in which the theory of Ideas has been so clearly shown to have been, in all ages, the most fruitful source of error and absurdity.¹

Of the other works by Scottish metaphysicians, which appeared soon after the Inquiry into the Human Mind, I have not left myself room to speak. I know of none of them from which something important may not be learned; while several of them (particularly those of Dr Campbell) have struck out many new and interesting views. To one encomium all of them are well entitled, that of aiming steadily at the advancement of useful knowledge and of human happiness. But the principles on which they have proceeded have so close an affinity to those of Dr Reid, that I could not, without repeating over what I have already said, enter into any explanation concerning their characteristical doctrines.

On comparing the opposition which Mr Hume's scepticism encountered from his own countrymen, with the account formerly given of the attempts of some German philosophers to refute his Theory of Causation, it is impossible not to be struck with the coincidence between the leading views of his most eminent antagonists. This coincidence one would have been disposed to consider as purely accidental, if Kant, by his petulant sneers at Reid, Beattie, and Oswald, had not expressly acknowledged, that he was not unacquainted with their writings. As for the great discovery, which he seems to claim as his own,—that the ideas of Cause and Effect, as well as many others, are derived from the pure understanding without any aid from experience, it is nothing more than a repetition, in very nearly the same terms, of what was advanced a century before by Cudworth, in reply to Hobbes and Gassendi; and borrowed avowedly by Cudworth from the reasonings of Socrates, as reported by Plato, in answer to the scepticism of Protagoras. This recur-

rence, under different forms, of the same metaphysical controversies, which so often surprises and mortifies us in the history of literature, is an evil which will probably always continue, more or less, even in the most prosperous state of philosophy. But it affords no objection to the utility of metaphysical pursuits. While the sceptics keep the field, it must not be abandoned by the friends of sounder principles; nor ought they to be discouraged from their ungrateful task, by the reflection, that they have probably been anticipated, in everything they have to say, by more than one of their predecessors. If anything is likely to check this periodical return of a mischief so unpropitious to the progress of useful knowledge, it seems to be the general diffusion of that historical information concerning the literature and science of former times, of which it is the aim of these Preliminary Dissertations to present an outline. Should it fail in preventing the occasional revival of obsolete paradoxes, it will, at least, diminish the wonder and admiration with which they are apt to be regarded by the multitude.

And here I cannot refrain from remarking the injustice with which the advocates for truth are apt to be treated; and by none more remarkably than by that class of writers who profess the greatest zeal for its triumph. The importance of their labours is discredited by those who are the loudest in their declamations and invectives against the licentious philosophy of the present age; insomuch that a careless observer would be inclined to imagine (if I may borrow Mr Hume's words on another occasion), that the battle was fought "not by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians, of the army."

These observations may serve, at the same time, to account for the slow and (according to some persons) imperceptible advances of the philosophy of the human mind, since the publication of Locke's Essay. With those who still attach themselves to that author, as an infallible guide in metaphysics, it is in vain to argue; but I would willingly appeal to any of Locke's rational and discriminating admirers, whether much has not been done by his successors, and, among others, by members of our northern universities, towards the illustration and correction of such of his principles as have furnished, both to English and French sceptics, the foundation of their theories.¹ If this be granted, the way has, at

least, been cleared and prepared for the labours of our posterity; and neither the cavils of the sceptic, nor the refutation of them by the sounder logician, can be pronounced to be useless to mankind. Nothing can be juster or more liberal than the following reflection of Reid: "I conceive the sceptical writers to be a set of men, whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when those places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more firm and solid than it was formerly."—(Inquiry into the Human Mind. Dedication.)

There is, indeed, one point of view, in which, it must be owned, that Mr Hume's Treatise has had an unfavourable effect (and more especially in Scotland) on the progress of Metaphysical Science. Had it not been for the zeal of some of his countrymen to oppose the sceptical conclusions, which they conceived it to be his aim to establish, much of that ingenuity which has been wasted in the refutation of his sophistry (or, to speak more correctly, in combating the mistaken principles on which he proceeded) would, in all probability, have been directed to speculations more immediately applicable to the business of life, or more agreeable to the taste of the present age. What might not have been expected from Mr Hume himself, had his powerful and accomplished mind been more frequently turned to the study of some parts of our nature (of those, for example, which are connected with the principles of criticism), in examining which, the sceptical bias of his disposition would have had fewer opportunities of leading him astray! In some fragments of this sort, which enliven and adorn his collection of Essays, one is at a loss whether more to admire the subtlety of his genius, or the solidity and good sense of his critical judgments.

Nor have these elegant applications of metaphysical pursuits been altogether overlooked by Mr Hume's antagonists. The active and adventurous spirit of Lord Kames, here, as in many other instances, led the way to his countrymen; and, due allowances being made for the novelty and magnitude of his undertaking, with a success far greater than could have been reasonably anticipated. The Elements of Criticism, considered as the first systematical attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts, possesses, in spite of its numerous defects both in point of taste and of philosophy, infinite merits, and will ever be regarded as a literary wonder by those who know how small a portion of his time it was possible for the author to allot to the composition of it, amidst the imperious and multifarious duties of a most active and useful life. Campbell and Gerard,

rence, under different forms, of the same metaphysical controversies, which so often prisms and mortifies us in the history of literature, is an evil which will probably always continue, more or less, even in the most prosperous state of philosophy. But it affords an objection to the utility of metaphysical pursuits. While the sceptics keep the field must not be abandoned by the friends of sounder principles; nor ought they to be discouraged from their ungrateful task, by the reflection, that they have probably been anticipated, in everything they have to say, by more than one of their predecessors. If nothing is likely to check this periodical return of a mischief so unpropitious to the progress of useful knowledge, it seems to be the general diffusion of that historical information concerning the literature and science of former times, of which it is the aim of these Primary Dissertations to present an outline. Should it fail in preventing the occasional revival of obsolete paradoxes, it will, at least, diminish the wonder and admiration which they are apt to be regarded by the multitude.

And here I cannot refrain from remarking the injustice with which the advocates for truth are apt to be treated; and by none more remarkably than by that class of writers who profess the greatest zeal for its triumph. The importance of their labours is discredited by those who are the loudest in their declamations and invectives against the licentious philosophy of the present age; insomuch that a careless observer would be inclined to imagine (if I may borrow Mr Hume's words on another occasion), that the battle was fought "not by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians, of the army."

These observations may serve, at the same time, to account for the slow and (according to some persons) imperceptible advances of the philosophy of the human mind, since the publication of Locke's Essay. With those who still attach themselves to that author, as an infallible guide in metaphysics, it is in vain to argue; but I would willingly appeal to any of Locke's rational and discriminating admirers, whether much has not been done by his successors, and, among others, by members of our northern universities, towards the illustration and correction of such of his principles as have furnished, both to English and French sceptics, the foundation of their theories.¹ If this be granted, the way has, at

least, been cleared and prepared for the labours of our posterity; and neither the cavils of the sceptic, nor the refutation of them by the sounder logician, can be pronounced to be useless to mankind. Nothing can be juster or more liberal than the following reflection of Reid: "I conceive the sceptical writers to be a set of men, whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when those places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more firm and solid than it was formerly."—(Inquiry into the Human Mind. Dedication.)

There is, indeed, one point of view, in which, it must be owned, that Mr Hume's Treatise has had an unfavourable effect (and more especially in Scotland) on the progress of Metaphysical Science. Had it not been for the zeal of some of his countrymen to oppose the sceptical conclusions, which they conceived it to be his aim to establish, much of that ingenuity which has been wasted in the refutation of his sophistry (or, to speak more correctly, in combating the mistaken principles on which he proceeded) would, in all probability, have been directed to speculations more immediately applicable to the business of life, or more agreeable to the taste of the present age. What might not have been expected from Mr Hume himself, had his powerful and accomplished mind been more frequently turned to the study of some parts of our nature (of those, for example, which are connected with the principles of criticism), in examining which, the sceptical bias of his disposition would have had fewer opportunities of leading him astray! In some fragments of this sort, which enliven and adorn his collection of Essays, one is at a loss whether more to admire the subtlety of his genius, or the solidity and good sense of his critical judgments.

Nor have these elegant applications of metaphysical pursuits been altogether overlooked by Mr Hume's antagonists. The active and adventurous spirit of Lord Kames, here, as in many other instances, led the way to his countrymen; and, due allowances being made for the novelty and magnitude of his undertaking, with a success far greater than could have been reasonably anticipated. The Elements of Criticism, considered as the first systematical attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts, possesses, in spite of its numerous defects both in point of taste and of philosophy, infinite merits, and will ever be regarded as a literary wonder by those who know how small a portion of his time it was possible for the author to allot to the composition of it, amidst the imperious and multifarious duties of a most active and useful life. Campbell and Gerard,

University of Glasgow."—(Exam. of Reid, Beattie, and Oswald, p. 5.)—As to Mr Hume, Dr Priestley says, "In my opinion, he has been very ably answered, again and again, upon more solid principles than those of this new common sense; and I beg leave to refer to the two first volumes of my Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion."—(Examination of Reid &c. Preface, p. xxvii.)

with a sounder philosophy, and Beattie, with a much more lively relish for the Sublime and the Beautiful, followed afterwards in the same path ; and have all contributed to create and to diffuse over this island a taste for a higher and more enlightened species of criticism than was known to our forefathers. Among the many advantageous results with which this study has been already attended, the most important, undoubtedly, is the new and pleasing avenue which it has opened to an analysis of the laws which regulate the intellectual phenomena ; and the interest which it has thus lent, in the estimation of men of the world, to inquiries which, not many years before, were seldom heard of, but within the walls of an university.

Dr Reid's two volumes of Essays on the Intellectual and on the Active Powers of Man (the former of which appeared in 1785, and the latter in 1788) are the latest philosophical publications from Scotland of which I shall at present take notice. They are less highly finished, both in matter and in form, than his Inquiry into the Human Mind. They contain also some repetitions, to which, I am afraid, I must add a few trifling inconsistencies of expression, for which the advanced age of the author, who was then approaching to fourscore, claims every indulgence from a candid reader. Perhaps, too, it may be questioned, whether, in one or two instances, his zeal for an important conclusion has not led him to avail himself of some dubious reasonings, which might have been omitted without any prejudice to his general argument. "The value of these volumes, however (as I have elsewhere remarked), is inestimable to future adventurers in the same arduous inquiries, not only in consequence of the aids they furnish as a rough draught of the field to be examined, but by the example they exhibit of a method of investigation on such subjects, hitherto very imperfectly understood, even by those philosophers who call themselves the disciples of Locke. It is by the logical rigour of this method, so systematically pursued in all his researches, still more than by the importance of his particular conclusions, that he stands so conspicuously distinguished among those who have hitherto prosecuted analytically the study of man." ¹

His acquaintance with the metaphysical doctrines of his predecessors does not appear to have been very extensive ; with those of his own contemporaries it was remarkably deficient. I do not recollect that he has anywhere mentioned the names either of Condillac or of D'Alembert. It is impossible not to regret this, not only as it has deprived us of his critical judgments on some celebrated theories, but as it has prevented him from enlivening his works with that variety of historical discussion so peculiarly agreeable in these abstract researches.

On the other hand, Dr Reid's limited range of metaphysical reading, by forcing him to draw the materials of his philosophical speculations almost entirely from his own reflections, has given to his style, both of thinking and of writing, a characteristical unity and simplicity seldom to be met with in so voluminous an author. He sometimes, indeed, repeats, with an air of originality, what had been previously said by his predecessors; but on these, as on all other occasions, he has at least the merit of thinking for himself, and of sanctioning, by the weight of his unbiased judgment, the conclusions which he adopts. It is this uniformity of thought and design, which, according to Dr Butler, is the best test of an author's sincerity; and I am apt to regard it also, in these abstruse disquisitions, as one of the surest marks of liberal and unfettered inquiry.

In comparing Dr Reid's publications at different periods of his life, it is interesting to observe his growing partiality for the aphoristical style. Some of his Essays on the Intellectual and Active Powers of Man are little more than a series of detached paragraphs, consisting of leading thoughts, of which the reader is left to trace the connection by his own sagacity. To this aphoristical style it is not improbable that he was partly led by the indolence incident to advanced years, as it relieved him from what Boileau justly considered as the most difficult task of an author, the skilful management of transitions.¹ In consequence of this want of continuity in his compositions, a good deal of popular effect is unavoidably lost; but, on the other hand, to the few who have a taste for such inquiries, and who value books chiefly as they furnish exercise to their own thoughts (a class of readers who are alone competent to pronounce a judgment on metaphysical questions), there is a peculiar charm in a mode of writing, so admirably calculated to give relief to the author's ideas, and to awaken, at every sentence, the reflections of his readers.

When I review what I have now written on the history of Metaphysics in Scotland, since the publication of Mr Hume's Treatise, and at the same time recollect the laurels which, during the same period, have been won by Scottish authors, in every other department of literature and of science, I must acknowledge that, instead of being mortified at the slender amount of their contributions to the philosophy of the human mind, I am more disposed to wonder at their successful perseverance in cultivating a field of study, where the approbation of a few enlightened and candid judges is the only reward to which their ambition could aspire. Small as their progress may hitherto have been, it will at

least not suffer by a comparison with what has been accomplished by their contemporaries in any other part of Europe.

It may not be useless to add in this place, that, if little has as yet been done, the more ample is the field left for the industry of our successors. The compilation of a Manual of Rational Logic, adapted to the present state of science and of society in Europe, is a desideratum which, it is to be hoped, will at no distant period be supplied. It is a work, certainly, of which the execution has been greatly facilitated by the philosophical labours of the last century. The varieties of intellectual character among men present another very interesting object of study, which, considering its practical utility, has not yet excited, so much as might have been expected, the curiosity of our countrymen. Much, too, is still wanting to complete the theory of evidence. Campbell has touched upon it with his usual acuteness, but he has attempted nothing more than an illustration of a very few general principles. Nor has he turned his attention to the various illusions of the imagination, and of the passions, by which the judgment is liable to be warped in the estimates it forms of moral evidence in the common affairs of life. This is a most important inquiry, considering how often the lives and fortunes of men are subjected to the decisions of illiterate persons concerning circumstantial proofs; and how much the success or failure of every individual in the conduct of his private concerns turns on the sagacity or rashness with which he anticipates future contingencies. Since the time when Campbell wrote, an attempt has been made by Condorcet¹ and some other French writers, to apply a mathematical calculus to moral and political truths; but though much metaphysical ingenuity, as well as mathematical skill, have been displayed in carrying it into execution, it has not yet led to any useful practical results. Perhaps it may even be questioned, whether, in investigating truths of this sort, the intellectual powers can derive much aid from the employment of such an organ. To define accurately and distinctly the limits of its legitimate province, still remains a desideratum in this abstruse part of logic.

Nearly connected with this subject are the metaphysical principles assumed in the mathematical Calculation of Probabilities; in delivering which principles, some foreign mathematicians, with the illustrious La Place at their head, have blended, with many unquestionable and highly interesting conclusions, various moral paralogisms of the most pernicious tendency. A critical examination of these paralogisms, which are apt to escape the attention of the reader amid the variety of original and luminous discussions with which

they are surrounded, would, in my humble apprehension, be one of the most essential services which could at present be rendered to true philosophy. In the mind of La Place, their origin may be fairly traced to an ambition, not altogether unnatural in so transcendent a genius, to extend the empire of his favourite science over the moral as well as the material world.¹ I have mentioned but a few out of the innumerable topics which crowd upon me as fit objects of inquiry for the rising generation.² Nor have I been guided in my selection of these by any other consideration, than their peculiar adaptation to the actual circumstances of the philosophical world.

Should such men as Hume, Smith, and Reid again arise, their curiosity would, in all probability, be turned to some applications of metaphysical principles of a more popular and practical nature than those which chiefly engaged their curiosity. At the same time, let us not forget what a step they made beyond the scholastic philosophy of the preceding age; and how necessary this step was as a preliminary to other researches bearing more directly and palpably on human affairs.

The most popular objection hitherto made to our Scottish metaphysicians is, that, in treating of human nature, they have overlooked altogether the corporeal part of our frame. From the contempt which they have uniformly expressed for all physiological theories concerning the intellectual phenomena, it has been concluded, that they were disposed to consider the human mind as altogether independent of the influence of physical causes. Mr Belsham has carried this charge so far, as to sneer at Dr Reid's inconsistency for having somewhere acknowledged, "in opposition to his systematical principles, that a certain constitution or state of the brain is necessary to memory." In reply to this charge, it may be confidently asserted, that no set of philosophers, since the time of Lord Bacon, have entertained juster views on this subject than the school to which Dr Reid belonged. In proof of this, I need only appeal to the Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician, by the late learned and ingenious Dr John Gregory. Among the different articles connected with the natural history of the human species, which he has there recommended to the examination of the medical student, he lays particular stress on "the laws of union

between the mind and body, and the mutual influence they have upon one another.” “This (he observes) is one of the most important inquiries that ever engaged the attention of mankind, and almost equally necessary in the sciences of morals and of medicine.” It must be remarked, however, that it is only the laws which regulate the union between mind and body (the same class of facts which Bacon called the doctrina de fœdere), which are here pointed out as proper objects of philosophical curiosity; for as to any hypothesis concerning the manner in which the union is carried on, this most sagacious writer was well aware, that they are not more unfavourable to the improvement of logic and of ethics, than to a skilful and judicious exercise of the healing art.

I may perhaps form too high an estimate of the progress of knowledge during the last fifty years; but I think I can perceive, within the period of my own recollection, not only a change to the better in the Philosophy of the Human Mind, but in the speculations of medical inquirers. Physiological theories concerning the functions of the nerves in producing the intellectual phenomena have pretty generally fallen into contempt: and, on the other hand, a large accession has been made to our stock of well authenticated facts, both with respect to the influence of body on mind, and of mind upon body. As examples of this, it is sufficient to mention the experimental inquiries instituted, in consequence of the pretended cures effected by means of Animal Magnetism and of Tractors; to which may be added, the philosophical spirit evinced in some late publications on Insanity.

Another objection, not so entirely groundless, which has been made to the same school, is, that their mode of philosophising has led to an unnecessary multiplication of our internal senses and instinctive determinations. For this error, I have elsewhere attempted to account and to apologize.¹ On the present occasion I shall only remark, that it is at least a safer error than the opposite extreme, so fashionable of late among our southern neighbours, of endeavouring to explain away, without any exception, all our instinctive principles, both speculative and practical. A literal interpretation of Locke's comparison of the infant mind to a sheet of white paper (a comparison which, if I am rightly informed, has not yet wholly lost its credit in all our universities), naturally predisposed his followers to embrace this theory, and enabled them to shelter it from a free examination, under the sanction of his supposed authority. Dr Paley, himself, in his earliest philosophical publication, yielded so far to the prejudices in which he had been educated, as to dispute the existence of the moral faculty; ² although, in his more advanced years, he amply aton-

ed for this error of his youth, by the ingenuity and acuteness with which he combatted the reasonings employed by some of his contemporaries, to invalidate the proofs afforded by the phenomena of instinct, of the existence of a designing and provident cause. In this part of his work, he has plainly in his eye the Zoonomia of Dr Darwin,¹ where the same principles, of which Paley and others had availed themselves to disprove the existence of instinct and instinctive propensities in man, are eagerly laid hold of to disprove the existence of instinct in the brutes. Without such an extension of the argument, it was clearly perceived by Darwin, that sufficient evidences of the existence of a Designing Cause would be afforded by the phenomena of the lower animals; and, accordingly, he has employed much ingenuity to show, that all these phenomena may be accounted for by experience, or by the influence of pleasurable or painful sensations, operating at the moment on the animal frame.

In opposition to this theory, it is maintained by Paley, that it is by instinct, that

“ Now the question is, whether, if this story were related to the wild boy caught some years ago in the woods of Hanover, or to a savage without experience and without instruction, cut off in his infancy from all intercourse with his species, and consequently under no possible influence of example, authority, education, sympathy, or habit; whether, I say, such a one would feel, upon the relation, any degree of that sentiment of disapprobation of Toranius’s conduct which we feel or not?”

“ They who maintain the existence of a moral sense, of innate maxims, of a natural conscience—that the love of virtue and hatred of vice are instinctive, or the perception of right or wrong intuitive (all of which are only different ways of expressing the same opinion), affirm that he would.

“ They who deny the existence of a moral sense, &c. affirm that he would not.

“ And upon this issue is joined.” (Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, B. I. Chap. 5.)

To those who are at all acquainted with the history of this dispute, it must appear evident that the question is here completely mistated; and that, in the whole of Dr Paley’s subsequent argument on the subject, he combats a phantom of his own imagination. The opinion which he ascribes to his antagonists has been loudly and repeatedly disavowed by all the most eminent moralists who have disputed Locke’s reasonings against innate practical principles; and is, indeed, so very obviously absurd, that it never could have been for a moment entertained by any person in his senses.

Did it ever enter into the mind of the wildest theorist to imagine that the sense of seeing would enable a man brought up, from the moment of his birth, in utter darkness, to form a conception of light and colours? But would it not be equally rash to conclude from the extravagance of such a supposition, that the sense of seeing is not an original part of the human frame?

The above quotation from Paley forces me to remark, farther, that, in combating the supposition of a moral sense, he has confounded together, as only different ways of expressing the same opinion, a variety of systems, which are regarded by all our best philosophers, not only as essentially distinct, but as in some measure standing in opposition to each other. The system of Hutcheson, for example, is identified with that of Cudworth. But although, in this instance, the author’s logical discrimination does not appear to much advantage, the sweeping censure thus bestowed on so many of our most celebrated ethical theories, has the merit of throwing a very strong light on that particular view of the subject which it is the aim of his reasonings to establish, in contradiction to them all.

is (according to his own definition), "by a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instruction," "that the sexes of animals seek each other; that animals cherish their offspring; that the young quadruped is directed to the teat of its dam; that birds build their nest, and brood with so much patience upon their eggs; that insects, which do not sit upon their eggs, deposit them in those particular situations in which the young, when hatched, find their appropriate food; that it is instinct which carries the salmon, and some other fish, out of the sea into rivers, for the purpose of shedding their spawn in fresh water."¹

In Dr Paley's very able and convincing reasonings on these various points, he has undoubtedly approached nearer to the spirit of what has been ironically called Scottish philosophy,² than any of Mr Locke's English disciples, since the time of Dr Butler; a circumstance which, when compared with the metaphysical creed of his earlier years, reflects the greatest honour on the candour and fairness of his mind, and encourages the hope, that this philosophy, where it is equally sound, will gradually and silently work its way among sincere inquirers after truth, in spite of the strong prejudices which many of our southern neighbours still appear to entertain against it. The extravagancies of Darwin, it is probable, first opened Dr Paley's eyes to the dangerous tendency of Locke's argument against innate principles, when inculcated without due limitations.³

With this very faint outline of the speculations of Locke's chief successors in Scot-

land, prior to the close of Dr Reid's literary labours, I shall for the present finish my review of the metaphysical pursuits of the eighteenth century. The long period which has since elapsed has been too much crowded with great political events to favour the growth of abstract science in any of its branches; and of the little which appears to have been done, during this interval, in other parts of Europe, towards the advancement of true philosophy, the interrupted communication between this island and the Continent left us for many years in a state of almost total ignorance. This chasm, in our information concerning foreign literature, it may not be a difficult task for younger men to supply. At my time of life it would be folly to attempt it; nor, perhaps, is any author, who has himself been so frequently before the public, the fittest person to form an impartial estimate of the merits of his living contemporaries. Now, however, when peace is at length restored to the world, it may reasonably be hoped that the human mind will again resume her former career with renovated energy; and that the nineteenth century will not yield to the eighteenth in furnishing materials to those who may hereafter delight to trace the progressive improvement of their species. In the meantime, instead of indulging myself in looking forward to the future, I shall conclude this section with a few general reflections suggested by the foregoing retrospect.

Among these reflections, what chiefly strikes my own mind is the extraordinary change which has gradually and insensibly taken place since the publication of Locke's Essay, in the meaning of the word Metaphysics; a word formerly appropriated to the ontology and pneumatology of the schools, but now understood as equally applicable to all those inquiries, which have, for their object, to trace the various branches of human knowledge to their first principles in the constitution of our nature.¹ This change can be accounted for

dispute about innate principles was in a great measure verbal. "It will really (says he) come to the same thing with regard to the moral attributes of God and the nature of virtue and vice, whether the Deity has implanted these instincts and affections in us, or has framed and disposed us in such a manner, has given us such powers, and placed us in such circumstances, that we must necessarily acquire them." (Ibid.) But if Dr Law was aware of this, why should he and his followers have attached such infinite importance to the controversy?

only by a change in the philosophical pursuits of Locke's successors; a change from the idle abstractions and subtleties of the dark ages, to studies subservient to the culture of the understanding; to the successful exercise of its faculties and powers; and to a knowledge of the great ends and purposes of our being. It may be regarded, therefore, as a palpable and incontrovertible proof of a corresponding progress of reason in this part of the world.

On comparing together the multifarious studies now classed together under the title of Metaphysics, it will be found difficult to trace any common circumstance but this, that they all require the same sort of mental exertion for their prosecution; the exercise, I mean, of that power (called by Locke Reflection) by which the mind turns its attention inwards upon its own operations, and the subjects of its own consciousness. In researches concerning our intellectual and active powers, the mind directs its attention to the faculties which it exercises, or to the propensities which put these faculties in motion. In all the other inquiries which fall under the province of the Metaphysician, the materials of his reasoning are drawn chiefly from his own internal resources. Nor is this observation less applicable to speculations which relate to things external, than to such as are confined to the thinking and sentient principle within him. In carrying on his researches (for example) concerning hardness, softness, figure, and motion, he finds it not less necessary to retire within himself, than in studying the laws of imagination or memory. Indeed, in such cases, the whole aim of his studies is to obtain a more precise definition of his ideas, and to ascertain the occasions on which they are formed.

From this account of the nature and object of metaphysical science, it may be reasonably expected, that those with whom it is a favourite and habitual pursuit, should acquire a more than ordinary capacity of retiring, at pleasure, from the external to the internal world. They may be expected also to acquire a disposition to examine the origin of whatsoever combinations they may find established in the fancy, and a superiority to the casual associations which warp common understandings. Hence an accuracy and a subtlety in their distinctions on all subjects, and those peculiarities in their views which are characteristic of unbiased and original thinking. But, perhaps, the most valuable fruit of their researches, is that scrupulous precision in the use of language, upon which, more than upon any one circumstance whatever, the logical accuracy of our reasonings, and the justness of our conclusions, essentially depend. Accordingly it will be found, on a review of the history of the moral sciences, that the most important steps which have been made in some of those, apparently the most remote from metaphysical pursuits (in the science, for example, of political economy), have been made by men trained to the exercise of their intellectual

powers by early habits of abstract meditation. To this fact Burke probably alluded, when he remarked, that "by turning the soul inward on itself, its forces are concentrated, and are fitted for stronger and bolder flights of science; and that in such pursuits, whether we take, or whether we lose the game, the chace is certainly of service." The names of Locke, of Berkeley, of Hume, of Quesnai, of Turgot, of Morellet, and above all, of Adam Smith, will at once illustrate the truth of these observations, and show, that, in combining together, in this Dissertation, the sciences of Metaphysics, of Ethics, and of Politics, I have not adopted an arrangement altogether capricious.¹

In farther justification of this arrangement, I might appeal to the popular prejudices so industriously fostered by many, against these three branches of knowledge, as ramifications from one common and most pernicious root. How often have Mr Smith's reasonings in favour of the freedom of trade been ridiculed as metaphysical and visionary! Nay, but a few years have elapsed, since this epithet (accompanied with the still more opprobrious terms of Atheistical and Democratical) was applied to the argument then urged against the morality and policy of the slave-trade; and, in general, to every speculation in which any appeal was made to the beneficent arrangements of nature, or to the progressive improvement of the human race. Absurd as this language was, it could not, for a moment, have obtained any currency with the multitude, had there not been an obvious connection between these liberal doctrines, and the well known habits of logical thinking, which so eminently distinguished their authors and advocates. Whatever praise, therefore, may be due to the fathers of the modern science of political economy, belongs, at least in part (according to the acknowledgment of their most decided adversaries), to those abstract studies by which they were prepared for an analytical investigation of its first and fundamental principles.

Other connections and affinities between Political Economy and the Philosophy of the

Human Mind will present themselves afterwards. At present I purposely confine myself to that which is most obvious and indisputable.

The influence of metaphysical studies may be also perceived in the philosophical spirit so largely infused into the best historical compositions of the last century. This spirit has, indeed, been often perverted to pernicious purposes; but who can doubt, that, on the whole, both history and philosophy have gained infinitely by the alliance?

How far a similar alliance has been advantageous to our poetry, may be more reasonably questioned. But on the most unfavourable supposition it must be admitted, that the number of poetical readers has thereby been greatly increased, and the pleasures of imagination proportionally communicated to a wider circle. The same remark may be extended to the study of philosophical criticism. If it has not contributed to the encouragement of original genius in the fine arts, it has been followed by a much more beneficial result in diffusing a relish for the beautiful and the elegant; not to mention its influence in correcting and fixing the public taste, by the precision and steadiness of the principles to which it appeals.¹

Another instance, still more important, of the practical influence of metaphysical science, is the improvement which, since the time of Locke, has become general in the conduct of education, both private and public. In the former case, the fact is universally acknowledged. But even in our universities (notwithstanding the proverbial aversion of most of them to everything which savours of innovation) what a change has been gradually accomplished since the beginning of the eighteenth century! The studies of Ontology, of Pneumatology, and of Dialectics, have been supplanted by that of the Human Mind, conducted with more or less success, on the plan of Locke's Essay; and, in a few seats of learning, by the studies of Bacon's Method of Inquiry, of the Principles of Philosophical Criticism, and of the Elements of Political Economy. In all this an approach has been made or attempted, to what Locke so earnestly recommended to parents, "that their children's time should be spent in acquiring what may be useful to them when they come to be men." Many other circumstances, no doubt, have contributed their share in producing this revolution; but what individual can be compared to Locke in giving the first impulse to that spirit of reform by which it has been established?²

In consequence of the operation of these causes, a sensible change has taken place in the style of English composition.¹ The number of idiomatical phrases has been abridged

reading among the poorer classes of the community is so wonderfully facilitated and extended, but to those admirable elementary works which have opened a ready and speedy access to the more recondite truths of the severer sciences. How much these have contributed to promote the progress of mathematical knowledge in France may be judged of from an assertion of Condorcet, that two years spent under an able teacher now carry the student beyond the conclusions which limited the researches of Leibnitz and of Newton. The Essays lately published on this subject by M. Lacroix (Essais sur l'Enseignement en Général, et sur celui des Mathématiques en particulier. Paris, 1805) contain many valuable suggestions; and, beside their utility to those who are concerned in the task of instruction, may justly be considered as an accession to the Philosophy of the Human Mind.

¹ See some judicious remarks on this subject in Mr Godwin's Inquirer, p. 274. In the opinion of this author, "the English language is now written with more grammatical propriety than by the best of our ancestors; and with a much higher degree of energy and vigour. The spirit of philosophy has infused itself into the structure of our sentences." He remarks farther, in favour of the present style of English composition, "that it at once satisfies the understanding and the ear." The union of these two excellencies certainly constitutes the perfection of writing. Johnson boasts, and with truth, in the concluding paper of the Rambler, that he had "added something to our language in the elegance of its construction, and something in the harmony of its cadence;" but what a sacrifice did he make to these objects, of conciseness, of simplicity, and of (what he has himself called) Genuine Anglicism. To accomplish the same ends, without any sacrifice of these higher merits, has been one of the chief aims of the most eminent among his successors.

As an instrument of thought and a medium of scientific communication, the English language appears to me, in its present state, to be far superior to the French. Diderot, indeed (a very high authority), has, with much confidence, asserted the contrary; and it is but fair to let him speak for himself: "J'ajouterois volontiers que la marche didactique et réglée à laquelle notre langue est assujettie la rend plus propre aux sciences; et que par les tours et les inversions que le Grec, le Latin, l'Italien, l'Anglois, se permettent, ces langues sont plus avantageuses pour les lettres: Que nous pouvons mieux qu'aucun autre peuple faire parler l'esprit; et que le bon sens choisiroit la langue Française; mais que l'Imagination et les passions donneroient la préférence aux langues anciennes et à celles de nos voisins: Qu'il faut parler Français dans la société et dans les écoles de Philosophie; et Grec, Latin, Anglois, dans les chaires et sur le Théâtre: Que notre langue seroit celle de la vérité, si jamais elle revînt sur la terre; et que la Grecque, la Latine, et les autres seroient les langues de la fable et du mensonge. Le Français est fait pour instruire, éclairer, et convaincre; le Grec, le Latin, l'Italien, l'Anglois, pour persuader, émouvoir, et tromper; parlez Grec, Latin, Italien au peuple, mais parlez Français au sage." (Œuvres de Diderot, Tome II. pp. 70, 71. Amsterdam, 1772.)

These peculiar excellencies of the French language are ascribed, in part, by Diderot to the study of the Aristotelian Philosophy. (Ibid. p. 7.) I do not well see what advantage France should, in this respect, have enjoyed over England; and since that philosophy fell into disrepute, it will scarcely be alleged that the habits of thinking cultivated by Locke's disciples have been less favourable to a logical rigour of expression than those of any contemporary sect of French metaphysicians.

A later French writer has, with far greater justice, acknowledged the important services rendered to the French language by the gentlemen of the Port Royal Society. "L'Ecole de Port Royal, féconde en penseurs, illustrée par les écrivains les plus purs, par les érudits les plus laborieux du siècle de Louis XIV. eût déjà rendu parmi nous un assez grand service à la philosophie par cela seul qu'elle a puissamment concouru à fixer notre langue, à lui donner ce caractère de précision, de clarté, d'exactitude, qui la rend si favorable aux opérations de l'esprit." (Hist. Comparée, &c. Tome II. p. 45.)

Mr Gibbon also has remarked, how much "the learned Society of Port Royal contributed to establish

ed ; and the language has assumed a form more systematic, precise, and luminous. The transitions, too, in our best authors, have become more logical, and less dependent on fanciful or verbal associations. If by these means our native tongue has been rendered more unfit for some of the lighter species of writing, it has certainly gained immensely as an instrument of thought, and as a vehicle of knowledge. May I not also add, that the study of it has been greatly facilitated to foreigners ; and that in proportion to its rejection of colloquial anomalies, more durable materials are supplied to the present generation for transmitting their intellectual acquisitions to posterity ?

But granting the truth of these reflections, it may still be asked, what is the amount of the discoveries brought to light by the metaphysical speculations of the eighteenth century ? Or rather, where are the principles to be found, of which it can be justly said, that they unite the suffrages, not of the whole, but even of the majority of our present philosophers ? The question has been lately put and urged, with no common ability, by a foreign academician.

“ The diversity of doctrines (says M. de Bonald) has increased, from age to age, with the number of masters, and with the progress of knowledge ; and Europe, which at present possesses libraries filled with philosophical works, and which reckons up almost as many philosophers as writers ; poor in the midst of so much riches, and uncertain with the aid of all its guides, which road it should follow ; Europe, the centre and the focus of all the lights of the world, has yet its philosophy only in expectation.”¹

In proof of this assertion, the author appeals to the Comparative History of Philosophical Systems relative to the Principles of Human Knowledge, by M. de Gerando ; and after a variety of acute strictures on the contradictory systems there described, sums up his argument in the following words :

“ Thus, the Comparative History of Philosophical Systems is nothing else than a History of the Variations of philosophical schools, leaving no other impression upon the reader than an insurmountable disgust at all philosophical researches ; and a demonstrated conviction of the impossibility of raising an edifice on a soil so void of consistency, and so completely surrounded by the most frightful precipices. About what then are philosophers agreed ? What single point have they placed beyond the reach of dispute ? Plato and Aristotle inquired, What is science ? What is knowledge ? And we, so many ages

after these fathers of philosophy; we, so proud of the progress of human reason, still continue to repeat the same questions; vainly pursuing the same phantoms which the Greeks pursued two thousand years ago.”¹

In reply to this bold attack on the evidence of the moral sciences, it may suffice to recall to our recollection the state of physical science not more than two centuries ago. The argument of M. de Bonald against the former is, in fact, precisely the same with that ascribed by Xenophon to Socrates against those studies which have immortalized the names of Boyle and Newton; and which, in our own times, have revealed to us all the wonders of the modern chemistry. Whatever contradictions, therefore, may yet exist in our metaphysical doctrines (and of these contradictions many more than is commonly suspected will be found to be merely verbal), why should we despair of the success of future ages in tracing the laws of the intellectual world, which, though less obvious than those of the material world, are not less the natural and legitimate objects of human curiosity?

Nor is it at all wonderful that the beneficial effects of metaphysical habits of thinking should have been first perceived in political economy, and some other sciences to which, on a superficial view, they may seem to have a very remote relation; and that the rise of the sap in the tree of knowledge should be indicated by the germs at the extremities of the branches before any visible change is discernible in the trunk. The sciences, whose improvement during the last century has been generally acknowledged, are those which are most open to common observation; while the changes which have taken place in the state of metaphysics, have attracted the notice of the few alone who take a deep interest in these abstract pursuits. The swelling of the buds, however, affords a sufficient proof that the roots are sound, and encourages the hope that the growth of the trunk, though more slow, will, in process of time, be equally conspicuous with that of the leaves and blossoms.

I shall close this part of my Dissertation with remarking, that the practical influence of such speculations as those of Locke and of Bacon is to be traced only by comparing, on a large scale, the state of the human mind at distant periods. Both these philosophers appear to have been fully aware (and I know of no philosopher before them of whom the same thing can be said), that the progressive improvement of the species is to be expected less from the culture of the reasoning powers, strictly so called, than from the prevention, in early life, of those artificial impressions and associations, by means of which, when once rivetted by habit, the strongest reason may be held in perpetual bondage. These impressions and associations may be likened to the slender threads which fastened Gulliver to the earth; and they are to be overcome, not by a sudden exertion of intellectual force, but by the gradual effect of good education, in breaking them asunder one by one. Since the revival of letters, seconded by the invention of printing, and by the Protestant Reformation, this process has been incessantly going on, all over the Christian world; but it is chiefly in the course of the last century that the result has become visible to common observers. How many are the threads which, even in Catholic countries, have been broken by the writings of Locke! How many still remain to be broken, before the mind of man can recover that moral liberty which, at some future period, it seems destined to enjoy!