LOCKE'S WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, VINDICATED FROM THE CHAEGE OF CONTRIBUTING TO THE SCEPTICISM OF HUME. BY EDWARD TAGART, P.S.A., F.L.S. LONDON: LONGMAN, BKOWN, GEEEN, AND LONGMANS. 1855. T3 " I know not how men, who have the same idea under different names, or different ideas under the same name, can in that case talk with one an- other." LOCKE. "I rejoice in your quotations from Locke. That great man has done more for the enlargement of the human faculties, and the establishment of pure Christianity, than any author I am acquainted with." BISHOP WATSON. PREFACE. THE Work now presented to the reader supposes careful students of the philosophy of the mind, with access to the books which profess to treat of it. It is a plea for English Philosophy and its great masters. It consists of two parts. The first is a vindication of Locke from prevalent misrepresentations, and especi- ally from the charge of encouraging scepticism in re- ligion and morals, showing, by a somewhat careful examination of Hume's metaphysical writings, that Hume neither built nor affected to build on any prin- ciples peculiar to Locke, and placing Locke in just re- lation to Descartes, Berkeley, Gassendi, and Leibnitz. The second contains a view of the progress of English philosophy, properly so called, from Bacon, through Hobbes, Locke, and Hartley, to more modern think- ers, such as Bentham, Mill, and Austin. It aspires to give such a view of the contents of the ' Essay on the Human Understanding' as may facilitate the pro- VI PREFACE. fitable study of it, and give to the reader a clear per- ception of its excellencies and defects. The second part arose naturally out of the first. Not having been originally contemplated, some slight repetitions of sentiment occur, which yet may not be unpleasing or useless to the reader. Brought up in a school in which Locke was the object of traditional veneration, a veneration height- ened and justified by reading, reflection, and experi- ence, I have seen with mingled astonishment and pain the attempts recently made to depose the master from his seat of honour, among those from whom bet- ter things were to be expected. But it is one thing to be convinced of the futility of the common objec- tions to Locke's philosophy, of the ignorance in which they originate, and of the injustice of the insinuations against its character and tendency another to dis- play that futility, that ignorance, that injustice before the eyes of an impartial inquirer by an elaborate pic- ture of the condition of mental and moral science be- fore and about his time, and a truthful representation of its progress since. Learned men, as well as others, are oftentimes hard to be convinced of the falsehood of an opinion once embraced by them ; " nor will they yield," says Lardner, " till they are overwhelmed by a heap of reasons." PREFACE. Vll In addition to the observance of the excellent rules laid down by Locke for remedying the imperfection and abuse of words, first, that words should be ap- plied, as near as may be, to such ideas as common use has annexed them to ; secondly, that they should be made, when doubtful or obscure, as clear as possible by explanation or definition, that is, by enumerating, in the case of terms significant of complex ideas, the several simple ones which enter into the complexity ; and thirdly, that there should be constancy in adhe- rence to the same meaning ; writers touching on the history of metaphysics should also observe a fourth rule, namely, that of "faithful quotation." They should never attempt to give the opinions of authors whom they criticize and controvert in words other than those which the authors themselves have used. Writers and thinkers worthy of attention express their notions in language deemed by them the fittest; a language not to be changed with advantage to their sentiments, except in so far as they have themselves supplied correction. Mr. Dugald Stewart, like most other writers on the mind, in his ' Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical Philosophy/ is very defec- tive in this respect. To that dissertation I must ac- knowledge myself indebted for opening many paths of interesting inquiry, though the result of inquiry Vlll PREFACE. has led me, for the most part, to conclusions very different from my guide's. In a work of this nature, surveying so wide and difficult a field, no doubt errors will be detected; some oversight of matters worthy of attention, some instances of bad reasoning, and of that laxity of phrase against which it is so difficult to guard. Such errors I shall rejoice to see corrected, being anxious only for the fullest investigation of the subject, for the advancement of mental and moral science. My wish is to be one of those combatants whom Locke describes " as a champion for knowledge, truth, and peace ; not a slave to vainglory, ambition, or a party." "Rational metaphysics," to translate a passage of D'Alembert in the admirable preliminary discourse to the ( Encyclopedic/ where he speaks of Locke as the Newton of the mind, " like experimental physics, can only consist in gathering with care all the facts, re- ducing them to a body, explaining some by others, and distinguishing those which ought to hold the first rank, to serve as the common basis." E.T. Wildwood, Hampstead, May, 1855. CONTENTS. PAGE Statement of the Design and Plan of the Work 1 VModern Opinions concerning Locke, Stewart, Cousin, Remusat, x J. D. Morell, and others 4 vfeigh estimation of Locke in England towards the middle of / the Eighteenth Century 12 VDr. Reid's Charge against Locke 16 Priestley's Reply 20 Account of the commencement of the Scotch School of Me- taphysics, 25 ; Animadversions on Reid and Stewart . . 26 Criticism of Berkeley 38 Of Hume 57 Of J. S. Mill's view of Causation . . . . 135 Stewart's remarks on Hume examined 142 Defence of Hartley 144 ^Merits of Locke contrasted with Hume 153 tjlobbes, Clarke, and Locke defended against Stewart, and Hume's infallible relations examined 157 Certainty in connection with Propositions founded on uniform Experience 172 Descartes on Innate Ideas examined 176 Gassendi on Descartes 182 Hobbes on Descartes 193 Merits and Defects of Descartes ; . 194 Merits of Campanella 198 Merits and Defects of Descartes continued 203 Gassendi's Influence upon Locke 210 Locke on Innate Ideas defended . . 225 X CONTENTS. PAGE Hooker's anticipation of Locke 229 x Henry More's Platonism 232 Eeview of Leibnitz c 239 Keview of Kant 285 On the terms a priori and a posteriori 312 OUTLINE OF THE PBOGBESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Bacon 331 Hobbes 338 His antagonists, Clarendon, Tenison, Cumberland .... 360 Locke 376 His view of the sources of Ideas 377 His view of the faculties of the Mind 384 His view of Complex Ideas 399 His view of Language 404 His error about Abstract Ideas being without Patterns in Nature 408 Hence about the nature of Demonstration, and its appli- cation to moral science 410 Value of his Writings, and their practical results .... 423 His Letters on Toleration 426 His Considerations on the State of the Coinage 427 ' ^Treatises on Government 428 Treatise on Education, compared with Milton's 435 His Controversy with Stillingneet 438 His Reasonableness of Christianity 441 Reply to Edwards 443 His Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul . . . 445 Its fruits 446 Hartley 449 Bentham's obligations to Hartley 454 James Mill's injustice to Hartley 460 Dr. Brown compared with Hartley 461 Alison's Essays on Taste 467 Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments 468 Butler to be classed with Law and Hartley 470 Importance of the doctrine of Association as applied to Habit and Affection, and to Logic 473 CONTENTS. PAGE Etymology one of the best guides to the meaning of terms . . 476 Peculiar advantage enjoyed by the disciple of Locke and Hartley . . 480 APPENDIX. 1. Account of Locke's last hours and character, translated from Le Clerc 483 2. Further examples of the supposed connection of Hume's scepticism with Locke's philosophy 490 3. Passage from Sir Matthew Hale showing the state of opi- nion on Innate Ideas before Locke 493 4. Opinion of Hume, by the translator of Buffier 494 5. Hume's definition of Virtue, etc. etc 495 Chronological Table of Writers on the Mind and kindred sub- jects .496 UNIVERSITY LOCKED WEITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. ERRATA. Page 48, line 15, for excluded read included. Page 201, line 15, for before read after. Page 269, line 12 of note, insert a full stop between after and Leibnitz. Page 344, note, for Seldon read Selden. Hope ol satisfactory result; while the opinion is in- dustriously propagated that they do not contain the elements of a sound philosophy of the mind, but, on the contrary, that they encourage a scepticism fatal to true science, to the intellectual progress, the moral improvement, and the lasting happiness of mankind. To remove or soften these prejudices, and to vindi- cate their scientific worth, is the object of the present Work ; and in whatever degree success attends it, and truth accompanies, in that degree something will be done for the progress of correct thought, and to pro- B .2 DESIGN OF THE WORK. mote the use of intelligible language concerning the operations and powers of the human understanding. The path will be smoothed for future inquirers ; the prospect of possible additions to our knowledge of human nature in its deepest and darkest recesses may be brightened; for in mental, no less than in phy- sical science, it is desirable to know how to observe and what to observe, in order to attain substantial and satisfactory results. A patient and minute atten- tion to works and authors very much forgotten, and when not forgotten, much misrepresented, will be ne- cessary ; and although to extract from a multitude of metaphysical books the modicum of valuable and practical sense and reasonable logic which they con- tain, is like cleansing the Augean Stable or disen- tangling Nesera's net, yet to uphold the just autho- rity of one of the greatest and purest of English philosophers, to add one votive offering to his honoured memory, is a duty of gratitude and a labour of love. Some future historian of the literature and philosophy of the eighteenth century, continuing Mr. Hallam's labours, may be assisted with materials for a useful chapter. Could I indulge the faintest hope of being remembered in some distant day, I could wish it to be in connection, humble but not unworthy, with the name of Locke. " Magnus veri sacerdos V " The incomparable man, who emancipated human reason from the yoke of mystery and jargon; the greatest and best of philosophers f." "The father of the * The poet Gray. f Professor Austin, in his Jurisprudence. DESIGN OF THE WORK. 3 modern logic*" and "of rational criticism." "First master of intellectual truth ! without whom those who have taught me would have been as nothing f." Such grateful praise has been given by disinterested and competent judges. It may be added, that he was the most distinguished champion of England's toleration and religious liberty ; foremost among those who endeavoured to make the purest reason compa- tible with benevolent religious faith knowledge in- strumental to devotion, and who considered the elu- cidation and defence of truth the first office of bene- volence the noblest service of mankind. In pursuing this subject, it is desirable at the out- set to adduce some evidence of the nature and pre- valence of the prejudices which I endeavour to re- move. The less-prepared reader will then judge how far there is real occasion for the present Essay. I shall then proceed to trace the origin and inquire into the reasonableness of these prejudices. In doing this, it will be necessary to enter fully and carefully into an examination of Hume's principles and reasonings, in order to show that the statements which I endea- vour to refute, are prejudices for which the authors have neither produced, nor in most instances pretended to adduce, any evidence whatsoever. This examina- tion will prepare us for the remarks, with which I shall venture to conclude, on the present condition of * Sir Humphry Davy ; and in what sense true, will be shown hereafter. t Jeremy Bentham's Works, vol. x., Bowring's edition. B 2 4 MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. mental and moral science, and on the means by which the study of it may be improved, and relieved from many embarrassments. In following this plan, much minute, but not unimportant literary history will of necessity demand attention ; but it may be hoped that its general accuracy, combined in some cases with novelty, as well as its sincerity of purpose, on a sub- ject of the highest moment, will repay whatever atten- tion may be given. MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. * 1. Mr. Dugald Stewart, in the Dissertation pre- fixed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, after mentioning some communications which took place by letter be- tween Dr. Butler, the author of the ' Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion with the Constitution and Course of Nature/ and David Hume, expresses himself as follows : " 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 inter- preted. And although he has touched on this sub- ject 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 con- tended for by Cudworth, in opposition to Gassendi and Hobbes, and which has since been revived by the ablest of Mr. Hume's antagonists. With these views, it may be reasonably supposed that he (?'. e. MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. 5 Butler) 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." The whole passage in Mr. Stewart's dissertation has reference to Hume's 'Treatise of Human Na- ture;' and it implies that in that Treatise some im- portant doctrine of Locke's was logically pushed to its utmost limits. It is worthy of notice, if only as a specimen of Mr. Stewart's mode of treating these subjects, that what Dr. Butler really alludes to, in the Essay on Personal Identity, is not Locke s account of the origin of our ideas, about which Butler says nothing, and to which I am not aware that he ever made objection, but certain expressions and supposi- tions concerning personal identity; of which Locke himself modestly says, "Did we know more of the thinking thing within one, we might see the absurdity of some of those suppositions I have made*." 2. Monsieur V. Cousin, in his 'Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophic Morale/ speaks of ' sensualisme' and the ' Ecole sensualiste,' as represented by Locke, Con- dillac, Helvetius, Saint-Lambert, and of idealism as associated with the Scotch, with Kant and Fichte; and he makes certain criticisms on Locke, which, if not hereafter noticed, will only be passed over because they have been sufficiently animadverted upon by an excellent American writer, Mr. Bowen, in his 'Meta- * Essay on Understanding, b. ii. ch. 27, and Stewart's Disserta- tion, p. 217. MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. physical Essays/ The terms ' sensualisme' and ' sen- sualist e' are not found in ordinary French dictionaries. They sound harshly to the English ear as expressive of a philosophical theory, especially when connected with the name and principles of Locke, who was as little of a sensualist, in the common English meaning of that term, as man could be. His taste, his principles, his habits, were in the highest degree remote from any tendency to the grosser indulgences of sense. Habi- tually an invalid, an exquisite refinement, a delicacy almost painful, pervades the expression of his counte- nance, as the common engravings and busts have trans- mitted it to us; and the grave lines which we now trace therein would have been deepened, or perhaps have relaxed into a smile, by the momentary suggestion that in future times his principles and his authority would come to be associated with any of the less pure, less worthy, and less elevated enjoyments, pursuits, and attributes of human nature. It could hardly have been intended by Monsieur Cousin to charge upon Locke any personal leaning to what in England would be most readily understood by a sensualist; but he takes no care to discuss an abstract philo- sophical question upon its merits, and to sever the simple matter of fact and of principle from the delu- sive mixture of motive and of consequences, from what Bentham aptly calls dislogistic phraseology. The ap- plause of his audience seduces him into declamation, when he should tax the understanding with patient analysis. But it is pleasanter to gather flowers which MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. 7 may be thrown away tomorrow, than to cut out steps in a hard rock, which, when once made, may thence- forth serve for easier ascent and wider views. 3. After Cousin, as an additional evidence of the state of thought on metaphysical subjects among the students of France, C. Remusat may be referred to, in whose third Philosophical Essay, under the head of 'Reid/ the following sentiment occurs : " Sensualism however was not the only result of the philosophy of Locke. One and the same error may produce different errors may sometimes give authority to contrary errors. Thus from a philosophy which exaggerates the part played by sensation, it was doubtless natural to conclude the reference of all reality to that which is perceived by sense (senti\ a conclusion which drives us to consider only body in the universe. But as sensation taken alone, despoiled of the beliefs which accompany it and make it fruitful, reveals nothing but itself alone, it was equally possible, in following Locke, to see only in external objects the sensation which they occasion, to annihilate their proper existence, and to rest the boldest doubt on the humblest empiricism. Thus that doc- trine which sacrifices mind to sensation might give birth alike to the negation of mind, that is, mate- rialism ; and to the negation of matter, that is, ideal- ism ; in fine, the negation of both, universal negation or scepticism. Of all these errors, the least unreason- able appears to be materialism, that is the error of the French. Idealism without scepticism, or dogmatic on one side, and on the other, scepticism with prefe- 8 MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. rence for materialism, the two doctrines or rather two subtle views, two paradoxical speculations, which could not make a school, are represented in England by two philosophers without disciples, Berkeley and Hume. After Locke, Hume and Berkeley have been the im- mediate adversaries of Reid; and we shall soon see how he combated them. But their doctrines were little adapted to the English genius : it is on the soil of Germany speculations of this sort flourish*." 4. Mr. J. D. Morell, in an ' Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century ' has the following remarks : " The principles of Locke's celebrated Essay we have already criticized at some length, and shown, we trust sufficiently, the dangerous readiness which it mani- fested to regard experience as the sole basis on which any system of truth could be erected." " The scep- ticism which arose out of the school of Locke, we find, in fact, to be the most deeply grounded in its principles, the most logical in its arguments, and the most sweeping in its conclusions, of any which the history of philosophy has recorded ; and the name of David Hume, its great advocate, will ever be remem- bered as associated with all that is bold and compre- hensive in the attacks which have been made against the validity of human knowledge." "Hume united in himself, to a high degree, the observing power of sensationalism with the faculty of abstract reasoning that has generally belonged pecu- * 'Essais sur la Philosophic,' by Remusat, vol. i. pp. 183-4. MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. liarly to idealism, and knew perfectly what had been found unsatisfactory in the one system, as well as what was inconclusive in the other. He came, properly speaking, from the school of Locke, and adopted throughout the fundamental axioms of that philosophy for his own; but he could equally well employ the rationalistic method of Descartes whenever it suited his purpose, in order to strengthen the grounds of his startling unbelief." "To the first principles, from which he took his start, no one at that time could very strongly demur, as it was then generally admitted that Locke's account of the origin of our ideas was correct, and that the whole of our knowledge might really be traced to sensation and reflection as its source. Hume in fact did little more than change the current phrase- ology, when he said that all our mental phenomena consist of impressions and ideas ; including under the former our direct perceptions, and by the latter, mean- ing the signs of them, which by virtue of memory, association, etc., remain after the impression has ceased. In addition to this, he was only following Aristotle, the scholastic philosophers, Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke himself, when he assumed as indisputable the representationalist theory of human knowledge, and took for granted, that by the idea of any real outward existence we are to understand the represen- tation or copy of it actually existing within our own minds, this copy being the sole means by which we can attain to the knowledge of the objective*/' * Morell's Philosophy, vol. i. p. 272. 10 MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. There is more to the same purpose and in a similar spirit in Mr. Morell's volumes. His taste seems to have been formed upon French models, and in the school of Cousin, more than -upon a patient study of the solid writers of his own country. Such use of the terms 'sensationalism/ 'idealism/ 'rationalistic/ ' representationalist/ is somewhat new to the English student; its value, with that of the correctness and precision of the whole statement, will be tested in some degree by that examination of Hume which lies before us. I throw into an Appendix some additional quota- tions from an Italian writer, Vincenzo Gioberti, from an American writer, a Mr. Rowland, and from a reviewer in the c Westminster and Foreign Quarterly/ and some other writers, which will illustrate still further the very extensive prevalence of these views of the influence of Locke. It is not worth while to detain the reader with their perusal here. It may be added that, partly by the reflex action of continental writers upon English opinion and taste, partly by the fear of social changes and of those reforms, ecclesiastical and educational, which are fa- voured by a clear, practical, and benevolent philo- sophy, the high estimation of Locke, as the founder of a true theory of the mind, as the leading dis- coverer in that important field of observation and inquiry, has of late years been declining in England, except among a few of the more independent and sober thinkers. Professor Sedgwick, in his 'Dis- MODERN OPINIONS CONCERNING LOCKE. 11 course on the Studies of the University of Cambridge/ Dr. Whewell, in his recent ' History of Moral Philo- sophy/ though acknowledging the great merits of Locke in many respects, are upon the whole unfavour- able to him, and do not encourage the opinion that he furnishes the brightest light, and leads the way as our best guide, in the dark and intricate paths of meta- physical research. It is even more to be regretted that other English writers and thinkers, freer in posi- tion than the Professors in our Universities, who might be expected to appreciate the rare intellectual and moral qualities of the author of the 'Essay on the Human Understanding/ and to own their inestimable obligations to him, have lent a hand to the destruc- tion of his fame and influence, an influence already sufficiently dreaded by the lovers of darkness, and the favoured beneficiaries of exclusiveness and in- tolerance. Taking the evidence now adduced of the nature and prevalence of those impressions concerning Locke, the justice of which is to form the subject of our ex- amination, evidence the readiest to my hands, though not perhaps the most important, which the literature of later days supplies, we may pass to that minute in- quiry into the real influence of Locke's philosophy upon his immediate successors, and into the exact na- ture of that philosophy, which will test their correct- ness, and account for their origin and prevalence. This examination will prove a salutary philosophical exercise, of some value in itself, and of the highest 12 HIGH ESTIMATION OF LOCKE importance in its results, in proportion to the com- pleteness and fidelity of the inquiry. HIGH ESTIMATION OF LOCKE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. "Towards the close of the eighteenth century, it became fashionable sometimes to accuse Locke of preparing the way for scepticism a charge which, if it had been truly applicable to some of his opinions, ought rather to have been made against the long line of earlier writers, with whom he held them in com- mon ; sometimes, with more pretence, to allege that he had conceded too much to materialism ; sometimes to point out and exaggerate other faults and errors of his Essay ; till we have seemed to forget that it is perhaps the first, and still the most complete chart of the mind which has been laid down ; the most ample repertory of truths relating to our intellectual being ; and the one book which we are compelled to name as the first in metaphysical science." Such is Mr. Hallam's language in the third of his delightful and instructive volumes on the History of the Literature of Europe, and it will not be disre- garded by any one capable of following in the paths which he has trodden. It will be found, on a close examination of writers on the philosophy of the mind subsequent to Locke, worthy of the discrimination and judgment of its venerated author. For the first half of the eighteenth century the IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 13 writings of Locke stood high in public estimation. His ' Essay on the Human Understanding*' had been early adopted as a text-book at the Universities. It became the " Novum Organum" of mental science, and pushed aside all previous works on that capital portion of the field of human knowledge. Conti- nental writers of the highest eminence acknowledged its vast importance. Le Clerc gave it deserved rank, by his review and account of it in the ' Bibliotheque Choisie' (torn, vi., 1706), preceded by Locke's own abridgment of it in the ' Bibliotheque Universelle,' 1688, and followed by an eloge of Locke, after his death, earnest and affectionate, but not extravagant, the tribute of a friend and a philosopherf. The eminent and gifted Leibnitz early published some short reflections on it, which, while expressing considerable diversity of opinion, showed his high * First published in 1689, and abridged by Mr. Wynne, 1695, for University use. t Locke did what he could to induce Le Clerc to settle in Eng- land, and to provide for that eminent scholar a living in the English Church. But it could not be brought about. One wishes that, as in the case of Erasmus, England had had the honour of sheltering and gladdening in his declining years a man of so much learning and ac- complishment as Le Clerc, " Who scorned delights, and lived laborious days." The only notice of Locke which I trace in Gibbon is honourable and in connection with Le Clerc, who had given Locke's method of a commonplace book, in the 'Bibliotheque Universelle,' of which method Gibbon observes, " The exactness and perspicuity of that great man are seen in that trifle." See Locke's Familiar Correspon- dence with Molyneux, and Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, in one vol., p. 433. 14 HIGH ESTIMATION OF LOCKE sense of its importance and of the merits of the author. And he commented upon it at length, in 'Nouveaux Essais sur 1'Entendement humain,' in 1703. It was speedily translated into French by the admiring hand of Mons. Coste. A Latin translation appeared in 1701*. At home, writers of all classes united to extol and recommend it. The learned Bent- ley, in the Boyle Lectures against Atheism, in 1693, built upon Locke's principles, and "vented his notions from the pulpit f." Addison infused into his 'Spec- tators' a spirit of practical wisdom, and a refinement of feeling and taste> caught from the great philoso- pher, whom he delighted to mention with honour. His name was venerated, not merely as a synonym for intellectual sagacity, but for the pure and dispas- sionate love of truth, combined with a rational piety and calm religious faith ; as that of a man who had done perhaps more than any living individual to dis- sipate prejudices, to stimulate inquiry, to secure the liberties, and, by an example of intellectual and moral greatness, to promote the highest honour and happi- ness of his country. The friend of Somers and of William the Third, of Molyneux, of the first Shaftes- bury, of Pembroke, of Newton, and an inmate in the house of the daughter of Cudworth, he enjoyed and * Mr. Stewart observes " that we everywhere trace the influence of Locke's doctrines in Crousaz's ' Treatise of Logic.' " If the ' Art of Thinking,' by Crousaz, translated in 1724, be meant, the fact is otherwise : much of Locke's language is misapplied, and his autho- rity scarcely recognized. f See Locke's Letter to Molyneux, Feb. 22, 1697. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 15 used the finest opportunities for intellectual accom- plishment, and for social influence the most beneficial and the most extensive. Who can read Coste's Cha- racter of Mr. Locke without sympathizing in its rap- tures of admiration for his "virtue, capacity, and the excellency of his writing" ? The high estimation in which Locke was held, about the middle of the last century, especially at Cambridge, when Law and Gay were also there as visitors or residents, associated in common studies, is shown by the beautiful address to the philosopher, which the poet Gray introduces into the fragment of a metaphysical poem, entitled, 'De Principiis Cogi- tandi,' designed to embody the philosophy of Locke. " Nee dedignare canentem, O decus ! Angliacse certe 6 lux altera gentis ! Si qua primus iter monstras, vestigia conor Signare incerta, tremulaque insistere planta. Quin potius due ipse (potes namque omnia) sanctum Ad limen, (si rite adeo, si pectore puro,) Obscurse reserans naturae ingentia claustra. Tu caecas rerum causas, fontemque severum Pande, Pater ; tibi enim, tibi, veri magne Sacerdos, Corda patent hominum, atque altse penetralia mentis." This invocation of Locke by Gray is the more im- pressive, because there was hardly any branch of learn- ing except the pure mathematics in which Gray had not acquired a mastery, and he had paid particular attention to metaphysical and moral science, ancient and modern. Prom the whole character of the metaphysical philo- 16 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE sophy prevalent in England and at the Universities, at the period when Gray wrote, it is evident that not only had Shaftesbury lapsed into comparative oblivion, but that other writers also, who were opposed to Locke, such as Stillingfleet, and the less-remembered Norris, the Platonist, and Lee, and Lowde, who wrote on the Nature of Man, and drew forth some comments from Locke in the later editions of the Essay, had sunk into the same condition. Then Warburton* and Cony- beare spoke of Locke as " the honour of this age, and the instructor of the future," and of the Essay on the Human Understanding as " one of the noblest and most original books in the world." REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. But after the writings of Berkeley and of Hume appeared, a different tone began to be in vogue. The depreciation of Locke, and the connection of his name with sceptical principles, came from the North, and the first who set the fashion was Dr. Thomas Reid, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Univer- sity of Glasgow, who published, in 1764, an ' Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the principles of Common Sense.' I say the first, because Shaftesbury 's unwar- * See the Dedication to the Free-thinkers prefixed to the ' Divine Legation,' with the striking remarks on the treatment of Locke by Collins and by Shaftesbury: Warburton's Works, vol. i. p. 163, edit. 1811. WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 17 rantable attack on Locke's Essay, which has of late been frequently quoted, and may be found in Stew- art's Dissertation (p. 118) mentioned with praise, as putting the question about innate ideas in a right light, although it really changes that question en- tirely, is a mere piece of rodomontade, passed over at the time as unworthy of its author. ' To throw truth and virtue out of the world/ is happily not within the scope of any man's powers ; and to speak thus of such a work as Locke's, can only be regarded as a hasty ebullition of. temper, which its author upon the least reflection must have repented. There is a severe and contemptuous notice of Shaftesbury in the Letters of the poet Gray : it is at the close of a letter addressed to Mr. Stonhewer, dated Cambridge, Au- gust 18, 1758, and may be given in a note*. * " You say you cannot conceive how Lord Shaftesbury came to be a philosopher in vogue. I will tell you. First, he was a lord. Secondly, he was as vain as any of his readers. Thirdly, men are very prone to believe what they do not understand. Fourthly, they will believe anything at all, provided they are under no obligation (? rational obligation) to believe it. Fifthly, they love to take a new road, even when that road leads nowhere. Sixthly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and seemed always to mean more than he said. Would you have any more reasons ? An interval of above forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A dead lord ranks but with commoners. Vanity is no longer interested in the matter, for the new road has become an old one. The mode of free-thinking is like that of ruffs and farthingales, and has given place to that of not thinking at all ; once it was reckoned disgraceful half to dis- cover and half to conceal the mind, but now we have been long accustomed to see it quite naked ; primness and affectation of style, like the good breeding of Queen Anne's Court, has turned to hoyden- C 18 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE " I acknowledge," says Dr. Reid, in the dedication of his ' Inquiry into the Human Mind/ " that I never thought of calling in question the principles commonly received with regard to the human understanding, until the 'Treatise of Human Nature' was published in the year 1739. The ingenious author of that Trea- tise upon the principles of Locke, who was no sceptic, hath built a system of scepticism which leaves no ground to believe any one thing rather than its con- trary. His reasoning appeared to me to be just; there was therefore a necessity to call in question the principles or to admit the conclusion*/' Dr. Reid expresses himself still more strongly to the same effect at the conclusion of his work. After intimating that Locke's principles concerning ideas were in some im- portant particulars identical with those of Descartes, and that Berkeley's system is founded upon Cartesian principles, he says: "Thus we seef that Descartes and Locke take the road that leads to scepticism without knowing the end of it; but they stop short for want of light to carry them further. Berkeley, frighted at the appearance of the dreadful abyss, starts aside, and avoids it. But the author of the ' Treatise ing and rude familiarity." The above is followed, in Mason's ' Gray,' by some pertinent strictures on the writings of Lord Bolingbroke, and his attack on the * Moral Attributes of the Deity.' * 'Inquiry into the Human Mind/ by Dr. Reid. Dedication, p. 5, edit. 1769. f Conclusion of the ' Inquiry,' p. 374. Compare also various pas- sages relating to Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke, in the Intro- duction to the same work, p. 10. WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 19 of Human Nature/ more daring and intrepid, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left, like Virgil's Alecto, shoots directly into the gulf : " Hie specus horrendum, et saevi spiracula Ditis Monstrantur : ruptoque ingens Aclieronte vorago Pestiferas aperit fauces." Dr. Reid's work reached a third edition in 1769. It was exceedingly well received. Being Professor of Philosophy in a Scotch University, the Doctor's opi- nions and statements were influential from his position ; and without examination (for how few would examine Descartes and Malebranche for themselves) they gained credit and were repeated. Mr. Dugald Stewart, in his account of the life and writings of Dr. Reid, pub- lished in 1802, declares that the idea of prosecuting the study of the Human Mind on the plan of Lord Bacon and his followers in physics, if not first con- ceived, was at least first successfully carried into exe- cution by Dr. Reid*. Dr. Reid was soon followed by two other writers in the same track, namely, Dr. Oswald, who published an ' Appeal to Common Sense in behalf of Religion/ a second edition of which came out in 1768, and Dr. James Beattie, more famous as a poet, who became Professor of Philosophy in Ma- rischal College, Aberdeen, in 1760, and first published his 'Essay on Truth' in 1770, an essay which went through five editions in as, many successive years an evidence of the fluctuation of taste and fashion in lite- rature. Thus we see that reputations flourish like * Stewart's Account, 4to, p. 40. c 2 20 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE plants or weeds. They that grow most rapidly and are decked most gaily, for the most part decline also the soonest. The growth of the monarchs of the forest is slow and unnoticed ; but year after year they spread out their glories, and stand for ages, the object of ever-renewed admiration. So is it with the greatest productions of human intelligence : they bear fruit for successive generations, and fill the air season after sea- son with the perfume of their blossoms. These three writers, the Curiatii of the North, were not allowed to nourish their trumpets and claim a victory, without meeting an antagonist. A champion for England's superior sense against their common sense soon descended into the lists. They were sharply attacked and roughly handled by Dr. Priestley, who published an examination of them in 1774. It has been said that the flippant and sarcastic style which the Doctor assumed in his 'Examination' was disap- proved even by his own friends. If this be true, it may be readily imagined that those who were already unfriendly were deterred from looking into his pages, and found in the manner a sufficient excuse for under- valuing and disregarding the matter. Dr. Campbell, in his 'Philosophy of Rhetoric,' is particularly hard upon it*. He says*. " The attack was made in a manner which no man who has any regard to the name either of Englishman or of philo- sopher, will ever desire to see imitated in this or in any other country." Yet there is that vigour, pur- * See vol. i. pp. 94-97, edit. 1808. WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 21 pose, and clearness in Dr. Priestley's work, which keeps the reader awake, and relieves the dryness of metaphysical disquisition. And Dr. Campbell's note proves that he also, candid and scholarly as upon the whole he was, could be blind to the real question at issue, in zeal for his discomfited countrymen. That question was not the existence of first truths or prin- ciples, as Dr. C. states it this Dr. Priestley never denied ; but it was the extent to which Reid and his coadjutors had misunderstood and misrepresented the philosophy of Locke and his school*. Dr. Priestley, ardent in everything, was the ardent disciple of Locke and Hartley. He thought he had found in these great and sober writers, not only a suf- ficient preservative from religious scepticism, but the elements of a true philosophy of the human mind. He was astounded and grieved at the manner in which these great masters of metaphysical science had been treated. He saw a modest and candid philo- sophy, as well as pure religion, endangered, wounded, betrayed, by officious and ill-judging friends. With a courage and energy characteristic of his free and gene- rous nature, he rose up at once and unhesitatingly in their defence. He advanced boldly, and with the first weapons at hand, into the camp of the enemy. He ex- posed their feeble resources and unworthy manoeuvres. He found their positions weak and untenable ; and he * The reader may compare with this Stewart's notice both of Campbell and Priestley in his account of Reid, which may be most conveniently referred to as reprinted in Hamilton's ' Eeid,' p. 27. 22 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE scrupled not to represent their alliance as virtually a compact of prejudice and vanity. He denounced their principles as alike dangerous and false, and their works as destructive to the progress of sober and scientific inquiry, and to the proper estimation of writers far superior to themselves in all the highest attributes of the mind. Dr. Priestley's work, however severely animadverted upon for its tone and temper, a tone which no doubt contributed to alienate readers whom it would have been better, if possible, to conciliate, readers who, though refusing to be driven, might not unwillingly have been led, was never candidly examined, still less was it deliberately answered, by any of the parties whom he attacked. Yet nothing can be more candid nor more amiable than the letters of Dr. Priestley in his correspondence with Beattie, appended to later editions of the 'Examination*.' The present Sir W. Hamilton, in the notes to his edition of ' Reid,' has referred to it, admitting and even following up with confirmatory matter the reasonableness of some of its exceptions to Reid's statements and language, and damaging those statements and that language quite as unsparingly. Yet there are passages where SirW. Hamilton might have referred to Priestley with equal advantage, but has not done sof. Dr. Priestley was not convicted of misrepresenting the opinions nor mis- * See Butt's Priestley, vol. iii. t Compare Hamilton's ' Eeid,' p. 110, with Priestley's ' Examina- tion,' p. 97 ; Eeid, pp. 121, 122, with Priestley, pp. 60 and 89. WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 23 quoting the statements of those on whom he com- mented. He was neither corrected nor confuted*. He showed that, far from being original in their views and expressions, with regard to intuition and common sense, the Scotch writers had been anticipated by Dr. Price, who published his ' Review of the Principal Questions in Morals' in 1758; and in some measure also by Mr. Harris, in the ' Hermes/ He might have added, by Father Buffier, in his ' Treatise on First Truths/ But Sir W. Hamilton has, I think, success- fully defended Reid from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by the translator of Buffier f. Now there was a part of the subject which Priestley left untouched, and which it is the chief purpose of this Inquiry to discuss, on account of its connection with the history, of philosophy and the current of * Yet the reader should consult the comments on Priestley in the Notes A to D of Stewart's * Essays on the Philosophy of the Mind,' first published in 1810. t The translation was published, with an instructive preface, in 1780. This preface is anonymous. Who was the author ? The work was published by Johnson, of St. Paul's Churchyard ; and the suc- cessor to Johnson, now living, has informed me that he always understood Dr. Priestley to be the author. This has been supposed by other students ; but there is no allusion to that authorship in Dr. Priestley's works or letters. It was not like him to publish without his name. The style (though easy) and the spirit are scarcely his. The Rev. W. Turner, jun., of Halifax, a competent judge, has sug- gested that Berrington, the author of 'Letters on Materialism,' and the correspondent of Dr. Priestley, might possibly be the translator and editor in question. Whoever was the author, there is a severe notice of Hume in his preface (p. x.), which will be found in our Appendix, and justified to a great extent by the matter of the present work. 24 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE opinion on speculative points of the highest import- ance to the present time. Valuable and suggestive as Priestley's examination of Reid, Beattie, and Os- wald is to the philosophical inquirer, for the acuteness and earnestness with which it exposes the pretension and shallowness of their productions, it would have been more valuable it would have produced proba- bly a far stronger impression on his contemporaries, even on the minds of those whom he opposed had he examined also the Treatise of Human Nature, and Hume's Inquiries and principles in general, instead of contenting himself with referring his readers to his own ' Institutes of Religion' for an answer to Hume ; and if he had shown or endeavoured to show that Hume's scepticism, to whatever it amounted, was nei- ther professedly nor legitimately deduced from the phi- losophy of Locke. It may therefore be thought, not- withstanding Dr. Priestley's animadversions on these writers, that Hume did build on Locke's foundations, and did support himself by Locke's principles ; and that his scepticism is the natural and unavoidable result and growth of what is now called the ' sensa- tional philosophy.' This is in fact the current doctrine, as has been partly shown, in Germany and France, and more recently in England and America. It was Hume, and the opinion that he was unanswered, that gave rise to the transcendental school, of which the celebrated Kant was founder, and in which Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, and Hegel have since been teachers. There is some not unimportant literary history con- WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM > .05 nected with this inquiry. About the time when Scotch philosophy began to invade the territory of which Locke had hitherto been master, there existed at Aberdeen a society, or club, for the discussion of literary and philosophical subjects, composed of men whose opinions were in many points congenial, and who have all been hailed among the revivers of Scotch literature. It is supposed that the topics which fill the works of Reid, Beattie, Oswald, Campbell, Gregory, and Gerard were first produced, and their merits dis- cussed, in this society, either in the form of an essay or of a question for familiar conversation*. It is probable that these Scotchmen were alarmed at the bad opinion which Hume's sceptical writings were calculated to diffuse of the nature and tendency of Scotch literature and Scotch philosophy. Their universities, as institutions for education, and their own character and influence as professors, might come to be in very bad repute, if it were supposed that any extensive sympathy existed among the professors of those universities with the views of their countryman a sympathy which the proverbial national partiality of the Scotch rendered far from antecedently impro- bable. While therefore Campbell and Gerard devoted * A very interesting account of this Society, called " The Wise Club," is given in the 'Life of Beattie,' by Sir W. Forbes. With- out doubt it laid the foundation of the popularity and the influence of Scotch philosophy and literature. With a natural partiality these friends praised each other's "learning and sagacity ;" nor would this be objected against them, if they had done justice to writers and philosophers far superior to themselves. 26 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE themselves purely to the theological questions con- nected with the study and defence of Revealed Reli- gion, and both produced works which the theologian will highly value the one in his Dissertations pre- fixed to the Translation of the New Testament, the other in his 'Institutes' as constituting no mean por- tion of his critical apparatus, the professors of moral philosophy sought to encounter the sceptic in the rarer atmosphere of metaphysics, but with infinitely less success. The contests of metaphysicians are like those of Milton's angels. The sword of logic, even when tempered, like that of Michael from the armoury of God, " so that neither keen nor solid might resist that edge," ever inflicts what the poet calls " a dis- continuous wound." The ethereal substance is not long divisible. Metaphysicians are " spirits that live throughout, vital in every part !" "And, as they please, They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare." Even when most discomfited and confounded by an opposing and overwhelming force, the adherent of the most atheistic system of metaphysical philosophy con- soles himself with something like the sentiment of Satan : " True is, less firmly arm'd, Some disadvantage we endured and pain, Till now not known, but, known, as soon contemn'd ; Since now we find this our empyreal form Incapable of mortal injury, WITH LEADING TO 8CBPTICI Imperishable, and though pierced with woui Soon closing, and by native vigour heal'd*." Those who are familiar with metaphysical writers will feel sufficiently the force of the comparison. The absence of definite meaning in their terms is the tor- ment of the logical thinker "a limbo broad and large, the paradise of fools." They build a tower of Babel ; and trying to scale heaven, the result is a confusion of tongues. No questions of practical utility suscep- tible of satisfactory solution are kept before the mind. What is Time? What is Space? What is Being? What is absolute existence? What is the absolute in itself f? How are synthetical cognitions a priori possible ? These are the dark questions that, like the * The admirer of Dante may remember with pleasure that the author of the Inferno, and his guide, after an encounter with the poets, meet in the first region, which appears cheerful enough, with its castle of seven walls and gates, its pleasant stream, its mead with lively verdure fresh, the philosophic train Aristotle, whom he calls, with just appreciation, "the Master of the sapient throng;" "there Socrates and Plato both I marked, Tully, and moral Seneca, Avicen, and him who made that commentary vast, Averroes." The com- mentators may be left where they were seen ; but one would hope, with Zwingle and Augustin, that the merit of the great masters may ultimately save them, though unbaptized. See Gary's Dante, canto 4. f The reader may consult Morell's ' History of Philosophy,' vol. ii. p. 62, and consider the following definition of the Absolute given by Remusat in his account of Kant, p. 407 : " L'absolu est le caractere ou de la chose prise en soi, et de ce qu'elle vaut intrinsequement, ou de la chose valable a tous egards et tous les rapports. Ce dont 1'op- pose est impossible a tous egards et sous tous les rapports (et non pas seulement intrinsequement impossible) est absolument neces- saire. Tel est le veritable absolu. La~raison pur ose s'elever a cet absolu." Why not similar definitions of the 'resolute,' dissolute 28 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE smoke ascending from the first touch of Aladdin's lamp, now meet us at the threshold of metaphysical inquiry, and on which are made to depend the further questions, whether we ourselves are merely accidents of an accident, or subjects of a creative Ruler, whose law we are competent in some measure to interpret and obey. It is forgotten that, if we could answer such questions to our satisfaction, and supply available definitions to the terms in doubt, little or nothing would be done towards a settlement of those points on which Locke pursued his inquiries, namely, "the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent ;" " those measures whereby a rational creature, put into that state which man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions, and actions depend- ing thereon." We should still be left to inquire how the mind comes to be furnished with its vast store and endless variety of ideas, with all the materials of reason and knowledge? what are the powers of the understanding, and their limits ? whether ideas can be usefully distinguished into those of sensation and re- flection ? how ideas come to be associated with words, and simple ideas become complex ? and whence lan- guage derives its significancy and strength, and what are its defects and its perfections as an instrument of involute, convolute, etc., or any other Latin participle, without meaning except in connection with an object to which it is applied? To this great height the pure reason may dare to lift itself, till it finds an atmosphere too rare for useful and desirable existence. WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 29 thought and communication ? and what is the quality in an act, or habit, or disposition, or agent, which entitles any one of the four to the epithet virtuous on the one hand, or vicious on the other? and by what methods the mind may be enriched and cultivated, and the dispositions and habits of the individual be improved? Upon these important questions tran- scendental philosophy seems to throw no light. It even scorns them, as empiricism ; but they are the questions which, till recently, chiefly exercised the thoughts and investigations of English thinkers, such as our Bacon, and Hobbes, and Selden, and Cumberland, and Locke, and Hartley, and Paley, and Law. This will appear more relevant as we proceed. Many philosophers had inquired into the Human Mind, and with no slight sagacity, before Dr. Reid undertook the task, and published the results of his inquiry in a work which Mr. Dugald Stewart so warmly eulogized as the first successful execution of Lord Bacon's plan of study. If to make bold asser- tions with complete indifference to the proof, to ap- peal to vulgar prejudice, under the title of common sense, in answer to refined and subtle arguments, to declaim, but not to analyse, to substitute meta- phors, fancies, prophecies, for an examination of na- ture, fact, and reasoning, to worship the idola tribus or idola specus ; if this be to execute Lord Bacon's plan of study, then indeed Dr. Reid has executed it. But whoever reads with conscientious care the authors 30 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE who preceded Dr. Reid, will be only mortified to find to how little purpose they had written how com- pletely their excellencies and their faults were thrown away on this new candidate for literary distinction and philosophical discovery. It would perhaps be difficult to mention a treatise on any other subject of scientific investigation less worthy than this ' Inquiry into the Human Mind' by Dr. Reid, coming from a source of such repute, and considering the means of information within the author's easy reach. It is manifestly deficient in all the qualities of a careful philosophical production. No doubt our best authors have much improved, since Dr. Reid's time, in power of metaphysical analysis and closeness of metaphysi- cal reasoning*. But Reid should be judged by the standard of those whom he ought to have known, because he professed to study and understand them. Whoever reads with due attention the third and fourth chapters of Locke's Essay, Berkeley's 'Principles of * "We are grown" (says Mrs. Barbauld 'Preliminary Essay to Selections from the Spectator,' p. 6 speaking of the inaccuracies and vulgarisms which blemish the pages of Steele) " more accurate in our definitions, more discriminating in our investigations, more pure in our diction, more fastidious in our ornaments of style ; we possess standards of excellence of every kind to refer to, books mul- tiply on our hands, and we willingly consign to oblivion a portion of the old, to make way for the increasing demands of the new." Was not the first part of this passage truer a few years ago than it is now P Was it not truer before the * Edinburgh Review' began to put sober English authorship somewhat out of countenance by the unfairness and pretension of anonymous reviewing ; and before we began to be flooded with translations from the Germans and the French by those who have paid little attention to the English masters ? WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 31 Human Knowledge/ the first volume of Hume's 'Treatise of Human Nature/ the translation, with notes by Edmund Law, of King's ' Origin of Evil/ some of the earlier propositions of Hartley's ' Observations on Man/ particularly the eighth, tenth, twelfth, thirty- third, and seventy-ninth, and subsequent propositions relating to words and truth ; whoever, instead of con- fining himself to the authors whom Dr. Reid professes to review and correct, looks into the pages of the clear and thoughtful Hobbes, or of writers less immedi- ately concerned Descartes and Gassendi, Norris and Peter Browne, Jackson and Collins, or into the meta- physical correspondence of Clarke and Leibnitz, all of whom entered into the arena of metaphysical dis- cussion with a zeal and power characteristic of their day, for Locke left behind him an atmosphere glow- ing with light and warmth long after his sun had set, such a reader will feel that Dr. Reid's work, what- ever its reputation at home or on the continent, enti- tled an ' Inquiry into the Human Mind/ is altogether unworthy of its title, that it is, to say the least of it, a very shallow and feeble performance. An examination of a few pages of the introduction to the Inquiry will be amply sufficient to justify these remarks, and to convince the real student that his language and tone have far more the characteristics of a declaimer with too little of the show of ar- gument to entitle him to be called a sophist than of a philosopher, reasoning with antagonists, whose powers and views were to be respected on subjects 32 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE demanding the nicest investigation, and the most carefully adjusted terms. A vein of sarcasm and ba- dinage runs through his work, destructive to serious reflection, as the influx of water is destructive to the working of a mine and the extraction of valuable ore. A sneer and an apostrophe are his weapons of argu- ment. Vulgar prejudice is enthroned under the form of common sense*. * Mr. Stewart has defended Dr. Reid against this charge. More recently, Sir W. Hamilton has published an Historical Survey of the Philosophy of Common Sense, appended to his edition of ' Eeid ; ' and he gives abundant examples of the use of the words from writers prior to Dr. Eeid. Hamilton makes much of Locke's own use of them in one passage of the Essay. I have observed them in Des- cartes, one of his immediate predecessors. But the question is, whether an instance can be produced, before Dr. Eeid, of a writer who rested the decision of any refined or difficult question in philo- sophy, in opposition to thinkers far above the vulgar^ a question which ordinary minds do not entertain or dismiss quickly, from a distaste or incapacity for subtle inquiries, on an appeal to common sense. And if an instance could be adduced, it would not justify the appeal, nor be a defence for Dr. Eeid. Sir W. Hamilton gives up that defence when he says : " Common sense is like common law. Each may be laid down as the general rule of decision ; but in the one case it must be left to the jurist, in the other to the philo- sopher, to ascertain what are the contents of the rule ; and though in both instances the common man may be cited as a witness for the custom or the fact, in neither can he be allowed to officiate as advo- cate or judge. It must be recollected also that in appealing to the consciousness of mankind, we only appeal to the consciousness of those not disqualified to pronounce a decision." JSTow to appeal from the multitude, who may be blinded by prejudice and passion, to the judge, the interpreter and administrator of the law, is to do the very opposite to that which Dr. Eeid did, who appealed from Locke, Berkeley, and Descartes, from the philosopher or judge, to the 'plain man,' his ' plain neighbour,' and even the 'sensible day la- WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. Examine the fifth section of the first chapter, en- titled, " Of Berkeley, of the Treatise of Human Na- ture, and of Scepticism." It is full of erroneous assertions, bold but unfounded, and frequently re- peated in the body of the work. He begins with saying " His (Berkeley's) arguments are founded upon the principles which were formerly laid down by Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke, and which have been very generally received." He then says, " that Hume proceeds upon the same principles, but carries them to their full length; and as the Bishop undid the whole material world, this author, upon the same f/ round, undoes the world of spirits, and leaves nothing in nature but ideas and impressions, without any sub- ject on which they may be impressed/' It would not be easy to find, in a treatise of repute on any other science, an equal amount of misstatement with that contained in these few sentences. There is no pre- tence to justify it by exact reference to the words or w r orks of the authors in question. The whole is a presumption on the ignorance or indifference of the reader, characteristic of the mode in which metaphy- sical and moral science is commonly treated. The principles of Locke are confounded with those of Descartes and Malebranche, without any distinct bourer.' In proof see the eighth section, p. 112, Hamilton's Reid. There are excellent remarks on common sense in the preface (p. 14) to Whately's 'Logic.' It may be added, that the character of the appeal was made still worse by Dr. Reid's coadjutors, Oswald and Beattie. 34 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE account of any principles whatsoever. Now Locke had written fully and expressly against both certainly against Malebranche and it is commonly supposed that the whole of Locke's first book is directed spe- cially against Descartes. "Locke a combattu Des- cartes, quoique sans prononcer le nom de ce philosophe, et le premier livre de 1'Essai sur 1'Entendement humain est entierement dirige contre un point fondamental de la philosophic Cartesienne," says Degerando*. And the following is Mr. Stewart's language in the Disser- tation prefixed to the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica'f : "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 al- ways kept in view, in reading his argument on the sub- ject, 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 some- thing coeval in its existence with the mind to which it belongs, and illuminating the understanding before the external senses begin to operate." On the other hand, Mr. Hallam says (vol. iv. p. 291) : " It is by no means * Histoire Comparee des Systemes, oh. 16. f P. 115, edit. 1842. Stewart's estimate of the illustrious En- glish philosopher appears to have greatly improved as his own studies were matured. He speaks of him in the Dissertation in a very different tone from that which pervades his earlier works. Nevertheless it contains much to which just exception may be taken, and the concluding remarks on Hume hereafter to be noticed are wholly inconsistent with this estimate and unworthy of it. An ob- WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 35 evident that Locke had Descartes chiefly, if at all, in his view/' Without precise references on Locke's part, we cannot be confident on such a point. But admitting the theory of innate ideas combated by Locke, to be such as Mr. Stewart describes, it is questionable whe- ther it was Cartesian. Locke* speaks in his first book (c. 2, 14) of the "men of innate ideas," but he does servation is worth making on a common mistake respecting Locke's taste in poetry, propagated by a note of Mr. Stewart's. He says : " With, the disposition of Locke to depreciate the Ancients was in- timately 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." He then quotes Molyneux's expression to Locke : " All our Eng- lish poets except Milton have been mere ballad-makers in comparison to Sir E. Blackmore," and makes Locke's reply to this to be: "There is, I find, a strange harmony between your thoughts and mine/' Now it happens that Locke's words in reply have no refe- rence to Blackmore's merits as a poet, as the reader who consults the correspondence will see. Locke's thoughts were not running upon the subject of poetry, so much as upon building on hypotheses and innate ideas, and agreement of notions in this. And let not the reader be deterred from looking into Blackmore's poem on Creation, and its suggestive preface, by these depreciatory remarks. Of this poem, published in 1712, Johnson says : " If he had written nothing more, it would have transmitted him to posterity among the first fa- vourites of the English Muse." This is extravagant praise, but the poem illustrates very remarkably the manner in which Locke's prin- ciples and thoughts had taken possession of the general mind, and in which the most devout thinkers of that day considered the a poste- riori argument for the being of a God drawn from His works of nature all-sufficient for devotion and faith. It is easy to see that Blackmore aspires to be to Locke what Lucretius was to Epicurus. * We find allusions to Descartes and the Cartesians in Locke, b. iii. c. 4, 9 and 10 ; iv. c. 7, 12 and 13 ; and in the second reply to the Bishop of Worcester. Had Descartes any distinct theory of D 2 36 REID, THE FIRST WHO CHARGES LOCKE not particularize the individuals in his view, if at the moment of using the expression he had any. His at- tention was drawn to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, to whom he alludes especially in the third chapter, after he had written a considerable portion of the Essay. A posthumous treatise of Locke remains to us, written expressly in confutation of the theory peculiar to Malebranche a theory which is far more likely to have given occasion to Berkeley's pure idealism than anything to be found in Locke himself, and which is indeed nearly identical with that of Berkeley in meta- physical and moral Bearing. According to Male- branche, " God, being intimately united to the soul, exhibits ideas to it*." It was Malebranche who led to Collier's disbelief in the existence of an external material world, and that agreement with and anticipa- tion of Berkeley, which we find in the ' Clavis Univer- salisf.' That Locke thought it worthy of his indus- trious pains to enter so fully into the examination and confutation of such a theory, a theory so likely to die out of itself, and which had so little to support it beyond the merits and talents of its author, is an encouragement for the present attempt to draw atten- tion to a neglected portion of literary history, and to the sources of prevailing errors in philosophical inquiry. innate ideas P And what was its influence if he had ? As this is a question of the greatest nicety and difficulty in the history of men- tal philosophy, I shall give in a future chapter some notes upon it. * See Malebranche, 1. iii. part 2, c. 1 : Locke's Examination, vol. iv. p. 196, 4to edition. t See ' Memoirs of Collier,' by the Rev. Robert Benson, p. 12. WITH LEADING TO SCEPTICISM. 37 But it may be said, notwithstanding Locke's oppo- sition to some of the peculiar principles of Descartes and Malebranchc, that there were others which Locke held in common with them, and on which Berkeley built. If there were others, Dr. Reid at least has no't been careful to exhibit them. No doubt writers like Descartes, Hobbes, and Malebranche abound in ob- servations on human nature and the mind which are perfectly accordant with Locke's views, but without identity in important and peculiar principles. So all correct observations on reasoning, on habit, on the pleasures and pains, the sympathies and affections of our nature, from Aristotle downwards, are perfectly accordant with and even illustrative of the theory of association as developed by Hartley. So all correct reasoning had been in Aristotle's mood and figure, before Aristotle showed it must be so; though it is often, perhaps commonly, supposed that Aristotle in- vented the rules which he only expounded. So all just observation of nature and nature's laws before Lord Bacon's time was perfectly consistent with the prin- ciples of the ' Novum Organum ;' nor is it unpleasing to observe that Bacon occasionally does some justice to Aristotle's merits in natural history, and in ethics and rhetoric, though, with the consciousness of power to advance human intelligence, and with that impa- tience for improvements, characteristic of genius, he was disposed more generally to disparage than to applaud the efforts and successes of those who had trod the paths of science before him. 38 BERKELEY. BERKELEY. *t- But did Berkeley himself build professedly upon the principles of Locke ? It is true the ingenious and amiable idealist could not have written his ' Principles of Human Knowledge/ exactly as we find it, had not Locke preceded him in his inquiries into the origin and certainty of all our knowledge ; but Berkeley begins his work with something like a sharp attack upon certain portions of the ' Essay on the Human Understanding/ those portions relating to abstract ideas and general terms found in the last three books of the * Essay/ The opinion that " the mind hath a power of framing abstract ideas or notions of things" was an opinion which Berkeley found, or thought he found, to be greatly in his way ; his cri- ticisms upon Locke's doctrine of abstraction as a mental power, and upon the value of abstract ideas, and the use of general terms, are not only ingenious, but, what is more, they are just. They have helped us to read Locke with greater intelligence, and to dis- cover in him some of those slips, of which writers, even more cautious and more exact than Locke in his ' Essay' professes to be, are seldom, if ever, guiltless. The few pages of introduction to Berkeley's ' Princi- ples of Human Knowledge' form therefore an impor- tant step in the history and progress of metaphysical science, a step in which he has been followed, and for which he has been highly praised, by Hume, and more particularly by Home Tooke. 'v 'UNIVERSE .C. BERKELEY. And here it is to be observed that Mill's chapter on Abstraction, in his ' Analysis of the Human Mind/ turns almost wholly on the formation of abstract terms : the phrase l abstract ideas' does not occur in it. His prevfbus chapter on Classification has more to do with the mental power usually understood by the word abstraction, which, as a mental power or process, he defines to be, in conformity with its etymology, " se- parating one or more of the ingredients of a com- plex idea from the rest*/' It is also worthy of observation that the whole of the second volume of Home Tooke's ' Epea Pteroenta' turns also upon ab- straction, and he would drop even the word com- plex as an epithet for ideas, and confine it wholly to terms. May we not consider that Hartley improves upon Locke, by entirely dropping the word abstract in connection with ideas, and using chiefly the epithets complex and decomplex, the latter pointing by etymo- logy to the cluster of sensible impressions and states of feeling associated together in one term ? Yet for this improvement Locke himself prepared the way. "Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas/' says Locke. " But it seems," says Berkeleyf, "that a word becomes general by being made the sign not of an abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it indif- ferently suggests to the mind." This is true, and it * Mill's ' Analysis,' vol. i. p. 215. t Compare Locke, book iii. ch. iii. 6, with Berkeley's Intro- duction, p. 10. 40 BERKELEY. may be remarked, that when we talk about ideas, whether our own or other men's ; when we give them epithets, and speak of compounding and decompound- ing, enlarging and refining them; turning them on all sides, repeating, comparing, and uniting them, Locke's too frequent language, we are always in a region of comparative obscurity ; but the nature and force of terms, etymologically considered, is more within our grasp, and this is especially to be regarded when applying terms borrowed from outward things to the supposed operations of the mind, and even from mechanical and chemical processes, endeavouring thereby to explain or describe those operations. This is a part of the history of mental philosophy, as it has been treated, and it may be hoped, improved in England, which has received very little attention. It appears to be utterly neglected by the Continental writers on metaphysical science in the greatest repute. But he who confines himself to the careful study of the great English writers, on the mind and its kindred subjects, will find more than enough to engage his thoughts with eminent advantage, while he makes the necessary and only fitting preparation for estimating at their real worth the writers of other countries, and becomes able to measure both the quantity and value of the ground which has been occupied and cultivated in common*. * Locke seems never more defective than when speaking of the names of mixed modes and relations, and of the composition and abstraction of ideas, as in the Fifth and Sixth Chapters of his Third BERKELEY. 41 Berkeley repeats his attack upon the doctrine of abstract ideas in the 97th section of his ' Principles/ when he comes to speak of natural philosophy and the mathematics, and the connection of his theory with the principles and truths of those sciences. "It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing among men," writes Berkeley, with amusing naivete, "that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding." "Is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived ?" "If we thoroughly examine this tenet, it will perhaps be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of ab- Book. While complaining of " the pudder made about essences and the jargon of the schools," it is evident he could not wholly emanci- pate himself from it. He even apologizes for his own obscurity, while he labours under " the difficulty of leading another by words into the thoughts of things" (Essay, b. iii. ch. vi. 43). Thus he speaks of " abstract ideas being the essences of the species, distin- guished by general names." Yet he perceived clearly enough, and intimates in other places, that general names were only significant of a combination of simple ideas ; and he might have perceived that names objects and simple ideas were all with which we were con- cerned. On this point no criticisms on Locke are more instructive than those of Home Tooke, who always touches the philosopher with fitting reverence, dissents from him with regret and diffidence, and who defends himself from the imputation of treating two men of the North, Lord Monboddo and Mr. Harris, with too much asperity, by entreating " the generous and grateful reader to recollect the manner in which these gentlemen and the common-sense Doctors had treated the vulgar, unlearned, and atheistical Mr. LocJce, for such are the imputations they cast upon that benefactor to his country." Epea Pteroenta, edit. 1829, vol. ii. p. 561. 42 BERKELEY, stract ideas." But it may be answered, the belief in the real existence of sensible objects depends on no doctrine whatever, least of all a doctrine unknown and obscure. May it not arise from the constancy and uniformity of impressions made on us from with- out, independent of our own wills ? May it not be a part of our mental frame, of which, as no reasoning gives it, no reasoning can deprive us ? In the analysis of the mind, as in the aftatomy of the body, must we not rest upon certain phenomena or ultimate facts, the recognition of which constitutes our only valuable knowledge ? and is not this what we call the just inter- pretation of nature, when we see the connection of such facts with the highest law, and an end designed ? The genuine disciple of Locke disputes not the exis- tence of such ultimate facts, and stih 1 less the value of first principles and of primitive beliefs, which arise out of, and are inseparable from, the earty exercises of reason and speech, and which, when once gained, become " beliefs of consciousness," if it be thought proper so to call them; but he is not in haste to call his facts ultimate, nor his beliefs primitive or intui- tive, before he has cautiously investigated their nature and origin. There was another distinction of Locke's which Berkeley with great justice attacked : it was that be- tween the primary and secondary qualities of matter. " The ideas of the latter colours, sounds, tastes, etc. were acknowledged not to be resemblances of any- thing but sensations not of anything without the I1KI!KKLK\. 43 mind ;" but of the former, our ideas of the primary qualities, namely extension, figure, and motion, these were supposed to be "patterns or images of things ^existing without the mind, and dwelling in an inert senseless substance, called matter." " But it is evi- dent," says Berkeley, " that extension, figure, and mo- tion are only ideas existing in the mind ; an idea can be like nothing but another idea." " Hence it is plain that the very notion of what is called matter, or corpo- real substance, involves a contradiction in it*." With these animadversions upon Locke's principles and language before his eyes, and in the utter absence of any pretence elsewhere, on Berkeley's part, to build his theory of the non-existence of matter upon any principles or concessions which were peculiar to Locke, it is evidently a very great misrepresentation, on the part of Dr. Reid, to throw the onus of Berkeley's idealism upon the English philosopher. But Dr. Reid has done no justice to Berkeley nor to his argument. His advice to the man who finds himself entangled, or embrangled, as Berkeley calls it, in metaphysical toils, is to cut the knot which he can- not loose, and curse metaphysic. His comparison of philosophy to a fair lady, who befools her votaries, and is fit only to be sent back to the infernal regions, from which she came, is more worthy of the market- place than the professorial chair f. He would have done * Principles of Human Knowledge, 4th, 5th, and 9th sections, t The reader will observe also Reid's elegant language upon Hume's doctrine of ideas " Ideas turned out of house and home into 44 BERKELEY. far better to examine closely Berkeley's argument; had he done so, he might perhaps have detected in it & petitio principii. He might perhaps have found, if he had. looked carefully, a flaw in the demonstration > which appeared so clear. It would have been far more satisfactory, by a faithful and candid representation of Berkeley's statements, to show, if possible, where the fallacy lay, than to indulge in declamations, sneers, and sarcasms, gratifying only to the hasty, the preju- diced, and unreflecting. After all, has not Berkeley rather assumed than proved the point in question the non-existence of an external material world ? Has he not sometimes at- tempted to prove too much, or asserted without proof what a reader following his own advice, and " making his words the occasion of his own thinking," will never concede to him? Thus he says, that "the absolute existence of unthinking things are words without a meaning, or which include a contradiction." But the cautious reader will perceive no such absence of mean- ing, none of the contradiction which Berkeley assumes. What more contradiction is there in the absolute ex- istence of an unthinking, than the absolute existence of a thinking thing ? At other times he overlooks the nature of the argument, and confounds the proof of the world, without a rag to cover their nakedness ;" and his confes- sion, in reference to Berkeley's theory, " that he would rather make one of those credulous fools whom Nature imposes upon, than of those wise and rational philosophers who resolve to withhold assent at the expense of being probably taken up, and clapped into a mad- house." Hamilton's Reid, p. 184. BERKELEY. 45 an external world, which, as regards spirit, he concedes, with that of a material world, which he denies. " Be- cause we know not how ideas are produced, as he states in the 19th section, "because we are unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit ;" "hence," he says, "it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances." Nor is there any reason why we should deny the fact, and reject the supposition, because we cannot com- prehend the manner. He admits there is a cause ex- ternal to ourselves, which does produce ideas. " We perceive," he says, " a continual succession of ideas : some are new excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore some came of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality, or idea, or combination of ideas, is clear from the preceding section. It must therefore be a substance ; but it has been shown that there is no corporeal or material sub- stance ; it remains, therefore, that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal active substance or spirit." Now this negative was not shown; the alternative therefore cannot be accepted as the only possible alternative. Again, in the 29th section, he repeats this : " As to the hearing and other senses, the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is therefore some other will or spirit that produces them." Thus the strength of Berkeley's argument depends on what is, after all, a mere assumption, namely, that 46 BERKELEY. " the esse of things ispercipi*." But this is not to be hastily conceded. To be, and be perceived, are not the same. The esse is anterior and subservient to the percipi, which depends upon the esse, but is not the esse. Apply the maxim to the mind, and it will not sustain itself. The Divine Mind exists, as a cause of our perceptions ; but it exists independently of those perceptions. It exists indeed as a percipient, for per- cipient power cannot be separated from the thought of mind, and belief in it as mind. Here the esse and percipere may be considered one and the same ; per- cipiency constituting, if we please, the essence, and entering into our definition of mind. And yet, with regard to finite minds, each act of percipiency, being distinct in itself, is distinct also from the active perci- pient power, that is, from the being that perceives. But if the esse, in respect of mind, be not necessarily percipere, still less in respect of matter is it per dpi. Berkeley admits there is some cause of perception ex- ternal to ourselves. He is obliged continually to imply a distinction between the organs of sense, and the sensations or ideas arising from or conveyed through them. (See particularly the 90th section of his ' Prin- ciples/) He seems not to allow sufficient weight to the constancy and uniformity of certain impressions, ideas, and feelings which accompany us, independent of our desires and wills; that unfailing attendant sense, for * Beattie perceived this assumption on Berkeley's part, and hi^ use of it, but had not patience to follow it up logically." See Essay on Truth, p. 49, edit. 1778. BERKELEY. 47 instance, of a bodily frame, which is so different from, and so completely the instrument and inlet of those feelings, thoughts, and passions which are peculiar to the mind. Thus solidity and extension are not merely names for affections or states of mind, grant- ing that all ideas associated with words imply such states ; they are also significant of external existences giving rise to those affections and states. This is equally true in respect of ideas of the secondary, as with what have been called the primary, qualities of matter. A cause operating from without is necessary to account for the idea. Can Berkeley be said to prove that such external existences are merely the ideas of another mind or spirit, imparted immediately to ours, a mode of spi- ritual action upon our spirit? The total absence of such proof, this great assumption of spiritual action, and of the existence of an Infinite Intelligent mind acting immediately and constantly upon our minds, without any attempt to establish that existence as a fact, is far more likely to have led to Hume's scepticism than anything to be found in Locke, whose chapter on the Being of a God seems at least to be deserving of some attention from a candid and philosophical in- quirer. Berkeley struggles to get rid of the abstract ideas of time, space, and motion, and denies the ab- solute existence of external realities corresponding to them, combating the definitions and distinctions laid down by the great Newton in his treatise of mecha- nics. These definitions and distinctions are of very 48 BERKELEY. great importance in a metaphysical point of view, and deserve the closest attention from the exact inquirer. The acceptance of them, together with Newton's beau- tiful and profound language on the Deity, at the close of his ' Principia,' constitutes the best refuge and great security from the gross pantheism which, as in the case of Spinoza, refuses to the Supreme cause in- telligence will design, and of course all moral attri- butes. Without attempting here to defend Newton's refined distinctions between absolute and relative lime, true and apparent, mathematical and vulgar, may we not say that time, space, and motion are habitually conceived of, and reasoned upon, as independent of all mind, as the subsidiary and necessary elements of all finite existence ? Time and space are necessarily ex- cluded in the idea of motion. We do not commonly consider them as created, nor yet are they necessarily conceived of as attributes, still less as parts of the Creator ; for these are divisible, or are conceived to be so in relation to human measures of them, while the Creator is without parts and passions. It is now cus- tomary to call them essential forms of thought, inse- parable from our frames, or logical conditions of the understanding and practical reason. But the value of all such accounts or definitions depends upon the use made of them in subsequent reasoning, that is, upon their application to other conclusions ; for no one will pretend that the ideas themselves are rendered clearer. Nor is it proved by such accounts that the ideas do not grow out of, and are not suggested by, all our ex- BERKELEY. 49 perience ; the first time out of the succession of our ideas, on which Locke dwells, as the origin and es- sence of our notion of time ; and the second space out of the perceived relation of objects one to another, the relation of outness, distance, and position, which accompany almost all the phenomena of sensation, but chiefly those of sight, in a less degree those of touch and hearing, and in least degree, if in any de- gree, those of smell and taste*. * Time, space, motion, God, freedom, immortality, with the associated ideas, and their origin, are now, as they have always been, the battle-field of dissentients in metaphysical speculations and inquiries. And could we ever bring the mystical adherents of transcendental philosophy to the point, or keep them to it, we might perhaps examine, with some hope of satisfaction, the value of their definitions and assertions. But they are emphatically ' children of the mist.' Like the witches and ghosts in ' Macbeth/ after they have delivered their oracles, they endure no further question, and vanish into thin air, leaving the questioner aghast. " That the notion of Space is a necessary condition of thought, and that as such it is impossible to derive it from experience, has been cogently de- monstrated by Kant," says Sir W. Hamilton, in a note on E-eid, p. 126; and the reader should look also at the notes, pp. 128, 129. But Locke, Hartley, and Mill have demonstrated the contrary, at least of the latter of the two propositions, if we may talk of demon- stration in the case. I shall therefore examine hereafter, as briefly as the matter will allow, the so-called demonstration by Kant; not that the admission of one side or the other is of practical consequence, any further than as the discussion of it may throw light on the proper philosophy of the mind, and help the right interpretation of our mental frame. Every idea, with which the mind is furnished after a certain experience, and of which it cannot divest itself, more espe- cially when, with a word annexed, used as a sign, it comes to be employed in reasoning in support of a fixed conclusion, may be called, with equal advantage and propriety, a necessary condition of thought. E 50 BERKELEY. " To what purpose is it to dilate on that which may be demonstrated with the utmost evidence in a line or two, to any one that is capable of the least reflection ?" asks Berkeley. "It is but looking into your own thoughts, and so trying whether you can conceive it possible for a sound, or figure, or motion, or colour, to exist without the mind, or unperceived. This easy trial may make you see, that what you contend for is a downright contradiction. I am content to put the whole upon this issue." Berkeley is frequent in applying the term ' contra- diction' to assertions which do not imply it*. Inge- niously as this is worked out, the whole is but a re- petition of this. The answer is, we do perpetually conceive it possible. The perception itself, and a cause of perception, existing without us, are different things. There is an outward agency, uniform and independent, imparting to us certain conceptions ; and the belief in external realities, which, not being parts of our own minds, are not necessarily parts of or immediate imprints by another mind, involves in it no such contradiction as Berkeley pretends. " The things perceived by sense may be termed ex- ternal with regard to their origin, in that they are not generated from within, by the mind itself, but im- printed by a spirit distinct from that which perceives them. Sensible objects may likewise be said to be without the mind in another sense, namely, when they * Principles of Human Knowledge, 22nd section j and compare Sections 24, 56, 76, 79, and 88. BERKELEY. 51 exist in some other mind. Thus, when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but it must be in an- other mind." (Prin. Hum. Kn. 90th section.) This is rather assumption than proof. The ' musf is not the clear result of any ' why! The attentive reader will also perceive how arbitrary but harmless is Berkeley's previous account or definition in the 89th section, of the words thing, being, spirits, and ideas. The former spirits he calls "active, indivisible substances/' the latter ideas he calls "inert, fleeting, depen- dent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by and exist in minds or spiritual sub- stances." Again, it may be very true that an idea can be like nothing but an idea, as Berkeley says ; it may be even further true that it is only in the way of ac- commodation we can speak of one idea being like another idea ; there being, without some reference to objects or sensations, no standard or means of dis- tinct comparison. But all this is little to Berkeley's purpose ; for although we cannot conceive or explain how matter acts upon spirit, or spirit upon matter, a difficulty which Berkeley finds or feigns to be greatly in his favour, as little can we conceive how spirit acts upon spirit, directly and without the intervention of matter, or how an idea, or series of ideas, can pass from one mind to another by an act of will only. Of purely spiritual contact or influence for we must use these materialistic terms we have no more clear con- ception than of spirit in connection with matter. From impressions originating in causes without us, K 2 52 BERKELEY. we infer the existence of minds like our own ; and the existence of mind is, no doubt, implied in all conscious- ness and thought, which cannot be said of the exist- ence of matter. But from these same impressions and signs we are also led to infer external realities, which, as they are not parts of our own minds, are not so obviously and necessarily the mere and direct agency of another mind or spirit, as Berkeley contends, and as Malebranche before him had set forth. And al- though Berkeley believed that he removed the chief source and support of atheism, when he removed matter from the universe, he seems not to have per- ceived that his own theory was not wholly free from the embarrassments of pantheism, since it left the argu- ment for the existence of one perfect supreme cause, one infinite, omniscient, benevolent, spiritual Being, precisely where it was ; it even reduced the mind to a mere mirror for the reflection of the imprinted images, or to a recipient of the excited ideas. It may be said however that the existence of such an Infinite mind was an assumption which formed a part, and a neces- sary part, of his theory. There is a continual flow of thought, a consciousness of perceptive and reflective power, more or less active and intense, always in the mind in its wakeful state. Images, faint or lively, of absent objects, present them- selves to the mind's eye ; remembrances of former im- pressions, anticipations of the future, more or less vivid, arise within, of which the mind is conscious as something totally distinct from the impressions of that BERKELEY. 53 visible, tangible, audible world of sense, which remains outward and unchanged, or subject to certain observed and regular changes, which continue and go on inde- pendent of our attention. Thus the book which we hold in the hand, and which suggests so many ideas remote from its own simple character, the room which we occupy, the ground on which we stand, the chair in which we sit, the posture and action, voluntary or au- tomatic, of the body ; the whole scenery of nature from the window; all these outward things have a perma- nent relation to and connection with our whole life and being, which is manifestly different from that inner life, peculiar to the mind itself, that flux or reflux of thought, desire and will, which we never attribute to the objects present to the senses, nor to any conscious- ness but our own. After all, this constant natural feeling is perhaps the best, if not the only, argument for an external material world, if argument be required for it, and argument it deserves to be called. All our sensations and ideas remaining the same, our feel- ings of pleasure and pain, our hopes and fears, being the same with Berkeley's theory and without it, there is nothing to argue about, but the propriety and philosophical use of certain definitions; and if we define matter, as I believe Faraday does, a centre of powers, and if the same definition applies to mind, it is evident that what we are then concerned with is the different character, descriptions, or definitions of these powers, that is, the mixtures and clusters, so to speak, of the sensible impressions and associated ideas. 54 BERKELEY. Here then we must rest; and when logic has done its utmost, we may amuse ourselves with poetry, and betake ourselves to the lines pf Arbuthnot, quoted by Beattie, as a summary of the evidence, so far as it is dependent on the phenomena of consciousness. " This frame, compacted with transcendent skill, Of moving joints, obedient to my will, Nursed from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree, Waxes and wastes ; I call it mine, not me. New matter still the mouldering mass sustains, The mansion changed the tenant still remains, And from the fleeting stream repaired by food, Distinct, as is the swimmer from the flood*." I must now leave this criticism of Berkeley's theory. How far it is adequate or perfect the reader will judge. It might be easily extended, for with the pages of Berkeley open before us, what end is there to notes and comments ? Such as it is, it may help the future and youthful student of metaphysical philosophy to read the skilful and amiable idealist with more ad- vantage than he might otherwise have enjoyed, and with a more wakeful attention to his weak points. In all metaphysical reasonings, the maxim of Horace is * Since the above was written, I have looked into the disquisitions relating to the Philosophy of the Mind, by the late Lord Jeffrey, found in the third volume of his collected Papers. In these the eminent author has gone somewhat carefully into the speculations on the non-existence of matter, and the observations above made accord perfectly with Lord Jeffrey's views : " All beyond our own consciousness," he observes, " is matter of inference ; but it evidently implies no contradiction to suppose that such a thing as matter may exist, and that an omnipotent Being might make us capable of dis- covering its qualities." BERKELEY. 55 invaluable, 'Principiis obsta* There are however se- veral incidental differences between Berkeley's prin- ciples and those of Locke, not to be overlooked by any one who attempts an exact comparison. From the principle that the duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in the same spirit or mind*, Berkeley made it a plain consequence that the soul always thinks : contrary to Locke's opinion, who contended that the soul does not always think, that it may exist in a state of sleep, and without ac- tual perceptions. Berkeley, supposing himself to have shown that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal, unextended, argued that "it is consequently incorruptible, a being in- dissoluble by the force of nature, that is to say, the soul of man is naturally immortal^" contrary to Locke's opinion, who thought that it could not be made out demonstratively by natural reason that the soul is immaterial, nor, consequently, in its own nature immortal, and who rested the hope of a future state, and especially the influence of it in a practical point of view, upon the declared or revealed will of God \ . Berkeley availed himself of Locke's language against the existence, anywhere but in the mind per- * See the 98th section of his ' Principles,' etc., and Locke, b. ii. c.i.19. f Principles, p. 97. Seethe ' Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester,' p. 758, and compare the admirable passages in the 'Essay :' book ii. c. 21, and book iv. c. 4. I 56 BERKELEY. ceiving, of what are called the secondary qualities of matter colours, tastes, and smells, and turned it against the existence of the so-called primary qualities bulk, figure, extension, number, and motion; and so denied matter altogether. But he did not trouble himself specially with Locke's views relating to the separate existence of matter and thought, and to the existence of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent Being, whether matter be itself eternal or not, which are given in the tenth chapter of the fourth book of the 'Essay*/ Again, the term Idea was applied by Locke ^as, I believe, by Gassendi before him to whatever could be the subject of thought and of discourse; but to Berkeley it appeared that " the term Idea would be improperly extended to signify everything we know, or have any notion of-\" These differences will not be considered of little importance by the careful inquirer. Others may pro- bably be traced. On the whole, it seems evident that Berkeley neither rested his theory, nor pretended to rest it, upon any principles peculiar to Locke. On this point therefore it has been shown that Dr. Reid's inquiry was calculated to give, as no doubt it has given, a very erroneous and mischievous impression. * An interesting account of a conversation between Sir Isaac Newton, the Earl of Pembroke, and Locke, on the possible creation of matter, extracted from Coste the French translator and friend of Locke may be found in the ' Edinburgh Review/ p. 352, No. 138, with comments on Reid's and Stewart's views of Locke's meaning. t See 89th Section. HUME, u: .-,7 But how is it with Hume ? This is a more tender question. Berkeley's was eminently a religious mind. His amiable enthusiasm called forth warm sympathy and admiration from many of the finest spirits of his age. His ingeniously-woven theory was the fanciful garb of a dreaming philosopher, which shocked none of the prejudices, struck at none of the superstitions of the multitude. Neither priests nor lawyers felt their influence shaken, and their craft exposed, by his elaborate and fine-spun system. They thought he was answered sufficiently by a smile. " When Berkeley said, there was no matter, It was no matter, what he said." His theory of vision has taken, and yet retains, a high place in the estimation of metaphysical inquirers, as an important illustration of the manner in which the ideas of one sense are transferred by association to an- other*. The lover of the Scriptures the ancient lore of Christendom is indebted to him for many admi- rable observations on the excellency and usefulness of the Christian religion ; and the devout will concur with him heartily in the opinion that, as in reading other books, so in perusing the volume of Nature, we should propose to ourselves noble views, " such as to recreate and exalt the mind with a prospect of the * The review of this theory, by Mr. Samuel Bailey of Sheffield, published in 1842, has however considerably shaken its authority, and this notwithstanding the defence of it by a Westminster Kc- viewer. 58 HUME. beauty, order, extent, and variety of natural things ; hence, by proper inferences, to enlarge our notions of the grandeur, wisdom, and- beneficence of the Crea- tor ; and, lastly, to make the several parts of the crea- tion, so far as in us lies, subservient to the ends they were designed for, God's glory, and the sustentation and comfort of ourselves and our fellow-creatures." But soon a very different competitor for the rank of philosophic chieftain appeared. The differences between the Irish and Scotch national character are somewhat strongly marked in the lives and tempers of Berkeley and of Hume. The life and correspondence of David Hume, pub- lished by Mr. J. Hill Burton, in 1846, enables us to approach the question whether -the philosophy of Locke laid any foundation or furnished any support for the scepticism of Hume, to whatever it amounted, with some means of judgment which previous in- quirers could scarcely have enjoyed. Of Hume's boy- hood and earlier days, of the domestic influences and the scholastic training under which he grew to man- hood, we learn little from these volumes of any in- terest or importance. The biographer, Mr. Burton, makes the most of some scanty notices by Hume him- self of his ancestral estate at Nine wells. Little is added to the few particulars which, in his simple auto- biography, he has chosen to give us. Rarely has a life been more destitute of points of domestic interest. He appears to have studied for a time at the University of Edinburgh, but how long cannot be ascertained. HUME. 59 As soon as he had finished his studies there, or while pursuing them, he plunged into the vortex of meta- physical abstractions ; and we are called upon at once to inquire into the results of his struggles in that whirlpool, or rather to watch the paths of speculation and research into which his passion for literature hur- ried him, a passion which seized him early, and be- came the ruling passion of his life, and the great source of his enjoyments. It is not clear whether he was ac- quainted with the person, or had paid attention to the writings, of the eminent Francis Hutcheson, who was Professor of Philosophy at Glasgow from 1729 to 1747. A letter to Hutcheson is given in Burton's Life*, from which it appears that Hume submitted some of the papers of his ' Treatise' to Hutcheson's perusal, and was favoured with his reflections upon them before publication. Yet in the third volume of Hume's ' Treatise of Human Nature,' which came out in 1740, he follows Hutcheson in maintaining that moral distinctions are not derived from reason, but from a moral sense, without mention of Hutcheson's name, or condescending to allude to the ' Inquiry into the original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue,' pub- lished about fifteen years before. Anxious for the re- putation of an original thinker and discoverer, his sense of obligation to preceding thinkers was never strongly marked. Gratitude is not the virtue of usurpers. A letter to a physician, written at the age of twenty- three, reveals the peculiar character of Hume's mind, * Vol. i. p. 112. 60 HUME. and the boldness of his temper. The first part is as follows : " After fourteen or fifteeen years of age I was left to my own choice in my reading, and found it incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet established in either of / 7 / these two sciences *, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these I found a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium, by which truth might be established. After much study and re- flection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, . there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or busi- * We may contrast with this a passage from Gibbon's * Essay on the Study of Literature :' " Descartes was not a man of letters, but literature is under deep obligations to him. An intelligent philo- sopher, who inherited his method of reasoning, thoroughly inves- tigated the true principles of criticism Le Clerc, in his excellent 'Ars Critica/ and several other works." Gibbon wrote this Essay before he was twenty-two years of age, a wonderful production for so young a man. What did Hume know of Descartes or Le Clerc at the same age ? Gibbon, like Hume, felt early the passion for lite- rary distinction; but he had a mind far more earnest and grateful, far more intent on the honour of literature, and through it the im- provement of mankind; notwithstanding a certain grossness of taste from which Hume was free. HUME. 61 ness to apply entirely to it." Thence he determined to push his fortune in the world by the way of a scholar and philosopher. He was smit, he tells us, with the beauties of Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch ; no great range this even of Classical studies. We no- where learn from him what English authors he had read at this period with the slightest interest or profit. He does not tell us, nor can we gather from his first work, that he had perused with care and deep at- tention the works of Bacon, of Hobbes, of Cudworth, of Clarke, Locke, Cumberland, Law, and others who might be mentioned, who had gone with a power and penetration, which successors could not easily hope to emulate, into the nicest and most abstruse questions of metaphysical philosophy. He appears to have had no conception of the care and completeness with which the most difficult subjects in philosophy, natural reli- gion, history, and mathematics had been investigated before him by English philosophers and scholars, and of which the collection of pieces and letters by Newton, Clarke, Leibnitz, Collins, and other celebra- ted writers, first published by Des Maizeaux, at Am- sterdam, in 1720, may be taken as one of the most striking evidences ; and the very learned dissertation, published anonymously, but known to be by Dr. Waterland, on the a priori argument for the Being of a God, in connection with Law's ' Inquiry into our Ideas of Space and Time' (1734), as another. The name of Aristotle Hume nowhere mentions; and to the pages of the speculative Descartes, the learned 62 HUME. Gassendi, and the excursive Leibnitz, he was at this time probably a stranger*. After leaving the University of Edinburgh, and paying a short visit to Bristol, Hume spent three years in Prance, from 1734 to 1737, very agreeably. Of the nature of his studies during this period we have no information of the slightest interest, beyond the in- timation that intercourse with some members of the Jesuits' College at La Pleche laid the foundation of his scepticism concerning miracles, and that he had paid attention to Butler's ' Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion/ which came out in the year 1736. We must therefore judge from internal evidence of Hume's fit- ness to give such a complete and improved view of human nature, the understanding, the passions, and the foundation of morals, as he aspired thus early in life to be the author off. " Never literary attempt was * It is true that Hume, in the chapter on Knowledge and Proba- bility, refers to the opinions and arguments of Hobbes, Clarke, and Locke, on the subject of cause and effect, in order to confute them ; but how carelessly he treated them will be shown hereafter, when I come to examine Mr. Dugald Stewart's extraordinary commendations of the Sceptic. With obstinate determination to yield nothing in favour of a hated conclusion, Hume pretends to invalidate the pro- position admitted by all three, that " whatsoever has a beginning, has also a cause of existence." From the first, it was Hume's de- termination to put down, if possible, the propositions, "that no crea- ture could come into existence of itself," and "that there must be some one, and but one, necessary and self-existent Being, the cause of causes ;" these being the received axioms of natural religion. He calls the ancient maxim, " Ex nihilo nihil jit" an impious maxim ; in the spirit of a Mephistopheles, willing to extinguish the light of reason, rather than admit a ray to show the being of a God. f Two volumes came forth in 1739 ; the third, in 1740. HUME. 63 more unfortunate," says Hume in his autobiography, " than my ' Treatise of Human Nature. 1 It fell dead- born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots*." The indifference with which it was received gave him deep mortification; but it fell from its own natural want of buoyancy. It had no inherent worth to sustain it. Two years after the publication, its author began to feel that he had attempted a task for which he was wholly incompetent, and that in the execution he had only exposed his weakness. The regret which Hume felt for his precipitancy deepened as he advanced in life ; and in a letter written to Sir G. Elliot, of Minto, in 1751, we find him thus expressing himself: " 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 much more complete. Addo dum minuo. The philosophical principles are the same in both; but I was carried away by the heat of youth and in- vention to publish too precipitately. So vast an un- dertaking, 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." * Hume received 50 for the manuscript of this work from an enterprising bookseller. What bookseller would now give a similar sum for a philosophical treatise by an author of no reputation ? 64 HUME. The repentance, thus candidly expressed, was per- fectly well founded. The ' Treatise of Human Na- ture' is written neither iti philosophical style nor philosophical spirit. Its reasoning is viciously loose ; its language miserably inexact. It did not produce it could not produce any deep impression on the minds of its readers. It tended not to establish it scarcely even- aimed to establish a single important principle or truth connected with, or growing out of, the study of the constitution of the human mind, of the principles of morals, or the foundations and objects of political society. Full of sentiments and language which it could not have contained, but for the impulse and direction which Locke's 'Essay' had given to metaphysical inquiry, there is no attempt on the part of Hume to fix the knowledge and principles which he owed to Locke, nor to display the additions to that knowledge which he conceived himself capable of making; and this, while touching on the origin of our ideas, on knowledge and probability, on cause and effect, on space and time, on belief and scepti- cism, in short, on all those topics, which the mas- terly intellect of the English metaphysician had re- cently searched with so much persevering care, and with the success resulting from perfect singleness of purpose the dispassionate pursuit of truth. The first and second sections of the first part of the 'Treatise' exhibit the confusion which pervades Hume's method of treating the subject of the mind. The first is entitled, ' Of the origin and composition of HUME. 65 ideas/ The second is a division of the subject. In the first, though he had blended into one inseparable mass ideas, impressions, and perceptions, complex and simple, forcible and faint, yet he had laid it down as a leading principle, that " ideas were derived from, and were but the faint images of impressions ;" under the last name, however, he comprehended all our sen- sations., passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. But in the second sec- tion he divides our impressions into two kinds, those of sensation, and those of reflection. " The first kind arises in the soul originally from unknown causes; the second is derived in a great measure from our ideas, and that in the following order." The order which he suggests becomes 'confusion worse confounded/ for he speaks of " an idea of pleasure or pain, when it returns upon the soul, producing new impressions of desire and aversion, hope and fear, which may pro- perly be called impressions of reflection, because de- rived from, it ; and these again, being copied by the memory and imagination, become ideas, which per- haps in their turn give rise to other impressions and ideas." Thus he leaves his reader in a state of pain- ful distraction, at a loss for any distinct impression or correct idea, in a perfect labyrinth of words. Be- tween the two, the understanding is beaten to and fro, like a shuttlecock between two noisy battledoors, and not allowed to settle anywhere. Par from esta- blishing the clear and satisfactory distinction which he undertook to make, he has only destroyed a dis- 66 HUME. tinction tolerably good before. He has not shaken the strength nor added to the convenience of the phi- losophical structure, which Locke had founded on the phenomena of our physical and mental constitution, the ideas of sensation and of reflection. He has not elicited a fact, nor established a principle peculiar to himself, in any subsequent part of the Treatise, which has been received as valuable by any pupil of eminence in the school of Mental Philosophy*. But the 'Treatise of Human Nature' was not so wholly overlooked and neglected at its first appearance as Hume's language respecting it implies. On the contrary, it met with the attention of some candid readers and competent judges. This is evident, from the review to be found in the papers published under the title of the ' History of the Works of the Learned,' a periodical which came out in the years from 1738 to 1742 inclusive. The criticism on Hume, found in the numbers for November and December 1739, is * In a note, p. 13, Hume brings a charge against Mr. Locke of perverting the word idea from its original sense. "I here make use of these terms, impression and idea, in a sense different from what is usual, and I hope this liberty will be allowed me. Perhaps I rather restore the word idea to its original sense, from which Mr. Locke had perverted it, in making it stand for all our perceptions." How far that observation is correct, the reader may be left to judge. The rest of the note is either unintelligible, or he uses the word im- pression as a synonym for perception, for which, yet, he says, there is no particular name in the English or any other language that he knows of. At the end of the section, p. 21, he professes to give, with an affected air of superiority to preceding philosophers, a clear state- ment of the question concerning innate ideas, so as to remove all disputes concerning it. HUME. 67 somewhat elaborate, and on the whole much to the pur- pose. It points out not a few inconsistencies and ex- travagancies. It marks the love of paradox and the vein of egotism. Far from supposing that Hume had pushed to their legitimate consequences any principles peculiar to Locke, or that he was led to extreme scep- tical notions by Locke's method of analysis, the reviewer observes, " that a man who has never had the pleasure of reading Mr. Locke's incomparable Essay will peruse the author with much less disgust than those who have been used to the irresistible reasoning and wonderful perspicacity of that admirable writer." The reviewer with justice speaks of Hume as " trampling upon Mr. Locke, and pretending to restore or rectify what he had perverted*." It would be without advantage to * This review is attributed by Chalmers, in the Biographical Dic- tionary, and by Mr. J. Hill Burton, to Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester : I cannot find on what authority, although the opinion seems consistent enough with the internal evidence. I trace no allusion to that authorship in the Life and Letters of War- burton, published by his friend Hurd, amid many criticisms and papers, in which such allusion would seem almost unavoidable, con- sidering the pains bestowed on the review, and the importance attached by Warburton to whatever he did. In 1739, Warburton was busy with his defence of Pope against Crousaz, with notes on Shakespeare, and above all with the ' Divine Legation of Moses.' He speaks also of the whole periodical, under the title of the ' Works of the Learned' in a way somewhat inconsistent with the idea of his being concerned in the production of the papers. " The journal in general ia a most miserable one; and, to the opprobrium of our coun- try, we have neither any better, nor, I believe, any other." See * Nichols's Anecdotes of the Literature of the Eighteenth Century,' vol. v. p. 562. About 1757 or 1758 Bishop Hurd edited some remarks, written F 2 68 HUME. the reader to adduce any considerable number of pas- sages in justification of the opinion that the ' Treatise of Human Nature' is characterized, to all the extent common in metaphysical writings, by looseness of ex- pression and inconclusive reasoning. Such books are now seldom read, and still less weighed and consi- dered; nor can the inquirer into the proper philo- sophy of the mind be encouraged with the hope that it will repay any attention which may be given it, by additions of value to his stock of thought. A few in- stances of arbitrary and unsatisfactory definition may suffice as samples of his manner. He defines an opi- nion or belief, " a lively idea, related to or associated with a present impression*." Is not the definition equally suitable for unbelief, a lively idea of the falsehood of a statement? Are not all present im- pressions associated with lively ideas? light, fire, ice, a throne, a crown? the thousand objects that awaken apprehension, or kindle hope and desire, the sound of a trumpet, the cry of distress ? In the midst of vague language about the business or affair, as he calls it, of causes and effects, he defines a cause to be " an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea of the one deter- mines the mind to form the idea of the other, and by Warburton on Hume's 'Natural History of Religion,' imme- diately on the first perusal of that Essay. See "Warburton's Works and Life, vol. i. pp. 65-69, and vol. xii. pp. 239-240. * Treatise, pp. 167, 172, 188. See also his definition quoted and criticized by Reid, in his ' Essay, etc., on the Intellectual Powers/ p. 352. HUME. 01) the impression of the one to form the more lively idea of the other*." He proceeds to lay down eight rules, by which to judge of causes and effects, of which the last is the following, " that an object which exists for any time in its full perfection without any effect, is not the sole cause of that effect, but requires to be assisted by some other principle, which may forward its influ- ence and operation^." What language can be more indefinite, less satisfactory, or, closely examined, more absurd f Who now is satisfied that mere precedence and contiguity constitute the amount and essence of his notion of cause ? If precedence relates to time, and contiguity to space, how little comparatively does the latter enter into the notion at all ! When " Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sows the earth with orient pearl," the dawn precedes, and is contiguous to the rising of the sun, who "brings the day his bounteous gift." It is impossible to separate the idea of the one from that of the other ; but is the dawn the cause of its coming ? Is the moon contiguous to the ocean and the tidal motions? or is the sun contiguous to its attendant orbs? Is the resolution of the Board of East India Directors contiguous to the banks of the Ganges, where the effects of the resolution will be felt ? Yet the root of Hume's scepticism lies in this, as will be seen when the examination of his more im- portant work the ' Essays' comes to be entered upon; and what pretence is there for the assertion * Treatise, p. 298. t Ibid., p. 306. 70 HUME. that anything in Locke suggested or supports this theory ? In regard to our belief in the continued ex- istence of external objects, he has a passage more re- markable for its childishness and confused verbosity, than for any just and useful discrimination : " All ob- jects to which we attribute a continued existence have a peculiar constancy, which distinguishes them from the impressions whose existence depends on our per- ception." He had previously made impressions and perceptions the same ; and it is obvious there can be no impression without a perception ; but here he con- founds objects with impressions, or rather he makes the constancy of objects that .which distinguishes one sort of objects from a peculiar class of impressions, as if the objects and impressions could be thus legi- timately compared. He goes on to say that " in the midst of changes which even the constancy admits of the objects have a coherence and a regular de- pendence, which produces very reasonably the opinion of their continued existence." What however are the constancy, the coherence, the regular dependence, and the continued existence, but different words for one and the same opinion and belief? unless you come to distinguish them by some reference to their etymo- logy or for a practical purpose, a distinction which we might hope to find in a good book of synonyms. A little attention to the first sentence of Aristotle's categories on common names might have suggested to Hume the desirableness of more coherence in his terms, and more dependence in his conclusions. HUME. 71 But the most lively part of the Treatise is the last chapter, on the sceptical and other systems of philosophy, in which he attacks more particularly the modern system* of Mr. Locke. Because we have no idea of the substance of our minds, and cannot point to the particular impression of sensation and reflection that produces that idea, he would have us abandon altogether "the question concerning the sub- stance of the soul, as absolutely unintelligible" (p. 434). He speaks of certain philosophers promising to diminish our ignorance ; but, unwilling to point too distinctly to other instructors, he makes no allu- sion to the controversy between the learned Dr. S. Clarke, Mr. Dodwell, and Collins, on this difficult sub- ject. For him such men had written and thought in vain. He pronounces the maxim, that an object may exist, and yet be nowhere, not only possible ; but he asserts that the greatest part of beings do and must exist after this manner ; meaning "apparently, by ob- jects and beings, merely our own perceptions, which have no necessary relation to one portion of space more than to another. He confounds the possibility of a maxim with the existence of a fact. He then endeavours to show that the hideous hypothesis of Spinoza, that there is only one substance in the world, is " almost the same with that of the imma- teriality of the soul" f ; and " that all the absurdities * See particularly the fourth section, on the Modern Philosophy, where he agrees with Berkeley, and argues against Locke. Trea- tise, vol. i. pp. 397-405. t Ibid., pp. 410, 419. 72 HUME. which have been found in the system of Spinoza, may likewise be discovered in that of theologians" (p. 423). In the section on personal identity, he decides that we have no idea of self, such as some philosophers imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of, for " if any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same through the whole course of our lives, since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable ; consequently there is no such idea" (p. 437). The careful metaphysical inquirer will do well to compare Mr. Hume's section with Locke's chapter on Identity and Diversity, and with the dissertation on personal identity added to Butler's 'Analogy'*. When we summon the philosopher, the divine, and the sceptic before us, and compare their views and methods, we shall have no difficulty, in this instance, in assigning the superiority to the divine in per- spicuity and precision. The sceptic, consistent with himself, concludes in "the affair" as he calls it, " that all the nice questions concerning personal iden- tity can never possibly be decided, and are rather * Locke's chapter, the 27th of his second book, was added in later editions of the Essay, at the instance of his friend and corre- spondent Molyneux, (see Letters between Molyneux and Locke, vol. iv. p. 292,) and is by no means a favourable specimen of the philosopher's care and powers. Butler observes, " he was hasty in some of his positions," but he appears unusually playful with his sub- ject, as hi the story of the ' Parrot of Mariman,' and in the sugges- tion that the soul of Heliogabalus might be in one of his hogs." HUME. 73 to be regarded as grammatical than as philosophical difficulties." But he had previously suggested that, "as memory alone acquaints us with the conti- nuance and extent of the succession of our percep- tions, it is to be considered upon that account chiefly as the source of personal identity." "Had we no memory, we never should have any notion of causa- tion, nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects, which constitute our self, or person." It is easy to see how little the sceptic is in such language consistent with himself. But when least consistent with himself, he often approaches nearest to philosophy and truth. For let us listen to Mr. Locke " since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other think- ing things; in this alone consists personal identity, that is, the sameness of a rational being ; and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person*." Again: "As far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present action, so far it is the same personal self." Thus memory and consciousness, and the connection of thought with thought, of present with past impressions, play a con- spicuous part in giving the idea, and even in constitut- ing the essence of personal identity, according to Mr. * Locke's Essay, book li. c. 27, 9 and 10. 74 HUME. Locke. Butler, with true wisdom, does Mr. Locke the justice to admit that he has suggested much better answers than those which he, gives in form to the va- rious questions concerning personal identity ; for, says he, " when any one reflects upon a past action of his own, he is just as certain of the person who did that action, namely himself, the person who now reflects upon it, as he was certain that the action was at all done. Nay, very often a person's assurance of an action having been done, arises wholly from the consciousness (i.e. present remembrance) that he himself did it." " And he who can doubt whether perception by me- mory can be depended upon, may doubt also whether perception by deduction and reasoning, which also include memory, or indeed whether intuitive percep- tion can. Here then we can go no further. 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 be no 'otherwise proved than by the use or means of those very suspected faculties themselves." To such language and sentiments the sceptic himself must bow, and for these, (with much more that I do not quote, indicative of nice discrimi- nation, and germane to the matter,) the philosopher would embrace the prelate as a worthy pupil in his school, or as a successful fellow-student in the great school of nature, truth, and Providence. We see that HUME. all three really place personal identity in one and the same unity of consciousness, of which memory makes a part, or, to express it differently, in the association of present impressions with remembrances of the past and anticipations of the future. Herein consists that unbroken thread of life, of which the Fates three sisters, according to the ancient poets hold the des- tiny. Whether we are satisfied with this account of it or not, whether we agree with it or not, it is something to know how far such writers and thinkers approach each other, and are consistent, first with themselves, and next with the actual phenomena of our being. If Hume had paid due attention to what had been said before him on such topics, aiming less at originality and more at truth, he would have saved himself and his readers trouble, and earned a gratitude which now cannot be felt. At the conclusion of his chapter, Hume breaks out into that famous and often-quoted passage : " I am affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed, and fancy myself some strange un- couth monster, who, not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled all human commerce and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. Again, the intense view of the manifold contradictions and im- perfections in human reason has so wrought upon me and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all be- lief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion as even more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what ? From what causes do I derive my 76 HUME. existence, and to what condition shall I return ? . . . I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imagin- able, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty." But these sentiments, with the addition that all are certainly fools who reason or believe anything, he pronounces to be the result of spleen and indolence ; and he concludes that, " in all the incidents of life we ought still to preserve our scepticism. If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise. Nay, if we are philosophers, it ought only to be upon scep- tical principles, and from an inclination which we feel to the employing ourselves after that manner." One gleam of light, one transient intimation of possible advantage in the midst of this darkness and difficulty, escapes him at last, when he says : " For my part, my only hope is that I may contribute a little to the advancement of knowledge, by giving in some parti- culars a different turn to the speculations of philoso- phers, and pointing out to them more distinctly those subjects, where alone they can expect assurance and conviction. Human nature is the only science of man, and yet has been hitherto the most neglected." The last sentence deserves but a qualified, if any assent. More books have been written, and had been, in Hume's day, on Human Nature, its characteristics and interests, physical and metaphysical, on man as an individual and a social being, as occupant of earth HUME. 77 and heir of heaven, than on any other subject of scien- tific investigation. The dismay and alarm which Hume expresses at the darkness in which he is' involved, are often referred to in proof of the baneful and gloomy effects of scep- ticism on his own and other minds. When we con- sider the age at which these sentiments were written when we remember that they exhibit not the perma- nent characteristics of Hume's temper and feelings their force as evidence of such effect is much abated. We may agree with Hume in thinking that, after a certain term of life, the character is little influenced by abstract speculations. The habits and the temper generally become fixed. We must therefore judge of the probable or real effects of scepticism partly by an honest appeal to our own hearts and consciousness, partly by a broad survey of the characters which have been formed under the influence of belief and unbelief respectively, so far as we can bring them to any true or desirable tests to a common standard of virtue and social worth. We may place in contrast the lives and pages of a Milton, Newton, Locke, Boyle, Clarke, Addison, Hartley, and Butler, with those of Bayle, Bolingbroke, Hume, Shaftesbury, Gibbon, Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau. Perhaps we may compare the lives of a Wickliffe, a Luther, a Fenelon, a Wesley, a Priestley, with the most virtuous or the most learned of professed unbelievers. The dogmatism and intole- rance of the believing are among the chief causes of scepticism, by keeping alive a spirit of antagonism. 78 HUME. Who ever argues against ' faith, hope, and charity/ in the abstract, or is worth listening to, if he does? And who that has tried to ' converse with heaven/ returns not from the effort with a deep consciousness of the inadequacy of the finite to comprehend the Infinite? Then, grateful for the light and strength vouchsafed to him, he gladly descends from the cold and exhausting regions of speculation into the lowly habitable vale of practical enjoyment and utility. " Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar." " The primal duties shine aloft like stars ; The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scatter'd at the feet of man, like flowers*." Whatever the demerits of the ' Treatise on Human Nature/ it would be gross injustice to lay any stress upon its contents as evidence of Hume's real senti- ments, after the decided manner in which he con- demned the work, and insisted upon being judged solely by the 'Essays, Moral and Political/ published in 1742. A comparison of the first volume of the Trea- tise with the Inquiry concerning Human Understand- ing in the second volume of the Essays, particularly the chapters on Probability and the Idea of Necessary Connection, will show a considerable improvement in the latter in qualities both of matter and style. But much of the original leaven remains ; and to neither will the cautious reader be disposed to award any such share of praise, for ingenuity of thought and * Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' HUME. 70 subtlety of argument, as it has been customary to be- stow upon them among writers north of the Tweed. The Inquiry concerning the principles of morals, with the appendix, which we now find in the ' Essays/ was, in Hume's own opinion, "of all his writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best." With the dissertation on the Passions, it fills about a third of the second volume of the ' Essays/ and contains all that he thought worth preserving, or could use to any purpose, of the second and third volumes of the Treatise. The passages retained are few, but they are among the best. It is generally thought that in this Inquiry utility was first broadly and clearly set forth as the basis of morals ; advantage to society being made the founda- tion of merit in actions and of moral approbation in character. Perhaps it is nowhere more distinctly ex- pressed than in the conclusion of the Essay on Justice. " The necessity of justice to the support of society is the sole foundation of that virtue; and since no moral excellence is more highly esteemed, we may conclude that this circumstance of usefulness has, in general, the strongest energy, and most entire com- mand over our sentiments. It must therefore be the source of a considerable part of the merit ascribed to humanity, benevolence, friendship, public spirit, and other social virtues of that stamp, as it is the sole source of the moral approbation paid to fidelity, jus- tice, veracity, integrity, and those other estimable and useful qualities and principles." 80 HUME. Yet, after all, this is not very distinct or happy. It is remarkable that Hume nowhere attempts a defini- tion of virtue. If the above passage be compared with another from the appendix, a paper concerning Moral Sentiment, it will be seen how little Hume understood his subject or was consistent with himself. " Now as virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account, without fee or reward, merely for the immediate sa- tisfaction which it conveys ; 'tis requisite that there should be some sentiment which it touches, some in- ternal taste or feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other." " Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily ascertained. The former con- veys the knowledge of truth and falsehood ; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue" The reader may form his own opinion of the value of this distinction ; and of other statements which follow or accompany the above. On consideration he will probably concur in the criticism, suggested no doubt by such passages as these, pronounced by Mr. Austin in his ' Province of Jurisprudence determined/ " The hypothesis in question (namely that of a moral sense, or that certain inscrutable sentiments of appro < bation or disapprobation accompany our conceptions of certain human actions, which are not begotten by reflection upon the tendencies of the actions which excite them) has been embraced by sceptics as well as by religionists. For example, it is supposed by David HUME. M Hume, in his ' Essay on the Principles of Morals,' that some of our moral sentiments spring from a perception of utility ; but he also appears to imagine that others are not to be analysed, or belong exclusively to the province of taste. Such, I say, appears to be his meaning. For in this Essay, as in all his writings, he is rather acute and ingenious, than coherent and pro- found ; handling detached topics with signal dexterity, but evincing an utter inability to grasp his subject as a whole*." The criticism is eminently just, and too closely con- nected with the subject, though it be not the history of any theory of morals, but relates to inquiries more strictly metaphysical, to be omitted. Our chief business is with the inquiry concerning the Human Understanding. A close comparison of the Treatise with the Essays will show a considerable improvement in the latter. Much of the useless lan- guage on cause and effect found in the former is aban- doned to its destined oblivion. Sentiments dignified with the name of maxims, but never known as such before, are dropped into the same gulf. In the Trea- tise the most offensive paradoxes are put forward, for the sake of showing ingenuity in defending them ; for instance, that " Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." In the Essays he forbore their repetition. In the Treatise he is a sort of hard, uncompromising necessarian, as- * Austin's Jurisprudence, pp. 101, 102. G 82 HUME. serting that " the doctrine of necessity, according to his explication of it, is not only innocent, but even advantageous to religion and morality." In the f Es- says' he is neither libertarian nor necessarian, but as favourable to liberty as to necessity ; for he ventures to affirm that the doctrines both of necessity and of liberty, as he explains them, " are not only consistent with morality and religion, but are absolutely essential to the support of them*." He concludes the Essay on liberty and necessity without deciding anything ex- cept " the impossibility of arriving at any satisfactory conclusion," which is of course the proper condition of the genuine sceptic. " To reconcile the indifference and contingency of human actions with prescience, or to defend absolute decrees, and yet free the Deity from being the author of sin, has been found hitherto to exceed all the skill of philosophy. Happy, if she be thence sensible of her temerity, when she pries into these sublime mysteries ; and, leaving a scene so full of obscurities and perplexities, return with suitable modesty to her true and proper province, the exami- nation of common life, where she will find difficulties enough to employ her inquiries, without launching into so boundless an ocean of doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction f." * Compare the Treatise, vol. ii. p. 237, with Essays, vol. ii. p. 108, 115. edit. 1764. f It does not appear that Hume had paid any attention to the controversy and correspondence between Hobbes and Bramhall, Bishop of Dromore, where the question of necessity, if not exhausted, is put perhaps in as clear and strong a light as it can be made to sus- HUME. 83 In the two papers entitled ' Sceptical Doubts/ Mr. Hume does not appear to entertain himself, nor to propose to others, any real doubts about which he desired satisfaction ; but he makes many decided and sufficiently dogmatical assertions. Thus : " I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which ad- mits of no exception, that the knowledge of this re- lation (that is, of cause and effect) is not in any in- stances attained by reasonings a priori*, but arises entirely from experience, when we find that any par- ticular objects are constantly conjoined with others." What is meant in these passages by "reasonings a priori," and who had ever contended or conceived that such reasonings gave a knowledge of the rela- tion of cause and effect ? Such reasonings were held before Hume's time to be reasonings from a cause, known, assumed, or conceived, to the certain or pro- tain, and it is easy to see which of the disputants has the mastery. Yet there seems one point in this difficult subject, to which Hobbes has not adverted with a due sense of its importance, that is, the force of the will, and of steady continued resolution in giving birth to a repeated and protracted series of acts fixing the habits, and thus influencing the individual life and character for a period inde- finitely long. A copy of this correspondence, made valuable by the notes of P. Mallet, Esq., who edited an excellent abridgment of Locke's Essay, and Hobbes' Philosophy, now scarcely to be met with, is in Dr. Williams's Library. I observe with pleasure that Dr. Priestley, of all the writers on Philosophical Necessity, appears best acquainted with the history of opinion on the subject, and his his- torical references are always correct and instructive. See particu- larly the preface to his Doctrine of Necessity illustrated. Rutt's Priestley, vol. iii. * Compare also subsequent passages, "when we reason a priori," etc., pp. 36, 38, 40. G 2 84 HUME. bable effect. They supposed a knowledge of the re- lation already to exist, whencesoever the knowledge might be derived. Whatever Hume meant, it is sup- posed that he began that fallacious use of the words a priori, as an epithet for an intuition, or conception, now so common, under which use a twofold error or assumption lies concealed : first, that there are intui- tions and conceptions in the mind capable of being expressed in words, which are antecedent to or inde- pendent of experience, that is, of sensation and reflec- tion ; secondly, that there are propositions, or concep- tions, capable of being expressed in words, into the evidence of which, even into the meaning of which, we must not inquire prior to the admission of the reason- ings founded upon them, an intuitive certainty being pleaded or assumed for such propositions. As this is a point of considerable importance in tracing the history and appreciating the condition of modern me- taphysics, some observations upon it will be submitted in a future chapter. This proposition Mr. Hume en- deavours to establish by a variety of considerations. The reason is discernible in the following passage, which covertly contains the real sceptical doubt which he entertained, and which he designed rather to insi- nuate than to express. " Hence we may discover the reason why no philo- sopher, who is rational and modest, has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any natural operation, or to show distinctly the action of that power which produces any single effect in the universe. 'Tis con- HUME. 85 fessed, that the utmost effort of human reason is, to reduce the principles, productive of natural pheno- mena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience, and observa- tion. But as to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery ; nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves by any particular explication of them. These ultimate springs and prin- ciples are totally shut up from human curiosity and inquiry. Elasticity, gravity, cohesion of parts, com- munication of motion by impulse, these are probably the ultimate causes and principles which we shall ever discover in nature ; and we may esteem ourselves suf- ficiently happy, if by accurate inquiry and reasoning we can trace up the particular phenomena to, or near to, these general principles. The most perfect philo- sophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer ; as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to dis- cover larger portions of our ignorance. Thus the ob- servation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it*." The covert atheism of the first part of this extract, and the vanity of attempting any exact metaphysical science or truth in the last, constitute the real scepti- cism which Mr. Hume took such pains to cherish and to instil. If this be so, there is no attempt at solution * Essays, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39. 86 HUME. in any subsequent remarks. To suppose that we have in this any legitimate conclusion from principles pe- culiar to Locke, is to suppose what is utterly contrary to evidence. Instead of Hume being a disciple of Locke, with more truth may it be said that Diderot, who, in 1751, began the Trench Encyclopedic, was the disciple or fellow -labourer of Hume. " Strictly speaking," says Diderot, "there is but one sort of causes, that is, physical causes*/' We are reminded of the admirable lines of the author of the ' Dunciad/ written soon after the appearance of the Treatise ! " Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more." In the second part of the paper entitled, ' Sceptical Doubts,' our author carries on his sifting humour. He asks, "What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience ?" and answers negatively, that " they are not founded on reasoning, or any process of the understanding." But what is a conclusion or an in- ference ? If there be any process to arrive at it, it must be a process of the mind or understanding. It is a result of thought, but who thinks or entertains ideas without an experience ? Mr. Hume, as often as most other metaphysicians, loses sight of his meaning, and destroys his argument by changing his terms. Comment on other passages of the 'Sceptical Doubts' * See the letter of Diderot to the Baron de Grimm, quoted by Stewart, Dissertation, p. 150 ; and compare the account of Diderot in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques.' Paris, 1845. HUME. 87 may be dispensed with, but it is worth while to ob- serve that the concluding paragraph is too positive to be consistent with any scepticism; and the reader may consider whether the perception and remembrance of sensible qualities the observation of the present, the memory of the past, and the expectation of the future are or are not processes of the understanding ? While Mr. Hume admits these to be the characteris- tics of all percipient natures even peasants, children, and beasts he would on that account hold them beneath the attention of the philosopher. Thus the most general are made the least important principles. The insignificance of a law is in proportion to its uni- versality ! Gravitation, which keeps the worlds in harmony, is subordinate to the explosive power of steam or gunpowder. It is of no moment that men usually walk erect upon the ground, because one man, at a loss otherwise for a subsistence, has been known to walk upon the ceiling with his head downwards. Where there are really no doubts, there can be no solutions. In the subsequent paper, entitled, ' Scep- tical Solutions of these Doubts/ we find chiefly a re- petition of the same statements, touching the entire dependence of our knowledge of causes and effects on experience, for which a new term is found, as if it were a new principle, namely, custom. "All infe- rences from experience, therefore, are effects of cus- tom, not of reasoning." A long but unsatisfactory note follows, on some common distinction between reason and experience ; the result of which is to show 88 HUME. that there is no sufficient distinction, that the one supposes the other, and that neither is of value with- out the other. Much of the -subsequent language in the first part is open to obvious objection, as where he compares the belief in the existence of the sensible qualities of objects, and the expectation of effects in future similar to those experienced in the past, to the passion of love, when we receive benefits, or hatred, when we receive injuries, and says, " all these opera- tions (!) are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of thought is able to produce or to prevent." How much reasoning and thought, ex- perience and reflection, modify all our beliefs and passions, and expectations, he did not concern himself at that moment to inquire, forgetting that this in fact was the main business and proper purpose of his Essay, which is an illustration of it. A rich specimen of confusion of thought and lan- guage in an author affecting metaphysical depth occurs in the concluding section of these papers, where Mr. Hume proceeds to examine more accurately the nature of this belief, and of the customary conjunction whence it is derived; from which examination, readers who have no taste for the abstract sciences, and for such speculations, are politely warned off. He gives what he conceives to be the difference between fiction and belief. " The difference," he says, " lies in some sen- timent or feeling, which is annexed to the latter, not to the former, and which depends not on the will, nor can be commanded at pleasure. It must be ex- HUME. 89 cited by nature, like all other sentiments, and must arise from the situation in which the mind is placed at any particular juncture. Whenever any object is presented to the memory or senses, it immediately, by the force of custom, carries the imagination to con- ceive that object, which is usually conjoined to it; and this conception is attended with a feeling or sen- timent different from the loose reveries of the fancy. In this consists the whole nature of belief." In the subsequent paragraph he attempts not a definition, but another description of this sentiment or feeling of belief, although he says it is a term of which no one is ever at a loss for the meaning. " I say then that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagi- nation alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, 'tis needless to dispute about the terms." Now, first, belief is not rightly or usefully opposed to fiction, but to unbelief or disbelief; it relates to the assent which the mind gives to propositions, or affirmations, respecting the past, the present, or the future; for the mind frames for itself propositions more or less distinct, whenever it forms a judgement attended with belief. Belief relates to the acceptance 90 HUME. of testimony first of the senses, and next of other witnesses. It is confidence in the correctness of the inferences which experience leads us to draw from the sensible impressions. Fiction is feigned or false history, as distinguished from true or real history. It is the play of imagination as distinguished from the observation of fact. Liveliness of conception does not distinguish the sentiment or feeling of belief from that (sentiment or feeling) which attends the reveries of fancy. Dr. Brown has well observed this, criticizing these papers of Mr. Hume. The conception, which is present to the mind when perusing the statements of the historian may be very languid and unsteady, while the excitement of the imagination may be great when following the ideal pictures of the poet and the novel- ist. The fables of JEsop give a far more lively con- ception than the natural histories and catalogues of Aristotle, Buffon, and Linnaeus. But, secondly, no act of the mind renders realities more present to us than fictions, or causes them to weigh more in the thoughts. This is an obvious error. Surely realities act upon the mind, not the mind upon the realities. Whatever the force of imagi- nation, or internal feeling, and of that pre -occupation of mind, which prevents us occasionally from attending to the presence of sensible objects, in general the continuity and force of the impressions from without are sufficient to make us quite aware of the differ- ence between a fact and a fancy, an object and an idea. HUME. 91 " Oh, who can hold a firo in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus P Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast ?" " Let us then," says Mr. Hume, " take in the whole compass of this doctrine, and allow that the sentiment of belief is nothing but a conception of an object more intense and steady than what attends the mere pictures of the imagination ; and that this manner of concep- tion arises from a customary conjunction of the object with something present to the memory or senses. I believe that it will not be difficult, upon these suppo- sitions, to find other operations of the mind analogous to it ; and to trace up these phenomena to principles still more general*." But who will allow this ? The manner of concep- tion does not constitute the difference between a sen- sation caused by the presence of an object, and the remembrance or idea of that object, or of something else not present to the senses. Still less does it con- stitute the difference between belief and disbelief, fic- tion and fact. The conception of a centaur or satyr, of Bacchus and Silenus, may be far more lively than that of the personal appearance of the Roman Empe- rors. The figures on the Elgin marbles may be more distinctly impressed on the mind's eye than the ex- pression on the busts of Caesar and of Cicero. But belief in the existence of the one and the other as real * Sceptical Solutions, p. 59. Compare Brown's Essay on Cause and Effect, p. 308, edit, 1835. 92 HUME. beings, assent to propositions respecting them, consti- tute a class of sentiments and feelings wholly different from the mere presence or ^remembrance of visual or audible impressions. When errors like these pervade Mr. Hume's Scep- tical Solution, it is evident that nothing is solved. No doubt which any man, rational and modest, se- riously entertained, ever was solved, and was believed by Hume to be solved, in any of his remarks. A few passages in the Treatise are preserved in these papers, one touching the influence of relics on the feelings of the Roman Catholics, another on the in- fluence of a sensation, such as that caused by the voice or hand-writing of a friend, to call up the idea of his personal appearance. But they affect no phi- losophical question ; they help no analysis of mental phenomena ; they point no moral. Let them, if they may, adorn a tale. We come to the 'Essay on the Idea of Necessary Connection/ the most laboured in the collection. There is concentrated the essence of Hume's sceptical phi- losophy, if philosophy it deserves to be called. Of this Essay he has made considerable use, both in the well-known paper on miracles, and the less known but not less remarkable Essay on Providence and a Future State, remarkable for contemptuous indiffer- ence to all the received principles and ordinary feel- ings of mankind ; for how subordinate is the question whether there be evidence for any peculiar, special, and exceptional interpositions of Providence, to the HUME. 93 question whether there be an Intelligent and Benig- nant Providence at all. To the Essay on the Idea of Necessary Connection, the greatest attention must be paid by one who would know the nature and ex- tent of the scepticism of Hume. The general tenor of the section in the Treatise is preserved in the Essay, but with some improvement in the mode of putting the argument. Yet it is dif- ficult, without minute attention, without thorough acquaintance with Mr. Hume's style and sentiments, and even with it, to discern clearly the proposition which he seeks to establish. It is not clear whether we have or have not the idea in question; nor whether, if we have it, it can be rationally entertained, and made a basis for philosophical reasoning and con- clusion. Dr. Reid understood Hume to deny that we have the idea of power. He understood him to deny that we have any idea of power, because there is no one impression to which it can be specifically traced. On the other hand, Dr. Brown contends that this is a mistake of Reid's, that Hume admits and asserts we have it, quoting the sentence : " This connection, therefore) which we feel in the mind, or customary tran- sition of the imagination from one object to its usual J t/ / / attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connection*. * It seems obvious, that the connection which we feel in the mind is only another term for the idea of connection which Mr. Hume says is formed from a sentiment or impression. Do not the words feeling, sentiment, impression, and idea, signify one and the same subject of thought and reasoning? 94 HUME. Nothing further is in the case. Contemplate the sub- ject on all sides, you will never find any other origin of this idea *." Nevertheless Dr. Reid's mistake was perfectly natural, at least on a superficial view : it was founded on the general course of Mr. Hume's argu- ment. Hume makes much use of his peculiar principle, that we have no idea without its corresponding im- pression, and because we have no impression of a power or a cause in what he conceives to be the ordi- nary sense of those terms, and in the sense in which some philosophers (though he mentions them not) have taken them, he concludes or seems to conclude we have no such idea. "Upon the whole there appears not, through all nature, any one instance of connection which is con- ceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another, but we can never observe any tie between them : they seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of anything 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 rea- sonings or common life." If he had stopped there, Dr. Reid would have been partially right f; but he adds, "there still remains one method of avoiding this conclusion, and one source * Essays, p. 87. t This passage is referred to by Stewart (Dissertation, p. 214), HUME. 95 which we have not yet examined. When one parti- cular species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple to foretel the one upon the appearance of the other, and to employ that reasoning which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the one object came, and the other effect. We suppose that there is some connection between them, some power in the one by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity. " It appears, then, that this idea of a necessary con- nection amongst events arises from a number of simi- lar instances, which occur of the constant conjunction of events ; nor can that idea ever be suggested by any one of these instances, surveyed in all possible lights and positions. But there is nothing in a number of instances different from any single instance which is supposed to be exactly similar, except only, that after a repetition of similar instances the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to believe that it will exist*." Now what Mr. Hume mentions as an exception is evidently no exception, but a different kind of asser- tion. The effect of repetition on the mind, the di- rection in which the mind is carried by habit, adds and well criticized by Brown ('Essay on Cause and Effect,' part iv. sect. 7, on Mr. Hume's Theory:) and compare Dr. Reid's First Essay, on Active Power in general,' ch. iv. * Essays, p. 86. 96 HUME. nothing to the instances themselves, and varies not their character. In the recapitulation of the argument in the last paragraph of the Essay, where Hume repeats these views, he makes the same mistake; he confounds the different effect of repeated instances upon the imagination, the different degrees of confi- dence of anticipation in the mind, with a difference or change in the character of the instances themselves. The real object of all this, it may be presumed, is to pluck up by the roots the common argument in favour of a Supreme Intelligence and Power from the manifes- tations of intelligence, design, and power in the uni- verse. Because we have had no immediate experience, no impression of the connection between the will of a Supreme Being and any of the events or phenomena of the universe, we ought not to attempt to account for the phenomena by referring them to the existence of such a Being. It is travelling " out of the sphere of our experience," into regions unknown, into ques- tions beyond the grasp of our faculties. Mr. Hume refers to the Essay on the academical or sceptical philosophy*, as exhibiting these results: "While we cannot give a satisfactory reason why we believe, after * This Essay, like the rest of Hume's writings, abounds with ingenious and useful observations, but with strange inconsistencies. For in the same page (183) he says, " 'Tis only experience which teaches us the nature and bounds of cause and effect, and enables us to infer the existence of one object from that of another. Such is the foundation of moral reasoning, which forms the greatest part of human knowledge, and is the source of all human action and beha- viour." Yet shortly after he says, " Morals and criticism are not so 111 MI:. 97 a thousand experiments, that a stone will fall, or fire burn, can we ever satisfy ourselves concerning any determination which we may form with regard to the origin of worlds, and the situation of nature from, and to, eternity ?" As the whole of Hume's Sceptical Philosophy turns on this point, it is a duty to examine it with some care. And first, there is no pretence for attri- buting any assertion or thought concerned in his rea- soning to Locke. There is neither statement drawn from the pages, nor inference deduced from the prin- ciples of the great English metaphysician, to whom Hume pays little attention. His reference to Mr. Locke's chapter on 'Power/ in a note, is short but incorrect. Locke does not say what Hume represents him as saying, " that, finding from experience that there are several new productions in matter, and conclud- ing that there must somewhere be a power capable of producing them, we arrive at last, by this reasoning, at the idea of power." Locke's chapter on f Power' is one of the least happy portions of his great Essay. He was himself little satisfied with it, as appears by his letter to Molyneux, of July 15, 1693. But his language is not quite so muddy and inconsistent with himself, as Hume represents it. He suggests the only properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment;" as if our tastes and sentiments were themselves to be excluded from the domain of knowledge, understanding, and criticism. Why did he not remember his own principle, expressed a few sentences before, that our difficulties in these matters " proceed entirely from the unde ter- minate meaning of words, which is corrected by juster definitions " ? H 98 HUME. sources whence the idea of power can be derived. He lays it down that the mind, " taking notice of altera- tion in things without," " how one conies to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist, which was not before ; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant change of its ideas"- " so comes by that idea which we call power." Such, in consistency with his analytic view of the mind with his account of the origin of all our ideas, and striking out some useless words in which he has wrapped up his theory, such is the substance of his account of the origin of our idea of power. He attributes it to no reasoning. " If," he says at the end of the fourth section, "from the impulse bodies are observed to make one upon another, any one thinks he has a clear idea of power, it serves as well to my purpose, sen- sation being one of those ways whereby the mind comes by its ideas ; only I thought it worth while to consider here by the way, whether the mind doth not receive its idea of active power clearer from reflection on its own operations than it doth from any external sensation." Mr. Hume, on the other hand, denies that the idea of power can be derived " from the con- templation of bodies in single instances of their ope- ration," and he concludes that neither is it "copied from any sentiment or consciousness of power within ourselves." He especially combats at great length Mr. Locke's position that it is an idea arising chiefly from reflecting on the operations of our own minds, with what success will hereafter appear. HT'MK. 99 It is to be regretted that Hume did not take the trouble to represent carefully, in Locke's own language, what* Locke really thought. He would then have per- ceived himself, and his readers have perceived after him, to what extent he did or did not agree with the English philosopher. If the idea of power or neces- sary connection arises from the contemplation of re- peated instances, or many uniform instances of se- quence of events, as Mr. Hume, so far as he is intel- ligible, admits, what is the difference, what the incon- sistency, between this and Mr. Locke's "observation of the operation of bodies by our senses" ? But the virtue of faithful quotation has been rare among meta- physicians, particularly among those who write for the softest heads, and the applause of a partial audience. How careless and how incorrect Dr. Reid could be in his representation of Locke on this very subject of power, active and passive, Sir W. Hamilton has shown in his notes to the late edition of Reid's collected writings*. Secondly, Mr. Hume makes a great point of a dis- tinction between what he calls a ' constant conjunction' and a ' necessary connection.' But there is no such difference between a junction and a tie in any essen- tial value of these terms, as to enable us to found upon that difference a metaphysical argument or a philosophical truth. The one does not refer any more than the other to any important peculiarities in the phenomena of matter or of mind. Had Hume paid * See Hamilton's Eeid, p. 519. H 2 100 HUME. any salutary attention to the fourth book of Locke's Essay on the connection between language and thought, he would have paused before' he laid so much stress upon an arbitrary or imaginary difference between a conjunction and a connection, as if the one implied something in its own nature more casual and less ne- cessary than the other, as if the one expressed in- dependence of law and a union of events without a cause, while the other expressed dependence and in- volved more completely the notion of cause and of power. Thirdly, the stress of his argument evidently lies on the word necessary, which he never explains. Yet he must have known, if accustomed to nice metaphysical and logical distinctions, that the very word necessary had been taken in various senses, or considered in several relations*. To man, whatever happens inde- pendently of his own will may be said to be a neces- * A good and short view of the importance and meaning of the word necessary, with remarks on its introduction and use by the schoolmen, may by found in Waterland's Dissertation ' Upon the argument a priori for proving the existence of a First Cause,' men- tioned above. He distinguishes four kinds of necessity, logical, moral, physical, and metaphysical; and the distinction is well carried out. Those who are conversant with Dr. S. Clarke's ' Demonstra- tion' will remember that he dwells much on a necessity of the last kind, when he argues for " an absolute necessity of existence." The reader, desirous of accurate historical views on such metaphysical points, will be greatly assisted by that Dissertation. Touching on the connection of causes and effects with a masterly hand, and espe- cially on the application of the word necessary to that connection, it claims an attention, which hitherto it does not appear to have received. HUME. sary event, and whatever truth or proposition he can- not but admit without annihilating thought, or con- tradicting his faculties, is a necessary truth. Its cor- relatives are the words contingent, voluntary, acci- dental. Because we know not always what determines the will, and what is the sequence of events arising from unknown causes, we call such events contingent or accidental. Now the constant conjunction on which Mr. Hume lays stress, is in the proper sense of the term necessary to us. Means are as necessarily connected with, as they are constantly conjoined to, ends. Powers are necessary to the production of ef- fects. Antecedents necessarily precede consequents by the force of the terms, which have no meaning but as they imply order in place or sequence in time. In a procession some must go first, and others follow behind. Two distinct bodies cannot occupy the same space. Two persons cannot reason together or syl- logize in common without having a common premiss and agreeing in the use of their signs and understand- ing each other's language. Practically things may be tied together in as many ways as they are joined. They may be bound in paper and string, sown up with thread, nailed, and glued. All these words sug- gest thoughts, associated with various sensible im- pressions ; and thoughts suppose minds accessible to reasoning, and on which the reasoning is to take effect. For the purpose of the reasoning there is a necessary connection between the words, the thoughts, and the impressions. " Repeated similar instances," says Mr. 102 HUME. Hume, " give rise infallibly to uniformity of expecta- tion, and determine the mind on the perception of one object to anticipate another." But what is this determination of the mind ? It is a case of indisso- luble association. It is a simple illustration of that great law of thought without which there could be no reasoning. There is a necessary connection between the nature and order of our thoughts and the pheno- mena which give rise or occasion to that order, as there is between reasoning and the signs or marks em- ployed to connect thoughts together, and impart them to another mind. When we open our eyes, it is not a matter of will what objects, forms, or colours we shall see. When a gun is fired close to the ear, it is not an arbitrary but a necessary result that we should be startled or disturbed by the sound. In vain would you try to persuade workmen to remain within a few feet of the piece of rock, to which a train of gun- powder has been properly applied for blasting, and which is about to be exploded. Life the last pos- session is at stake. Their belief in the established, that is necessary connection between cause and effect, in the uniformity of sequence, is inseparable from the exercise of their reason and faculties. Now the first powerful impression on the senses, such as heat from fire, or light from flame ; and the first conscious ex- ercise of the will in originating muscular motion, or bringing about a new sequence of phenomena, lays the foundation for that idea or sentiment of power, which repeated instances and uniformity of experience HUME. 103 combine to strengthen. There is nothing in the re- petition of instances, but the repetition. The uni- formity and strength of expectation is conformable to the uniformity or invariabteness of the experience, al- though the degree and nature of expectations may vary in different minds in proportion to the amount of ob- servation and reflection, or be in accordance with the peculiar nature of the casual or acquired associations. Outward objects continually impress us with the idea of a sequence, independent of our own wills. The exertion of the will, the result of desire, is followed by changes which we feel that we ourselves originate, and which, without the existence and influence of that will, we feel and know, as much as we can know anything, would not exist. Hence the notion of power, first of specific powers, material and intellectual, which indi- vidually are known by experience, and afterwards of poiver itself; power, an abstract or general term, sig- nificant of a complex idea, a convenient abbreviation for whatever causes change, or involves the notion of a sequence of phenomena, whether in the world of matter or of mind. The succession of events in an or- der independent of our wills, and the existence of will in ourselves, however limited in its sphere of influence, enable and compel us to recognize powers out of our- selves, of which we are the subjects, and powers in our- selves, of which we are possessors. The sensible im- pressions leave traces of their existence in the memory, and recur to thought with uniform or varying associa- tions. The sensations and ideas become associated 104 HUME. with language according to a certain law ; and the mi- niatures of sensation, to use Hartley's language, blend with the associated ideas, so as to form complex and decomplex ideas. Hence the formation, import, and use of such terms as power, virtue, honour, beauty, goodness, utility, order, law, generosity, philosophy, and so on, through the dictionary. In vain should we seek for any one particular impression in Hume's sense, however indefinite, to account for the ideas attached to these words ; but equally vain is it to deny the natural origin of the ideas in sensation and reflec- tion, experience, and consciousness ; and to question their connection with the realities and interests of our practical and hourly life. The terms experience and consciousness cover all the phenomena of our percep- tive and intellectual being. Whoever accepts the account now given of the origin and nature of the complex idea of power, will see at once the insufficiency and weakness of Hume's attempt to analyse the idea of necessary connection, and may think further comments on it unnecessary. But as the diligence of readers cannot always be trusted, some further exposure of its fallacies or ob- scurities may be useful. He runs the changes upon the words, influence, force, energy, command, and authority, in connection especially with the human will, without appearing to see that they alike involve the notion of power, if there be any notion of it. It is easy to show that his at- tempt to prove a negative, to prove that this notion HUME. 105 comes neither from observation nor consciousness, is altogether a failure, and is inconsistent with his own statements and admissions. For example, to prove that " single instances" give no impression of power, he adduces the instance of motion in billiard-balls. " The impulse of one billiard- ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the whole that appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects." This is untrue. There can be no succession of objects, attracting any atten- tion, without an inward impression ; when we are talking of the one, we are talking of the other. Be- sides, the observation is more complex than Mr. Hume supposes. There is the will of the striker, directing one ball against another, and success or failure in the effort to give the balls a particular di- rection. If the observer saw motion arising in the first ball without an apparent mover, the first ball be- ginning to move and imparting motion to a second, without any apparent cause for the first motion, he would be at a loss to account for such beginning of motion; but he would not the less feel that there was, first, a cause out of himself, for the particular impression on his own mind his own perception of motion; nor would he the less believe, secondly, that wherever there is motion, there must be a moving power. Again, Hume says that, "from the first appear- ance of an object, we never can conjecture what effect 106 HUME. will result from it." But do we ever perceive objects without effects ? We may not conjecture, on perceiv- ing a new object, with whose qualities we are not familiar, all the effects which it is capable of producing under conditions not yet observed. But this is no proof that the objects of nature do not from the first, from the dawn of intelligence, affect us by their sen- sible qualities, and that such objects as we do observe, by the manner in which they affect us, by the uni- formly experienced effects, do not give us the notion of power. In short what does Hume mean by his " repeated instances," but the observation or impres- sion of a uniformity of sequence? Again, he says, " there is no part of matter that does ever by its sen- sible qualities discover (he should have said disclose) any power or energy." But what are sensible quali- ties? Are they not the impressions made on our senses by outward objects ? Do not these objects act upon our senses in a uniform manner, independently of our volition ? Are not form, colour, and smell, in- separably associated with our idea of the rose ? If so, why is not this subjection of our senses to effects or impressions uniform and constant, but independent of our control and volition, an element in our notion of power ? Because we know specific effects only by experience, and learn to attribute them to specific causes, or invariable antecedents; because we learn particular powers, and their exercise, by observation, and conclude the dependence of the observed effects upon the observed causes, and derive from the repe- HUME. 107 tition of instances the idea of necessary connection; therefore our idea of connection or power does not arise from the observation of body, or outward changes and sequences at all. Such, if I understand it, is Mr. Hume's argument. But the premises seem to hold a conclusion precisely the reverse of that at which he has arrived. Mr. Hume goes on with an attempt to prove that the idea of power is not an idea of reflection, or con- sciousness. He examines this pretension first with regard to the influence of volition over the organs of the body and afterwards to the command of the mind over itself or its ideas. Again, what are his proofs ? " The union of soul with body is very mysterious." " Is there," he asks, " any principle in all nature more mysterious ?" It may be so. But how does the my - steriousness of that union help to show that the con- sciousness which, in a sentence or two before, as he admitted, attends us every moment, a consciousness of the command of the will over the organs of the body, does not supply the idea of power, the idea of a necessary connection between that command of will and the resulting motion. But, secondly, "we are not able to move all the organs of the body with a like authority." " Why has the will an influence over the tongue and the fingers, and not over the heart and liver?" The question implies that we can move some organs with some authority. The question supposes that there is an influence within certain limits. That is enough. Instead of proving that the exercise of 108 HUME. such authority and such influence is not the source of our idea of power, and of the necessary connection be- tween the will and the deed, it is a virtual admission of the contrary. The example of the man suddenly struck with palsy is little to Mr. Hume's purpose, and fatal to his own argument. That we learn the in- fluence of our will from experience alone, does not disprove such influence to be the true source of our idea of power. The influence, the authority, and the power, are the same thing under different terms. Thirdly, " we learn from anatomy that the immediate object of power in voluntary motion, is not the mem- ber itself which is moved; but certain muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits and perhaps something still more minute and more unknown through which the motion is successively propagated, ere it reach the member itself, whose motion is the immediate object of volition. Can there be a more certain proof that the power, by which this is performed, so far from being directly and fully known by an inward senti- ment or consciousness, is to the last degree myste- rious and unintelligible ?" But does the length of the chain through which the power is propagated alter the nature of the power ? A chain must equally be upheld ; the last link must be connected with the first, whether it consist of two or two hundred links. The weight on the last must be maintained by the power with which the first link is fastened to the beam, and by the power of the walls to support the beam. Ana- tomy cannot alter the metaphysics of muscular motion. HUME. 109 It may reveal a longer or shorter process ; it may show the connection of the resulting motion with the will to be more immediate, or more remote ; but it does not destroy the necessary connection of the one with the other. It does not alter the consciousness of that connection. It does not show that such con- sciousness is not one source of our idea of power. So much, then, for Mr. Hume's attempt to prove that the idea of power is not an idea of reflection. The same observations apply to his remarks on the command of the mind over its ideas. The positions that " this command is limited," and that " our au- thority over our sentiments and passions is much weaker than that over our ideas," are admissions of the existence of some command and some authority, and therefore rather proofs than disproofs that reflec- tion on what passes within must be one source of all our ideas, and all our knowledge of power, physical or mental, intellectual or moral. Thus, when closely examined, Mr. Hume's arguments afford confirmation of Locke's theory, while they refute himself. They support a conclusion the reverse of that which he was anxious to establish. They even go to show that Mind is the true origin of all motion, as it is the sole in- herent possessor of wisdom, order, and law ; that it affords the only conceivable explanation of an adjust- ment of means to ends, or of the pursuit of an object by suitable contrivances. When, therefore, Hume advances to a confutation of the opinion of Male- branche and Berkeley, that everything is full of God, 110 HUME. that to the constant agency of a Supreme Mind, every power of matter and finite mind must be attri- buted, when he contends that such theories are too bold for the weakness of human reason, and that we are alike profoundly ignorant of the operation of bodies on each other, and of minds on body, he for- gets the nature and extent of his own admissions. To argue from our ignorance is to argue from nothing. The facts we do know, or have admitted, be they few or many, are the only basis of just reasoning. He forgets that it is the proper business of the philosopher to arrive at some great ultimate principles on which the mind can rest with satisfaction, beyond which it feels no desire to go, which can be applied to all its wants, in consistency with all the phenomena of ob- servation and reflection, and ample for the purposes and government of life. Having sufficiently confused our idea of necessary connection, and left us in some doubt whether we have it or have it not ; whether, if we have it, the ex- perience or the repetition of instances on which it rests, justifies our entertaining it, and reasoning from it ; whether " all events are not really what they seem, entirely loose and separate" (though this is in fact as contrary to the appearance as to the reality), Hume passes on to the section on Liberty and Necessity, where he intimates that the most sublime and spe- cious reflections are in practice weak and ineffectual ; that no conclusions of the understanding can influence our natural emotions and affections; and he advances HUME. Ill to the subject of miracles, and of Providence, and a future state. In the one he would destroy the founda- tion of Revealed, in the other of Natural Religion. "While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first be- stowed, and still preserves, order in the universe, we embrace a principle ivhick is both uncertain and use- Jess. 'Tis uncertain; because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. Tis useless, because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from this course of nature, we can never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause with any new inferences, or, making additions to the common and experienced course of nature, establish any new principles of conduct and behaviour." Such is Hume's defence of Epicurus ; such his in- difference to the principle that the order of the uni- verse argues an infinitely wise and benevolent Provi- dence. To Mr. Locke's argument from the existence of knowledge in ourselves, to the existence of " some knowing Being from all eternity," and its beautiful corollaries*, he makes no allusion; to the questions suggested by Hartley f, a summary of all metaphy- sical possibilities on the subject of Providence, he was most probably a stranger ; to Cudworth's noble tem- ple of worship, the Intellectual System/ he scorns a re- ference ; and to ' Clarke's Demonstration,' full of pro- * Essay, book iv. c. xi. f Proposition, iv. part ii. 112 HUME. found and admirable thoughts, though not felicitous in some of its definitions, he refers only to show how little accurate consideration he chose to give it. But how little was Hume consistent with himself! There are times when he breaks out into acknowledgments which, like flashes of lightning, relieve for an instant the prevailing darkness. Thus he concludes the first appendix concerning moral sentiment, which proposes to ascertain the boundaries and offices of Reason and Taste, with saying, " The standard of the one, being founded on the nature of things, is eternal and inflex- ible, even by the will of the Supreme Being : the stand- ard of the other, arising from the internal frame and constitution of animals, is ultimately derived from that Supreme Will, which bestowed on each being its pe- culiar nature, and arranged the several classes and orders of existence*." His general corollary derived from all considerations on the natural history of reli- gion is, that " though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so great, that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious works of nature, to which they are so much familiarized, yet it scarce seems possible that any one of good understanding should reject that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an intention, a design is evident in everything ; and when our comprehension is so far en- larged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt with the strongest conviction the idea of some intelligent cause or author. The * Hume's Essays, vol. ii. p. 369. HUME. 113 uniform maxims too which prevail through the whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not necessarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as single and undivided, where the prejudices of education oppose not so reasonable a theory. Even the contrarieties of nature, by discovering themselves everywhere, become proofs of some consistent plan, and establish one single purpose or intention, however inexplicable and incom- prehensible." " The good, the great, the sublime, the ravishing, are found eminently in the genuine prin- ciples of theism." " The universal propensity to be- lieve in invisible, intelligent" power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the Divine Workman has set upon his work, and nothing surely can more dignify mankind than to be thus selected from all the other parts of the creation, and to bear the image or impression of the Universal Creator*!" "Look out for a people entirely void of religion. If you find them at all, be assured that they are but few degrees removed from brutes." What more could the most ardent theist require than this ? and how much better would Mr. Hume have been employed in endeavouring to purify theological systems from error and inconsistency, in strengthening the influence of a genuine theism over the sweetest hopes * These warm sentiments and concessions in favour of Theism were added in the later editions of Hume's Essays. The small volume entitled 'Philosophical Essays concerning Human Under- standing,' published in 1748, ends with the Essay of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. I 114 HUME. and most endearing charities of existence, than in per- suading himself and his readers of the uselessness of reason, and the inefficacy of every principle against the instincts of nature, amid the tempests of passion, or under the immediate visitations of physical pain ! Why should he thicken the obscurity of the region of philosophy into the outer darkness of despair, and spitefully dash down the taper, whose feeble beam affords the only solace in the desolation, the only guidance through the gloom ? The attempt to "ascend the height of this great argument" would lead to*paths remote from the pur- pose of this Essay, the object of which is to show that Hume neither built, nor pretended to build, on any principles peculiar to Locke. Experience Mr. Locke had shown to be the foundation of all our ideas, it followed from the denial of innate ideas. In expe- rience Mr. Locke included our simple ideas of sensa- tion, such as of colours, sounds, tastes, the rudiments of intelligence; he included also our more complex ideas of reflection, which imply the exercise of the faculties of the mind, memory, comparison, abstrac- tion, volition ; ideas of mental states, and whatever are the phenomena of consciousness. In it was therefore the origin of our idea of causation and of power. But in thus laying down the true chart of the human mind, Locke supplied to Hume, and his coadjutors, the French sceptics, none of the peculiar elements of their dogmatic scepticism*. But he did supply to Bentley, * No doubt the English deists of the early part of the last century, HUMK. 115 Law, Butler, Palcy, Hartley, and many others, some of the elements or arguments for their benevolent reli- gious faith. The practice of associating Locke's name with the scepticism of the former, rather than with the eminently religious spirit of the latter, betrays the ignorance and the prejudice of those who indulge in it. It is alike injurious and unjust. Let it be left to those who are aliens by birth and feeling, from the great commonwealth of English sincerity and sense. Let it be repudiated by those who should cherish with gra- titude and pride the names and memories of their great chiefs, of the men who have conquered new such as Tindal, Collins, and Bolingbroke, sought to shelter them- selves under the authority of Locke, whom they held in high esteem. But they pleaded his great name to justiiy the freedom of their in- quiries, and to assert the supremacy of Reason; not pretending nor imagining that Locke's philosophical principles were more peculiarly favourable to their conclusions than those of any other metaphysical school. To these writers must be conceded the merit of being in- telligible and practical, of advocating principles which they con- ceived to be as useful, as rational, a merit which cannot be con- ceded, with the utmost stretch of charity, to the writers of tran- scendental idealism. Descartes, who may be considered as the foun- tain-head of the modern intuitional school, is, beyond question, far more sceptical, both in the foundations and in the tendency of his philosophy, than Locke. Spinoza began his course by endeavouring to demonstrate, in a geometrical method, the philosophical prin- ciples of Descartes. D'Alembert the best of the writers concerned in the Encyclopedic in the 'Discours Preliminaire,' has given a splendid and just eulogium of Locke, without intimating or con- ceiving any connection between his philosophy and either religious or philosophical scepticism. Compare Stewart's Dissertation, pp. 144, 145. I 2 116 HUME. provinces from the domain of ignorance, darkness, and superstition, and secured them for the culture, enjoy- ment, and improvement of mankind. But there is another work of Hume's, which enables us to judge of the nature and extent of his scepticism, a work less known, but by no means the least in- teresting or least elegant, the ' Dialogues of Natural Religion/ which, though written as early as 1751, was not published till after his death, which took place in 1776. In acuteness of reasoning, in charm of style, these dialogues have all, and more than all, his cha- racteristic excellence, the charm, notwithstanding frequent incorrectness, of a graceful ease. Without precision or clearness enough for logic and philosophy, they have the happy turns and sparkling lights that gratify the taste. The speakers are Philo, a mate- rialist of Spinoza's school; Cleanthes, a philosophi- cal theist, on the principles of Natural religion ; and Demea, an orthodox Christian, or one who receives the whole scheme of revealed religion, as commonly understood. Demea makes but a poor figure in the conversation, and quits before it is concluded. The weight of the discussion rests upon the first two. " Philo," says Dr. Priestley, " speaks the sentiments of the writer." But Mr. Burton affirms, " It is with Cleanthes the author shows most sympathy, very nearly professing that the doctrine announced by Cle- anthes is his own, while it will be found in his corre- spondence that he admits his having designedly en- HUME. 117 deavoured to make the arguments of that speaker the most attractive*." This is confirmed by Hume's own language to Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, to whom he submitted a portion of the manuscript in 1751. " You would perceive by the sample I have given you, that I make Clean thes the hero of the dialogue. Whatever you can think of to strengthen that side of the ar- gument will be most acceptable to me." The whole letter is worth attention, unfolding the state of Hume's mind, and the * absolute philosophical indifference* which he flatters himself, not without reason, that he had reached. But is such indifference peculiarly en- titled to the epithet philosophical? Was it the cha- racteristic of the early sages, whose names are like a trumpet-sound, calling to battle for right and truth? Are questions relating to Providence and the mind, the strength and the weakness of reason, frivolous, or to be treated as the playthings of children ? Are not a desire for truth and salutary views, and a desire to develope the consequences of truths useful to mankind, equally philosophical ? Was Bacon's passion for fruit, instead of dry leaves, unworthy of a great mind? Such questions answer themselves. Recurring to the dialogues, the truth is that Philo and Cleanthes come in the end nearly to an agreement ; and the last chap- ter, in which they do so, abounds in just sentiments beautifully expressed, sentiments which can hardly fail to be read with pleasure and with hearty concur- * 'Letters to Philosophical Unbelievers:' Priestley's Works, vol. iv. p. 368, Butt's edition. Burton's Life of Hume, vol. i. p. 320. 118 HUME. rence by every philosophically religious mind. The distinction between true religion and religion as it is commonly found in the world is admirably put. History and daily life give ample evidence of the un- happy severance of the religious feelings from those great moral principles and habits, those sterling social virtues, which, from their connection with the perma- nent happiness of mankind, the philosopher must ever regard with chief concern, and associate with the proper and most acceptable worship of the Deity. When the orthodox Demea has given vent to the most extravagant opinions respecting the predominance of pain and misery in the universe, and departed, unable to bear the conversation further, Philo addresses Cle- anthes in the words, " You are sensible that, notwith- standing the freedom of my conversation and my love of singular arguments, no one has a deeper sense of religion impressed on his mind, or pays more profound adoration to the Divine Being, as he discovers himself to reason in the inexplicable contrivance and artifice of Nature. A purpose, an intention, a design strikes everywhere the most careless, the most stupid thinker ; and no man can be so hardened in absurd systems, as at all times to reject it." " The most agreeable reflection which it is possible for human imagination to suggest," replies Cleanthes, as the conversation advances, "is that of genuine theism, which represents us as the workmanship of a Being perfectly good, wise, and powerful ; who created us for happiness, and who, having implanted in us im- HUME. 119 measurable desires of good, will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy these desires, and render our felicity complete and durable. Next to such a Being himself (if the comparison be allowed), the happiest lot which we can imagine is that of being under his guardianship and protection*." In apology for Hume, we must remember that he had few encouragements in early life to connect reli- gion with the true honour and perfect happiness of mankind, with the social graces, with intellectual cul- ture, with active but mild benevolence, and with vir- tuous self-rule. To him terror appeared its primary principle ; gloom and melancholy, the characteristic of all devout people. " Among the votaries of religion (of which number the multifarious fraternity of Chris- tians is but a small part) there seem to be but few I will not say how few who are real believers in his (the Deity's) benevolence. They call him benevolent in words, but they do not mean that he is so in reality. They do not mean that he is benevolent as man is conceived to be benevolent ; they do not mean that he is benevolent in the only sense in which benevolence has a meaning. For if they did, they would recognize that the dictates of religion could be neither more nor less than the dictates of utility ; not a tittle different, not a tittle less or more. But the case is, that on a thousand occasions they turn their backs on the prin- ciple of utility. They go astray after the strange prin- * Dialogues of Natural Religion, pp. 228-255. 120 HUME. ciples, its antagonists ; sometimes it is the principle of asceticism ; sometimes it is the principle of sympathy and antipathy. Accordingly the idea they bear in their minds, on such occasions, is but too often the idea of malevolence, to which idea, stripping it of its own proper name, they bestow the specious appellation of the social motive. Sometimes, in order the better to conceal the cheat, (from their own eyes doubtless, as well as from others,) they set up a phantom of their own, which they call justice, whose dictates are to modify which, being explained, means to oppose the dictates of benevolence*." In England, it is true, there had been writers, not a few, who, before Hume's time, had endeavoured to free religion, natural and revealed, from the reproach of being inimical to philosophical inquiry, to social improvement, to the innocent pleasures and amiable feelings of mankind ; not a few, who had endeavoured to associate " Glory to God in the highest," with its scriptural adjuncts, " peace on earth, and goodwill to man." Tillotson had maintained that " the great design of Christianity was the reforming men's natures, and governing their actions, the restraining their appetites and passions, the softening their tempers, and sweeten- ing their humours, and the raising their minds above the interests and follies of this present world to the hope and pursuit of endless blessedness f." Dr. Sa- * See Bentham's 'Principles of Morals and Legislation.' Ben- tham's Works, by Bowring, vol. i. p. 58. t Birch's Life of TiUotson, p. 551. O UN IYER SI HUME. muel Clarke* had endeavoured to show that tical duties which the Christian religion enjoins are all such as are most agreeable to our natural notions of God, and most perfective of the nature and condu- cive to the happiness and well-being of men." Moral virtue, he contended, "is the foundation and the sum, the essence and the life of all true religion ; for the security whereof all positive institution was prin- cipally designed, for the restoration whereof all re- vealed religion was ultimately intended ; and incon- sistent wherewith, or in opposition to which, all doc- trines whatsoever, supported by what pretence of rea- son or authority soever, are as certainly and necessarily false as God is true." Many divines of the English church followers of Arminius and Episcopius called Latitudinarians, had, like Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, identified religion with true goodness of heart and life ; and no one more earnestly nor more admirably than the large-minded Joseph Glanvilf, who died compa- ratively young, but whose writings breathe a spirit, if not above his age, yet of the highest order of minds. * Clarke's ' Discourse concerning the unchangeable obligations of Natural Religion/ etc., p. 113, fifth edition. t See many admirable passages in his 'Remains,' published in 1681, and his * Essays, 'passim. " The great design of religion and the Gospel is to perfect human nature ; and all the acts of worship, which Christianity binds upon us, tend to our perfection and felicity." Glanvil was of Oxford, the contemporary of the Cambridge men mentioned by Burnet (History of his own Time, i. 187), Whichcote, Cudwortb, WilMns, and Worthington. Why has he been so much forgotten? Mr. Hallam has done something to revive the impression of his merits. 122 HUME. Locke had contended for the " reasonableness of Chris- tianity, as delivered in the Scriptures/' and given five great reasons for valuing it, which deserve to be deeply graven on the minds of all who desire to be considered rational Christians, and who are grateful for Christian hope. Lady Masham, his friend and disciple, the daughter of Cudworth, had published her tract in reply to the spiritualist John Norris, and to some of the wild and frightful sentiments of Malebranche*. She had placed religion in harmony with practical philosophy, in the regulation of our appetites and pas- sions. She had beautifully contended, in opposition to the ascetic principle, that, " as short-lived flowers, though they ought not to employ the continual care of our whole lives, may yet reasonably enough be found in our gardens, and delight us in their seasons, so the fading things of this life, though not to be fixed on as the ultimate good of eternal beings, yet there is no reason why we may not rejoice in them as the good gifts of God, and find all that delight in them which he has joined with their lawful use." The Honourable Robert Boyle had followed or accompanied in the same path, uniting the most accurate investigation of nature, and. the indefatigable pursuit and encou- ragement of experimental philosophy, with the most * Such as that " a child (by virtue of its union with the mother) does, whilst in her womb, know and love bodies, consequently there- fore is a sinner, and shall be necessarily damned :" mitigated in a note to being eternally deprived of the possession of God. Male- branche, Conversations Chretiennes, 1685, p. 114. Lady Masham's tract * On the Love of God' was published anonymously in 1696. HUME. 123 ardent sentiments of devotion. There is also a scarce tract, by Bayes of Tunbridge, ' On the Divine Bene- volence, or an attempt to prove that the principal end of the Divine Providence and Government is the Hap- piness of his Creatures*/ The great Leibnitz had done still more in his ' Theodicy ' to vindicate the wisdom and goodness of the Deity. But such writers have been either unknown or held in little esteem north of the Tweed f. In Scotland, a gloomy and malevolent Calvinism had been the bequest of Knox to his will- ing followers ; Knox, a monk and an inquisitor, in the Genevan gown. There the Assembly's Catechism fastened its iron band round the head of youth, and formed the bars of a prison-house of thought, beyond which, if the eyes of the poor inmates wandered to view the fair creation without, they were taught in- stantly to withdraw them with mingled feelings of ap- prehension and mistrust. In Hume's time, or before it, such men as Bentley, Stillingfleet, and Warburton made the loudest noise in the arena of theological controversy, men whom neither religion nor phi- losophy rendered candid, temperate, and patient. * Of this tract, dated 1731, 1 possess a copy. The interest of it is diminished to the student by its being merely an answer to a superficial writer, who makes order, not happiness, the end of the Deity in creation. It is not a collection of proofs of benevolent design. Paley's chapter on the Goodness of the Deity is far more to the purpose. f Has not the Principal Campbell, one of the answerers of Hume, the honour of being the first, as he is yet the greatest and best, of the rational critics and moderate theologians whom Scotland has produced P 124 HUME. Captious, petulant, arrogant in their temper and tone, they gave too much reason for the belief that danger to their craft alone inspired their zeal. They had too much of what Glanvil calls the animal reli- gion, too little of the Divine. The Boyle Lectures upon atheism, and the answer to Collins, by the first, though expressly founded on the principles of Locke ; the controversial letters of the second, animadverting on those principles, whom Locke laid on his back so gently as not to hurt him ; and the addresses to Tree- thinkers by the last, cannot, by any intellectual supe- riority, whatever the learning of their authors, com- pensate for their tone of assumption and bitterness, nor escape the charge of being too plainly deficient in the temper and the taste proper to religion and philo- sophy. So many valuable treatises on Natural Theology and the doctrine of a Providence have been written since Hume's time, that it would be quite beyond the limits and purposes of this Essay to attempt a survey of our philosophical and literary wealth on that great topic. But it would be difficult to name a dissertation in English prior to that by the good and learned Dr. Price, which takes up Hume's view of objections and difficulties comparable to it in depth and merit. Dr. Price indeed is not always as logical as a keen dis- putant wishing for truth on his own side of the ques- tion could desire, yet he entrenches himself in many strong and defensible positions. He makes reason tremble on the height to which she rises, in order to HUME. 125 survey the vast, the universal scheme, yet he plants his footing on a rock. But while stretching an aching gaze into the infinite expanse, we are compelled to feel that our horizon is still limited. " Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh, This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs, Though inconceivably endow 'd, too dim For any passion of the soul, that leads To ecstasy*." " Truth," says Cudworth in an admirable passage, " is bigger than our minds, and we are not the same with it, but have a lower participation only of the intellectual nature, and are rather apprehenders than comprehenders thereof. This is indeed one badge of our creaturely state, that we have not a perfectly com- prehensive knowledge, or such as is adequate and commensurate to the essences of things ; from whence we ought to be led to this acknowledgment, that there is another perfect mind or understanding Being above us in the universe, from which our imperfect minds were derived, and upon which they do depend." " Nevertheless, because our weak and imperfect minds are lost in the vast immensity and redundancy of the Deity, and overcome with its transcendent light and * A beautiful and refined religious philosophy pervades the poetry of Wordsworth, which shines out nowhere more brightly than in the third and fourth books of the ' Excursion.' That philosophy the mind well seasoned with the theopathetic principles and affections of Hartley's Rule of Life can now best appreciate, and we may hope it is destined to give increasing ple^ure as readers of culture multiply. 126 HUME. dazzling brightness, therefore hath it to us an appear- ance of darkness and incomprehensibility, as the un- bounded expansion of light in the clear transparent aether hath to us the apparition of an azure obscurity, which yet is not an absolute thing in itself, but only relative to our sense, and a mere fancy in us*/' What happy effects earlier intercourse with such a mind as Dr. Price's might have produced on Hume's views and feelings, we may judge in part from the account of what passed between them in later days. " Mr. Hume had been so little accustomed to civility from his theological adversaries, that his admiration was naturally excited by the least appearance of it in any of their publications. Dr. Douglas (the late Bishop of Salisbury), Mr. Adams, and Dr. Price were splendid exceptions to this rudeness and bigotryf. Having been opposed by these divines with the can- dour and respect which were due to his abilities, and which it is shameful should ever be wanting in any controversy, he was desirous of meeting them all to- gether, in order to spend a few hours in familiar con- versation with them. Accordingly they all dined by invitation at Mr. Cadell's, in the Strand; and, as might be expected, passed their time in the utmost harmony and good-humour. In a subsequent inter- view with Mr. Price, when Mr. Hume visited him at his house at Newington Green, he candidly acknow- ledged that on one point Mr. Price had succeeded in * Cudworth's Intellectual System, p. 639, Birch's edition, 1740. t Principal Campbell might have been added as another. HUME. 127 convincing him that his arguments were inconclusive ; but it does not appear that Mr. Hume, in consequence of this conviction, made any alteration in the subse- quent edition of his Essays. It may be added also that in the Dissertation on Miracles, which was in- tended as an answer to Mr. Hume's arguments against their credibility, Mr. Price had, as he thought, ex- pressed himself improperly, by speaking of the poor sophistry of those arguments, and using other language of the same kind. When he sent a copy of his book to Mr. Hume, who was then one of the Under-secre- taries of State, he made an apology to him, and pro- mised that nothing of the kind should appear in an- other edition. He received in consequence a very flattering letter from Mr. Hume, which he regarded more as a matter of civility than as a proof of his own book having wrought any change in the mind of that philosopher. When the work however appeared in a second edition, he fulfilled his promise, and sent him a corrected copy, for which he immediately received an acknowledgment expressive of Mr. Hume's wonder at such scrupulosity in one of Mr. Price's profession*." The readers who retain, and wish to retain, respect and value for the principles of natural and revealed religion, as received and understood by such men as Newton, Clarke, Leibnitz, and Locke, and who asso- ciate transcendental philosophy, not with the forms and expression of it in modern mystics, but with * Morgan's ' Life of Price,' pp. 16 and 17, as quoted in Monthly Repository of 1815, pp. 580, 581. 128 HUME. those high questions and considerations, susceptible of clear and consistent statement, which affect the prac- tical well-being of man, and the elevation of his moral and intellectual nature, are the only readers likely to be touched and interested by these remarks. In considering the nature and extent of the scepti- cism of Hume, it presents itself under two aspects a religious and a philosophical scepticism; the former throwing clouds of obscurity, difficulty, and doubt over those religious beliefs, even the most simple and rational, which, though not appreciated by the vulgar, the most philosophical minds have ever delighted in ; the latter throwing mistrust and scorn over the human faculties themselves. That 'ignorance and blindness are the result of all philosophy/ is a favourite senti- ment with Hume. The understanding, according to him, is incompetent to arrive at any substantial or sa- tisfactory truth in morals and religion. Thus we see that those who would prevent mankind from enjoying the waters of life only hope to succeed by poisoning the fountains. They would destroy the very elements of thought. To shut up our books, to close discus- sion, to amuse ourselves with battledoor and shuttle- cock, and descend to the humble level of the animals that crop the food that lies before them, unknowing aught beyond or above, this is the proper result of Hume's philosophy. But we have seen how little he was consistent with himself. Before quitting the subject, it is desirable to take a short historical review of the chief discussions which HUME. 129 have been given to the world on the subject of cau- sation, and to ascertain, as far as possible, what has been thought and agreed upon respecting it. It has been already intimated, that when Hume is clearest, when he approaches to the principle and statement on which he seems inclined to rest, he does not greatly differ from Locke's Theory of Causation, (so far as Locke can be said to have any theory, and so far as we gather it from his chapter on ' Power/) unless it be by omitting what Locke considered most important. Locke had intimated that we gain our idea of power from two sources, " observation of change in things without, and reflection on what passes in our own minds." Hume declares, "that when one particular species of events has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple to foretell the one upon the appearance of the other, and to employ that reasoning which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the one object cause, and the other effect" " It ap- pears, then, that this idea of necessary connection arises from a number of similar instances, which occur, of the constant conjunction of these events." Now it seems evident that Hume's " similar instances" is substantially the same with Locke's "observation of change" If he adds anything to Locke, it consists in the suggestion of the uniformity, the invariable- ness, or the perfect similarity, of the sequence. Dropping all the language about conjunction and connection, or nearly dropping it, Hume has been K 130 HUME. followed by Brown, in his inquiry into the relation between cause and effect; and by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his long chapter on Causation. They agree in their view of the uniformity and invariableness of sequence, as constituting the essence or amount of what we know and mean when talking of causation. The invariable antecedent is by them termed the cause, the invariable consequent, the effect*. * Mill's Logic, book iii. ch. v. p. 339; and compare Brown's Inquiry, p. 12. It is singular that Mr. Stewart has made no refe- rence in his Dissertation to this work of Brown. Mr. Mill after- wards defines " the cause of a phenomenon to be the antecedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, on which it (i. e. the phenomenon) is invariably and unconditionally consequent." By unconditional, he means "subject to no other than negative conditions ;" or, as he has better expressed it elsewhere, "in the absence of preventing or counteracting causes ; an antecedent operating without obstructing conditions." In the headings of the sections, he says, the cause of a phenomenon is " the assemblage of its conditions;" and again, the cause is not the invariable antecedent, hut " the unconditional in- variable antecedent;" or again, "a cause 1 is the assemblage of phe- nomena, which occurring, some other phenomenon invariably com- mences." These variations in the mode of expression seem not very happy, nor is a definite and clear impression left upon the mind. It is not easy to see why such discussions as those which fill up a large portion of Mr. Mill's volumes, should be introduced into a system of logic. An abridgment of that system, excluding from it the controversial matter, which overlays and obscures it, preserving the definitions and reasonings in concise and simple form, would be useful to students and beginners. It might thus be brought into better and more perceptible harmony with logic, as hitherto received, and considered purely as a science of inference; such as Aristotle, "the master of the sapient throng," and Whately and De Morgan make it. A difference so conflicting as that between Whately, who denies that induction, "so far forth as it is a process of inquiry," HUME. 131 But this invariable antecedence does not satisfy a large class of metaphysical thinkers as constituting the whole of what we mean by cause. They believe there is something more than this, not merely se- quence, but necessary sequence ; and this idea or feel- ing of necessary connection they consider to be a pri- mitive belief, or ultimate fact of consciousness, a form or law of thought indispensable to all reasoning, and referrible to no ulterior source. At the head of these metaphysicians, among the moderns, perhaps Dr. Reid deserves to be placed, who in his Essays on the intel- lectual and active powers, discusses at length, and in reply to Hume, the subject of " First Principles of Necessary Truths," and who thus expresses himself: " Causation is not an object of sense. The only ex- perience we can have of it is in the consciousness we have of exerting some power in ordering our thoughts and actions. But this experience is surely too narrow a foundation for a general conclusion, that all things that have had, or shall have, a beginning, must have a cause." He adds, that it is to be admitted as a first forms any part of logic; and Mill, who makes it, if not its essence, at least its most important part, shows that philosophers and thinkers have yet much to do in order to understand and approach each other upon the deepest questions ; and that there is much to be done, with singleness of aim, in order to bring the highest philosophy and severest logic into harmony with the wants and laws of our intel- lectual, moral, and religious life. Compare the last sentence of Mill's 6th chapter, book iii., on the Composition of Causes ; Whately's Logic, book iv. ch. i. ; and De Morgan's Formal Logic, and its most excel- lent chapter ii., on objects, names, and ideas. * Hamilton's 'Reid,' pp. 452-461. chap. vi. essay 6. K 2 132 HUME. or self-evident principle, for two reasons : first, the universal consent of mankind ; and, secondly, the prac- tice of life being grounded upon it in the most im- portant matters, even in cases where experience leaves it doubtful. After Reid, perhaps Kant may be num- bered among the chief thinkers of repute, who adopt a similar view, and who would speak of the idea of causation as " a pure and a priori intuition." But are not these merely new phrases of doubtful mean- ing, by which nothing is gained to reasoning, and something is lost to sense*? * While this work is passing through the press, a friend has called my attention to an article in the ' Prospective Review' for August, 1853, in which Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy is criticized, and the subject of causality is discussed. In it the following pas- sage occurs : " We never ask for a cause, except to resolve a ques- tion of comparison, why this, and not other than this ?" and the function which we demand from it is precisely that of elective deter- mination. Hence, among the assemblage of conditions which are collectively indispensable to a given result, we attach the name "cause" distinctively to that one which has overset the equilibrium of possibilities, and precipitated the actual fact. Whence this notion of preferential agency ? To what point does it refer us as the nati- vity of our causal belief? Can it be denied that, in the exercise of our own will, we are conscious of this very power, of fetching a single fact out of more than a single potentiality P that nowhere else than at this fountain-head of energy could this notion be got, requir- ing access as it does to the occult priorities of action, as well as to its posterior manifestations to the eye P and that only in so far as we interpret Nature by the type thus found, can we recognize there the characteristic element of causality P The will, therefore, we submit, so far from being the solitary exception to a universal rule of neces- sary causation, is itself the rule which makes all real causation free. Volitional agency is that which the mind originally sees in Nature, as in itself; the opposite term in that dynamic antithesis, on which HUME. 133 Now, were we to admit invariable antecedence and invariable consequence to be a correct and adequate view of what we mean when we talk of causation, when we turn from the general idea to the particu- lars, or from the abstract, always more or less obscure, to the concrete, which is always more simple and clear, when we inquire into the kinds of sequence with which observation and reflection make us acquainted, we may divide these kinds conveniently into two; namely, first, material sequences ; and, secondly, men- tal, or intellectual and spiritual sequences ; for by the three last terms I should mean the same phenomena. the obstructed nisus of perception lands us : and never does the in- quisitive " whence ?" find repose along the linear ascent of antece- dents, till it reaches the only power intrinsically capable of fetching the determinate out of the indeterminate, viz. a Mind." A story is told of a king, who, having had his portrait painted by a fashionable artist, complained that the head was lost in the bril- liancy of the flowers by which it was surrounded. So in this article the quantum of needful sense is buried in the excess of metaphor. But the above extract shows a disposition, in quarters where it was not to be expected, to return to the sober English school of thought. Associating the idea of cause with the will or the consciousness of power within, and with election and preference, terms significant of mental states, it agrees with Locke in answering in the affirma- tive the question which Locke puts, when he says, " I thought it worth while to consider here by the way whether the mind doth not receive its idea of active power clearer by reflection on its own ope- rations, than by any external sensation." " The idea of the begin- ning of motion we have only from reflection on what passes in our- selves, where we find by experience, that barely by willing it, barely by a thought of the mind, we can move the parts of our bodies which were before at rest." Essay on the Understanding, book ii. chap. 21. sect. 4. 134 HUME. With these two different kinds of sequence experience, and experience alone, brings us acquainted, which in- cludes observation of change without and reflection on the succession of states within / Let us take a very simple case : the water boils when the kettle contain- ing it is placed on the fire, or subjected to the influ- ence of heat : the heat generates steam ; and this heat and steam, so essential to our daily domestic comfort, under the name of steam power, now per- forms a most wonderful part in all the materiel of our modern civilization. This heat (let chemists make of it what they may, under the name of caloric) is an invariable and uniform, and as we judge, refer- ring it to a law, a necessary antecedent to the de- sired or expected effects*. By a variety of instances of a like kind it might be shown that an assemblage of material conditions is always conceived of, and be- lieved in, as a necessary antecedent to material effects. In arranging the antecedents, so as to bring about these effects, the human will often plays a conspicuous part. But with respect to the grand phenomena and general laws of nature, such as the planetary motions) the course of the seasons, the structure and functions of organized beings, etc. of these man is only the observer and the registrar. * The classical reader will observe that consequents, results, effects, are terms of Latin origin, signifying the succession of phe- nomena, effect that which is done by an agent. The German lan- guage is happy in its term for cause Ursache, originating or first thing; less happy in its term for effect Wlrkung, working or ope- ration. HUME. 135 But there is another class of phenomena attribut- able to mental or volitional antecedents, such as the purpose now fulfilled in this present writing, or the attention given to the requests or commands of a master by the servants of the household and by the members of a family. In every household the arrange- ments for the day, as well in the established routine as in the variations, depend on the will of the governor. The expression of that will leads to its execution ; or it may be silently fulfilled, and a permanent result be attained. Now the social enjoyments the gratifica- tions of taste, or of a sense of order and beauty and all the pleasures of amity, depend on the nature and exercise of this will, as modified in each individual by the passions, and by the actively exerted power of reflection and thought. But these mental antece- dents and moral consequents are known only by re- flection on what passes within : they are a class of an- tecedents and consequents peculiar to the mind, and perfectly distinct from those which we have called material. Our intellectual, moral, and social or sym- pathetic pleasures and pains, are made up of such antecedents and consequents, and they differ in cha- racter and degree, in proportion as the intellect is de- veloped, and the true social interests are cherished, or morally and religiously pursued. Hence we talk of mental power, meaning the several powers of me- mory, of imagination, of reflection, of reasoning, of utterance, of volition, affection, and the steady pur- suit of chosen ends. But as definition makes not the 186 MILL. terms significant of simple ideas of sensation clearer, such as white, black, loud, low, sweet, bitter, and so on, so definition can hardly make the terms signi- ficant of certain mental powers and states, known only by consciousness or reflection, clearer, such as memory, will, desire, choice, judgement, these being the only terms appropriate to the phenomena, inter- preted in most cases at once and sufficiently by con- sciousness, or rather by early and habitual association. It is of great importance for distinct thinking to keep these two classes of powers distinct, for surely there is a foundation for the distinction, and a use for it, in what we observe and know, both of nature and the human frame or constitution. In observing and laying deep the foundation for this distinction, in other words, in pointing out the two sources of our idea of power, it appears to me that Locke has a great advantage over most of those who have discussed the subject after him, but who have not equally kept it in view. Mr. Mill expressly classes the human will among the physical causes; he could hardly say material causes. But where then is the distinction between physical and metaphysical, in the subjects of scientific investigation ? The moral sciences, which have special and exclusive relation to the phenomena arising out of, or concerned in, the human will and its functions, and which, according to Mr. Mill, would seem to re- quire a logic of their own, are then reduced to the level of the physical sciences. The phenomena depen- MILL. 137 dent on mental antecedents or conditions, thus be- come blended with the phenomena confessedly depen- dent on material conditions, and the old and useful division of physics and metaphysics is destroyed. Mr. Mill's language on the subject of what he calls " per- manent causes/' or original natural agents ; his decla- rations against the theory that mind or will is the sole efficient cause of phenomena, against the theory which represents efficient causes as capable of being subjects of human knowledge ; the hints which he has dropped on the vanity of attempting to arrive at a final or ul- timate cause of any phenomena, seem to be largely affected by his determination to put this distinction out of sight. He considers certain material objects of the universe, such as the planetary bodies and their motions, permanent causes which cannot be referred to any higher cause. " We can give no account," he says, " of the origin of the permanent causes them- selves." " Why these particular natural agents existed originally, and no others, or why they are commingled in such and such proportions, and distributed in such and such a manner, is a question we cannot answer." He calls the opinion or supposition, that all pheno- mena are produced by the will of some sentient Being, an original Fetichism, and gives a brief history of what he considers to be " the original instinctive phi* losophy of mankind*." " Because among the infinite variety of the pheno- mena of nature there is one, namely, a particular mode * Mill's Logic, vol. i. pp. 363, 365, third edit. 138 MILL. of action of certain nerves, which has for its cause, and as we are now supposing for its efficient cause, a state of our mind, and because this is the only efficient cause of which we are conscious, being the only one of which, in the nature of the case, we can be conscious, since it is the only one which exists within ourselves, does this justify us in concluding that all other phenomena must have the same kind of efficient cause with that one emi- / x/ nently special, narrow, and peculiarly human or animal phenomenon* ?" Now the stress of Mr. Mill's argument, the vigour of his answer to those who contend that " volition is the sole efficient cause of all phenomena," seems to depend very much on the word all. But, even admit- ting that matter is good for some results, that the permanent causes which he allows of have been from eternity, or for an indefinite period of time equivalent to it, are they the sole causes beyond which the mind cannot go, nor legitimately desire to go? are these adequate to explain all the phenomena? "Volitions are not known/' he says, "to produce anything di- rectly, except nervous action, for the will influences the muscles only through the nerves." Is not this Hume's old argument from anatomy, introduced to ob- scure the subject of voluntary agency and mental phe- nomena ? Scarcely anything is more obscure, or less known and thought of, than what is here called ner- vous action. Be it what it may, be it the direct pro- duct of volition, still the indirect or ultimate products * Mill's Logic, vol. i. p; 371, third edit. MILL. 139 are far more important ; nay the only products of any importance ; nervous action being a very insignificant and subordinate part of the phenomena dependent for existence upon the human will. The pleasures and pains, the happiness or misery of inappreciable mul- titudes for long periods of time, have been and may continue to be affected by the states of an individual will, commingled with other assisting conditions. All the interests of our intellectual, moral, and social being are wrapped, up, so to speak, in its character and agency. When we look out upon the universe, or turn reflection inward upon ourselves, we feel that material forms, existences, and laws are of no moment or interest, but for the results to animated beings, and for the connected phenomena. It is the subordina- tion of these forms to the various gradations of ani- mated creatures, it is the provision made for the sus- tenance and succession of the various species, each in their element, each subservient to a purpose beyond itself or conducive to a higher and more interesting result than its individual life, each part of a vast series of phenomena, it is this which demands an originat- ing and presiding intelligent Mind. In short, it is the presence of order and the recognition of law, the manifest and unquestionable adjustment of means to ends, which affects the intellect with its character of resistless power, and the heart, in its purest and hap- piest moods, at once with a sense of its subjection and dependence, and with an impression of all-pervading rectitude and benevolence. 140 MILL. If we define philosophy to be the study of causes, and what better can be suggested ? for the know- ledge of causes has of all knowledge the best title to be considered emphatically power ; and, as Mr. Mill finely observes, "if we could determine what causes are correctly assigned to what effects, and what effects to what causes, we should be virtually acquainted with the whole course of nature*," can we be satisfied to stop in our search at certain material forms and motions as the "permanent causes" sufficient for all effects ? Are we precluded from seeking a final or ul- timate cause, a first mover, more adequate to account for all the phenomena and results to which these ma- terial forms and motions are subservient, such as the life of organized beings, perception and thought, and all the high developments of intellectual and spiritual life ? Can matter, when we examine it, be regarded properly as an agent at all? and even if material causes be admitted as sufficient antecedents and the only known antecedents for some material consequents, the important question still remains, Are there not still some phenomena referrible only to mind and a mind as superior to the human as the heavens are su- perior to a house ? In the acknowledgment of such a mind, have we not the only adequate Cause for and explanation of the most impressive phenomena with which we are concerned? That is the question, unless I misconceive it, on which what is called the a posteriori argument for the being of the Deity rests ; * Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 381, third edit. MILL. 141 and whether we argue from evidence of design and the adjustment of means to an end in nature, or, with Locke, " from the existence of knowledge in ourselves to some knowing being from eternity," the argument is still a posteriori, from effect to cause. It is a ques- tion which Mr. Mill has not directly touched ; nor is it to be lightly assumed that he would answer it in the negative. The argument, as carried out by Paley its most popular if not its most able advocate may not be perfectly nor equally satisfactory to all minds. But from Aristotle to Newton it has been the one great resting-place or stand-point of the profoundest thinkers and investigators of nature ; and even Hume, as we have seen, was disposed, in later and better days, to yield to the force of the impression. Mr. Mill has referred to Reid, among other comparatively recent writers, as the one religious metaphysician whose thoughts and language on the reciprocal action of mind and matter deserved his serious consideration. But in the letters of Sir Isaac Newton to Bentley, in certain portions of Cudworth, Clarke, Locke, and Hartley, in the Theodicy of Leibnitz, which is full of profound and beautiful thought, and in the notes to Price's Dissertations, may be found considerations on the respective powers of matter and mind, touching the nature and province of each, the laws of each, and the phenomena attributable to the one and to the other, far more worthy of the most deliberate and careful attention. These great writers have main- tained, with the greatest show of reason, that, be the 142 STEWART ON HUME. laws of thought what they may, and howsoever the knowledge of them is arrived at, be it a knowledge given a priori, or learnt by experience, the recogni- tion of the highest law ever involves the notion and existence of a supreme, intelligent, percipient, and active Lawgiver or Lawmaker ; and let us remember that, without belief in the existence of such a being, we have no longer the benefit of the religious sanction for any theory of morals which we may be disposed to form, a sanction of which even Bentham allowed the great importance. We have no longer an object for those feelings of veneration, nor a foundation for those habits of obedience and submission, and those pure and exalting hopes and aspirations which, how- ever we may trifle with them in hours of ease and speculation, are in life's sore trials the only fountains of refreshment, and without which all the uses and enjoyments of the world become "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/* STEWART ON HUME. The importance which has been attached, and may continue to be attached, in the history of modern metaphysics, to what has been called Hume's Theory of Causation, justifies our attention to it, and this en- deavour to understand and explain it. The assertion that his scepticism, to whatever it amounted, is built on the principles of Locke, if not confuted, has been shown at least to require much examination and con- STEWART ON HUME. 143 firmation before it is credited ; and the inquiry, which the reader may be supposed to have made, will pre- pare him for estimating the justice of some of Mr. Stewart's comments on the sceptic and his extrava- gant praises of his countryman, comments which have been the chief incitement to the foregoing critical and historical remarks. To the student and interpreter of nature, the lover of exact science and practical knowledge, there must ever be something trifling in the criticism of a criti- cism. Idle indeed are the strifes of words, which fill the pages of dissertational metaphysicians, who give us too much of noise without progress, dust with- out fruit, the whirl and rattle of machinery without the production of any article of value. But so little careful study is bestowed on metaphysical subjects, and so much authority is attributed to a certain class and school of writers, that it can hardly fail to be in- structive and useful if I exhibit somewhat in detail the statements to which just exception may be taken in Mr. Stewart's dissertation, not to say the unhappy prejudices and serious errors which he has contrived to heap together within the compass of a few pages, when commenting on Hume and Locke. First, he observes that " Hume has very great merit in separating entirely his speculations concerning the philosophy of the mind from all physiological hypo- theses about the nature of the union between soul and body." It is added, " His works are perfectly free from those gratuitous and wild conjectures, which a 144 DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. few years afterwards were given to the world with so much confidence by Hartley and Bonnet, and in this his example has been of infinite use to his successors in this northern part of the island. 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." The contempt of which Mr. Stewart speaks betrays the narrow and prejudiced character of his own spe- culations and understanding. He would sacrifice the reputation and estimation of one of the greatest and best of Christian philosophers, the intimate friend and fellow-labourer of Drs. Law, Butler, Warburton, and Jortin, to enhance the merit or screen the ill of the most notorious sceptic of his own country. Hartley was an Englishman. The angelic sweetness of his countenance is a strong recommendation of whatever he thought and believed. Who can look at the en- graving of it without feeling it an argument in favour of his religious and amiable philosophy, presenting as it does a singular combination of feminine purity and grace with manly intellectual power* ? Heaven is re- flected in its soft and ingenuous, yet bright and beam- ing intellectual expression. Bonnet was a Frenchman. His writings have attracted very little attention in England. It does not appear that there was much ground for classing his speculations with those of Hartley. But to mention the views of such men, and especially of Hartley, in any connection with contempt, * Compare a passage on it in Wakefield's Memoirs. DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. 145 redounds to the disgrace of a writer who fosters by such means the most unhappy prejudices in weak minds, minds ever too ready to receive them, and to assimilate their temper to the poison*. Dr. Hartley's great work, the Observations on Man, was not published till the year 1749. His theory of vibrations, the nicety and difficulty of which has blinded Mr. Stewart and many others to the rest of his system, may or may not be the nearest approach that has been made to an explanation of the un- doubted connection that exists, and which physiolo- gical inquiry more and more exhibits and illustrates, between the peculiar structure of the physical frame and the developments of intellectual and moral cha- racter. It is not my purpose to defend it, if I even understand it. As its author observed, it is " novel, intricate, extensive/' and remote, therefore, from com- mon apprehension. But it is sufficient to know that it originated in a suggestion of Sir Isaac Newton, at the end of his ' Principia' and ' Optics ;' that it was aided by the patient study of the writings of Boer- haave; that it is carried out with a refinement and consistency, which only a logical understanding can in the slightest degree appreciate; that it bears a near relation to what Descartes and Leibnitz have advanced concerning animal motion, and that it is in- * If we may trust the article on Bonnet in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques,' one of his two great principles was "that ideas can only be studied in the fibres, which are the organs of them." This could not be said of Hartley with any justice. L 146 DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. timately connected with another theory that of as- sociation to the vast importance of which the whole philosophic world, Mr. Stewart included, has been compelled to pay tribute of homage and respect, and which Laplace pronounces the sum of what has yet been done in the science of the mind : it is sufficient to know this, to save it and its author from con- tempt, if not to attract to both our careful and pro- found attention. Dr. Priestley's estimate of it, in the very valuable introductory Essays to his edition of a part of Hartley, appears candid and judicious. With what ardour would the Doctor have seized his pen to vindicate the fair fame of the philosopher, whom he considered the Newton of the Intellectual world, from the scorn and the aspersions of these new di- lettanti of the north ! Mr. Stewart himself admits there is a connection and dependence subsisting be- tween the mind and body, a mutual action and re- action of undoubted constancy and importance. He knew that Descartes and Malebranche dwell upon it at great length ; and that Leibnitz had his pre-esta- blished harmony between mind and matter. Why then should Hartley and Bonnet be singled out for contempt, in their endeavours to determine the nature and character of the union more nicely and exactly ? It seems to be agreed by all physiologists and anato- mists that the nerves are the conductors of pleasure and pain to certain nervous centres in the brain. Whatever truth there be, if any, in phrenology, in the phenomena of mesmerism, and of somnambulism, DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. 147 and what is now called electro-biology, whatever be known of the philosophy of sleep and dreams, whatever be the physical conditions of the brain pre- ceding and accompanying a large and peculiar class of feelings involuntary and automatic sympathies and antipathies, known to every one's consciousness and experience, all, that can be considered true or known upon these and kindred subjects of inquiry, harmonizes sufficiently well with Hartley's theory, under which he has introduced the names of vibra- tions and vibratiuncles for want of other terms, guard- ing himself against being interpreted with too close analogy to the comparatively coarse vibrations of vi- sible and tangible strings, and speaking of " an infi- nitesimal elementary body, intermediate between the soul and gross body, as no improbable supposition*." We have now works professing to show how intellec- tual and moral qualities are hereditary and transmis- sible. Physicians by profession, who are also meta- physicians, and have leisure and taste for the higher sciences, as they have peculiar opportunities for ob- serving the functions of nature in the physical frame, and for tracing the peculiarities of intellectual and moral development, in connection with those of phy- sical temperament and organic structure, so they give us from time to time new views and proofs of the nature of this connection and dependence. Of this Sir Henry Holland's medical notes and reflections supply abundant testimony; and Dr. William Car- * Prop. v. cor. 4, and Prop. xxi. cor. 3. L 2 148 DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. penter, in his ' Human Physiology/ has given very full and instructive evidence to show how much, the intellectual and emotional attributes of our nature are connected with or dependent on peculiar conditions of the brain. In these matters we are in danger from opposite sources, the Scylla and Charybdis of philosophical in- quirers ; on the one hand, of too hasty generaliza- tions from imperfect observation, and on the other, of rejecting phenomena worthy of careful record, be- cause not easily reconcilable with our favourite theories or habitual modes of thought. Of the pernicious effect of Mr. Stewart's prejudices against Hartley, a striking proof is found in the Life of the late Francis Homer. Recording a conversation with Richard Sharp, in one of the literary parties of London, Homer says of him, " He has paid much attention to metaphysics also, and appears to me to praise the best books, with the exception of Hartley, whom both he and Mackintosh admire extremely, though in Scotland we are prohibited from reading him by the contempt with which he is spoken of*." The prohibition has evidently extended from Scotland into Germany and France, whence, owing to the cheap translation of foreign works, and the interests of book- sellers, many, in this commercial age of literature, are in danger of receiving most erroneous impressions of English literature and philosophy f. Thus the article * Life of Francis Homer, vol. i. p. 240. t See the remarks on R Schlegel, in Stewart's 'Dissertations DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. 149 on Hartley occupies but two pages in the 'Diction- naire des Sciences Philosophiques,' a work with which the authors have taken worthy pains, valuable, and in- deed now indispensable, to the metaphysical inquirer. Not a word is said in it about the theory of asso- ciation, afterwards adopted and illustrated by Brown and Alison and Mill ; nor is a hint given of the ad- mirable rule of life, the most complete and beautiful of all the systems of moral philosophy yet in being. Appended to a pleasing account of some members of the family of Hartley, of Bath, by the Rev. Richard Warner, there is an anecdote worth repeating in this connection. Speaking of his friend David Hartley, the son, an eminent member of Parliament, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, Mr. Warner says of him, " He inherited the placid temperament of his great and good father, the first, perhaps, of our En- glish metaphysicians ; the same clear analytical intel- lect ; the same devotion to the pure and single pursuit of truth ; the same simplicity and ingenuousness of general character*." and Philosophy,' p. 214. F. C. Schlosser, in his ' History of the Eighteenth Century, with Reference to Mental Cultivation,' makes Locke an antisupernaturalist ! and even asserts that Wollaston, in his ' Religion of Nature,' never mentions, at the end of his book, a future state of rewards and punishments ! Could he have read the book? * He then adds, "The countenance of the celebrated Dr. Hartley beamed with all the lights of his luminous and virtuous mind. Shackleton painted a very correct likeness of him, which was en graved, and prefixed to his son's quarto edition of his father's great work. David Hartley presented me with a proof impression of the 150 DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. In the same volume by Mr. Warner are various re- miniscences of his friend Parr, who sympathized in his metaphysical predilections, and to whom we are in a great measure indebted for the preservation of Dr. Hartley's Latin tract, modestly entitled ' Conjecture queedam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum Generatione/ reprinted, without date, among the Metaphysical Tracts of English Philosophers of the eighteenth cen- tury*. print. This engraving was once the occasion of some embarrassment to me. A large party were assembled to breakfast with me, at my house near Bath. Some branches of the late Earl of Selkirk's family were among the company. They had brought with them a very prepossessing young lady from Scotland, whose name, though of course announced, I had either not heard or had forgotten. She sat beside me at breakfast. Opposite to us were three portraits ; she looked attentively at them for a few moments, and said, 'Pray, Mr. W., whose portraits are those to the left hand? The right hand one I know well, but the central, and that next to it, are new to me.' * Oh ! the middle one is a print of my friend David Hart- ley ; and that to the right, a print of his great and good father, Dr. Hartley, author of the well-known Observations on Man, his frame, his duty, and expectations ; one of the most sensible, rational, and satisfactory metaphysical writers, in my opinion, that ever lived. By the bye, I have a little quarrel with your Scotch philosophers : they do not, I think, treat our metaphysicians, Locke, Clarke, and Hartley, with the respect they deserve. Indeed I am quite hurt that Dugald Stewart should have spoken so lightly of Dr. Hartley, as he does, in his admirable Philosophy of the Human Mind.' The excel- lent girl coloured, and replied, ' I am sure my father would be very sorry to know that he had written anything which gave Mr. Warner pain ! ' She was the daughter of the Scotch Professor." * This precious volume of Tracts was prepared for the press by Dr. Parr, and afterwards, as the advertisement informs us, completed for publication by the assistance of Clement T. Swanston, Esq., of the Chancery bar. A note in reference to the tract of Hartley, DEFENCE OF HARTLEY. 151 The present remarks in defence of Hartley may be fitly closed by a quotation from the second disserta- with a statement of Dr. Parr's concerning it, occurs in Mr. Stewart's Dissertation, which cannot be suffered to pass without notice. "In a letter which I received from Dr. Parr," says Mr. Stewart, "he mentions a treatise of Dr. Hartley's, which appeared about a year before the publication of his great work, to which it was meant by the author to serve as a precursor. Of this rare treatise I had never before heard. ' You will be astonished to hear,' says Dr. Parr, 4 that in this book, instead of the doctrine of necessity, Hartley openly declares for the indifferency of the will, as maintained by Archbishop King.' We are told by Dr. Hartley himself, that his notions upon necessity grew upon him while he was writing his Observations upon Man, but it is curious (as Dr. Parr remarks) that in the course of a year his opinions upon so very essential a point should have un- dergone a complete change." (Stewart's Dissertation, p. 171.) Dr. Parr's remark does not quite amount to Mr. Stewart's interpreta- tion of it ; but I believe the whole passage is without foundation, and that the truly candid and kind-hearted Parr was for once mis- taken. Hartley was employed eighteen years upon his work, and his opinions were not likely to change suddenly and without deep thought upon such a subject. The Latin tract is a short but excel- lent abstract of the great work ; and of many of the most interesting passages, particularly of historical character, it is strictly a transla- tion. I have not found the phrase "liberum arbitrium" in it. In the ' Scholium Generale,' where Hartley sums up the uses of the doctrine of vibrations and association in his own beautiful spirit, nothing is said about free-will or necessity. In this volume of tracts there is an excellent anonymous Essay (dated 1747, dedicated to the students of the two Universities,) on the origin of the Human Appetites and Affections, showing how each arises from association. The editors do not appear to have known of a second edition of the Essay in 1758, carefully revised, and with many additions. Of this second edition I obtained a copy, formerly belonging to the late Walter Wilson, Esq., of Bath. Who was the author ? Could it have been the modest Gay, the friend of Dr. Law, and author of the Dissertation, also anonymous, prefixed to the Dis- sertation on the Origin of Evil P 152 DEFENCE HARTLEY. tion of the ' Encyclopaedi; ritamiica/ by Sir James Mackintosh, which affords 11 agreeable contrast in its estimate of his merits, to he hostile language and contemptuous sneers oi Stewart. "His (Hart- ley's) style is entitled to n praise hut that of clear- ness, and a simplicity of di'-on -through which is visi- ble a singular simplicity of nnd. ( Wlat higker praiae does the pure and philosopfa mind desire?) No book perhaps exists which, with o few of the common al- lurements, comes at last i- much to please, by the picture it presents of the riter's character, a cha- racter which kept him pu? from the pursuit, often from the consciousness of nvelty, and ivndm'd him a discoverer in spite of hi \vn modesty. (// ///>///*/ be added, by the unsurpas^ *// /,//'/////// nnd bcanf// of the views which it gives o * fr tells approaching convul- sions, to be followed by tin overthrow of states and churches, his quiet and gen spirit, elsewhere almost ready to inculcate passive jedience for the sake of peace, is supported under t \ awful forebodings by the hope of that general prcress in virtue and happi- ness which he saw through is preparatory confusion. A meek piety, inclining towrds mysticism, and some- times indulging in visions v ich borrow a lustre from his fervid benevolence, wa )eautifully, and perhaps singularly, blended in him >th zeal for the most un- bounded freedom of inquii flowing both from his MERITS LOCKE. 153 own conscientious belief ud his unmingled love of truth. Whoever can so r subdue his repugnance to petty or secondary faults to bestow a careful perusal on the work, must be 111 . tunate, if he does not see, feel, and own, that the i r was a great philosopher and a good man*." 2. Again, Mr. Ste s on to praise Hume's juvenile speculations, foi having contributed to for- ward the progress of our . ional literature, containing the germs of Lord K;i historical law Tracts, and Elements of Critici- iiis is followed by a very high estimate of Hum- Treatise, as attended with another important effect i Scotland. " He had cul- tivated the art of wiin with much greater success than any of his predr and had formed his taste on the best models < ish composition. The in- fluence of his exampl PS to have been great and general; and was in nee more remarkable' than in the style of his p: antagonists, all of whom, in studying his sy>* caught in no inconsider- able degree the pmr )olish, and precision of his diction. Nobody, I iieve, will deny that Locke himself, considered ; English writer, is far sur- passed, not only by ] Ime, but by Reid, Campbell, Gerard, and Beattie of this fact it will not 1><> easy to find a more isfactory explanation, than in the critical eye with v Ich they were led to canvass a work, equally di*; \ed l>y the depth of its reason- * Dissertation Second, .opaedia Britannica,' Seventh edi- tion, p. 365. 154 MERITS OF LOCKE. ings, and by the attractive form in which they are ex- hibited" And this is said of the Treatise of Human Nature ; than which, especially in the earlier portions, scarcely any writing can be less pure or precise more full of careless repetitions and tautology, where an argument is often called an affair or a circumstance ; where pronouns are continually used without a defi- nite antecedent, and where no useful aim or steady connection of parts can be traced ; a work with which the author himself felt justly dissatisfied, and which he deeply regretted a few years after the publi- cation*. Mr. Hume's taste was formed far more upon the model of the French than English writers. His well- known criticisms upon the best and greatest of them in his History speak ill for his judgement, even in later days. It does not appear that he had read so as to appreciate Hobbes and Bacon, whose condensed strength furnishes perhaps the best model for good philosophical writing ; and the shades of Shakspeare * I see nothing querulous nor peevish, as Mr. Stewart intimates, in Hume's remonstrances against being judged by a work upon which he himself pronounced sentence of condemnation. It seems like a wilful perverseness in such writers as Dr. Reid and Mr. Stew- art, notwithstanding such condemnation, to attach an importance to the treatise, which neither intrinsic merits, especially when com- pared with the essays designed to supersede it, nor its real influence on the public mind and on the direction of philosophic inquiry, can ever justify. The Essays have been frequently reprinted, and con- stantly admired. The treatise, I believe, was never called for a second time : copies of the first and only edition may now be easily obtained. MERITS OF LOCKE. 155 and Spenser and Milton have only to arise in their Elysian beauty, to win for them an admiration and a love which the cold Scotchman knew not how to feel. To turn from Hume's Treatise to the pages of Locke, is like passing from the corrupt air of an over- heated apartment, where one can neither breathe freely nor see distinctly, into the open canopy of heaven, where the atmosphere is fresh and the objects are steady, and where we can hold again that converse with Nature by which, while the senses are gratified, the heart also is improved. The modesty and sweet- ness of Locke's prefatory matter, his candid account of the origin of the Essay, and submissive appeal to the judgement of the thoughtful and truth-seeking reader, partake scarcely less of the spirit of a saint than the philosopher ; and were we making a volume of elegant extracts, we could select from Locke pas- sages far superior to anything which could be found in Hume, distinguished as well for elegance of ex- pression and play of imagination, as for that depth and beauty of religious and moral sentiment, that truth which is the soul's lasting ah' men t, without which all the rest is vapour. The sweet feeling of Locke is beautifully illustrated by the letters to Sir Isaac New- ton, given in Lord King's Life, which brought the great Newton almost at his feet. The annals of phi- losophy and literature present scarcely any more af- fecting proof of elevation of sentiment and delicacy of consideration and taste. Whatever may be the spe- culative merits or defects of Locke's philosophy, now 156 MERITS OF LOCKE. commonly and somewhat scornfully termed "sensa- tional" (by the French, " sensualiste"), its practical effects upon the mind and temper, as illustrated in his own life and that of Hartley, to say nothing of many humbler followers, have been of rare and incompara- ble order. We see that veneration and hope, a serene patience, a pure and expansive benevolence, a patriot- ism unspotted by the smallest taint of venality or any meaner thought, were its delicious fruits; while the results of the cold scepticism of Hume are chiefly manifest in the absence of any glowing admiration for the great or good, the beautiful or the true, in nature and in life, in Providence and in man. The deceitful, narrow-minded, and profligate Stuarts were the heroes of his historical defence and panegyric : and while he aimed to seat himself as president in the chair of phi- losophy, to give a new direction to inquiry, and to become the arbiter of questions which had divided Descartes and Gassendi, Hobbes and Malebranche, Leibnitz and Locke, Clarke and Spinoza, he would have struck from the mind and from the heart every sentiment and hope that lifts man above the brutes, attaches him to the eternal and invisible, and bids him feel, with our old Daniel, that " Unless above himself he can erect himself, How poor a thing is man !" But mere criticisms on style, however desirable in works on rhetoric, are of little consequence in histories of philosophy ; nor should I notice these things, but as illustrations of Mr. Stewart's peculiar and unhappy STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 157 national partialities. Even the favourable notice of Addison, found in Hume's later Essays, a notice which Mr. Stewart somewhere quotes, is rather unfortunate for Hume's careful discrimination ; for in saying that Addison perhaps will be read with pleasure when Locke shall be entirely forgotten, he himself forgot, or had not observed, that Addison's pages are full of re- verential testimony to the merit and influence of that great and good philosopher, from whom, as well as from the many writers of the time who partook of his spirit and sympathized in his views, Addison derived that cheerful, practical wisdom, that happy combina- tion of genial moral sense with hopeful and grateful piety, which form the best antidote, by their own na- tural recommendations, to the dark and desolating scepticism, whose empire, in his early days, and in his unfortunate treatise, Hume was chiefly employed in maintaining*. 3. Passing over what Mr. Stewart says of the strong leaning of Hume to the idealism of Malebranche and of Berkeley, and of his carrying the sceptical mode of reasoning further than any other modern philosopher with the single exception of Bayle, we come to the remarkable assertion that, * "Locke is an author whom I observe you frequently quote," says a correspondent in one of the ' Spectators.' The Nos. 62, on Mixed Wit, 64, on the Succession of Ideas, the papers on Instinct, on the Value of the Soul, on the Imagination, and on Immortality, are all in harmony with Locke, and bear witness to his influence. It was delightful to hear Mr. Thackeray's cordial appreciation and heartfelt praise of Addison, in his recent lectures on the wits of Queen Anne's time. 158 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. " In the form in which the spirit of sceptical argu- ment appears in Mr. Hume's treatise, its mischievous tendency has been more than compensated by the im- portance of those results for which it has prepared the way. The principles which he assumes were sanc- tioned in common by Gassendi, by Descartes, and by Locke ; and from these, in most instances, he reasons with great logical accuracy and force. Perhaps in- deed 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 dis- played so clearly the consequences which they neces- sarily involve. It is in this sense that we must un- derstand a compliment paid to him by the ablest of his adversaries'" (meaning Dr. Reid, as the foot-note shows,) "when he says, 'that Mr. Hume's premises often do more than atone for his conclusions.' ' If so, these premises, we presume, could not be the errors which he adopted from his predecessors ; but in truth the whole passage is an evidence of that in- distinctness which is the bane of such dissertational metaphysics as those which fill Mr. Stewart's pages. What the principles alluded to were, sanctioned in common by writers whom we know to have been warmly opposed to one another on many important points; what the errors, premises, and conclusions were, about which the author says so little, because the reader is supposed to know so much, it is impos- sible to guess, with any confidence of being right ; but it seems obvious that such remarks, with others on STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINKD. 159 which some further comment will be offered, are idly designed to save the reputation of Scotch philosophy from the reproach brought on it by the most heretical and sceptical of the class, at the expense and with the sacrifice of the greatest and most honoured names of other schools. Gassendi and Locke are to be immo- lated to appease the manes of Hume. Accordingly Mr. Stewart, becoming bolder as he advances, goes on to say, "that we are indebted to Hume for the most powerful antidotes we possess against some of the most poisonous errors of modern philosophy. The argument stated by Hume, in his Essay on the ' Idea of Necessary Connection/ forms a more valuable ac- cession to metaphysical science than the elaborate refutation of Spinozism by Bayle, as it lays the axe to the very root from which Spinozism springs." We are also informed that " all well-educated persons may be presumed to have acquired that general acquaint- ance with Mr. Hume's theory of causation/' which Stewart has supposed his readers to possess ; and that in his opinion, " it will now be acknowledged by every competent judge that Mr. Hume's objections to all the pretended demonstrations produced by Mr. Hobbes, Dr. Clarke, and Mr. Locke, for the necessity of a cause to every new existence, are conclusive and un- answerable. To expose the futility of their reason- ings on this subject was an important step made by Hume, who rendered an essential service to true phi- losophy, by thus pointing out indirectly to his suc- cessors the only solid ground on which that principle 160 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. rests, the principle, namely, f that everything which begins to exist must have a cause/ It is to this ar- gument of Hume's (queer e, what argument ? for none has been stated), according to Kant's own acknow- ledgment, that we owe the Critique of Pure Reason ; and to this we are also indebted for the far more lu- minous refutations of scepticism by Mr. Humes own countrymen?' Thus we come round to the laudation of the Scotch triumvirate here intended, Messrs. Reid, Beattie, and Oswald, whose glory is but a reflection of that of Hume, their discoveries being a consequence of atten- tion to his directions or his hints. No doubt the reader has already formed an opinion of the extent to which Mr. Hume is entitled to the praise, the gratitude, and the homage which Mr. Stewart has offered to his memory. But if he ask himself what clearer conception he has gained of know- ledge and probability, and of cause and effect, from the perusal of Hume's sections* on these topics, he will probably be at a loss for a reply. There is cer- tainly one kind of philosophical relation, in addition to the four which Mr. Hume pronounces the only ob- jects of knowledge and certainty, which it would have been desirable to take into account, that is, the rela- tion between language and thought, between words and the objects or ideas suggested by them, and espe- cially the relation between reasoning and definition. Mr. Stewart, following closely in the steps of Dr. * Book i. part iii., Treatise of Human Nature. STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMIM D. 161 Reid*, greatly applauds Hume's objections to what he calls the pretended demonstrations by Hobbes, and Clarke, and Locke, of the maxim that every beginning of existence must have a cause of existence, and he asserts that every competent judge must admit the ob- jections to be conclusive. It happens however that there are in Hume no distinct references to the places where the demonstrations are to be found. Nor have Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart taken pains to verify them, and supply the deficiency. It is possible that Hume had some particular passages of these authors in view, trusting to his memory to represent their language and reasoning with sufficient correctness for his purpose ; but if he had, it is now very difficult to trace them. Had Hume, then quite a tyro in these matters, treated the authors in question with due respect, or been ear- nest in the establishment of any useful truth which they had missed, he would have taken suitable pains by careful reference to induce his readers to consult their pages. I more than suspect that what Hume loosely calls their demonstrations are nothing more than incidental argumentative considerations, to which they attached no importance, wherever found, and by no means professed attempts to demonstrate rigidly a proposition which they were all three disposed to as- sume, and which they supposed their readers would willingly concede. Thus in the first sentence of the second chapter * See Reid's 'Intellectual Powers,' (Essay VI. c. 6.) Hamil- ton's ' Reid,' p. 455. M 162 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. of the ' Leviathan/ on Imagination, Hobbes assumes it as an axiom "that no thing can change itself;" and again, in his work on Liberty and Necessity, he says, " I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent, without itself*." Again, he says, " It is peculiar to the nature of men to be inquisitive into the causes of the events they see, some more, some less ; and se- condly, upon the sight of anything that hath a begin- ning, to think also it had a cause, which determined the same to begin, then when it did, rather than sooner or later." It is not probable that, at the time when Hume wrote his Treatise, he had duly read the works of Hobbes. There is so much deep thought, such keen insight into nature and human nature, in the Com- putatio or Logic, in the Philosophy of Body and Ac- cident, in the controversy with Bramhall, and in his still more known treatises ; there is so much discri- * Molesworth's ' Hobbes,' vol. iii. p. 274. A passage near this (p. 276), intimating " that a man cannot imagine anything to begin without a cause," may be one that Hume had in his mind ; but if so, he has not represented Hobbes correctly. The admirer of Hobbes, the first writer of sterling English, such as we now use it or ought to use it, however familiar- with early editions, must feel greatly in- debted to Sir William Molesworth for the excellent index forming the eleventh volume of the collected English works. Under the word " Cause" will be found a masterly view of almost all that has been suggested since on the subject. He defines science or philoso- phy to consist " in the knowledge of the' causes of all things, so far forth as it may be attained" (Logic, vol. i. p. 68) : I had not observed this when writing the sentences which the reader may remember, supra, p. 140. STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 163 minating remark on those difficult metaphysical topics, which Hume undertook thus early to handle, such as cause and effect, knowledge and power, space and time, liberty and law, imagination, action, and pas- sion, that the philosophical Quixote, had he known them, would have paused longer, and been deterred by conscious weakness, before he ventured into the arena of dispute without any weapons taken from the armoury of the great Leviathan. Passages like the following deserved his deep attention : " Curiosity, or love of the knowledge of causes, draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause, and again the cause of that cause ; till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause, but is eternal ; which is it men call God. /So that it is impossible to make any profound inquiry into natural causes, with- out being inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal; though they cannot have any idea of him (/. e. image, as afterwards explained) in their mind answer- able to his nature." " He that, from any effect he seeth come to pass, should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof, and from thence to the cause of that cause, and plunge himself profoundly into the pursuit of causes, shall at last come to this, that there must be, as even the heathen philosophers confessed, one first mover, that is, a first and an eternal cause of all things, which is that which men mean by the name of God ; and all this without thought of their fortune, the solicitude M 2 164 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. whereof both inclines to fear, and hinders them from the search of the causes of other things ; and thereby gives occasion of feigning of as many gods, as there be men that feign them." In the fourth Book of his Essay, we find Locke thus expressing himself : " There is no truth more evident than that something must be from eternity. I have never yet heard of any man so unreasonable, or that could suppose so manifest a contradiction, as a time wherein there was perfectly nothing, this being of all absurdities the greatest, to imagine that pure nothing, the perfect negation and absence of all beings, should ever produce any real existence*/' In other passages of the Essay, it is assumed as an axiom that nothing can change itself. Clarke expressly calls his work a ' Demonstration.' The propositions which he undertook to demonstrate may be easily seen by recourse to his book. That which Mr. Hume mentions as his argument forms no part of them, or at least has no place of prominence and importance assigned to it. If Hume meant to represent that portion of Dr. S. Clarke's reasoning, which occurs under his first proposition, that " some- * Locke's Essay, book iv. c. 10. 8. I may add that, in Hume's Essay on the Principles of Morals, vol. ii. p. 234, there is a great misrepresentation of Hobbes and Locke. He says, "that they maintained the selfish system of morals." It is not true, in the sense given to it by Hume, namely, " that the most generous friend- ship, however sincere, is but a modification of self-love; and that, even unknown to ourselves, we seek only our own gratification while we appear the most deeply engaged in schemes for the liberty and happiness of mankind." STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 165 thing has existed from eternity," he did not trouble himself to give it correctly. It never was Clarke's argument that " an object that exists absolutely, with- out any cause, must be its own cause." Let us do that justice to Dr. Clarke, which the Scotchmen have refused him. The following is a portion of his argu- ment : " Since something now is, 'tis manifest that something always was ; otherwise the things that now are must have risen out of nothing, absolutely and without cause, which is a plain contradiction in terms. For to say a thing is produced, and yet there is no cause at all of that production, is to say that some- thing is effected, when it is effected by nothing ; that is, at the same time when it is not effected at all. Whatever exists, has a cause of its existence either in the necessity of its own nature, and then it must have been of itself eternal; or in the will of some other Being, and then that other Being must, at least in the order of nature and causality, have existed before it*." To imply that " whatever exists may have a cause of its existence in the necessity of its own nature" is not perhaps very happy nor intelligible, but it is not the same thing as saying that "an object absolutely without any cause, must be its own cause." It is evident that Dr. Clarke here assumes, as he appears to do throughout his work, " that a beginning of ex- istence is an effect;" that "nothing begins to exist without a cause," a maxim which Hume professes * Compare Hume's Treatise, vol. i. p. 145, with Clarke ' On the Attributes,' Prop. i. 1. 166 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. to examine and overthrow by means of his "idea of knowledge." But what that idea is, the reader will find either very difficult to trace out, or unworthy of approbation when he does trace it. In his section on ' Knowledge*/ Hume endeavours to make it appear that of seven philosophical relations, four only, depending solely on ideas, can be the ob- jects of knowledge and certainty. "All certainty arises from the comparison of ideas, and from the discovery of certain relations as are unalterable, so long as the ideas continue the same. These relations are resem- blance, proportions in quantity and number, degrees of any quality, and contrariety ; none of which are im- plied 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 then be time enough to examine." Therefore, as cause and effect is either not one of these relations, or not a relation at all, it follows of course that it can- not be an object of knowledge or certainty, a short way of disposing of the whole question. But are these indeed the "only infallible relations"? Are they themselves infallible ? The clearness and certainty of the demonstrations in propositions relating to number or quantity may be admitted. But with respect to "degrees of any quality," where there is no * Treatise, vol. i. p. 126. STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 167 exact or agreed standard of comparison or measure- ment, it is evident the uncertainty must be greater than the certainty. Thus in the case of sounds, co- lours, smells, and tastes, and all qualities of body, all impressions from without, of which we have no per- fect measures as to degree or quality, together with that great variety of affections or states of mind, and all the pleasures and pains accompanying them, with their several degrees, comprehended under the word feeling, of the intensity or nature of which there is no exact standard, in point of resemblance or degree, a relation of one state with another may certainly exist ; one state may introduce another, or necessarily accom- pany and imply another; these states or conditions may be successive or simultaneous ; and in some pro- positions or truths relating to them, the mind may be as certain as in respect of any propositions or truths whatever ; yet the relations are not infallible only because the epithet infallible, if applicable to any ex- ercises and conclusions of the human understanding, ought to be used with the greatest modesty and cau- tion, and is the last term suited to the mouth of a professed sceptic. For the most part it is impossible to reduce to measure or number the most common, and, in point of happiness, and even life, the most important phenomena of sensation and feeling the occasions of action and passion. We cannot compare, by any exact standard, sweet with sweet, bitter with bitter, joy with joy, sorrow with sorrow. Hence the difficulties of mental and moral science, from the ob- 168 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. scurity and uncertainty, or indefiniteness of the terms. It is not that these sciences require a new or peculiar logic, as Mr. J. S. Mill would imply ; for logic is one and the same for all science, a science per se the science of inference, teaching how, in certain forms of premise, certain forms of conclusion are involved. But it is that some common logic is applied too soon and too fast, and pushed too far, or rather, that it is erroneously applied, before observation has secured good premises, or definition stripped doubtful terms of ambiguity. Thus, when Hume refers our moral sentiments to an inward taste, he abandons them as subjects of philosophical discussion and investigation. De yustibus non disputandum. Connoisseurs in art may acccept in poetry a Homer, and in painting a Titian or a Raffaelle, as their standard of excellence, happy if they can agree in the grounds of their ap- preciation. But the mathematician smiles at their logomachy, when differences or disputes become warm and personal. In the physical sciences, in the various branches of natural philosophy, in such a science as astronomy and others that might be named, that which makes the propositions relating to them clear and im- portant, that which gives the mind a certainty in re- ceiving them proportionably so much stronger, is the enduring nature of the phenomena to which the pro- positions relate, it is the power of repeating the ob- servations, under conditions precisely similar, and of renewing experiments that is, of re-adjusting all the conditions on which the results or conclusions depend STEWARTS CRITICISMS JG ( J with exactness sufficient for proof, it is this wJifcfr" makes the propositions relating to such sciences more clear and important, and the certainty which the mind feels in connection with them proportionably so much stronger, the assent proportionably so much easier, than in the case of any propositions which concern the more transitory and varying conditions of our daily moral experience, conditions which we can never renew in precisely the same form, and upon which, when we desire to examine them closely, the lights are shifting and unsteady, both from within and from without. But further, there is a relation, as intimated above, of which Hume has taken no notice, but which ought to be taken into account, as one of the most common and important grounds of certainty in connection with affirmations or propositions, that is, the relation be- tween words and thoughts, or the associated ideas. A constant experience of the uniformity of the im- pressions made on the senses from without, with whatever variations modified or mingled, lays the foundation for the use and application of language, that is, the employment of words, as signs or marks for these impressions, among beings who receive them together, and would communicate with one another respecting their experience of the past and their anti- cipation of the future. In the right use or applica- tion of these signs, whether traditionally adopted or arbitrarily invented by the persons using them, a mu- tual certainty consists. Nor is there any necessity 170 STEWARTS CRITICISMS EXAMINED. for looking further than this constant experience of the uniformity of nature for the origin of that ten- dency to expect a future similar to the past, of which every one is conscious, but of which some philoso- phers have made a portentous mystery, as if it were an inexplicable law of the mind, and a fundamental principle of belief. Certainty is a term significant of a condition of the mind. It is derived from the Latin certus, one of the participial forms of the verb cerno, and refers prima- rily to what the bodily eye, secondarily to what the so-called eye of the mind, clearly sees or determines, according to the old proverb " seeing is believing." It may be defined, confidence in the truth of asser- tions, founded on confidence in the correctness of im- pressions. In other words, it is founded, first, in the trustworthiness of the senses ; and secondly, on that exercise of the mental faculties, which arises out of, and is connected with, the use of the senses. Of these faculties memory is the chief, because without memory no proposition could be framed, no compari- son of objects could be made, no inference from com- parisons or propositions could be drawn, no anticipa- tion of a future could exist. Relying on memory and their faculties, the mass of mankind feel certainty in their judgements on a thousand matters of daily ex- perience, which come not under any of Hume's four heads of infallible relation. Indeed, that all the infal- lible relations of ideas are comprehended under these four, and that these deserve to be called infallible re- STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 171 lations, is an assertion for which he has not attempted to produce any evidence ; nor has any student of the philosophy of the mind followed him in an analysis which, if correct and adequate, would be capable, no doubt, of many most important applications to sci- ence, physical and moral. And why this trifling on Hume's part, and on that of his commentators, with the great names of Hobbes, and Clarke, and Locke, and their pretended demonstra- tions? Has he overthrown the principle which these thinkers held in common, or thrown any new or strong light upon it ? He pretends that he has destroyed its intuitive, no less than its demonstrative, certainty. But a very slight acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle, of Hobbes, of Locke, of Hartley, and Mill, and Brown, is sufficient to make it manifest that our young philosopher has given a very inadequate ac- count of what he calls the " only infallible relations!' Mr. Stewart considers that, "when Hume attempts to show that the proposition in question is not in- tuitively certain, his argument appears to amount to nothing more than a logical quibble." The truth is, that Hume having bent his strength against the pre- tended demonstrations, quietly assumes, without any attempt at argument, that it is not intuitively certain. But what are intuitive or intuitional certainties ? I answer, all propositions which are assented to with- out hesitation the moment they are heard and the terms are understood, expressing thoughts or rela- tions of thought in harmony with all the phenomena 172 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. of nature and the mind, that is, truths conformable to invariable experience. Whether there be or be not an intuitive certainty in the proposition that " to every beginning of existence there must be a cause/' every thinker will decide for himself, from an examination of his own mind, in connection with the terms. If mathematical definitions, axioms, and postulates rest ultimately upon their accordance with all the impres- sions of the senses, why may not an axiom, like that in question, rest ultimately upon its conformity with universal experience, or derive a part of its certainty from that source ? The man who affects to doubt it, may be asked to produce an instance of a beginning without a cause, or even to imagine it. 'Ex nihilo nihil fit/ is a maxim nearly as old as the records of human thought and he that feels he cannot destroy nor alter his own thoughts at pleasure, that he is physically and mentally subject to laws of being and an order of Nature independent of his own will, will not be easily satisfied with Mr. Hume's vague lan- guage on the relation of cause and effect, and his at- tempt to destroy a principle which lies at the founda- tion of all human art and science. When Hume's sections on the impressions of the senses and the me- mory, and of the inferences from the impression to the idea, are rigidly examined, they will be found, not only obscure and inconsistent, but really worthless*, as tending only to perplex and darken a subject of diifi- * Compare Mr. Stewart's comments in the Dissertation, p. 211, on these infallible relations. STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 173 culty, rather than to arrive at principles fertile in use- ful application. Mr. Stewart supposes that a truth must be weak which rests upon experience alone, that there must be some other ground of certainty in propositions, besides harmony with fact, and agreement of ideas with one another. Hence, after Reid, he talks much of instinctive principles of belief, and fundamental laws of belief ; and he implies that Hume, by reveal- ing the weakness of all arguments relating to what has been called transcendental science, based upon experience, "has shut up for ever one of the most frequented and fatal paths which led philosophers astray/' and thereby compelled them to take those better and safer paths, in which himself and his Scotch predecessors have delighted to walk. But is Mr. Stewart consistent with himself? What are these ' fundamental laws and instinctive princi- ples'? In this very critique on Hume he has supplied an answer to his own principles, in a passage well worthy of attention, a passage which concedes every- thing to the most determined follower of Bacon and Hobbes and Locke and Hartley. " The distinction alluded to by Hume between the sensitive and the cogitative parts of our nature 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 impro- bable that it may have been suggested by the passage in Hume. Without disputing its justness and its im- 174 STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. portance, 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 phi- losophical, 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 perma- nence of the laws of nature be not founded on any process of reasoning (a proposition which Mr. Hume seems to have established with demonstrative evi- dence), but be either the result of an instinctive prin- ciple of belief, or of the association of ideas, operat- ing 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, verified by every step e/7 J J J J J 4 which our reason afterwards makes in the study of physical science ; and confirmed with mathematical accuracy by the never-failing accordance of the phe- nomena 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 scepti- cism, such a view of human nature seems peculiarly calculated to silence every doubt about the veracity of our faculties." Here we have the genuine and simple truth, some- STEWART'S CRITICISMS EXAMINED. 175 what obscured, indeed, under a cloud of unsatisfactory phrases. The first association of ideas is the dawn of the light of reason. The first term rightly applied in its full and just significancy by a child, is the assu- rance which that child gives that the elements of rea- son are strong within him. Observation, memory, judgement, expectancy, are there. The apprehension of a law, and the conviction of the permanence of a law, become the highest functions of that mind, in its advanced conditions. It is certain the laws of nature whether of matter or of mind can be deduced only from observation of phenomena : the moment observation of fact clashes with the law, as previously received, the law is abrogated or modified. Explana- tions of the real or apparent exception are sought for in some still higher law, which embraces the newly- discovered order of things. It seems perfectly evident that we can have no ex- pectation nor imagination of the future, but what is founded on the experience of the past. For to expect that the future will be like the past, is to have had already ' a past/ which it is to resemble, and which has supplied us with conceptions and expectations. Call them, if you like, "suggestions of our sensitive frame-/ 5 it is but another phrase for the association of past with present impressions or ideas. The more you examine them, the more you will be inclined to resolve them into ideas of sensation and ideas of re- flection, associated in synchronous or successive order ; and when you have admitted this, you will be inclined 176 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI also to admit, that experience, which covers the whole field of mental phenomena and development, is the great instructor; and that there can be no stronger evidence for any truth or principle or law, than its agreement with invariable and constant experience, its harmony with every known fact and repeated ob- servation, that is, with every test to which you can submit it. We have now seen how difficult it is to understand Hume's view of causation, from his obscurity and in- consistency ; and especially to understand the degree of authority which he would allow to our idea of it, whencesoever it may be drawn. Par from conceding to him the high merit which Stewart has assigned him, it may be said with more justice that he impeded the progress of metaphysical and moral science, by great injustice to his predecessors, by his inattention to their real sentiments, by his affectation of discoveries in fields of research more profoundly and carefully exa- mined before him, and especially by his passion for literary distinction, irrespective of the truth and value of the doctrines which he propounded. DESCARTES AND GASSENDI ON INNATE IDEAS. That close examination of Hume, which the reader may be supposed now to have instituted, prepares the way for some appreciation of the account given by Kant, in the Prolegomena to his Metaphysics, of the manner in which Hume's speculations affected his own. It was ON INNATE IDEAS. 177 Hume, he tells us, who roused him from his dogmatic slumber. But before touching upon the question how far Kant has correctly represented Hume, it will be well to open that wider field of inquiry, comprehended by the old question concerning the existence of innate ideas. Some historical investigation of this subject will enable us better to appreciate the value of the phrases now again so current, owing doubtless to the influence of the idealism of the later schools of Ger- many, such as a priori conceptions, primal instincts and intuitions, fundamental or intuitive or instinctive perceptions, notions, and principles. Until the latter part of the last century Locke was supposed by most thinkers to have exterminated the ' men of innate ideas/ of instincts, and intuitions. But the advocates of instinctive principles have re-appeared, in numbers like to those mythologic beings which sprang up from the casting of Deucalion's stones after the deluge. It is a question of great interest in the history of modern metaphysics, and especially in weighing the merit of Locke's account of the origin of our know- ledge, whether Descartes had any particular or intel- ligible theory of innate ideas. If he had, it is difficult to trace it. Had any such theory formed a clear and important part of his metaphysical philosophy, Mr. Hallam would surely have made some allusion to it in his account of that philosophy. Yet Mr. D. Stewart speaks of Descartes' doctrine of innate ideas " as un- derstood and expounded by himself" adding these words in italics, "Because in Descartes' reasonings N 178 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI on this question, there is no inconsiderable portion of most important truth, debased by a large and ma- nifest alloy of error *." Unfortunately Mr. Stewart gives no reference to the place where this exposition and the important truth is to be found, leaving the reader at a loss at the moment of greatest need ; nor am I acquainted with any English work which would supply the desired information. In the third of Descartes' Meditations the following passage occurs ; the nearest which I have found to the exposition in question f: "Now with regard to ideas, if they are regarded in themselves alone, and I refer them not to anything else, they cannot properly be considered false ; for whether I imagine a goat or a chimsera, it is no less true that I imagine the one than the other. Neither is any falsehood to be feared in the will itself, nor the affections ; for however de- praved my wishes, however much I may desire things which exist nowhere, it is not the less true that I do wish such things ; and thenceforth there remains only the judgments, in which I must take care that I be not deceived. Now the chief and most frequent error to be found in these consists in this that I may judge the ideas which exist within me, to be like or conformable to certain things placed without me. For truly, if I considered only the ideas themselves, and * Stewart's Dissertation, p. 68. t I translate it from the small quarto edition, Amsterdam, 1644, p. 19 : ' Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia et animee humanse a corpore distinctio demonstrantur.' ON INNATE IDEAS. 179 merely certain modes of thought, and refer them to no other thing whatsoever, they can scarcely give me any material of error. Now of these ideas some seem to me innate, others adventitious, others made by my- self ; for inasmuch as I understand what a thing is, what truth is, what thought is, these I seem to have from no other source than from my own nature. But that I now hear a noise, see the sun, feel the fire, these I have judged to proceed from certain things placed without me. And lastly, Sirens, HippogryfFs, and the like, are feigned by myself; or perhaps I may think even all to be adventitious, or all innate, or all feigned, for I have not as yet perceived the true origin of them." This division of ideas into three is evidently arbi- trary, and the account of those which are innate is loose and unsatisfactory. The classes are not distin- guished by any specific difference. To hear, see, and feel, are no less a part of our own nature, than after- wards to think of what we have seen and felt. Des- cartes himself appears afterwards little satisfied with it. " The opinion of Descartes upon innate ideas," says Degerando*, " has not been well understood, nor is this to be wondered at, for he has not well understood himself. On one side he repeats often that these ideas are born with us. He says particularly of the idea of God, " it is born and produced with me, from the time when I was created, in the same manner as * Hist. Comp. des Systemes, vol. vi. p, 185. N 2 180 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI the idea of myself." He assures us " that the mind of the infant in the bosom of its mother has no less within itself the ideas of God, of itself, and of all those truths which are known of themselves, than adult per- sons have them, when they do not think of them, for it acquires them not afterwards with age"! "These ideas can have been placed in us only by God, who is their immediate cause. There is no metaphysical truth, in particular, which we cannot comprehend, if our mind is directed to consider it, and they are all " mentibus nostris congenitse." On the other hand, pressed by objections, Descartes admitted that these innate ideas existed only as possi- bilities. He considers them as natural, in so far as we have the faculty for producing them ; he finds them not distinct from the faculty of thought*. Such admissions amount to a denial of the principle that there are ideas properly innate, since the epithet is applicable to every idea which the mind comes in pro- cess of time to entertain. On the passage above quoted, from the third Me- ditation, we may remark Descartes' just observation, that " the epithets true and false are not properly ap- plied to mere ideas." Thus he prepares the way for the admission that they belong more properly to pro- positions ; although Descartes does not quite perceive this, and is by no means consistent with himself, since he makes clear and distinct perception his primary * Descartes' Correspondence, edit. Cousin, vol. viii. pp. 95, 268. Also Third Meditation, edit. Renouard, p. 120. ON INNATE IDEAS. 181 test of truth, to which Gassendi took just exception. No doubt these epithets may be loosely applied to ideas, when it is meant that the ideas of a particular thinker on a particular subject are or are not corre- spondent to the qualities of the subject ; are or are not in accordance with all the phenomena and in agree- ment with all the perceptions and other ideas, which the same thinker will possess or entertain, when the subject of thought shall be further examined and bet- ter known. But under every such loose application, there is implied a secret reference to a proposition or conclusion of the mind not expressed ; and this view of the meaning of the epithets prepares the way for easy and available definitions of truth and falsehood. This is well laid down by Hobbes in the early part of his Computatio or Logic, and in other parts of his writings, and by Locke " On true and false ideas*." Even if we allow the application of the epithets to relations between thoughts or ideas and the objects of human contemplation, it will be found that they can be so applied with practical advantage only when such relations come to be expressed, that is, when they appear in the form of propositions, and then assist in ratiocination. That Descartes himself had no correct appreciation of the importance of the sentiment before us, I con- * Essay, book ii. ch. 32. Yet Locke afterwards forgot what he had so well said, or he would have expressed himself better when he came to discuss the reality of our knowledge, and the nature of truth and universal propositions. B. iv. ch. 4, 5, 6. 182 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI elude, from what he has said in the fourth Meditation a most unsatisfactory one whose subject is "the true and the false." He begins it with speculation on the sort of faculties with which the Deity, as a good and powerful Being, must necessarily endow his creatures ; and, as he advances, he connects error with the will rather than the understanding*. The six Meditations of Descartes are short enough to be easily and agreeably read. But they gave rise to disquisitions, doubts, and arguments between him- self and Gassendi, to say nothing of those by Cater, Mersenne, Hobbes, Arnauld, and divers other theo- logians and philosophers, six times their length, the perusal of which is a more serious taskf. Gassendi pressed Descartes very closely ; and the Dutch printer of the Meditations and Objections naively says of Descartes that he became vehemently excited, and, forgetful of himself, forgot reason also, to which he * " D'ou est-ce done que naissent mes erreurs P C'est, a savoir, de cela seul, que la volonte* etant beaucoup plus ample et plus etendue que 1'entendement, je ne la contiens pas dans les memes limites, mais que je 1'etends aussi aux ckoses que je n'entends pas ; aux- quelles etant de soi indifferentes, elle s'egare fort aisement, et choisit le faux pour le vrai, et le mal pour le bien : ce qui fait que je me trompe et que je peche." Meditation 4, p. 101 : Simon's CEuvres de Descartes. t " Dans cette grande controverse, les objections de Hobbes pa- raissent les moins judicieuses, et les plus confuses ; celles d' Arnauld, les plus profondes, mais les plus reservees ; celles de Gassendi, les plus variees, les plus developpees ; celles du Pere Bourdin, Jesuite, les plus superficielles et les plus frivoles ; celles de Huet, les plus subtiles, les plus penetrantes." Degerando, Hist. Comp. des Syst. torn. vi. p. 238. ON INNATE IDEAS. 183 should have chiefly attended, " Sui oblitus, rationis quoque oblivisceretur." It was in answer to Gas- sendi's remarks upon this portion of the Meditations that Descartes broke out into the insulting tone which has extorted even from Mr. Stewart the acknow- ledgment that, at least in the philosophy of the temper, the Epicurean Gassendi had greatly the ad- vantage. The comments of Gassendi on the passage are so instructive, not only with regard to any theory of in- nate ideas which Descartes may be supposed to have held, but to the whole subject which it opens, that I shall present them to the reader in an English form, the more readily, as the question of the extent to which Locke was indebted to Gassendi for his own peculiar views, or in which Locke agreed with him or was anticipated by him, though of deep interest to the philosophical inquirer, has never been fully discussed and examined by any English metaphysical writer. Mr. Hallam justly observes, that Gassendi' s works are now little known in England ; and even in Erance they appear no longer to receive the attention due to them. " Now the mind hath a faculty, not only of per- ceiving adventitious ideas, or such as it receives from things passed through the senses, of perceiving them, I say, naked and distinct, and altogether such as it receives them ; but, further, of variously compound- ing, dividing, contracting, amplifying, comparing them, and the like. Hence the third kind (i. e. of the three mentioned by Descartes) is not distinct from 184 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI the second. For the idea of a chimera is no other than the idea of a lion's head, a goat's belly, a ser- pent's tail, of which the mind composes one ; though they be separately and singly adventitious. So the idea of a giant, or of a man like a mountain, or of the world conceived as a whole, is no other than adven- titious ; the idea of a man of common size, which the mind amplifies according to pleasure, although the idea is more confused, the larger the size is con- ceived. So the idea of a pyramid, of a city, or any other thing never beheld, is no other than the adven- titious idea of some pyramid before seen, some city, or any other thing, formed in no other way, and from thence multiplied and in some confused manner (con- fusd ratione aliqua) compared. As to the species which you call innate, truly there seem to be none such, and those which are called such seem also to have an adventitious origin. I have it, you say, from my nature, that I understand what a thing is (quid sit res). Now I suppose you are not speaking here of the power of intelligence, about which there is no doubt nor question, but rather concerning the idea of a thing. You speak not even concerning the idea of any one particular thing, for the sun, this stone, all individuals, are things, the ideas of which you ac- knowledge not to be innate. You speak therefore of the idea of a thing universally considered, and as far as it is synonymous with an entity (cum ente), and in its utmost latitude (tarn late quam illud patef). But I ask how this idea can be in the mind, unless ON INNATE IDEAS. 185 there are at the same time so many individual things, and their kinds, from which the mind abstracts and forms the conception, which is peculiar to none of the individuals, and yet is found in all. Truly, if the idea of a thing be innate, then also will be the idea of an animal, of a plant, of a stone, of all universals ; and there will be no need that we fatigue ourselves with distinguishing many individuals, where, their various differences being disregarded, we only retain that which shall be seen to be common to all, or, what is the same thing, the idea of the genus. You say also that you have it from your nature, that you under- stand what truth is, or, as I interpret, the idea of truth. Now, if truth be nothing else than a con- formity of judgment with a fact or thing (cum re), concerning which a judgment is made, truth is a cer- tain relation, and therefore nothing distinct from the facts and ideas so related to each other, or, what is the same, from the very idea of the fact or thing; since this represents both itself and the thing to which it belongs. Wherefore the idea of truth is no other than the idea of a thing, so far as it is conform- able to the thing itself, and so far as it represents the very thing, of what sort it is. Hence therefore, if the idea of a thing be not innate, but adventitious, so also the idea of truth is adventitious, not in- nate. And when that is understood concerning any individual truth whatsoever, it may be understood universally concerning truth, the notion or idea of which (as has been already observed of the idea of a 186 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI thing) is drawn from the notions or ideas of the sin- gulars or individuals. You say further that you have from your own nature an understanding of what thought is. But as the mind, from the idea of one city, frames the idea of another, so from the idea of one action, as of vision, of taste, it may frame the idea of another, suppose, of thought itself. A certain analogy is indeed recognized among the knowing fa- culties, and one easily leads on to the knowledge of another. However, concerning the idea of thought (cogitationis) trouble need not be taken ; but concern- ing the idea of the mind itself, and so of the soul, if we should grant this to be innate, there will be no disadvantage in admitting the idea of thought to be also innate. We must wait however until the fact be proved concerning the mind or soul." There is much good philosophy in this. It opens well the whole question of the relation between com- plex ideas and abstract terms. On all subjects of thought, the mind advances most naturally from indi- viduals to universals, from particulars to generals. The embarrassments of metaphysicians, the useless and unsatisfactory nature of their disputes and writings, arise from their plunging at once into abstractions, which are of little account until they come to be referred to and explained by the particulars which they comprehend, from which they are drawn, and which are always comparatively intelligible. Descartes' response to these remarks of Gassendi is very indifferent. He explains not his theory of ON INNATE IDEAS. 187 innate ideas : he fences with the objections, but does not meet them. In reply to the observation that the mind has power to divide, contract, amplify, and com- pare, and frames its general idea out of many particu- lars, he merely says, " In this way you may prove that no statues' were ever made by Praxiteles, since he had not from himself the marble, out of which he carved them ; and that you have not made these objections, because you have composed them in words not in- vented by yourself, but borrowed from others." This is evidently evasive. Nay, the allusion is unfortu- nate for Descartes. The question related not to the existence of mental power and intentions, but to the origin of conceptions. Whence had Praxiteles his idea of the figure which he designed to execute ? Yet it seems not to have occurred to Descartes nor to Gassen- di, in this question, to inquire into the manner in which words first become associated with ideas in the mind of a child, and in which the power of comprehending words, as used by others, and of using them with ad- vantage for oneself, is gradually acquired. Here, how- ever, in this use of associated signs, lies the first great lesson in the philosophy of the mind. But surely Gassendi seems much nearer to the truth than his antagonist. The word innate was from the first used vaguely, and continues toHbe so used ; while the question that underlies it is not yet fairly disposed of, because it is seldom fairly stated. From the general prevalence, or assumed universality, of an idea or belief in the 188 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI minds of men at a mature age, or in a certain state of culture and civilization, it was customary, even in Cicero's time, to argue the idea to be innate, and the belief to be well founded. " Gum enim non institute aliquo, aut more, aut lege sit opinio constituta, nia- neatque ad unum omnium firma consensio : intelligi necesse est, esse deos, quoniam insitas eorum, vel po- tius innatas cognitiones habemus. De quo autem om- nium natura consentit, id verum esse necesse est. Esse igitur deos, confitendum est*." But the value of the ' innata cognitio' comes to nothing, or is reduced to a vanishing quantity, when Cotta and Balbus, Velleius and Lucilius compare their views, and endeavour to arrive at a firm, and not an erring or vague, opinion of the gods. If they had innate knowledge, why should they still be inquiring and seeking ? Among the allies of Gassendi in this great contro- versy, there was one who approached him in the ex- tent of his erudition, and in the vigour and freedom of his intellect, Peter Daniel Huet, the Bishop of Avranches. In the 'Censura Philosophise Cartesianae' Huet thus expresses himself f : "Although Descartes hath stealthily taken that much-vexed sentiment, concerning innate ideas, from the Platonic philosophy, yet he has interpolated some- what, to make it appear different. Be it different, as * Cicero de Natura Deorum, 1. i. 17. f Translated from the Latin of the 4th edition : Paris, 1694 : pp. 135, 140 : " Falsum est, esse aliquid in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu." ON INNATE IDEAS. 189 you please, yet with equal certainty can I show it to be false. He has stated the genus of ideas in us to be threefold, as I have said above ; of which one is adventitious, such as the idea of the sun, which every man hath in himself from the visible sun ; another sort is factitious, such as that idea of the sun which astronomers entertain by their reasonings ; a third sort however is born with us, which he calls natural, of which sort are the ideas of God, of the mind, of the natures which are called essences, of geometrical formulae, of the axioms which mathematicians use, and of other things like to these. These natural ideas sometimes he declares to be nothing else than the very faculty of thinking, by which our mind hath its power (qua mens nostra pollef), and which in the schools they are wont to call the first act of thinking : yet he continually lays it down that these ideas are forms of thought ; but that the thoughts themselves, or, as they commonly say, the second act of thinking, arises from the faculty of thinking. But these things are plainly repugnant ; for if a thought arises from the faculty of thinking, of necessity the thought differs from the faculty of thinking, as that which is effected differs from its cause. Again, if an idea is a form of thought, since a form is one thing, and that of which it is the form is another, and as the soul of a man is dif- ferent from the man, so an idea is one thing, and thought (the power of thinking it, cogitatio), another. Thus Descartes recognizes three things in himself, which he had pronounced to be one and the same ; namely, the 190 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI faculty of thinking, the thinking, and the idea. When however he discusses the idea of God, which we bear impressed upon the mind, this he maintains to be neither formed, nor possible to be formed, out of our own mind, but to be by God himself stamped and im- pressed in our mind, just as the idea of those axioms which are held immutable and eternal. But there is here a much greater discrepancy ; for if ideas are the faculty of thinking, then the idea of God is a faculty of thinking concerning God ; and the ideas of all other things, are but the faculty of thinking of those other things. But that faculty of thinking may be applied to all things whatsoever, and is one and the same faculty ; as the faculty of painting, whether it be applied to paint a tree or a house, is the same faculty. Whence it is a plain conclusion, that the idea of God, and the other ideas which he calls na- tural and innate, differ not from the factitious nor adventitious ideas. "But further, when Descartes writes in another place that those eternal ideas, such, namely, as geometrical axioms, are marked in our minds by God, as laws by a king in the minds of those who obey their command, he confesses a difference between ideas and the faculty of thinking. Let us however be indulgent to Descartes, and so favourably interpret his opinion, that an innate idea such, namely, as of God is a faculty engendered in our mind by a certain mode of thinking ; so that, as often as the mind shall reflect, the idea of God will arise in the mind. But not even thus will he extricate ON INNATE IDEAS. 191 himself ; for how will the innate idea differ from the factitious or adventitious idea ? For the idea of Alex- ander, which is factitious, may be called with equal right a faculty engendered in the mind by a certain mode of thinking, by which, as often as a man shall reflect, the idea of Alexander will arise in it. Thus Descartes vacillates in the whole of his doctrine. Moreover, when he would prove that the mind needs not the aid of the senses to form ideas, he uses this argument that nothing reaches the mind by the aid and interposition of the senses, but certain corporeal motions, which the mind perceives to be not such as they really are in the senses; and further, that the ideas of motions and figures, and much more of pain, of colours, of sounds, and other like things, are en- gendered in us, and that the mind exhibits them to itself, as often as it is excited by those corporeal mo- tions, to which ideas have no similitude ; whence he infers that, since those ideas of outward objects may be innate, and not arise from external things, with greater reason may the same thing be said of common no- tions, or axioms, which are neither in external things, nor can have come to the mind by means of corporeal motions, or a message of the senses : for that the ex- ternal things, and those motions, and the senses, are individuals, but the axioms are universals, having no affinity with the motions and the senses. Now we confess that the ideas of external things are formed by the mind, after that it has been admonished by some corporeal motion, and a message of the senses 192 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI struck by outward objects (sensuum a rebus eocternis impulsoruni). But we say that these corporeal mo- tions impress a stroke (plagam*), or mark upon the brain ; which touch or stroke, the mind, very closely conjoined to it, perceiving in the brain, by this admo- nition as it were, conceives and forms this or that idea, though before it existed not ; but by no means does it recognize it, as if it had a former existence. Nor can it moreover conceive or form any idea, unless it shall perceive a touch of it in the brain. Moreover universal ideas are taken from the singulars, since the mind, attending in many objects to the same quality, selects that from the many in which it was dispersed, gathers it into one, and thence forms its universal idea. As in Peter and John, and other individual men, perceiving that they are animals endowed with reason, but no longer regarding Peter nor John, nor any individual, it draws forth and composes into one what had been manifold, and thus forms that general and universal idea, and concludes that every man is a rational animal f." * Plaga was the word used by Democritus, as we learn from the short but interesting fragment of Cicero, De Fato, many of the phrases of which occur in this treatise of Huet. We learn from this fragment that Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aris- totle, were the necessarians, or fatalists of antiquity. " Aliam quan- dam vim motus habebunt a Democrito impulsionis, quam plagam ille appellat." Cicero, De Fato, 20. f Censura Phil. Cartes, p. 135-140. Descartes, 3rd Medit. ; and also Principles of Phil., part i. ch. 15, 16, 18 ; Letters, vol. ii. letter 54, vol. i. 59, 104, 99. ON INNATE IDEAS. 193 Hobbcs also touched the subject briefly; and in his tenth objection, and Descartes' reply, we see how the controversy stood. After contending, and with reason, that our ideas of the attributes of the Deity, his infinitude and independence, involve the previous notions of things finite and dependent, Hobbes thus concludes : " Moreover, when M. Descartes says that the idea of God is innate and resident in us, I wish much to know if the souls of those who sleep pro- foundly and without dream, think. If they think not, then they have no ideas and therefore there is no idea which can be born and residing in us, for that which is innate and resident in us is always present to our thought." This argument is not very conclu- sive, and Descartes replies : " None of those things which we attribute to God can come from external objects, comme d'une cause exemptaire ; for there is nothing in the Deity like to external, that is, to cor- poreal things. Now it is manifest that all which we conceive to be in God unlike to the external cannot come into our thought by the entrance of these same things, but only by means of the cause of this diver- sity, that is to say, of God. " And I ask here in what manner this philosopher infers the intellection of the Deity from externals. For myself I explain easily the idea which I have of it, in saying that by the word idea I understand the form of all perception ; for who is he that conceives anything which he perceives not, and yet who has not this form or this idea of intellection ? whence, ex- o 194 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI tending it to the infinite, he forms the idea of the divine intelligence. And what I say of this perfection may be extended to all the rest. "Now, inasmuch as I have availed myself of the idea of God which is in us, to demonstrate his exist- ence, and as in this idea a power so immense is con- tained, that, if it be true that God exists, we conceive it repugnant to this truth, that anything else exists unless created by him, it follows clearly from the de- monstration of his existence that all the world that is to say, all things which exist different from God- have been created by him. " Finally, when I say that any idea is born with us, or that it is naturally imprinted in our souls, I do not understand that it is always present to our thought, for, so understanding, there could be none such ; but 7" understand only that we have in ourselves the faculty of producing it*" These extracts place before us with sufficient clear- ness the state of opinion and of the controversy con- cerning innate ideas before and about Locke's time. We see why Locke began his Essay with the chapter on that subject. It was necessary to clear the ground, and thus prepare a good foundation for his own ac- count of the origin of all our knowledge. However * See '(Euvres de Descartes' by M. Jules Simon, pp. 207, 208. This volume contains the Discours sur la Methode, Meditations, Traite des Passions, with the controversial objections and replies in a very convenient form. The reader may also consult Degerando, ' Histoire Comparee;' and the authors of the ' Dictionnaire,' upon the articles Descartes, Gassendi, and Leibnitz. ON INNATE IDEAS. 195 we may regret that Locke has not given us more of historical reference to account for the course of his thoughts and investigations, his Essay owes its influ- ence very much to the fact that he discusses the sub- ject upon its merits, and without reference to autho- rity ; for, like Bacon, like Hobbes, like Descartes him- self, he made his own, whatever he thought or consi- dered true relating to the mind. It seems evident that Descartes was beaten from his ground ; that he had no theory which he could explain and support against objections ; that he had no sufficient criterion for distinguishing what was, from what was not, an innate idea ; nor was there much in him to which Locke could reply, and which deserved his particular attention. If all that is innate in us be the faculty of producing ideas, then every idea, howsoever got- ten, is equally entitled to that epithet. No eulogist of Descartes has attempted to show that he had any advantage over his adversaries in this controversy. It has been said by M. Jules Simon, that " Descartes' theory of innate ideas is at bottom only the thesis common to all rationalists, namely, that all our ideas do not grow out of observation, and of the operations performed by the mind upon the data of experience, but that there exists in us a supe- rior faculty, by which we seize at once some ideas and principles of an authority necessary, universal, and ab- solute. To this question all the great metaphysical questions attach themselves, or rather, this question decided, metaphysics are accomplished." But such o 2 196 DESCARTES AND GASSENDI statements cannot be accepted as correct. The ques- tions at issue are changed by the introduction of new terms. The first negative has yet to be proved. The existence of some superior facjdty who ever denied ? " Must I contemplate this great man (says Cousin, in his ' Eloge de Descartes'), in spite of the circum- spection of his steps, wandering in his metaphysics, and creating his system of innate ideas? But this error belonged to his genius. Accustomed to pro- found meditations, habituated to live apart from the senses, to seek in the soul, or in the essence of the Deity, for the origin, the order, and the thread of his convictions (connaissances), could he suppose that the soul was entirely dependent on the senses for its ideas ? Was it not too degrading for it to be only occupied with running over the physical world to gather thence the materials of its knowledge, like the botanist who collects his plants, or to extract principles from sensa- tions, like the chemist who analyses bodies ? It was reserved for Locke to give us concerning ideas the true system of nature, by developing a principle known to Aristotle, and seized by Bacon, but of which Locke is not less the creator, for a principle is not created until it is demonstrated to men/' The candour and the fulness of this concession in Locke's favour may be accepted and admired, but how can it be reconciled with other passages of the eloquent author ? * Mr. Stewart gives to Descartes the proud title of * The 6loge by Cousin, prefixed to his edition of Descartes, would be read with more pleasure by many, if the name of Bacon were ON INNATE IDEAS. 197 Father of the Experimental Philosophy of the Human Mind. But we have seen what Stewart also said of Reid, as the first who executed Bacon's plan in that department of study. Such praises are more specious than discriminative. Descartes is still, or rather, he is again the idol of the French literati, for he was not so in the days of Montesquieu and D'Alembert. His independence, originality, and abstractedness, his effort to rear anew a temple of truth, on a foundation of his own, designed to stand for ages as the asylum of faith and virtue, will always have a great charm for those who love to dwell in regions of speculation, and on heights far above the common level. But he built a castle in the air; he was the Phaeton of modern philosophy : his wings melt as he rises, and we see him at last sinking and baffled in waters too powerful for his strength. He aspired to construct, from ab- stract principles, a theory of the universe and a theory of the human mind, and he disdained to wait upon nature as a teacher, and to receive humbly the lessons of patient observation. Hence he paid no attention to the first simple elements of human thought and reasoning; he refused to look at them in the light in which the great thinkers of his own day were dis- posed to view them. Hence the value of every prin- ciple and premiss which he adopted was warmly contested by men as free from the prejudices of the substituted for that of Descartes. If we read twenty pages of the one and of the other consecutively, the superior richness, grasp, and power of Bacon's intellect becomes most striking. 198 CAMPANELLA. schools as himself, and equally anxious for light and truth ; for the authority of Aristotle, or rather, of those who pretended to expound Aristotle, but sub- stituted their own vain cobwebs in his place, was clearly gone at the end of the sixteenth century. Nor do we owe his deposition to Descartes, though he gave to Aristotelianism its most fatal blow. Even Bacon was but a bright morning star, the harbinger of the coming day. He was only the master-spirit of an age rich in great minds minds prepared to appre- ciate and honour his genius, but whose lustre is not to be eclipsed in his beams. Such were the admirable Kepler, the excellent Galileo, the fertile and imagina- tive Campanella. Of the merits of his great contem- poraries Descartes showed not a little jealousy, and the methods of Galileo in particular he vainly cen- sured*. On Kepler and Galileo it is not for me to enlarge. Their memory has been embalmed by worthier hands. But the name of Campanella is less known ; and some notice of his worth and works may be acceptable to the reader. He entered largely and freely into meta- physical and speculative philosophy; he was among the first, not merely to discard authority, whether that of Aristotle or any other name, but to urge and sup- port appeals to nature, observation, reason, and expe- rience. His writings breathe an enlightened, philo- * See a passage in Maclaurin's account of Sir I. Newton's Disco- veries, ch. iii. p. 55, and the reference ; Descartes' Epistolse, part 2, Ep. 91. CAMPANELLA. 199 sophic spirit, worthy of any age, and most remarkable in his own, touching, as they do, wisely and beauti- fully on the compatibility between the acceptance of an historical revelation, rightly interpreted, and the pro- foundest investigation of nature ; or as we should now express it, between reason and faith, between natural and revealed religion. The common English notices of him are taken almost entirely from Brucker. They do no justice to his vigorous and manly thought, to the lofty poetical tone of his mind, to the manner in which he broke loose from the chains of scholasticism, and, emerging from the darkest cell of the cloister, delighted to expatiate in the air, the light, the free- dom of the intellectual day then advancing towards meridian splendour. His opinion that matter is a battle-field, on which the two great principles of heat and cold are struggling for mastery, whose united or balanced operation produces the beautiful phenomena of the heavens, and the vegetation and animation of the earth, and his disposition to believe in astrology, or some influence of the stars on human character and fortunes, detract little from his merits, when we consider the state of opinion on such subjects in men of more repute long after his time. He was among the very first of continental thinkers to discern the greatness of the mind of Bacon, and the rich promise of his methods ; above all, he had the courage to stand forth as the warm defender of Galileo, against all the prejudices of his order and all the tyranny of Rome. Campanella was himself a prisoner in the Inquisition 200 CAMPANELLA. for about thirty years, and we are told that he was seven times put to the rack. His chief pieces were composed while suffering under this long oppression. They were printed at Frankfort by Tobias Adami, who received them from his hands, who supplied him with such books as Gilbert's recent treatise on mag- netism, and whom he calls "nostrse philosophic Sym- nrista*." They are as striking a proof of the triumph of the mind over adverse fortune, of a chivalrous and unconquerable spirit, as the annals of philosophy af- ford. The 'Apology for Galileo/ in particular, wherein he discusses the question, whether the method of philosophizing which Galileo celebrates, favours or opposes the Sacred Scriptures, appears to me to rank among the noblest pleas for liberty of thought, among the sublimest, because earliest efforts for the emancipation of genius and true philosophy from the thraldom of tyrants and of bigots. Its calm, full sense, without the least extravagance, in answer to the timid prejudices and shallow sophistry of the Jesuits, the extensive knowledge and just apprecia- tion of classic and patristic literature displayed in it, are a perfect marvel for its time. Thus he breaks forth : " Galileus autem fidei fundamentis inhseret ; et de naturalibus loquitur sobrie, sicut testis obser- vationum, non sicut opinator, uti facit Aristoteles de cerebro suo; quare propter hoc laudandus est. In- firmatio enim infidelium dogmatum, et mendaciorum gentilium, est roboratio Christianismi, non eversio * See the De Sensu Rerum, p. 30. CAMPANELLA. 201 theologiae." But it is difficult to select one passage, as the key-note, from a piece so much in harmony with the sentiments which devout and philosophic Chris- tians of every age and all churches have cherished. " That strain I heard was of a higher mood," are words forced upon the memory in the contemplation of so much wisdom, mingled with so much virtue, and both so much forgotten. Yet the imputations of atheism and insanity were hurled against him while living, and threw their dark shadow over his memory long after his decease. The just appreciation of Bacon found in the pre- face, by Tobias Adami, to Campanula's chief work, the four parts of ' Real Philosophy/ published in 1623, two years before the appearance of the second part of Bacon's ' Instauratio Magna,' possesses singu- lar interest, the more so when contrasted with Des- cartes' unworthy silence, and total neglect of the great English Chancellor's works and fame. " Quod si ad finem deducetur sagacissimi philosophi Francisci Ba- conis de Verulamio Angliae Cancellarii ' Instauratio Magna,' opus suscipiendum et consideratione ut et auxilio dignissimum, apparebit fortassis ad metam nos tendere unam, cum iisdem certe vestigiis rerum per sensum et experientiam indagandarum incedere profiteamur, quamvis non dubitem quin longe plura et majora per inductiones diligentiores, quibus ille in- sistit, investigari, multaque emendari et elucidari rec- tius possunt." Those parts in Campanula's ' Real Philosophy 202 DESCARTES. which treat of morals and politics, are truly remark- able for just and discriminating sentiment. In the Politics we have some anticipation of Hobbes without his extravagances, as in the statement that men are driven into communities by the stimulants of neces- sity, and for the purposes of the common defence. In the Morals we have a definition of virtue, perhaps as good as any that has been suggested since : " Vir- tus ergo regula est passionum, notionum, et affec- tionum animi, et operationurn ad certe acquirendum verum bonum, et fugiendum verum malum." And so again, " Vitium vero est enormitas affectionum et operationum erga malum tanquam in bonum ferens. In omni nam operatione vitiosa, est ignorantia vel in- advertentia, et odium boni et Dei interpretative." It may be said, indeed, that the verum bonum et malum themselves require a definition, but the reader of Cam- panella would be at no serious loss. " Entia cuncta propriam beatitudinem appetunt*." But to return to Descartes. With regard to his * Mr. Hallam has touched, in a few paragraphs, the merits and character of Campanella, with genuine and truthful taste ; but with- out mentioning the 'Apology for Galileo.' In the library of Dr. Williams, in Redcross-street, there is a valuable quarto, containing the 'Prodromus Philosophise Instaurandse' (Frankfort, 1617), with an admirable preface by Adami, addressed to the philosophers of Germany; the treatise ' De Sensu Rerum et Magia' (1620); the 'Apologia pro Galileo' (1622) ; the 'Realis Philosophise Epilogisticse Partes Quatuor,' with the ' Civitas Solis,' a kind of philosophical ro- mance (1623). No volume affords better illustration of that renewed vigour of the human mind, which, commencing at the end of the fif- teenth, was destined to shine out in all its brilliancy through the whole of the seventeenth, century. DESCARTES. 203 first position, " Cogito, ergo sum," there seems little propriety in the " ergo :" for who ever felt his own existence after that argument more strongly than be- fore ? The objections to it by his adversaries I can- not treat as merely cavils. It is not a necessary pre- miss for any other truth which is made to rest upon it. Every schoolboy may translate cogito, ' I am, or exist, thinking/ The first person of every other verb assumes, rather than proves, the existence of an active, percipient, and intelligent being. Surely the simple good sense of Locke is to be more admired, when he says, "As for our own existence, we perceive it so plainly and so certainly, that it neither needs nor is ca- pable of any proof*." And the language of Maclaurin is not less worthy of attention. "As we are certain of our own existence, and of that of our ideas, by in- ternal consciousness ; so we are satisfied, by the same consciousness, that there are objects, powers, or causes without us, and that act upon us. For in many of our ideas, particularly those that are accompanied with pain, the mind must be passive, and receive the impressions (which are involuntary) from external causes or instruments, that depend not upon us." Maclaurin, in the admirable first chapter of his se- cond book, on space, time, matter, and motion, also concisely touches the subject of cause and effect. " The mind is intimately conscious of its own activity in reflecting upon its ideas, in examining and arrang- ing them, in forming such as are complex from the * Essay, book iv. eh. 9. 204 DESCARTES. more simple, in reasoning from them, and in its elec- tions and determinations. From this, as well as from the influence of external objects upon the mind, and from the course of nature, it easily acquires the ideas of cause and effect." These sentences diow us the influence of Locke's sober mental philosophy upon the tone of mind prevalent among the thoughtful and scientific about the middle of the last century. Its harmony with the Newtonian physical system of the universe is beautifully developed in Maclaurin's in- estimable volume ; and we remark with pleasure that the ' Principia' of Newton came forth in the same year (1687) in which Locke finished his Essay on the Understanding ; both maintaining that whatever is not deduced from phenomena is to be called an hypo- thesis ; and that hypotheses, whether physical or me- taphysical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in a just philosophy. Again, Descartes' argument for the necessary ex- istence of an eternal, infinite, intelligent First Cause, from the idea of such a being existing in our minds, to which there must be some outward correspondent, may give a slight satisfaction to one who has the idea already established in his mind, and who has been ac- customed to rest upon it, as an indubitable and in- valuable truth. But there is no evidence that it ever produced an impression on one previously inclined to disbelieve the existence of a Supreme Intelligence, whether from the difficulties involved in the concep- tion, or the disproportion between the subject and our DESCARTES. 205 faculties, or the imperfection of the analogy between the human and divine works and designs. It has not been generally resorted to as a stronghold of con- viction, by the firmest and most devout Theists*. * Cud worth, whose 'Intellectual System' is the great treasury of learning on the history of Natural Religion, certainly was disposed to allow its full weight to every argument for the Being of a God. He considered, but he rejected, the new argument of Descartes. " It hath been asserted by a late eminent philosopher, that there is no possible certainty to be had of anything, before we be certain of the existence of a God essentially good ; because we can never otherwise free our minds from the importunity of that suspicion, which, with irresistible force, may assault them ; that ourselves might possibly be made, either by chance or fate, or by the pleasure of some evil demon, or at least of an arbitrary, omnipotent Deity, as that we should be deceived in all our most clear and evident per- ceptions ; and therefore in geometrical theorems themselves, and even in our common notions. But when we are once assured of the existence of such a God as is essentially good, who therefore neither will nor can deceive, then, and not before, will this suspicion utterly vanish, and ourselves become certain that our faculties of reason and understanding are not false and imposturous, but rightly made. From which hypothesis it plainly follows that all those Theists, who suppose God to be a mere arbitrary Being, whose will is not deter- mined by any nature of good, or rule of justice, but itself is the first rule of both (they thinking this to be the highest perfection, liberty, and power), can never be reasonably certain of the truth of anything, not so much as that two and two make four ; because, so long as they adhere to that persuasion, they can never be assured but that such an arbitrary, omnipotent Deity might designedly make them such as should be deceived in all their clearest perceptions. " Now, though there be a plausibility of piety in this doctrine, as making the knowledge of a God essentially good so necessary a 1 prcecognitum* to all other science, that there can be no certainty of truth at all without it ; yet does that very supposition, that our un- derstanding faculties might possibly be so made as to deceive us in all our clearest perceptions (wheresoever it is admitted), render it 206 DESCARTES. Even Cud worth and Clarke assign to all such demon- strations a priori, a negative, rather than positive value. It is also a just observation of Mr. Stewart, that even Descartes' argument, as he has expressed it at the end of his third Meditation, is not entitled to utterly impossible ever to arrive to any certainty concerning the existence of a God essentially good ; forasmuch as this cannot be any otherwise proved than by the use of our faculties of understand- ing, reason, and discourse. For to say that the truth of our under- standing faculties is put out of all doubt and question as soon as ever we are assured of the existence of a God essentially good, who therefore cannot deceive ; whilst this existence of a God is itself no otherwise proved than by our understanding faculties ; that is at once to prove the truth of God's existence from our faculties of rea- son and understanding, and again to prove the truth of those facul- ties from the existence of a God essentially good : this, I say, is plainly to move round in a circle, and to prove nothing at all ; a gross oversight, which the forementioned philosopher seems plainly guilty of. " Wherefore, according to this hypothesis, we are of necessity con- demned to eternal scepticism, both concerning the existence of a God, when, after all our arguments and demonstrations for the same, we must at length gratify the Atheists with this confession in the conclusion, that it is nevertheless possible there may be none ; and also concerning all other things, the certainty whereof is supposed to depend upon the certainty of the existence of such a God as can- not deceive." (Intellectual System, pp. 716, 717, 4to, edited by Birch, 1743.) A very obscure paragraph follows this maintaining that, "as to the universal and abstract theorems of science, the mea- sure and rule of truth concerning them must be native and domestic to the mind;" "that every clear and distinct perception is an en- tity or truth ; that the very essence of truth here is this clear per- ceptibility or intelligibility ; that in false opinions, the perception of the understanding power itself is not false, but only obscure ; that it is not the understanding power or nature in us that erreth, but it is we ourselves who err, -when we rashly and unwarily assent to things not clearly perceived by it." No sentences can prove more DESCARTES. 207 be called a priori, since it is drawn from a certain phenomenon of the human mind, and professes to offer for it an adequate solution. Again, when Descartes makes clear and distinct perception the test of truth, because every such per- clearly than these how much Locke was wanted, to make us aware of the reality of the distinction between ideas, or the bare notions of things in the mind, and propositions relating to these ideas, for the purpose of reasoning and conviction, and of the falseness of the distinction between ourselves when we assent, however rashly, to error, and the understanding nature or power thus supposed to be always true to itself. Cudworth afterwards endeavours to make out an argument or demonstration for the existence of a God, from our idea of him, as including necessary existence in it some other ways ; and he gives us some anticipation of Dr. Clarke's a priori argument, with which, and with Descartes, it may be usefully compared. But he confesses that such argumentation, by reason of its subtlety, can do but little execution, nor had he any opinion of ' demonstration a priori,' as his preface shows. The Eev. F. D. Maurice, in the article on Mental Philosophy, in the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,' intimates that the Platonists of England in the latter part of the eighteenth century, Cudworth, Henry More, John Smith, and Worthington, should rather be called Cartesians, on account of the tendency and character of their specu- lations. But he gives no evidence for this. The foregoing extract shows how much Cudworth was opposed to Descartes upon a main point. The sweet-tempered Henry More, in whom Platonism as- sumes an interesting and captivating form, though an admirer and correspondent of Descartes, was by no means disposed to put him on a level with Plato and Plotinus. In the antidote against Atheism, he declines to rest the being of a Grod upon an argument so frail as that of Descartes, and in his Divine Dialogues, which, though vapid perhaps for our modern taste, have yet many divine passages in them, prelusions of the best parts of Paley's ' Natural Theology,'- speaking of Descartes' rash and frivolous attempt to explain the phenomena of nature and the universe by mechanical principles, as a design never to prove successful, Hylobares, the materialist, asks, 208 DESCARTES. ception has God for its author, and God cannot be a deceiver, at the same time admitting that we are in many things the victims of error, even when we think we have clear evidence, this is either an obvious so- phism, or an arbitrary principle, whose value has never been acknowledged by successors. It has not contri- buted to the solution of any difficulties, nor the settle- ment of any disputes. Yet these are the chief principles of the 'Prima Philosophia/ Upon the whole they have passed into much the same oblivion as the physical principles of the ingenious, but not very candid nor high-minded author. Though candour compels us to acknowledge, and with gratitude, that he rendered most signal ser- vice to psychological philosophy by turning the mental vision inward upon itself, and accustoming us to watch the operations of our intellect, yet " the Cartesian phi- losophy, in one sense/' says Mr. Hallam* excellently well, "carried in itself the seeds of its own decline. It was the Scylla of many dogs ; it taught men to think for themselves, and to think often better than Descartes had done." "Why, where does Cartesius fail?" and lie is answered by Philo- theus, who certainly speaks the sentiments of More, " Nay, rather tell me, where he does not ? " Smith and Worthington have left nothing behind them but some select discourses, those of the latter scarcely remembered. Norris, a name that may be associated with these, though an Oxford man of later times, in his 'Ideal World,' appears as a genuine Platonist, and censures Descartes severely (ch. vi. 3). Descartes does not appear to have had in England any eminent disciple. * History of Literature, vol. iv. p. 206. DESCARTES. 209 The Meditations of Descartes evidently suppose a mind already in an advanced state of culture. Such a mind only can propose the doubts, entertain the ideas, and follow the reasonings, which he treats as if they were the natural and primary conditions of every thinking being. Now of such a mind, long accus- tomed to abstract speculations, and nurtured in the atmosphere of schools, many things are true which could not safely be predicated of the mind of an infant, of the savage, or of the uninstructed, to say nothing of idiots and the half developed. As com- pounds in chemistry, and in the great chemistry of nature, like air and water, have qualities wholly differ- ent from those of the elements of which they are com- posed, and of these elements, as they exist apart, no trace is indicated until after patient and minute ana- lysis, so in the mind, the affections and powers ha- bitual to the full-grown and healthily- developed intel- lectual and moral character, and which have become a second nature, appear to have nothing in common with the elementary sensations and feelings out of which they really arise, and which alone are discerni- ble in the infant, when first it opens its eyes to the light, and begins to make acquaintance with the world and with itself*. * I cannot quit Descartes without fortifying what has been said by the remarks of Leibnitz, who was accused of wishing to build his own reputation upon the ruins of that of M. Descartes. " II est vrai cependant que M. Descartes a use d'artifice, pour profiter des decouvertes d'autres sans leur en vouloir paroitre redevable. II trai- toit d'excellens homines d'une maniere injuste et indigne, lorsqu'ils P 210 GASSENDI S INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. Though the independence and originality of Des- cartes' speculations early attracted the sympathy of Locke, and were much preferred by him to the cloudy utterances of the Aristotelians and schoolmen still in repute and authority when Locke was a stu- dent at Oxford, it does not appear that Descartes suggested to Locke any one of the principles which constitute the vital parts of the Essay on the Human Understanding. Descartes and the Cartesians, if noticed at all by Locke, are noticed unfavourably*. But Gassendi, a name unnoticed in Dr. Reid's In- quiry into the Human Mind, the friend and admirer of Hobbes, carne, as already intimated, much nearer to the views which Locke took of the manner in which lui faisoient ombrage, et il avoit une ambition demesuree pour s'eriger en chef de parti. Mais cela ne diminue point la beaute de ses pensees. Bien loin d'approuver qu'on meprise et qu'on paye d'ingratitude le vrai merite, c'est cela que je blame principalement en M. Descartes, et encore plus en plusieurs de ses sectateurs, dont attaehement mal entendu a un seul auteur, nourrit la prevention, et les empeche de profiter des lumieres de tant d'autres. J'ai cou- tume de dire que la Philosophic Cartesienne est comme ranticham- bre de la verite, et qu'il est difficile de penetrer bien avant, sans avoir passe par-la : mais on se prive de la veritable connoissance du fond des choses, quand on s'y arrete." Leibnitii Opera, Erdmanns edition, p. 142. * See particularly b. iii. c. 4. 9, 10 ; b. iv. c. 7. 12, 13 ; and second reply to Bishop of Worcester, p. 755. The names of Gas- sendi and Bernier, having been mentioned by Stillingfleet, are in- troduced in Locke's second reply to the bishop, but without a hint of his personal acquaintance with the latter, or of any attachment to the writings of the former. GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. 211 the understanding comes to be furnished with those ideas it has, and even anticipated Locke in his great division of the two sources of knowledge, sensation and reflection; at least the division follows naturally from what Gassendi had laid down, though it be not anywhere expressly made with the simplicity and clear- ness of his successor. Gassendi was, I conceive, the true intellectual parent of Locke ; that Leibnitz was of this opinion seems evident from the first page of his 'Nouveaux Essais sur rEntendement Humain;' but it is a question, difficult of solution, to what ex- tent Locke was sensible of the parentage and his obli- gations, or when and where he studied the writings of Gassendi, and made acquaintance with his philosophy. Some regret may reasonably be felt at the slight- ness of the information which can now be recovered, respecting Locke's early studies*. He had read * The life by the late Lord King adds little to what was known of him previously in this respect. It wants the care and complete- ness of a good literary and philosophical biography. It might have been enriched by many extracts from the correspondence of Locke with Molyneux, Limborch, and others, first published in 1706, and appended to Law's quarto edition, the only good one. It even omits some important facts, mentioned by Le Clerc, in the Life which is the foundation of Law's, such as the times when he took his degrees at Oxford. The whole of Le Clerc's life of Locke should have been given with additional notes, and especially its beautiful conclusion, only a part of which is taanslated. Yet we must be thankful for the extracts from the journals, notes, and adversaria of Locke, never before printed ; and accept the life as, upon the whole, an appropri- ate tribute from an honourable descendant of a branch of his family, to the memory of a great and justly -revered ancestor. The sweet account of Locke's last hours and death was doubtless communicated p 2 212 GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. much more than can be traced, for he never makes any display of learning. Like Bacon, like Hobbes, like Descartes, he made his own, whatever he had learnt and believed on the subjects of his special in- vestigation. His early residence at Oxford and in the neighbourhood, his journeys thither to consult the libraries, his occasional allusions to the best and most curious books of his day, to the pursuits of naturalists and the discoveries of travellers, and his intimacy with the most distinguished, learned, and scientific of his contemporaries, render it certain that no important source of information was overlooked by him ; and it is manifest that Gassendi, after Hobbes, though per- haps in a manner forgotten by himself, had smoothed the way for the conclusions relating to the mind, which make the chief figure in the second book of the Essay. No part of Stewart's Dissertation* is less satisfac- tory than that which relates to Gassendi. He attri- butes to him the opinion "that there is not a single object of the understanding, which may not be ulti- mately analysed into sensible images, and, of conse- quence, that when Descartes proposed to abstract from these images in studying the mind, he (Gassendi) re- to Le Clerc by Lady Masham, the author of the first life of Locke in the ' General Historical Dictionary,' which life may have been the foundation of the careful but not too favourable biography which we have in the ' Biographia Britannica.' We learn this from a pleasing account of Lady Masham in a scarce book, 'Ballard's Lives of Illustrious Ladies of England.' * See pp. 70-74. GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. 213 jected the only materials out of which it is possible for our faculties to rear any superstructure." He pro- fesses to use Gassendi' s own language, but without reference, in the words that " there is no real distinc- tion between imagination and intellection." And again he asserts " that the main scope of Gassendi's argument against Descartes is to materialize that class of our ideas which the Lockists as well as the Carte- sians consider as the exclusive objects of the power of reflection ; and to show that these ideas are all ulti- mately resolvable into images or conceptions borrowed from things external. It is not therefore what is sound and valuable in this part of Locke's system, but the errors grafted on it in the comments of some of his followers, that can justly be said to have been borrowed from Gassendi. Nor has Gassendi the merit of originality, even in these errors ; for scarcely a remark on the subject occurs in his works but what is copied from the accounts transmitted to us of the Epicurean metaphysics." This is wholly unfounded. Mr. Stewart was un- acquainted with Bender's abridgment of Gassendi; and could not have been a diligent reader of the works in folio, or these very serious misrepresenta- tions, which have not escaped the just animadversion of Mr. Hallam*, could not have been made. It appears that Locke was resident in and about Amsterdam in 1680, and for some years after. The Revolution of 1688 enabled him to return with satis- * History of Literature, vol. iv. p. 199. 214 GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. faction to his country, which then, and greatly by his aid, redeemed itself from its disgrace, and escaped the greatest of calamities. Holland was at that time in a remarkable degree the country of free thought, deep learning, and ardent literature. At Amsterdam the ' Meditations' of Descartes and the comments of Gas- sen di and his allies had been published as early as 1 644 ; and Locke was intimate with all those scholars in Prance and on the continent, to whom the contro- versy between Descartes and his antagonists was likely to be familiar. We find from the Journal, portions of which are printed in Lord King's Life*, that when in Paris in the year 1677, Locke was very intimate with Monsieur Bernier, who must have been busy about that time with his abridgment of the * Philosophy' of Gassendi, published at Lyons in 1678. Although the conversations noted in the Journal turned only upon the travels in the East, by Bernier, of which sort of books Locke was particularly fond; yet it is natural to suppose that they discussed fully and freely the metaphysical questions, in which both were so deeply interested and engaged. Before this, when at Lyons in 1676, Locke mentions an interview with a Mr. Charlton ; and this was probably some relation of the Dr. Walter Charlton f, eminent in London as a physi- * Vol. i. p. 136. t Among the Birch MSS. relating to Locke, in the British Museum, there is a letter to one William Charleton, dated 1687. Walter Charlton was physician to Charles I., and the author of several publications. He printed, in 1670, ' Epicurus' Morals,' col- lected out of his own Greek text in Diogenes Laertius, prefixing an TOT GASSENDI'S INFLUENCE UPON LOCJ cian, who published ' Enquiries into Human Nature' chiefly anatomical, and an account of the ' Philoso- phy' of Gassendi. That Gassendi's name and works were in high esteem in England, at least among the deeper students and freest thinkers, before and about Locke's time, is evident from the manner in which he is noticed by the eminent Robert Boyle, in which Jo- seph Glanvil * often speaks of him, and from the pub- lications of Walter Charlton. The plan of Locke's Essay was indeed formed as early as 1770, and a sketch of it was then made, so that it could hardly have been from Bernier's abridgment that he acquired such knowledge of Gassendi's * Philosophy' as he may have had. But a few passages from the sixth volume of that abridgment will show how completely Locke harmonized with Gassendi, and how nearly he was apology for Epicurus, as to Ms three capital offences : first, that he held the souls of men are mortal ; secondly, that man is not obliged to worship God from hope of good or fear of evil, but rather on account of his transcendent excellency, beatitude, and immorta- lity ; thirdly, that self-homicide may be an act of heroic fortitude in cases of intolerable calamity. He also published, in 1654, a small folio, entitled " Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana ; or a fabric of science natural upon the hypothesis of atoms : founded by Epicurus, repaired by Petrus G-assendus, augmented by "W. Charl- ton." This work must be very rare, the only copy I could find being in the library of Sion College. * See Glanvil's Essay on ' Scepticism and Certainty,' pp. 38, 39, (1676), where he praises the renowned Gassendi, as a philosopher with whom he (Glanvil) is not fit to be named, and defends him from the charge of reviving a deadly scepticism. Also Life of the Hon. R. Boyle, by Birch, p. 80, where, in a letter to Hartlib, the friend of Milton, he calls Gassendus " a great favourite." 216 GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. anticipated in that great division of the two sources of our ideas, which has been generally supposed to be Locke's own. Gassendi was for his day, an excellent anatomist, physiologist, and astronomer. His analytical remarks on the senses, the organs, the brain, the nerves, and on the ideas imparted to the mind through them, and thence deposited in the memory and the imagination, are acute, profound, instructive. He passes in the fourth book to discuss the understanding or reason- able soul; and the titles of the chapters, the very first words, convict Mr. Stewart of great misapprehension. " The first proof that the understanding is not ma- terial," says Gassendi, " is drawn from certain exer- tions of that faculty, which are evidently different from those of the imagination ; and we expressly commence this Treatise with this remark, in order to remove a prejudice which may be held, that the understanding is not a faculty distinct from the fancy or imaginative power, and that there is no difference between them but of more or less. But I maintain that we raise ourselves by reasoning to a knowledge of that which we cannot imagine, of which we can have no image nor appearance present to the mind, whatever efforts we may make, and that thus there is in us a species of intellection which is not imagination" After adducing as examples the conclusions which, by astronomical science, we are led to form concern- ing the sizes and relations of the heavenly bodies, he adds, " It is true that the understanding avails itself GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. 217 of the image of fancy, as of certain steps, to arrive by reasoning at a knowledge of things, which it under- stands afterwards without appearances or phantasms, but it is in order to lift itself thereby above every material form, and to know effectively something of which it has no phantasm ; and this it is which marks as immateriality." He finds a second reason for its immateriality in those reflex actions, by which the understanding knows itself and its functions : "La seconde raison se prend des actions reflexes, par les- quelles I'entendement se connoit soi-mesme, et ses fonctions, et connoit specialement qu'il connoit ou en- tend : car cela est au-dessus de toute faculte corpo- relle, d'autant que ce qui est corporel ne scauroit se mouvoir vers soi-mesme qui soit different de lui. Et c'est la la cause de cet axiome, ' que rien riagit sur soi-mesme;' ce qui semble quelquefois agir sur soi n'etant jamais absolument le mesme, mais seulement une partie qui agit sur Fautre, comme lorsque la main frappe la cuisse, ou que Fextremite du doigt frappe le dedans de la main ; car du reste Fextremite du doigt ne peut pas agir sur elle-rnesrne*." As a third rea- son he gives the power of forming universal notions and of comprehending the nature of universality ; "for as it is the nature of universals to be abstract or de- spoiled of all material conditions and individual dif- ferences, such as greatness, figure, colour, etc., it is certain that the understanding which considers this abstraction is itself disengaged from matter, and of * Vol. vi. p. 345. 218 GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. a nature more eminent than anything material;" as a fourth, the consideration that if the understanding were corporeal, it would never have recognized, as it does, nor supposed, any incorporeal nature ; and a fifth from the Will, which raises itself to honourable good, which disdains a good merely sensible and cor- poreal, and is above all appetites attached merely to matter. He adds, as a sixth consideration in support of the immateriality of the mind, the disproportion and dif- ference between the attributes or properties of matter and those of the understanding. " Granting that matter be reduced into atoms, or if you will, into particles, small, hard, or soft as you please, however small, subtle, and fine they may be, they will never be found capable but of three proper- ties, figure, solidity, or local movement, whence spring those other properties marked by these two verses : ' Intervalla, vise, convexus, pondera, plagse, Concursus, motus, ordo, positura, figurse;' that is to say, a certain concourse, order, and arrange- ment, a certain disposition of movements, separations, impulses, reflexes, etc. ; and the human mind will never conceive them capable of anything else, " This being so, I ask, if we can discern any relation or proportion between these properties, and the excel- lence of the operations of an understanding ; or if it is possible that certain small bodies, very imperfect, and which have as the appendage of their nature no- thing but to be figured, round, square, pyramidal, GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. 219 etc., solid, hard, and impenetrable, and to be capable of passing from one place to another, whether these have any relation to what we call thought, knowledge, meditation, reasoning, self-reflection. Never will you persuade me that when we contemplate the infinite extension of this universe, and thence see the absolute necessity of admitting some Eternal Being, God, or first principles, or both; when we inquire what are the first principles of things, or what we are ourselves, and the nature of our understanding, whether it be a substance corporeal or incorporeal ; when we remem- ber the past, consider the present, and anticipate the future ; when by a long chain of propositions, which we view as a whole, we thence arrive at demonstra- tions which have in them something of divinity ; when we converse one with another ; when we dispute, rea- son, and reflect on our reasonings ; never, I say, will you persuade me that in these lofty moods of mind, these inward efforts, these profound meditations, there is nothing within us but certain mixtures of small bodies, and that all this takes place only by means of shocks and counter- shocks, meetings and separations of these same small atoms, destitute of all feeling and all intelligence." He concludes his first chapter with discussing the probability of a substantial difference between the sensitive and the reasonable soul, and the impossibi- lity of fixing the seat, and even comprehending the nature, of pure intellection. In the second chapter he argues in favour of the 220 GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. immortality of the human understanding, from the general consent of mankind in the belief of it, from the universality of the desire, and from the just go- vernment of God ; he examines objections, and justly censures the opinion of Descartes as a very strange foundation for a Christian verity that brutes do not feel, and are only machines. In the subsequent chap- ters he discusses the functions, habitudes, and perfec- tions of the understanding, in what respects it is dif- ferent from the senses, how it arrives at the know- ledge of universals, which knowledge or science is particularly the business of the intellect, and which (viz. universals) are much more easy of definition than individuals whose specific differences are not easily discerned and described. But Gassendi was a devoted admirer of Epicurus, and Mr. Stewart condemns him for servility in his at- tachment to that ancient. Weakness ^there may be in the excessive admiration of an unworthy object ; but servility, which is the being servant to another, and compliance with his will through fear or base- ness, there can hardly be. Attachment to the me- mory or the principles of a departed worthy may be misplaced, but there can be nothing servile in what is purely disinterested and sincere. The sty of Epicurus is in very bad repute ; but there is more affectation of delicacy than real discernment in the shock which the imagination of it gives to the nervous system. The Apostle Paul encountered at Athens certain of the Epicureans and Stoics ; but we have not been fa- GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. 221 voured with means of judging to which party his sympathies leaned. If the Stoic aimed merely at in- sensibility to pain as the perfection of his being, this is evidently but the perfection of a stone, hardly that of the sloth. The nature of every man decides in favour of a state of positive pleasure. The pleasures of Epicurus, however, were by no means sensual. His habits were simple; his life was pure; his plea- sures were those of friendship, conversation, and phi- losophy. He seems to have erred by placing happi- ness too much in indolence of body and mere tran- quillity of mind. Labour and exertion he regarded as among the worst of evils. He dreaded the excite- ment so often coveted. He did not perceive that the highest enjoyment results from the energetic pursuit of worthy objects. Therefore he exempted the gods from interest in human affairs ; and the evils of hu- man life appeared to him a valid objection to the doctrine of a Providence, as occasioning pain to con- template and trouble to remove them. But the utili- tarian philosopher, whether of Hartley's, Paley's, or Benthain's school, who believes happiness the end alike of the Divine government and self-government, of human laws and of private ethics, must sympathize with Epicurus, and value especially his two last princi- ples, " that all pleasure, which either hinders a greater pleasure, or procures a greater pain, ought to be the object of our aversion ; and that all pain that dispels a greater pain, or makes way for a greater pleasure, ought to be coveted." Whoever compares the philo- 222 GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. sophy, physical or moral, of Zeno and Epicurus, in the accounts left us by Diogenes Laertius*, the chief authority, will see reason to prefer the latter, as pos- sessing more distinctness and more consistency, more truth, simplicity, and exactness in terms and defini- tions, more of what Lucretius calls naturae species, ratioque ; and will sympathize in the enthusiasm of the poet, when he breaks out " Te sequor, 6 Graise gentis decus ! inque tuis mine Ficta pedum pono pressis vestigia signis. Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia limant, Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta, Aurea, perpetua semper dignissima vita." Lucretius, lib. iii. Without injustice to the proud virtues of the stoical wise man, we may, with Gassendi, with Charlton, and perhaps Glanvil, assign to Epicurus that superior discernment in the elements of morals, which Bacon and Newton certainly allotted to him in the depart- ment of physics. "The purest religion is the most refined Epicurism," said Lavater, in those aphorisms admired in the last century : " he who in the smallest given time can enjoy most of what he never shall re- pent, and what furnishes enjoyments still more unex- * The edition of Diogenes Laertius, in two volumes, Amsterdam, 1692, professedly edited by Meibomius, but whose value appears greatly owing to the Dutch printer, Henry Wetstein, is one of those beautiful books which, like the edition of the Greek Testament, about half a century later, by John James Wetstein, with its in- valuable prolegomena, fills us with astonishment at the learning, industry, and taste of the scholars of a former age. GASSENDl's INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. 223 hausted, still less changeable, is the most religious and the most voluptuous of men." The pious Doddridge expresses the same idea in the well-known lines " Live, while you live ! the Epicure may say, And give to pleasure e'en the longest day. Live, while you live ! the Christian also cries, And give to God each moment as it flies. Lord, in my view let both united be, I live to pleasure, while I live to Thee." The association of ah 1 duty and labour with perma- nent happiness, cannot be too early, nor too strongly impressed upon the mind, as the real foundation and true safeguard of virtuous habit, the principle and centre to which all morality and religion gravitate, embracing alike the law of nature and of nations, the civil law and the Divine law, the interest of the indi- vidual and of the race. We trace the incipient appre- ciation of this principle in the Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle, no less than in the promising investigations of Epicurus ; but the full development of it is one of the great triumphs of modern mental and moral sci- ence. Humboldt has beautifully observed, that it was only after the promulgation of Christianity that a true perception of the grandeur and beauty of natural sce- nery, a feeling for the harmony and loveliness of nature, manifested itself in oratory and poetry, and became an element of pure devotion. To the same source of influence may doubtless be attributed that fuller de- velopment of the established connection between the Divine will and human happiness, between the secu- rity of individual and the pursuit of social good, which 224 GASSENDI'S INFLUENCE UPON LOCKE. shines out with dazzling splendour in the Theodicy and optimism of Leibnitz, and in Hartley's rule of life. But with Gassendi's Epicureanism, be its worth or weakness what it may, Locke had nothing to do. He has made no allusion to it, nor are we concerned with it, except in so far as without some notice our esti- mate of Gassendi would be incomplete. We have now seen that sensation, and the reflex acts of the mind upon itself, were principal subjects of Gassendi's attention in considering the human frame and consti- tution. Yet it cannot be said that he laid down the two sources of all our knowledge with anything like the distinctness of his great successor, whose simple statement has enabled us to speak with comparative precision of the world or qualities of matter, on the one hand, and of the powers and affections peculiar to the mind, upon the other. In reading Gassendi, as in the study of the ancients generally, we appre- ciate him better by the light of knowledge which we bring to interpret the expression. The rays of all in- telligence shine brighter, whatever stars are out in our hemisphere, in proportion as the atmosphere of the observer is free from cloud, and the organ of vision itself is pure and strong. Gassendi was the friend and warm admirer of Hobbes, and Hobbes is considered pre-eminently a sensationalist. But before I touch this line of mental genealogy, I shall revert to the true nature and in- trinsic merits of Locke's first book on innate ideas. 225 LOCKE'S FIRST BOOK ON INNATE IDEAS DEFENDED. Those who talk of the deep moral instincts and the "a priori intuitions" of our nature, in so far as by this language they imply that antecedently to obser- vation and reflection, and independently of thought and instruction, the human mind is in possession of certain fundamental truths, axioms, principles, or feel- ings, whose value is to be assumed rather than weighed, which evaporate rather than become condensed and solid under any process of logical analysis, cannot ad- mit that Locke has demonstrated the non-existence of innate ideas. Yet the demonstration is very simple. Our ideas are either simple or complex. Into these two classes they have been divided, and the division is intelligible and useful ; and may be regarded as complete, till a more inteUigible and useful be sug- gested. Now, if we have not a simple idea of sensa- tion, not the idea of a single object of nature, nor of any quality of matter, before we have been affected from without by an object imparting such sensation ; if the ideas of colours, of sounds, tastes, smells, sup- pose senses, and impressions on the senses, without which the ideas would not exist ; if extension, motion, hardness, softness, solidity, liquidity, squareness, roundness, are terms significant of many impres- sions on the senses, and imply the existence of bodies moved, extended, square, round, etc., bodies having the qualities and imparting the ideas to which we give these names ; a fortiori, we cannot have any innate Q 226 DEFENCE OF LOCKE'S complex idea, such as of drunkenness, theft, matri- mony, diplomacy, war, and all the ideas of social and moral relation, ideas of government and law, all which Locke calls mixed modes ; fox every complex idea will be found to imply the previous existence of many sensations, of the relation of sensations and feelings to each other, and to mental states, that is, to per- cipient and sensitive natures. And what term is there significant of a mental state or mental power, which does not imply the previous existence of a vast sphere of sensation, observation, and experience ? In such a sphere, memory, comparison, reflection, desire, will, choice, imagination, anticipation, and so on, find the occasions of their exercise, life its school of disci- pline, and the intellectual faculties their soil of growth or of decay. And although the combination of sim- ple ideas, and the perception of their relation to one another and to mental states, to all the wants and con- ditions of humanity, be the act and property of the mind itself, no complex idea can be considered innate which is resolvable into simple ideas admitted to come by way of sensation from without, and to which the previous existence of the simple ideas is essential. There is another consideration, or another mode of putting the argument. Is it true that all our ideas relate either to the properties of matter, or properties of mind ? that we cannot conceive of any subject of thought not comprised within one or other of these two classes ? that these comprise the ego and non ego y the moi and non-moi, as some now express it, but with FIRST BOOK ON INNATE IDEAS. 227 less of useful distinction and preciseness ? God, na- ture, and man, or the mind, complete, according to Bacon, the circle of the sciences. Now, of the pro- perties of matter no one would pretend any know- ledge or idea without sensation. To be the subject of sensation, to have a sensation, is the first act or condition of the percipient created mind, the first phe- nomenon of consciousness. But perception or per- cipiency cannot be conceived to exist without some- thing perceptible existing without or independently ; for even the relations of truth, a perception of the harmony or disagreement of ideas, in so far as ideas are regarded as separate entities, may be viewed as something independent of the mind perceiving those relations and that harmony. Even the percipiency of the Divine mind is not conceivable, and the terms expressive of the Divine attributes are without mean- ing, except as they have relation to an outward sen- sible universe, that is, a universe occupied by beings whose relations to each other are totally different from those which they bear to the Creator, which relations are the subject of distinct consideration and know- ledge. No power is conceivable without a sphere in which it is exercised, without things or beings acted upon ; no goodness without beings to whom good is done ; no wisdom without something to know or be known. Much more do the various properties and faculties of the human mind, such as memory and will, judgment, classification, and abstraction, appetite or aversion, suppose an external world to furnish sub- 228 DEFENCE or LOCKE'S jects for memory and choice, materials for mental ex- ercise and moral discipline, pleasures to desire, or pains to avoid. There is yet a third consideration. Of the ideas existing in different minds, there is no possibility of ascertaining that they have any resemblance to each other, any common origin, but in one of two ways, either by referring them to some outward object or source, marked by a common name, which, in the case of ideas of sensation, is obvious, and for which usage of common names provision is made by the uniformity of nature, and of the sensible impressions ab extra ; or by denning the terms significant of com- plex . ideas, that is, resolving them into the more sim- ple elements, which definition and resolution will be found also to rest in the end upon the association of some uniform impressions ab extra, or upon certain feelings of pleasure or pain peculiar to the human frame, and common to beings similarly framed. This will be more clear when we come to consider what terms are, and what are not, susceptible of definition. These are not exactly Locke's modes of attacking the existence of innate ideas ; but they flow rather from the positions which he has established, and from the theory of the mind which he has developed. He contends chiefly against the supposed existence of in- nate principles and maxims. He maintains that they are unnecessary; that the mind arrives at them by degrees ; that there is no evidence that the minds of infants and savages are furnished even with the sim- FIRST BOOK ON INNATE IDEAS. 229 plest, still less with such as imply complex moral re- lations ; that the supposition is gratuitous, and the hasty resort of indolence, as Leibnitz would have ex- pressed it, a " sophisme paresseu|Ji It was enough for him to show that every principle and every maxim implied a knowledge of objects, and a perception of the relation of objects and beings to one another, which could not exist but in a mind furnished by a world of sensation ab extra. It has not been much observed, I think, that there was one English writer of the greatest eminence be- fore Locke's time, who quite agreed in the opinion that the human mind is at first wholly unfurnished with knowledge and ideas, a writer never suspected of any tendency to scepticism, and one of the greatest ornaments of the English church, "a man of deep thoughts," as Locke calls him, namely, the learned and judicious Hooker. " The soul of man being therefore at the first as a book wherein nothing is, and yet all things may be im- printed, we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto perfection of knowledge ... as stones, though in dignity of nature inferior unto plants, yet exceed them in firmness of strength, or durability of being; and plants, though beneath the excellency of creatures endued with sense, yet exceed them in the faculty of vegetation and of fertility ; so beasts, though otherwise behind men, may notwithstanding in actions of sense and fancy go beyond them, be- cause the endeavours of nature, when it hath an 230 DEFENCE OF LOCKED higher perfection to seek, are in lower the more re- miss, not esteeming thereof so much as those things do, which have no better end proposed unto them. The soul of man therefore . being capable of more divine perfection, hath (besides the faculties of grow- ing unto sensible knowledge, which is common unto us with beasts) a further ability, whereof in them there is no show at all, the ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Till we grow to some ripeness of years, the soul of man doth only store itself with conceits of things of more open and in- ferior quality, which afterwards do serve as instru- ments unto that which is greater ; in the meanwhile, above the reach of meaner creatures it ascendeth not : when once it comprehendeth anything above this, as the differences of time, affirmations, negations, and contradiction in speech, we then count it to have some use of natural reason. Whereunto, if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true art and learn- ing (which helps, I must confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know, nor greatly regard), there would undoubtedly be almost as great a difference in maturity of judg- ment between men therewith inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now, and in- nocents, which speech, if any condemn as hyperbolical, let them consider but this one thing : no art is at the first finding out so perfect as industry may after make it ; yet the very first man \_he alludes to Aristotle] that to any purpose- knew the way we speak of, and fol- FIRST BOOK ON INNATE IDEAS. 231 lowed it, hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of natural knowledge, than sithence in any one part the whole world besides hath done. In the poverty of that other new devised aid two things there are, notwithstanding, singular. Of marvellous quick despatch it is, and doth show them that have it as much almost in three days, as if it had dwelt three- score years with them. Again, because the curiosity of man's wit doth many times with peril wade farther in the search of things than were convenient, the same is thereby restrained unto such generalities as, every- where offering themselves, are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be ; so as, following the rules and precepts thereof, we may find it to be an art which teacheth the way of speedy discourse, and restraineth the mind of man, that it may not wax overwise. Education and instruction are the means, the one by use, the other by precept, to make our na- tural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and evil. But at what time a man may be said so far forth to have attained the use of reason, as suffi- ceth to make him capable of those laws, whereby he is then bound to guide his actions; this is a great deal more easy for common sense to discern, than for any man by skill and learning to determine ; even as it is not in philosophers, who best know the nature both of fire and gold, to teach what degree of the one will serve to purify the other, so well as the artisan (which doth this by fire) discerneth by sense when 232 HENRY MORE. the fire hath that degree of heat which sufficeth for his purpose*." What argument in favour of innate ideas, and of instinctive intellectual and moral sentiments, can out- weigh these considerations? But comments, objec- tions, difficulties, cavils, have been thrown out, and continue to be thrown out, on the opposite side. A language is still prevalent, implying that these consi- derations are not convincing. They are either not understood or they are purposely disregarded. Two writers of Locke's own time, one, Henry More, the Platonist, considerably earlier in the philosophical field, the other, Leibnitz, somewhat later, demand particular notice, not so much on account of the emi- nence of their names, or the weight of their argu- ments, as because little or nothing has been added by subsequent writers to their statements and views upon the subject. In More's 'Antidote against Atheism f/ there will be found sundry considerations, designed to show that the mind of man is not abrasa tabula, but has actual knowledge of her own. He maintains that the mind * Hooker's 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' book i. 6. A portion of this passage is quoted by Locke, but for a different purpose (Essay, b. iv. c. 17. 7). The high praise of Aristotle, the allusion to the vain verbiage of Hamus, as the new devised aid, and the whole cha- racter of the passage, are very remarkable. The first four books of the Eccl. Polity were printed as early as 1594. f It was printed as early as 1653, and forms the first work in the collection of his philosophical writings, published in one volume folio, in 1712 ; see particularly the fifth and sixth chapters. More died September 1, 1687. HENRY MORE. 233 of man, exercised in the close observation of its own operations, cannot but discover that there is an active and actual knowledge in a man, of which outward ob- jects are rather the reminders than the first begetters or implanters ; by which he understands, riot ideas flaring like so many torches before the animadversive faculty, but an active sagacity, or quick recollection, whereby, some small business being hinted, she runs out presently into a more clear and larger conception. He compares the condition of the soul to that of a skilful musician fallen asleep upon the grass, who, not dreaming of his musical faculty, being suddenly jogged and wakened by a friend, and desired to sing, forthwith exhibits his plentiful stores of melody and harmony. He begins with saying that the soul takes first occasion of thinking from external objects, and that this has imposed upon some men's judgments, they not warily enough distinguishing between ex- trinsical occasions, and adequate or principal causes of things. In the sixth chapter he contends that the soul, on the exhibition of a circle to it, acknowledges forthwith that if it be perfect, all the lines from a point within to the perimeter must be exactly equal ; and so of a triangle, that if it be the right figure, the angles must be closed in indivisible points ; and because accuracy in a circle or triangle cannot be set out in any mate- rial subject, therefore the soul hath in herself a more exquisite knowledge than matter can lay open before her ; that there are a multitude of relative notions or 234 HENRY MORE. ideas which, not being impresses of any material ob- ject, are the natural furniture of the human under- standing : such are cause and effect, whole and part, like and unlike, equality and inequality, proportion and analogy ; these, not being sensible or physical af- fections of matter, are active conceptions proceeding from the soul herself. But he destroys the ground of his own argument, by suggesting that if in a room of like sides, one side be altered, and another not, the one not altered hath the notion of dissimilitude be- longing to it ; and if, of two pounds of lead, the half of one be taken, the other hath lost its notion of equal, and acquired a new one of double the other. He is so simple as not to perceive that the notions are only in the mind, and that without the previous external alteration the notions could not exist. He goes on to say that one and the same part of matter is capable of two contrary ideas, (meaning, of giving occasion to contrary ideas,) adding, that " ideas are no affections of matter, and therefore do not affect our senses ;" and here he has no meaning, for who ever maintained that ideas do affect the senses? and he could hardly mean that material objects do not affect them. He concludes that, having proved certain single ideas to be in the mind, several complex no- tions are also there, such as that the whole is bigger than the part ; if you take equal from equal, the re- mainders are equal ; every number is either even or odd, which are true to the soul at the very first pro- posal, as any one in his wits does plainly perceive. HENRY MORE. 235 But the question is not as to the existence of single ideas and complex notions in the mind, but how they come there, and ivhcn they first appear. To the student of Locke, these notions and asser- tions respecting the innate truths of the mind, or ac- tive conceptions proceeding from the soul herself, are scarcely worth repeating : but the advocate of innate ideas, the Platonist and Cartesian, must be allowed to have fair play, and speak for himself. With more learning than Locke, Henry More had not less the love of truth, nor less purity of design ; he was looked upon by Dr. Outram as the holiest person upon the earth. But he wanted Locke's strong, determinate, practical sense. He had early muddled himself with Platonism : he mistook the colours of that cloud for the pure light of heaven. An enthusiastic lover of reason and philosophy in the abstract, he knew not the nature and value of its only tools, definite terms. He is scarcely less remarkable than Cudworth for barbarous and obsolete expressions, such as incompos- sibility, self-essentiated, hylopathy, idiopathy. His pages may be looked into by the curious, and are full of matter to gratify the curious ; but he deserves to be remembered chiefly as a poet, whose childhood was nourished on the divine morality and fancy of Spen- ser's Faery Queene, and whose Platonism is most agreeable when tuned to the music of the Spenserian verse. He was one of the starry lights, gleaming through the mist, whom Locke's rise above the hori- zon caused to " pale their ineffectual fires." 236 HENRY MORE. In the expression that external objects furnish but the first occasion of thinking, and only stir up the soul to a sort of consciousness of the conceptions already existing within herself, More has anticipated what Leibnitz and Stewart, Cousin and others, have said in contradiction or modification of the opinion that the mind is originally without ideas, and begins to entertain them by the first impressions on the senses from without. This is a matter worthy of some consideration. Mr. D. Stewart, in his ' Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind/ enlarges on the question of the origin of our knowledge, reducing it to one of fact : " Concerning the occasions on which the mind is led to form those simple notions, into which our thoughts may be analysed, and which may be considered as the principles or elements of human knowledge*." At- taching great importance to Dr. Reid's inquiries con- cerning the history of our notions of extension and figure, and suggesting that similar inquiries may be proposed concerning the occasions on which we form the notions of time, of motion, of number, of causa- tion, and an infinite variety of others, Stewart ven- tures to affirm, "that the mind cannot, without the grossest absurdity, be considered in the light of a re- ceptacle, which is gradually furnished from without, nor in that of a tabula rasa, upon which copies or re- semblances of things external are imprinted." And he goes on to say, " That those ideas, which Mr. Locke * Stewart's Elements, p. 96, edit. 1802. HENRY MORE. 237 calls ideas of reflection (or, in other words, the notions which we form of the subjects of our own conscious- ness), are not suggested to the mind immediately by the sensations arising from the use of our organs of perception, is granted on all hands, and therefore, the amount of the doctrine now mentioned, is nothing more than this, that the first occasions on which our various intellectual faculties are exercised, are fur- nished by fhe impressions made on our organs of sense ; and consequently, that without these impres- sions, it would have been impossible for us to arrive at the knowledge of our faculties. Agreeably to this explanation of the doctrine, it may undoubtedly be said with plausibility (and I am inclined to believe with truth) that the occasions on which all our notions are formed, are furnished either immediately or ultimately by sense ; but if I am not much mistaken, this is not the meaning which is commonly annexed to the doc- trine, either by its advocates or their opponents." But this is a very poor way of philosophizing, first to call Mr. Locke's doctrine a gross absurdity, and then to admit everything which Mr. Locke asserts, without condescending to quote his exact expressions. The whole question turns on the value of the phrase, " furnishing the occasion." Would Mr. Locke have objected to it ? You admit that a child is unfurnished with ideas of colours, tastes, smells, and so on, with- out an impression from without ; that by an impres- sion on the organs of sense, the ideas of sensation, properly so called, are furnished, or that the presence 238 HENRY MORE. of something external furnishes the occasion for the idea. Would the idea be there without the impres- sion or occasion ? The follower of Locke believes that it would not. Is it meant that the idea is in the mind before the occasion, or that the occasion awakens what Henry More says was only asleep? The fol- lower of Locke believes such an opinion wholly un- founded. Wordsworth, in the beautiful ode on the intimations of Immortality, may say : " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar : Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come Prom God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy !" And this may be delicious as poetry, where we assume what we please, and please by assuming. But philo- sophy assumes nothing, and humbly waits on nature and on fact, "naturae interpres et minister." It is hardly conceivable that an intelligent person, with the first chapter of Locke's second book open before him, can satisfy himself that, by substituting the word " occasion' for the word " origin" he approaches nearer to the philosophy of the mind ; that he alters or modifies the truth of Locke's statements ; that he throws any light whatever upon the sources of our ideas, as comprehended by observation and experience, and coming from sensation and reflection*. * Whoever would inquire into the value of these terms, occasion LEIBNITZ. 239 If any man could have shaken the credit of Locke's 'Essay on the Understanding/ could have modified the main conclusions which the Essay tended to esta- blish, or thrown new and important light upon the and origin, and see whether the use of the former contributes to any important modification of Locke's views, will do well to read care- fully that portion of Bowen's Essays, pp. 50, 51, where, in a paper on Kant and his philosophy, he supposes " something (quaere, what ?) added by the mind to sensible impressions, originally, instinctively, and wholly unlike any quality existing in the outward thing," and also the criticism on Locke by Mr. J. D. Morell, vol. i. pp. 99-102. The latter writer says, " Where Locke found a difficulty in showing the direct dependence of any idea upon experience, he soon disco- vered the means of showing its indirect dependence upon it ; and having done this, he incorrectly concluded that the whole of our knowledge could be derived from this one source. We owe it mainly to Kant, that this fallacy has been thoroughly probed and refuted. In the very first paragraph of his great work (' The Cri- tique of Pure Reason') he points us to experience as the occasion of every possible conception, which the mind forms ; but proves after- wards, most convincingly, that the true cause of many of our con- ceptions is to be found solely in the original constitution of the un- derstanding or of the reason." And thus Locke is to be deposed, and Kant enthroned! The truth is, that Locke would have ad- mitted not only that many, but that all " our conceptions have their cause in the original constitution of the understanding or of the rea- son." But to say that conceptions have their cause in the original constitution of the mind, is nothing to the purpose in determining the real nature of a particular part of that constitution. My im- pression is, that Kant never condescended to quote correctly a single statement of Locke, and the whole is of a piece with Cousin's unpar- donable misrepresentations, when, in the second lesson of his * Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophic Morale' (1839, pp. 82, 83), he makes Locke say that " sensation is the source of all our ideas," and asks, " Is the mind, before experience, void of every faculty, of all intel- lectual virtualite?" as if Locke denied this, as if he had not as- serted an original capacity for knowing whatever could be known, 240 LEIBNITZ. subjects which it discussed, that man was Leibnitz. The extent of his attainments, the freedom and bold- ness of his speculations, the penetration, the ardour, the activity, the comprehensiyeness of his intellect, his untiring labour, his love of truth and knowledge, all these eminent qualities (dashed a little by too much self-confidence, too great ambition of distinction, ori- ginality, and display) enabled him to follow Locke's course with every possible advantage. As a sharp- shooter in ambush, watching from a height the course of a regiment marching in the valley below, may pick out every distinguished foe, or every weak straggler, for fatal aim, so Leibnitz, when in his 'Nouveaux Essais' he criticizes the 'Essay on the Understand- ing/ chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, may be supposed to allow no defective argument, no weak point, no hasty assertion, to escape him. Not that he criticized Locke in any hostile spirit ; on the contrary, he does ample justice to the intellectual, as he deeply felt the great moral qualities of the English philoso- as if he had not dwelt at length on various natural faculties ; nay more, " I deny not," he says emphatically, " that there are natural tendencies imprinted on the minds of men, and that from the very first instances of sense and perception, there are some things that are grateful, and others unwelcome to them ; some things that they incline to, and others that they fly ; but this makes nothing for in- nate characters on the mind, which are to be principles of knowledge, regulating our practice." Essay, b. i. c. iii. 3. The reviewer of Cousin's ' Histoire,' in the ' Edinburgh Review,' some years ago, ob- served this and his unjust and perverse attempt to identify Locke with the school of Condillac, and such writers as Helvetius, Saint- Lambert, and Volney. LEIBNITZ. 241 pher. But he admitted nothing without the principle of " sufficient reason" and he unfortunately preferred his own reason before another man's, as he did in the case of the great Newton, if he could find or make a plausible excuse for doing so. Leibnitz published, as early as 1696, some reflec- tions upon Locke's Essay, now to be found in the edi- tions of Locke. They were early put into Locke's hands by his Dutch correspondents, one of whom thus wrote to Locke : " They say a thousand good things of this mathematician. He threatened long ago great and excellent things, without producing anything but some detached demonstrations. I think, nevertheless, that he does not understand you, and I doubt whether he understands himself." "This sort of fiddling" (says Locke to Molyneux*, in reference to this paper of reflections) "makes me think that he is not that very great man as has been talked of him ;" to which Molyneux replies, " He is either very unhappy in expressing, or I am very dull in apprehending his thoughts." Upon a careful perusal, it will be seen that these early reflections of Leibnitz are not very consistent with his subsequent remarks in the more lengthened criticism of the ' Nouveaux Essais,' which latter work probably Locke did not live to peruse, for they were not published till 1703, when Locke had received many warnings that his departure was at hand. In * See Locke's Correspondence with Molyneux, Law's quarto edi- tion, vol. iv. pp. 354-358. R 242 LEIBNITZ. the reflections, Leibnitz thinks there is something solid in Plato's doctrine of reminiscences. In the ' Nouveaux Essais' he has an ingenious argument to show that this doctrine affects not the question of innate ideas. He contends that not only our ideas, but even our sentiments, spring from our own pro- per depths, and so in the Essays he talks much of the depth of the soul, comparing it to an inward spring, as if anything in Locke was inconsistent with this, be its depth and capacity, or its inward active life, what it may. When he says, " that ideas, true or real, are those of which we are assured the execu- tion is possible, others are doubtful, or (in case of the proof of impossibility) chimerical ; now the possibi- lity of some ideas is proved as much a priori by the demonstrations, wherein we avail ourselves of the pos- sibility of other ideas more simple, as a posteriori by experiences, for that which exists must be possible ; but primitive ideas are those whose possibility is in- demonstrable, and which are in fact nothing but the attributes of God ;" surely M. Le Clerc, Molyneux, and Locke, were justified in considering him unintel- ligible to others, whether he understood himself or not. Leibnitz, in the ' Nouveaux Essais,' adopted a mode of criticism not favourable to distinctness, namely, that of a dialogue, in which Philalethes, a disciple, acts as the representative of Locke ; and Theo^hilus appears as a modified, or improved Cartesian, and speaks the sentiments of Leibnitz. Philalethes appears rather to a disadvantage ; he is not quick in seizing the weak LEIBNITZ. 243 points of his antagonist ; he does not quote very care- fully Locke's exact words ; he omits some of the most telling and powerful of Locke's observations. Theo- philus speaks with freedom and confidence, and pours out a torrent of remark, which sweeps before it the straws of objection, and even blocks of difficulty, a torrent turbid and impetuous, often throwing up beautiful foam, but more wild and astonishing than useful and clear. There are nevertheless in the latter part of the ' Nouveaux Essais,' many very pleasing and just observations and illustrations, particularly when touching the subject of language, which the lover of metaphysical reading, with Locke open before him, will thoroughly enjoy. Great obscurity pervades the doctrine of Leibnitz concerning innate ideas. It is almost impossible to condense it, to represent in a few words what his theory on this subject is, and even to make out the one proposition, or the several propositions which he undertook to establish, and in which he conceived himself successful. We have no translation of Leib- nitz's chief metaphysical works in English, and no tolerable representation of his course of thought and argument in the ' Nouveaux Essais.' The accompany- ing short but candid representation of his comments on the first book of Locke may therefore be welcome to the reader. Theophilus, who speaks for Leibnitz, sets out with stating that he aspires to new views, to go further than any one had yet gone into the depths of meta- 244 LEIBNITZ. physical truth. He professes to unite Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the schoolmen with the moderns, theology and morality with reason. He finds an intelligible explanation of the union of body and soul, of the true principles of things in the unity of the substances, and in their harmony pre- established by the primitive substance. Besides a new analysis of things, which was to explain every- thing, he comprehended better than any one else the analysis of notions, or ideas and truths : he under- stood better than any one, the nature of a ." true, clear, distinct, adequate idea ; of primitive truths and true axioms ; of the distinction between necessary truths, and truths of fact ; between the reasonings of men and the deductions of brutes, which are a shadow of them." His system would render more admirable the sovereign source of creation and its beauties. He had at one time an inclination for the side of the Spi- nozists, who leave only infinite power to the Deity, who, recognizing neither perfections nor wisdom in a supreme intelligence, and despising the search for final causes, derive everything from a brute necessity. But new lights had cured him, and he had since taken the name of Theophilus the lover of God. " I have long been," says Theophilus, " for the in- nate idea of God with Descartes, and consequently, for other innate ideas, which come not from the senses. I go further, and think that all our thoughts and actions come from our soul, from its own depth, without being given by the senses. LEIBNITZ. 245 " But granting for the present that the external senses are the cause of part of our thoughts, I shall inquire how we may say that there are ideas and prin- ciples which do not come from the senses, which we find in ourselves without forming them, though the senses give us occasion to perceive them. Your author [Locke], with laudable zeal against the idleness of taking things for granted which ought to be proved, has not sufficiently distinguished the origin of neces- sary truths, whose source is in the understanding, and those of fact, which we draw from sensible experiences, and even from the confused perceptions which are in us. The disposition which we have to recognize the idea of God is in human nature; a readiness to re- ceive the doctrine comes from the nature of the soul. General consent is an index, though not a demonstra- tion, of an innate principle : the decisive proof is, that their certainty comes only from what is in us ; though they be not known, yet they may be innate, inasmuch as we recognize them when they are first heard. We have an infinity of convictions which we perceive only when we have need of them. " Philalethes. Can we say that all propositions which are reasonable, and which the mind may come to regard as such, are already imprinted on the soul ? "Theophilus. Truly ; in respect of pure ideas, which I oppose to the phantasms of the senses, and of neces- sary truths, truths of reason, which I oppose to truths of fact. In this sense we may say that all arithmetic and all geometry are innate, and are in a manner 246 LEIBNITZ. virtually in us. All truths which we can derive from innate primitive convictions, may be called innate, be- cause the mind can draw them from its own depth, though it be not easy. " Ph. Are there then truths graven in the soul, which it never has known, and never shall know ? " Th. I see no absurdity in this ; for some things superior to any we can now know, may develope themselves in another state. It is certain that the senses suffice not to show the necessity of certain truths, and that the mind has a disposition to draw them, as well active as passive, from its own depths ; that the senses are necessary to give occasion and ex- cite attention to them, and to carry the mind to some rather than to others. The able persons who are of a different opinion, appear not to have sufficiently meditated on the difference between necessary or eternal truths, and truths of experience, as all our discussion shows. The original proof of necessary truths comes from the understanding alone, other truths come from experience and observation ; our mind is capable of knowing the one from the other, but is the source only of the first, and whatever num- ber of particular experiences one may have of a uni- versal truth, one can never be sure of the universality by induction, without knowing the necessity by reason. "Ph. But all who reflect will find that the consent which the mind gives, without difficulty, to certain truths, depends on the faculty of the human mind. " Th. It is the relation of the mind to such truths LEIBNITZ. 247 which renders the exercise of the faculty easy and natural, and which makes us call them innate. It is not a naked faculty, which consists in the possibility of understanding them; it is a disposition, an apti- tude, a pre-formation, which determines our soul, and causes them to be drawn from it. "Intellectual ideas, which are the source of necessary truths, come not from the senses. It is true that the express knowledge of truths is posterior (in nature or time) to the express knowledge of ideas, as the nature of truths depends on the nature of ideas, before we form expressly one and the other, and the truths or ideas, which come from the senses, depend on the senses at least in part. But the ideas which come from the senses are confused in some degree, and the truths which depend on them are so also ; whilst the ideas of intellect and the truths which depend on them are distinct. The latter have not their origin from the senses, though it may be that we should never know them without the senses. " Ph. If any one can find a proposition, the ideas of which are innate, he cannot do me a greater favour than to name it. " Th. I should name the propositions of arithmetic and geometry, which are all of this nature ; and in matters of necessary truth, one may find others. " Ph. Can we say then that the most difficult and profound of sciences are innate ? " Th. The actual knowledge of them is not so ; but the virtual knowledge may be called so, as the figure 248 LEIBNITZ. traced by the veins of marble is in the marble before it is discovered by working. " Ph. It is difficult to conceive that a truth is in the mind, if the mind has never thought of such truth. " Th. That is to say, it is difficult to conceive there are veins in marble before we discover them. The objection approaches too near to a petitio principii. All who admit innate truths without founding them upon Platonic reminiscence, admit such as have never yet been thought of. In other respects this reason- ing proves too much. For if truths are thoughts, we must be deprived of truths, not only on which one has not thought, but of which we are not actually thinking. And if truths are not thoughts, but habi- tudes and aptitudes, natural or acquired, nothing hin- ders there being some in us, of which we have never yet thought, no, nor ever will think." The last sentiment is extraordinary. There appears to be nothing, in the subsequent criticisms by Leibnitz .on the second and third chapters of Locke, touching innate principles, which adds to the clearness or to the force of the above. He speaks of "maxims known by instinct, and of innate principles, which are not a part of natural light, of innate truths, known in two fashions, by light and by instinct. Thus," he says, " we are carried to acts of humanity by instinct, be- cause they are pleasing; by reason, when they are proved to be just." Here every sentence introduces new terms of doubtful value ; he lays down new pro- positions which have nothing to do with the question LEIBNITZ. 249 at issue ; and he brings in analogies which, like the veins of marble, mislead rather than illustrate. The weightiest passage in Leibnitz, much applauded and often quoted by his admirers, occurs in his re- marks on Locke's second book. " Th. They will oppose to me this axiom received among philosophers, ' that there is nothing in the soul which comes not from the senses/ But we must ex- cept the soul itself and its affections. Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu ; excipe nisi ipse intellectus. Moreover the soul includes being, sub- stance, unity, identity, cause, perception, reasoning, and a quantity of other notions which the senses can- not give. This agrees sufficiently with your author of the Essay, who seeks a good part of our ideas in the reflection of the mind upon its own nature. " Ph. I hope then you will grant to this able author, that all ideas come from sensation or reflection ; that is, from observations made on objects external and sensible, or upon the internal operations of our soul. " Th. To avoid a contest which has already detained us too long, I profess that when you say that ideas come to us from one or other of these causes, I un- derstand it of the actual perception of them, for I think I have shown, that they are in us, before they are perceived, in so far as they have anything distinct." Leibnitz is not so much read, nor are his principles so familiar to English thinkers as to render this trans- lation of select passages from his ' Nouveaux Essais' unnecessary. Few will go along with him, no one 250 LEIBNITZ. has undertaken to support him, in the sentiments and assertions which have been given. They scarcely bear examination ; being in fact scarcely intelligible. On the one hand, they seem to concede to Locke every- thing which he lays down ; on the other, they contend for so much as, if received, must overthrow Locke's system and make his statements comparatively worth- less. But let us hear Locke himself : " To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same time to say that the mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression nothing. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of/' " If the capacity of knowing be the natural impression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know, will, by this account, be every one of them innate ; and this great point will amount to no more, than only a very improper way of speaking, which, whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny innate princi- ples." " That certainly can never be thought innate, which we have need of reason to discover, unless, as I have said, we will have all the certain truths that reason ever teaches us, to be innate."' Now this is precisely what Leibnitz did contend for. Why, then, did he not quote these expressions of Locke, and de- fend the propriety of his way of speaking ? It seems a monstrous extravagance to assert that the truths of Newton's Principia, and of every other profound work, * Locke's Essay, b. 1, c. ii., 5, 9. LEIBNITZ. 251 however remote from common studies and apprehen- sion such as the Institutes of Justinian, or the prin- ciples of his own Theodicaea are innate in all human minds, because a few have known them ; or because (what is more doubtful) all may be capable of know- ing them. The discussion turns upon the word in- nate, whether it refer to the capacity of forming no- tions and ideas, which Locke asserts as distinctly as possible, or the actual conscious existence of notions and ideas, previous to sensible impression, or to re- flection, which Locke denies, and Leibnitz too. With regard to the celebrated exception taken by Leibnitz to the old maxim " that there is nothing in the intellect which hath not been first in the senses, nisi ipse intellectus" it is of no value ; because the intellectus cannot be in the intellectus ; both the in- tellectus and sensus being taken for granted in the maxim, the value of which depends upon what is meant by intellectus and sensus. If by the intellect be understood all those intellections, those conclusions of the reasoning power from phenomena, those com- plex ideas and notions, clusters of sensible impressions and mental states associated together under one term, and united in propositions, of which, as Gassendi says, there neither is nor can be any sensible image or impression, the disciple of Locke and Hartley does not maintain the maxim. But if it be meant merely that to all such intellections a sensible impression, or a feeling of some kind, derived from the sensitive frame, is a necessary groundwork, that there is a 252 LEIBNITZ. root or seed, so to speak, of the most refined intellec- tual results in sensation ; that sensations are the pri- mary elements on which "the soul and its affections" begin to operate ; that what we first remember, name, and compare, are these sensations and feelings or clusters of sensible impressions, without which we should not know we have a soul ; if by sensus be meant the perceptive power, the recipient of impres- sions ab extra, without which there never was any intellectual power in man, in this sense the disciple of Locke and Hartley and MiU might hold the maxim to be true, nor is it clear that the disciple of Leibnitz and Stewart would deny it. For when we talk of the depths of the soul, be they as profound as we please, let its original activity be as great, and its in- nate faculties and capacities and affections be as nu- merous as we please, this makes nothing against the justness of that analytical view of the mind of which Locke and Hartley and Mill are the great teachers ; nor does it modify or shake in the least the import- ance of that law of association, and the truth of the related doctrines which Hartley first comprehended in entirety, and of which Leibnitz had scarcely a glim- mering perception. This topic might be pursued ; but it is a waste of reasoning to confute authors who confute themselves. There is a very short mode of putting to the test the soundness of the instinctive or innate principle philo- sophy. It rests too much upon a fallacious meta- phorical language, in a manner self-destructive ; a LEIBNITZ. 253 language indebted for its force to those very pheno- mena of the senses, which it affects at the same time to despise. Thus it makes much of the inward depth, and capacity, the activity and fulness of the soul*. But the very difficult question, whether the most com- prehensive and refined intellectual conclusions whe- ther the results of the reflective powers in their most perfect and beautiful developments whether the most refined affections and habits of theopathy, sympathy, and the moral sense, are traceable or not to a common sensational root, so to speak, as Hartley was disposed to believe, is not to be decided by the language of metaphor, imagination, and enthusiasm. It is a ques- tion of nature and fact ; a question of that nice and difficult introspection, which nothing hinders more effectually than the dust of words. Now, the examination of the philosophy and natural history of language contains within itself the confuta- tion of tfre philosophy of instinctive principles or in- nate ideas. For, putting aside the question whether words are the arbitrary signs of ideas, or themselves the result of a law of nature, deep and subtle, when we inquire what words are, and what are not, capable of definition, we find that all such words as are signi- ficant of simple ideas of uniform impressions on the senses, such as of colours, taste, sounds, and smells, whose meaning depends on the uniformity of the sen- * Compare the account of Condillac in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques,' where his philosophy is said to have been buried in the tomb of De Stutt de Tracy. 254 LEIBNITZ. sible impressions, are incapable of definition. Such also are words significant of states of inward feeling, e.g. pain and pleasure, joy, sorrow, hope and fear, and many others, comprehending classes of emotional states, when considered without reference to any of the particulars that give them force. But words sig- nificant of a cluster of sensible impressions, marking a property or union of properties common to a number of individuals ; words significant of complex ideas, or collections of simple ideas, passing under one name, these are susceptible of definition ; and the definition is useful when he to whom the explanation or defini- tion is given, has in him all the simple ideas for a collection of which the name defined is made to stand*. Thus every definition is made ultimately to rest upon the uniformity of sensible impressions, or of simple emotional states. Hence there can be no reasoning upon ideas existing in different minds, but what is based upon a uniformity of impressions ab extra, or a similarity of emotions and passions ab infra ; the language appropriate to the latter being obscure, un- scientific, and incapable of application to reasoning, in proportion to the difficulty of referring it to a common external object, as an admitted common measure or test of reality and truth. The assent to the postulates and axioms of geometry depends on the rapid associa- * See the fourth, chapter of Locke's second book, with which Locke's logic may be said to begin. Compare also an admirable passage on words susceptible of definition, in Bernier's abridgment of Gassendi, liv. iv. c, v. ; also Trendelenberg's Elements of Aristotelian Logic, 59, on definition. LEIBNITZ. 255 tion of uniform sensible impressions with the meaning of the terms. Such are the following : " The whole is greater than a part ;" "If equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal." To argue that the ideas of totality and divisibility, of equality and in- equality, are innate in the mind from the readiness of the assent to these axioms, is the same thing as to say that a child has got all the ideas of number, before it has learnt to count its fingers, and all the ideas of morality before it has seen a mother's frown, or been forbidden to snatch an ornament and play with the fire. It is much the same as to suppose that all the laws of nature are known a priori ; that examples in grammar are made to fit rules, instead of rules being merely the exponents of phenomena ; that theory precedes obser- vation; that the human mind is not the subject but the source of law. It is to arrogate an original divi- nity for the mind, and by that arrogance to rob it of its real strength. It is to refuse to acquire Divine science by the study of nature and history, and the patient reception of Divine instruction. As we de- rive our ideas of number from the existence of things capable of being numbered, so we derive our ideas of geometrical figures from the existence in nature of forms and figures corresponding to their definitions. Leibnitz, like many others before and after him, speaks of instinct as if it were a term applicable to the intellectual and moral developments of man. But the term instinct is always best regarded as merely a term of ignorance. It is significant of that propen- 256 LEIBNITZ. sity peculiar to some insects and animals, such as the bee, the ant, the beaver, and the bird, whereby they build their habitations and provide for their future, in a manner for the most part undeviating, without instruction, observation, or experience, and for which we can account in no other way, than by ascribing it to the force of nature. The bees of the present day build their cells, and collect their honey, precisely like the bees in Virgil's Georgics, the last bees are as the first. There is nothing in man analogous to this. The human child can do nothing, knows no- thing, without guidance, without instruction. Even the use of articulate sounds for the expression of thoughts and emotions, the distinguishing character- istic of man, is an acquisition slowly made, and so various in quality and degree as to remove it from the category of instincts. Though we may say, in common parlance, that the infant sucks the breast, and begins to use its senses and its hands by instinct, and we may talk of instinctive powers, passions, and emotions, because of a prevalence of such powers and passions approaching to universality, it is only justifi- able in common parlance, intimating our willing igno- rance of the ultimate character and laws of all such functions and tendencies, beyond the fact of their ex- istence, and our indisposition to inquire further*. * Compare a passage on the terms Instinctive and Instinct, in Austin's Jurisprudence, p. 96. Mr. James Mill, in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, takes a similar view. See also Law's preface to King on the Origin of Evil. LEIBNITZ. 257 Tendencies, capacities, appetites, powers, which may be called instinctive, are not denied by the disciple of Locke and Hartley. He may term those rare gifts and endowments, which distinguish some persons so remarkably from the common herd, natural and in- ward, when he chooses not to seek further for their origin, and comprehends them in that NATURE, which stands for everything that has been, is, or shall be. But whether we raise our thoughts to contemplate the genius of Homer, of Plato and Aristotle, of Shakespeare, of Bacon and Newton, or turn them downwards to the lowest and humblest forms of hu- manity, scarce raised above the brutes, no doubt some approach to an explanation of the diversity of charac- ter, to a correct theory of the phenomena of life and mind, may be found in the peculiar aptitude resulting from original physical conformation, acted upon by favourable external conditions, for that precise develop- ment of intellectual power and moral tendency, which marks and makes the individual* both in what he has in common with the race and what is singular. Every child is born with a frame like that of other children, but with modifications and peculiarities inherited from the parents. It brings into the world a constitutional tendency to associate some classes of sensations and ideas rather than others. One sense being from the first more acute than others, the pleasures and pains, the tastes and predilections, differ from the first in kind and in degree ; one child is constitutionally phlegmatic, another irritable. Now, the original 258 LEIBNITZ. perceptive power and the associative tendency taken together form the primary elements of our intellectual and moral life. Hence the justification of the senti- ment, " Poeta nascitur, non jit ;" and what is true of the poet is true of the musician, the painter, the sculptor, the orator, the statesman, the philanthropist. The acuteness of the sense, and the predisposition to retain some impressions, to neglect and discard others, gives early bias to the imagination, the trains of which soon become habitual ; these mix themselves in ways and degrees imperceptible with the moral sense, and with the social, sympathetic, and theopathetic affec- tions, as Hartley calls them, as these again are sub- sequently developed. According as external condi- tions operate upon the original basis, the native tendency is favoured or counteracted. Thus the ana- logy is complete between the development of vege- table and of intellectual life. For as from every seed and its germ of vegetation springs the appropriate leaf and flower and fruit, so from every sensitive frame, with its predisposition to associate and retain certain classes of sensation, and ideas of sensation, there is developed, in infinite variety, a certain definite form of intellectual power and moral grace on the one hand, or what we esteem deformity and weakness and depravity on the other. Were it conceded that men are born naturally equal, according to the opinion of those who, like Helvetius, attribute everything to education, nothing to endowment of nature, an in- equality, a marked and essential difference of power LEIBNITZ. 251> and tendency in children becomes palpable to the ac- curate observer after a few months of existence. When Wordsworth says that " Men from men Differ in constitution of their minds By mystery not to be explained," the sentiment may be modified by this recognition of some of the broad facts of nature, and some of the known laws of the mind. With these facts and laws, the genius of a Pope, " who lisped in numbers, for the numbers came," and of a Newton, who is said to have anticipated or known by intuition the demonstrations, of Euclid without perusing them, are sufficiently in harmony. One child, habituated from the first dawn of intelligence to accurate observation and just ex- pression, speaks truthfully, describes faithfully, and reasons consecutively ; habituated only to good argu- ments, it rejects bad ones, with a facility or faculty that may be called natural and instinctive. But it is in reality as much acquired as the skill of a rope- dancer, or the endurance of a fetish, there being a foundation for both in nature and nature's pliancy. Another child never reasons but in the fashion of Dame Quickly or the late Mr. Southey. When terror and falsehood have been the primary elements of education, when thieves and outlaws have been the guardians and tutors of youth, all the subsequent exercises of reason and habit will resolve themselves into predatory cunning and skilful self-defence. Upon the principle of Leibnitz and his followers s 2 260 LEIBNITZ. that everything in man is innate and instinctive the vilest passions, the wildest delusions, the most extra- vagant errors, no less than the sublimest forms of intellectual and moral greatness, shelter themselves equally under the authority of nature ; and nothing remains but the temporary will and caprice of the in- dividual, to determine what shah 1 be chosen as valu- able, and what rejected as worthless or hurtful among the opinions and predilections of mankind. The ad- vocates of intuitions forget that they wield a two-edged sword, a weapon easily turned against themselves, and as powerful for him who denies as for him who asserts what they are pleased to assume as instinctive truth. The doubts of Bayle, the caustic satire of Voltaire, the pantheism of Spinoza, are at least as natural, and may plead the authority of instinct quite as well, as the pre-established harmony and monadology of Leib- nitz ; and surely the wild excesses of the Munster Anabaptists, or the Family of Love, and the heathen superstitions of the poor priest-ridden papists, present forms of faith arid practice far more congenial to the natural dispositions and innate faculties of the multi- tude, than the mild and practical religion of a Fenelon and an Oberlin, or the philosophic faith of a Newcome and a Paley, of a Priestley and a Channing. Surely no man, who has paid due attention to the melancholy history of human superstition, and watched the reluc- tance with which mankind associate the idea of duty with happiness, of virtue with benevolence, can attach value to instincts and intuitions as a guide and au- thority in religion. LEIBNITZ. 2G1 Gibbon has touched with a master's hand the cha- racter of Leibnitz, not only in various passages of his bountiful essay on the Study of Literature, but chiefly in the pupcr on the Antiquities of the House of Bruns- wick. " The genius and studies of Leibnitz have ranked his name with the first philosophic names of his age and country : but his reputation, perhaps, would be more pure and permanent if he had not am- bitiously grasped the whole circle of human science. As a theologian he successively contended with the sceptics, who believe too little, and with papists, who believe too much, and with the heretics, who believe otherwise than is inculcated by the Lutheran confes- sion of Augsburg. Yet the philosopher betrayed his love of union and toleration : his faith in revelation was accused, while he proved the Trinity by the prin- ciples of logic ; and in the defence of the attributes and providence of the Deity, he was suspected of a secret correspondence with his adversary Bayle. The metaphysician expatiated in the fields of air : his pre- established harmony of the soul and body might have provoked the jealousy of Plato ; and his optimism, the best of all possible worlds, seems an idea too vast for a mortal mind." The portrait is completed with these true touches. " He designed more than he could execute : his ima- gination was too easily satisfied with a bold and rapid glance on the subject which he was impatient to leave ; and Leibnitz may be compared to those heroes whose empire has been lost in the ambition of universal con- quest." 262 LEIBNITZ. The great work of Leibnitz is the ' Theodicaea/ There he puts forth all his strength, and appears to the best advantage. In all the array of learning and of literature, he sallies forth as a champion, confident of victory, to contend against every subtlety of scep- ticism. When Bayle opens his batteries, and levels his syllogisms against the citadel of faith, Leibnitz feels that he has built ramparts, within which he can lie entrenched and secure; and the keep may be acknowledged to be invulnerable, although the " pre-established harmony" and the principle of " the sufficient reason/' with other distinctions without a difference, may be surrendered as outworks incapa- ble of defence. To the lover of metaphysical studies nothing can be more delightful than this work of Leibnitz. He has lightened the heaviest, and adorned the gravest subject, with the riches of forgotten literature, and every variety of pleasing observation, " egayer une matiere, dont le serieux peut rebu- ter." He seems more than Gassendi to deserve the character of " the most philosophic among literati, the most literary among philosophers." How has it hap- pened that the chief production of so great a name should have produced on the whole so little effect on English philosophy and English thought ? We have translations of Bayle, of Helvetius, of Montesquieu ; why not of the ' Theodicsea' of Leibnitz ? Was the subject too difficult for the many, or the treatment too little satisfactory for the few ? The familiarity of the French language to the student and the scholar can- LEIBNITZ. 263 not account for the preference given by translators and publishers to far inferior works. Perhaps, like the learned ' Histoire du Manicheisme/ by Beau- sobre*, which Lardner long ago wished translated, and to which Gibbon confessed his obligations, the work was too free and too good, too remote from the common paths to suit the purposes of trade. Yet many considerations suggest themselves to explain, in some degree, the slight impression produced by this work of Leibnitz : 1, the difficulty of the subject, and the little attention given to the higher metaphysics ; * I may here be allowed to correct a very serious mistake made by Mr. J. D. Morell, in the ' Historical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe, during the Nineteenth Century,' relative to Beausobre. Speaking of the confusion attendant on the progress of the Leibnitzian-Wolfian system in Germany, he says (vol. i. p. 196), in the midst of it, " Scepticism, as might be expected, also made its appearance, and the celebrated divine M. de Beausobre, whom we may regard as its best representative, wrote an ingenious work, in which he advocated an almost undisguised Pyrrhonism, and made the Wolfian philosophy an especial object of his attack and ridicule." This is grievously erroneous. The learned divine was no sceptic, and deserved far other notice at the hands of Mr. Morell. It were to be wished that at least that portion of his valuable work on Mani- cheeism had been translated which is entitled, " A discourse, show- ing that the apocryphal and fabulous books, very far from casting suspicion upon the certainty of the miraculous facts contained in the Gospels, and by consequence the certainty of the Christian religion, concur to confirm them." Beausobre died in 1738. A good biogra- phical notice is prefixed to the second volume of the ' Histoire du Manicheisme.' The sceptic and sensualist was one Lewis Beau- sobre, privy-counsellor of Frederic the Great, who published *Le Pyrrhonisme du Sage,' 1754, and 'Les Songes d'Epicure,' 1756, and who died in 1783, and had no known connection even with the family of the divine. 264 LEIBNITZ. 2, the strict Lutheranism, or modified Calvinism, in the interpretation of Scripture, which pervades the work, rendering it from the first distasteful to the Arminian predilections of the English school of liberal theology, an interpretation now considered quite un- philosophical ; 3, its pure necessarianism, equally ob- noxious to the orthodox, who, like Calvin, have always dreaded the attempt to harmonize the decrees of God with the deductions of reason, and to level to human comprehension the Divine works and ways ; 4, the the- ories and distinctions with which the work abounds, such as that of the harmony between the soul and body, without any mutual dependence or connection, such as the distinction between an absolute and a hypothetical or metaphysical necessity, between the freedom of the will from any constraining poioer, and its subjection to the law of the greatest apparent good., together with the non-existence of any liberty or equilibrium of indifference, any proper self-moving power ; theories and distinctions peculiar to Leibnitz, more subtle than satisfactory ; 5, the jealousy and in- justice which Leibnitz had manifested towards New- ton, and his opposition to the Newtonian philosophy. This alienated the minds of many of the philosophic English from him. On the whole he does not shine in the controversy with Dr. Samuel Clarke*. But * There is an amusing evidence of this, and of Dr. Johnson's readiness and reading, in a characteristic conversation between the lexicographer and the Rev. Hector M'Lean, pastor of Col and Tyryi, recorded in Boswell's ' Tour to the Hebrides.' " Mr. M'Lean said he had a confutation of Bayle, by Leibnitz. Johnson : ' A confuta- LEIBNITZ. \\liat controversy, even between greatesl settled disputed points in metaphysical philosophy? The ' Theodicaea' itself probably would have been more valued, had it been more an independent work, and less a work of criticism and of reply to Bayle. The 'Theodicaea/ after an excellent preface, pro- ceeds with a discourse on the conformity of reason with faith. Here the author pursues a beaten path, which Locke and others had well cleared before him. Unhappy the man whose faith and reason are at war ; who cherishes a faith which he dares not bring to the light of day ; which is a mere relic of traditional and ignorant reverence, valued only when secreted from inspection, worthless for the uses of life; a flame trembling at every breath of opinion, and expiring in the first process of examination and analysis, just as a light goes out, or an insect dies when plunged into a phial of hydrogen or azote. The discourse is followed by essays in three parts, on the goodness of God, the liberty of man, and the tion of Bayle, Sir ! what part of Bayle do you mean P The greatest part of his writings are not confutable : it is historical and critical.' Mr. M'Lean said, 'The irreligious part;' and proceeded to talk of Leibnitz's controversy with Clarke, railing Leibnitz a great man.' Johnson : ' Why, Sir, Leibnitz persisted in affirming that Newton called space ' sensorium numinis,' notwithstanding he was corrected, and desired to observe that Newton's words were ' quasi (he should have said tanquam) sensorium numinis.' No, Sir ; Leibnitz was as paltry a fellow as I know. Out of respect to Queen Caroline, who patronized him, Clarke treated him too well.' " This conversation took place in October, 1773, and, with what follows relative to Dr. Clarke, is worthy of note. 266 LEIBNITZ. origin of evil. The first part treats the subject chiefly on its merits ; the second and third dwell at length on the difficulties and doubts of Bayle. As there can be no nutriment more wholesome for the heart, no me- dicine to " minister to a mind diseased" more efficaci- ous than the sentiments of Leibnitz on the goodness of the Deity, I shall give in the Appendix an analytical view of his first essay on that topic. They present a happy contrast to those gloomy and cheerless views of the prevalence of evil and misery in the world, which are usually taken by sceptics and unbelievers. Who has not observed that the extremes of a harsh theology and of total unbelief meet upon the common ground of the excessive wickedness of man, and of the miseries and hopelessness of life ? Leibnitz had paid great attention to all that in English literature and philosophy related to that most difficult question, " the origin of evil." Nothing con- nected with the subject seems to have escaped him. He was familiar with the controversy between Bishop Bramhall and Hobbes. He criticized with justice and acuteness the essay by Archbishop King, written ori- ginally in Latin, while a taste for Latin yet lingered as the proper language of philosophy, the essay after- wards translated with learned notes by Dr. Edmund Law. He perceived the great defect of that essay. It is the failure, in the fifth and last chapter, of applying to moral evil the same simple principle which had been established in relation to physical evil, namely, that only so much evil is admitted as U'.IKNITZ. 267 could not be avoided, but with the sacrifice of greater preponderant good; that therefore benevolence itself required the existence of the evil, inasmuch as bene- volence could not be satisfied with less than the greatest possible amount of good. This is the prin- ciple which runs through the ' Theodicaea, ' as its key- note. It is a principle as intelligible as tenable ; no less capable of useful practical application to all the speculative difficulties of the understanding, than con- solatory in all the pains and sorrows of human life ; the only principle that can harmonize faith and reason, which is the axis of religion, natural and revealed, and the acceptance of which is alone needed to give to the optimism of Leibnitz an easy and sure triumph over the virtual atheism of Spinoza. Yes ! " there is some soul of goodness in things evil, would men but care- fully distil it out ;" and the great poet of human nature may have felt, when giving utterance to that senti- ment, that he was then assigning to mankind the office which raised them nearest to the Deity, and giving them the key to unlock all the mysteries of Providence. " From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression*." Touching the essay on the origin of evil, and the * Thomson's Hymn, at the close of the ' Seasons,' from which, as well as from many passages of Pope and Akenside, it may be in- ferred that the philosophy of Locke and the optimism of Leibnitz had taken stronger hold of the affections, and more deeply tinged the imaginations of the thinking men of the last century than we are now accustomed to suppose. 268 LEIBNITZ. subject, it would be injustice to pass over the excel- lent observations of the Rev. Latham Wainewright, in his Appendix (p. 177) to a vindication of Dr. Paley's ' Theory of Morals/ a vindication whose merit is far above its fame. " With respect to this celebrated work of Archbishop King, the reasoning contained in the first four chapters on the evil of defect, and on natural evil, is, I think, rational and satisfactory, as far as it extends, considering the obscurity in which the disquisition is involved; but when he comes to treat of the origin of moral evil, he seems to be totally unable to contend with the difficulty of his subject. The hypothesis by which he attempts to reconcile the different solutions of the long-debated questions re- specting liberty and necessity, is as curious as it is unfounded ; namely, that the will possesses the power of rendering things agreeable which were before indif- ferent, merely by its own agency. . . . The notes of Bishop Law to the first part of this treatise contain many valuable, and some very profound remarks ; but as soon as he undertakes the defence of his author's singular hypothesis, his efforts are as little successful in producing conviction as those of the latter. Both the comment and the text have equally failed." Mr. Waine wright is perfectly right. He would pro- bably have referred to the paper by Leibnitz on the work of Archbishop King had he been aware that the same observation had occurred to the German critic ; nor need I scruple to add, that these defects of a book, repeatedly perused, had become palpable to myself, LKIBNITZ. 269 before I had made acquaintance either with Leibnitz or Wainewright*. There is another work on the origin of evil, that by Dr. John Clarke, a brother of Dr. Samuel Clarke, and an expositor of Newton's philosophy, who treated * Mr. Dugald Stewart's notice of this work of King and of Law's translation, in the Preliminary Dissertation, affords a striking in- stance of his inaccuracy. " The name of Law (he says, p. 170) 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 im- puted to Bayle." It were charitable to suppose that the translation alone is here alluded to. King's original Latin work * De Origine Mali,' appeared in 1702. It was impossible it should combat an optimism which did not come forth to the world till about twelve years after Leibnitz published his 'Theodicsea' in 1710, and his object was precisely the same with that of King, whose defects he thought to remedy. That object was far nobler, and more important than Stewart represents it. It is not to be degraded into a merely per- sonal dispute. It was, as the translator of King states it, to enable us clearly to " comprehend how the present state of things is the very best in all respects, and worthy of a most wise, powerful, and beneficent Author : and why, taking the whole system of beings to- gether, and eveiy class in its order, none could possibly have been made more perfect or placed in a better." It was, in short, to furnish an ample vindication of Divine Providence, in the production, preser- vation, and government of the universe. It may be doubted whether Stewart ever had a copy of King's ' De Origine Mali' in the original before him ; and certainly he was not acquainted with the animad- versions of Leibnitz upon it ; and I must add that he appears inca- pable of treating the subject of it and the argument without min- gling in his comments offensive personalities, coarse and unjust invec- tives. Why else does he charge Law with affecting that profound veneration for Locke, the sincerity of which is proved by every line of his writings, and by the care and dignity with which he edited Locke's works P Why else does he speak of the coarse caricatures, 270 LEIBNITZ. the subject in the Boyle Lectures*. It is unsatisfac- tory from the same defect, though not to the same degree. It is a somewhat laboured and dull reply to the sceptical difficulties of Bayle, who felt the existence of evil under the government of one supremely per- fect Being, incomprehensible and inexplicable, and of whom Hume was in this respect the immediate fol- lower. Dr. Clarke, endeavouring to show the har- mony of the physical universe, builds upon the prin- ciples of the great Newton, whose philosophy he ex- pounded in a distinct work. He had only to apply, in the second volume, to moral evil the principle which he lays down with success in the first in respect to physical evil, and to bring out that principle more distinctly, and with more force, thrusting the argu- ment home, as in the following passage : ' The whole therefore is reduced to this ; either that there must be no created beings at all, or they must be liable to some evils. Let the supposition be what it will, it amounts to the same. All that is reasonably to be expected, or agreeable to the notions we have of wisdom is, that there should be variety in the works of creation; that every part should be as perfect as it can be in its place ; that they should all be sub- by Hartley and Priestley 1 , of Locke's refined remarks on the Associ- ation of Ideas, when he must have known, if he knew anything, that such caricature was as far from their thought as it was alien from their feelings, no less inconsistent with the earnest spirit of their philosophy, than with their unfeigned reverence for the master ? * These were published in two volumes, 8vo, in 1720. 1 See the Notes NN to the Dissertation, p. 269. LKTBNITZ. 271 servient to one another, and promote the good of the whole." Again ; " It is agreeable to the notions we have of wisdom in general, and to what we know of creation from observation and fact, to think that every the most minute part of the universe is governed by a certain law, which tends to the good of the whole, and that every evil or irregularity is the natural result of this under particular circumstances, and is of small moment, compared with the general good, and conse- quently no reasonable objection*." In such views as these, all inquiries into the origin of evil, and all attempts to reconcile the vices of man- kind, pain, diseases, poverty, and death, with the ex- istence and government of a God supremely good, must at last terminate ; they are the only refuge from aching scepticism ; and where men like Boyle, New- ton, and Leibnitz, and Hartley, and Lindsey, and Priestley, have rested, weaker heads may well be con- tent to find repose. In such a view Soame Jeiiyns also rested, in his 'Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil/ His speculations on the unavoidableness of moral, political, and religious evils, in such a world as this, are not only bold and ingenious, but they are often satisfactory and well founded. He thought himself original in the opinion, that " God would never have permitted the existence of natural evil, but from the impossibility of preventing it without the loss of su- * Dr. John Clarke's 'Enquiry into the Cause and Origin of Evil/ vol. i. pp. 217-219. 272 LEIBNITZ. perior good ; and on the same principle the admis- sion of moral evil is equally consistent with the Divine goodness ; and who is he so knowing in the whole stupendous system of nature as to assert, that the wickedness of some beings may not, by means uncon- ceivable to us, be beneficial to innumerable unknown orders of others ? or that the punishment of some may not contribute to the felicity of numbers infinitely su- perior?" To this purpose the learned Hugenius says, with great sagacity, " Praeterea credibile est, ipsa ilia animi vitia magnae hoininum parti, non sine summo concilio, data esse : cum enim Dei providentia talis sit Tellus, ejusque incolae, quales cernimus, absurdum enim foret existimare omnia hsec alia facta esse, quam ille voluerit, sciveritque futura*." * See the collected edition of Soame Jenyns' works, vol. iii. p. 102 ; and Hugenius, Cosmotheoros, lib. i. p. 34, there quoted. On this work of Jenyns, Dr. Samuel Johnson fell, armed with his gigantic club, in a review which has been called " one of the finest speci- mens of criticism in the language." The critic dealt some heavy and successful blows against its weaker parts. He turned into ad- mirable pleasantry the notion that men's calamities may be the sport and pastime of a superior order of beings k But the book is better than the review, and after all in better spirit, more thought- ful and suggestive. It supplied the reviewer with some of his best sentiments, such as those on the nature and criterion of virtue (both Johnson and Jenyns being what we now call utilitarian), and on death as the infallible cure for all other evils. Johnson's temper and views of life were at first harsh and gloomy. His early experi- ences were very bitter. The evils of the world were serious evils with him. He remembered his own struggles with poverty and wretchedness, and seems to have considered his escape exceptional, and the common condition of mankind hopeless and miserable. If he could admit for a moment that out of some evils a higher good LEIBNITZ. 273 When views like these have been entertained by so many thoughtful religious men, it is idle to say with Gibbon, that they are " too vast for a mortal mind." There is nothing in them particularly difficult. If we may speak of the " problem of creation being solved under some restricting conditions," these conditions may best be found in the unavoidable limitations of finite created beings in their sphere of action and per- ception. All evil, natural or moral, resolves itself ulti- mately into the pain felt by sentient beings. This is the " nodus, vindice dignus." The only question of moment is, is that pain subservient to a superior good? would the happiness of creation have been less, upon the whole, without it ? would the abolition of the particular pain have involved the abolition of we know not what superior amount of good ? There is no difficulty in supposing and maintaining with Leibnitz the affirmative. Nor is there any necessity for the supposition to which Leibnitz and Jenyns give too much counte- nance, that the sufferings of some moral agents may be accounted for, on the principle that these sufferings are more conducive to the happiness of other beings and superior happiness might spring, he had not power to grasp it and apply it as a general principle, and use it as the key to unlock all the secret chambers, the lamp to irradiate all the darkest recesses of Providence. Johnson must be ranked among those who, whether sceptics or Christians, consider the existence of evil under the go- vernment of an infinitely wise and benevolent Deity inexplicable, and all attempts to solve the difficulty unsuccessful, if not presump- tuous. 274 LEIBNITZ. than ultimately to their own. There is no necessity for supposing that any beings exist, whose existence is not on the whole a blessing to themselves ; whose non-existence, taking in the whole of their time, be it longer or shorter, would not be so much detracted from the happiness of the universe. The scriptural Christian remembers with pleasure that the word ap- plied to punishment, and to the retributions of a fu- ture state, in the New Testament, signifies "corrective discipline*" and intimates the subjugation of evil, if not a final issue in virtue and happiness. The de- struction of sin, the triumph of life over death, the working of all things together for good, is a favourite doctrine of the Apostle Paul. And Origen was not the worse Christian, nor the worse philosopher, for be- lieving in what is now called " universal restoration," that all would be ultimately holy and happy. Leib- nitz, therefore, who contended so warmly for the pre- ponderance of good in this life, and who maintained that every sane man at its close would wish to go through a similar course, should not have burdened his defence of the goodness of God with the gratuit- ous supposition that the preponderance of good might be less in a future state ; that some might then and there be left in a position justly to curse their being and its author, without motive to gratitude or obe- dience, cradled in horrors, and condemned to pangs * See the admirable observations of Jortin, ' Remarks on Eccle- siastical History,' vol. i. pp. 220-223 ; and ' Lindsey's Conversations on the Divine Government,' a charming volume. LEIBNITZ. 275 unending and unmitigated. For if the tendency of things in this life on the whole is good, and not a single law of nature and of life, not a single sense, limb, part, or faculty of organized being can be adduced, which is not conducive more to the conservation, the enjoyment, the perfection of its possessor and his ex- istence, than the contrary, then a fortiori in a future life, only conceived and hoped for as a consummation of the present, the tendency to good will be more rapid, the happiness unsullied and complete. "To reconcile the existence of evil with the wis- dom and goodness of God," says Mr. Austin, " is a task which surpasses the powers of our narrow and feeble understandings. This is a deep which our reason is too short to fathom. Prom the decided predominance of good which is observable in the order of the world, and from the manifold marks of wisdom which the order of the world exhibits, we may draw the cheering inference that its Author is good and wise. Why the world which he has made is not already perfect, or why a benevolent Deity tolerates the existence of evil, or what (if I may so express myself) are the ob- stacles in the way of his benevolence, are clearly ques- tions which it were impossible to solve, and which it were idle to agitate, although they admitted a solu- tion. It is enough for us to know that the Deity is perfectly good; and that since he is perfectly good, he wills the happiness of his creatures. This is a truth of the greatest practical moment. For the cast of the affections, which we attribute to the Deity, de- T2 276 LEIBNITZ. termines, for the most part, the cast of our moral sen- timents*." Sentiments on such a subject, adopted after so much careful reflection, and expressed with so just a regard to the best feelings of our nature, especially when taken in connection with those preceding them, it would be presumptuous to expect to modify. Still it is possible for the mind, in its highest meditative moods, to view all evils, physical and moral, only as shadows that heighten the beauty and warm the colour of the picture and the landscape, like discords that give richness to harmony, like acids that give pungency to sweets ; and why can we not apply a principle of reason and analogy, manifest in small things, to the greater and more serious ? If eclipses were unavoidable in the natural universe, the plan and motion of the heavenly bodies being what they are, then the terror and superstition of mankind on observing the phenomena were equally unavoidable, mankind being what they are. It is evident that the intellectual powers, the social affections, the moral graces, the earnest sympathies of our nature, all these, which constitute the charm of cultivated and vigor- ous life, are developed by the struggle with difficulty, with danger, and with death. Thus what we call evil, in its darkest as well as lightest forms, is the school of human virtue, and the great element of superior and lasting happiness. He who reads often, and considers deeply, the de- * Province of Jurisprudence determined, p. 93. LEIBNITZ. 277 monstration of Hartley (Proposition 103), that " God is infinitely benevolent," may find all his difficulties respecting the moral government of the universe gra- dually disappear. In Hartley's own language he will be convinced that, " since this world is a system of benevolence, and consequently its Author the object of unbounded love and adoration, benevolence and piety are the only true guides in our inquiries into it, the only keys which will unlock the mysteries of nature, and clues which lead through her labyrinths. Of this, all branches of natural history and natural philosophy afford abundant instances ; and the same thing may be said of civil history, when illustrated and cleared by the Scriptures, so as to open to view the successive dispensations of God to mankind; but it has been more particularly taken notice of in the frame of the human body, and in the symptoms and tendencies of distempers. In all these matters let the inquirer take it for granted previously that everything is right, and the best that it can be ' caeteris manen- tibus ;' i. e., let him, with a pious confidence, seek for benevolent purposes, and he will be always directed to the right road; and after a due continuance in it, attain to some new and valuable truth ; whereas every other principle and motive to examination, being foreign to the great plan upon which the universe is constructed, must lead to endless mazes, errors, and perplexities*." This is the only philosophy worthy * Hartley's Observations on Man, Prop. 155. " The pursuit of the pleasures of imagination ought to be regulated by the precepts of benevolence, piety, and the moral sense." 278 LEIBNITZ. of the Christian ! Of late it has gone much out of fashion. Such philosophy gave a tone to thought and imagination in the earlier part of the last century ; it found its way into poetry, and is not faintly echoed in a certain optimism, an earnest, hopeful faith and devotion glowing in the beautiful pages of Pope and Thompson and Akenside. It has tinged the spirit of Wordsworth, in that portion of the ' Excursion/ called " Despondency corrected ;" and in his earlier and better days, it was the philosophy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, when he gave to his son the name of Hartley, when he wrote the best parts of the ' Friend/ when he sought the sympathy and encouragement of earnest and independent men, and before his habits became morbid and debased, and his mind therefore preyed upon itself. The question, whether the laws of creation and ani- mated being are designedly beneficent, expressions of the will of an active, intelligent, and infinitely bene- volent Being, transcends in interest and importance every other which can be placed before the human mind for answer and solution. To that question all inquiries respecting the laws of mind as well as mat- ter evidently lead up. No one has treated it in a more interesting manner than Leibnitz. It alone is worthy the name of transcendental philosophy. An answer in the affirmative lies at the base of all philo- sophical belief in an historical revelation, and in the line of evidence lies the point of contact between a sound mental philosophy and an elevating religious faith. LEIBNITZ. 279 The optimism of Leibnitz has been compared with that of Plato* ; but there can be no legitimate com- parison. The optimism of Leibnitz is clear, and his opinion is firm, founded on the existence and govern- ment of one infinitely good Creator. It is more than doubtful whether Plato had any distinct and steady conception of such a Being, so as to reason from it as a first principle. We may find passages in the Tirnseus, the Republic, the Phsedo, which taken by themselves, and interpreted by the light of our modern knowledge and convictions, may satisfy a philosophical and devout theist. French and English translators have often given to Plato as much as possible the air and language of a Christian philosopher. In selec- tions, like that of Dacier, the study of Platonism may be easy and agreeable. But those who endea- vour to interpret Plato by himself will not presume upon superior penetration to Cicero's, when in the De Natura Deorumf he breaks forth, " Jam de Platonis inconstantia longum est dicere ; qui in Timaeo, partern hujus mundi nominari neget posse : in Legum autem libris, quid sit omnino Deus, anquiri oportere non censeat. Quod vero sine corpore ullo Deum vult esse, ut Graeci dicant ao-cofjuarov, id quale esse possit, in- telligi non potest. Careat enim sensu, necesse est, careat etiam prudentia, careat voluptate ; quse omnia una cum deorum notione comprehendimus. Idem et in Timeeo dicit, et in legibus, et mundum Deum esse, et ccelum, et astra, et animos, et eos quos majorum * Stewart's Dissertation, pp. 126, 127. t I*b- i. . 12. 280 LEIBNITZ. institutis accepinms : quse et per se sunt falsa per- spicue, et inter sese vehementer repugnantia*." Leibnitz, it has been said, belonged to that noble family of thinkers which numbers among its chiefs Pythagoras, Plato, and Descartes, who, " seeing in the human mind something more than the passive subject of sensation, an empty possibility, a product of phy- sical organization, would ascribe to reason a divine origin, and an authority superior to that of sensible experience, and would subject facts to principles, things to ideas. He sprang historically from Des- cartes, and was the immediate adversary of Gassendi and of Locke, f" But names and epithets must not deceive us, nor be too readily accepted. The leading principles of * "Now of the inconsistency of Plato it were long to speak. He in the Timseus says that the Deity cannot be called a part of this world ; but in the books of Laws, he considers that the question what the Deity is in all respects ought not to be entertained. When he would have the Deity without any body, how that can be, it is impossible to understand ; for if he be destitute of perception, he must be also destitute of foresight, destitute of enjoyment; all which we comprehend in the notion of the Gods. The same philo- sopher says, both in the Timseus and in the books of Laws, now that the world is God, now the heaven, and the stars and the earth and souls, and those whom we have been taught to receive as such by the institutions of our ancestors. These things are manifestly false in themselves, and intensely repugnant to one another." t See the article Leibnitz in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Philo- sophiques.' Those who wish for a short view of the philosophy of Leibnitz, will find it best in the paper entitled Monadologie, printed in 1714, containing a resume of his Theodicsea, and of all his philo- sophy. LEIBNITZ. 281 the ' Theodicaea' are separable from the peculiar theo- ries of Leibnitz, from his spiritual monads, his pre- established harmony, his sufficient reason; and per- haps it might be shown that Leibnitz, in whatever he possessed of useful knowledge of the mind, owed more to Bacon, to Gasseudi, and to Locke, than to Descartes. All who have paid attention to the history of phi- losophy, recognize at once two tendencies of thought, which, like streams rising among the distant hills, have continued strikingly distinct, though often ap- proaching and sometimes mingling their waters ; some- times, after long windings, lost in distance and obscu- rity, re-appearing, sparkling with light and extend- ing in beauty. These streams are the Platonic and the Aristotelian. The one gathers its strength from native and inward resources : its waters well up, as it is expressed, from the deep fountains of the soul. The other is enriched by the perpetual accession of many small but separate rills, that pour their contri- fcutions into the common receptacle of waters. The Platonist, imaginative, poetical, impatient of the re- straints of logical deduction, seizing the broad facts and first phenomena of our so-called moral conscious- ness, without analysis, repudiating definition, relies on strong impressions, stirring words, and popular pre- dilections. The Aristotelian, taking his lessons and laws from repeated observation, and justifying his con- clusions by actual experiment, by the faithful inter- pretation of phenomena, endeavours to make his mind 282 LEIBNITZ. a mirror of the universe. Cautious, exact, consistent, definite, he is not like the spider spinning cobwebs from his own bowels, to use Bacon's admirable simile, but like the bee gathering treasure from the sweets of nature, and storing them up for lasting uses and future happiness. Perhaps the later continental me- taphysicians, from Descartes through Leibnitz and Kant downwards, have allied themselves to the school of Plato, imitating his manner, and coveting his dis- tinction. But on the continent, as in political move- ments everything has been lost by the attempt to re- construct society on abstract principles, and bring new and untried theories suddenly into action ; by the neglect and contempt of ancient and existing in- stitutions, instead of the endeavour to adapt them to altered circumstances, and thus to introduce changes at once possible and safe, which time might show to be amendments ; in short, as there has been a per- petual change of masters, without increased security of law and wider scope for social action ; so in litera- ture and philosophy, the passion for originality, the desire of every man to found a school and shine apart with unborrowed light, rather than to form part of a bright galaxy adding to the general illumination ; the disdain of known truths, received principles, plain language, and syllogistic reasoning, these have been unhappily the obstacles to progress and to truth. More especially they have been so in those depart- ments of thought, such as morals, jurisprudence, psy- chology, and theology, wherein it is so much easier by LEIBNITZ. 283 new, uncouth, or obsolete expressions, to play with the bubbles of reputation and raise the stare of wonder, than by the discovery of new facts, or by the better arrangement and classification of admitted and positive phenomena, to illustrate old principles or establish new. I know not whether we have in English literature a work of criticism of equal dimensions so just, so instructive, so beautiful, as that of Rene Rapin, 'La Comparaison de Plato et d'Aristote.' It is noticed by I. D'Israeli in the Curiosities of Literature, in a short paper on the same subject. A similar com- parison has been instituted and pursued with power and discrimination by Degerando in his 'Histoire comparee des Systemes/ After holding the balance very evenly, and doing full justice to the fine taste and beautiful spirit of Plato, Rapin gives the palm of real worth to Aristotle, and adds his strength to the opinion of our learned Selden, no inferior judge, " that there never breathed that person to whom the world is more beholden than to Aristotle*." Happily the English mind has been and is essen- tially Aristotelian, practical rather than sentimental, using imagination to adorn, not to pervert truth, to polish, not to conceal facts. To the greatest names that can be mentioned of the Platonic family, it opposes names of superior weight, those of Bacon, Hobbes, * Selden's Table-talk, edit. 1716, p. 124 ; a manual of wisdom in matters of Church and State. Rapin sums up his judgement in the words, " Plato frequently only thinks to express himself well ; Aris- totle only thinks to think justly." 284 LEIBNITZ. Newton, Boyle, Locke, Hartley, Paley, Bentham, and many others, eminent disciples and coadjutors, men whose method of philosophizing has been fundament- ally the same ; whose great aim it ever was to be con- sistent with nature, and consistent with themselves ; who believed the Divine will and human duty and hu- man happiness ultimately to coalesce. This maybe more fully developed when we come to trace briefly the genealogy of English metaphysics. Meantime there are welcome signs of a better era in the foreign schools. Trendelenberg, in the admirable preface to his ' Elernenta Logices Aristotelese/ turns in the right direction. He observes that nothing now seems firm or settled in philosophy ; that such is the inconstancy and variety in the use of philosophical terms, that often a merely perplexing and learned loquacity puts on the specious ornaments of philosophy; that he who seeks the elements of logic must be commanded to return to the refinement and simplicity of Aristotle. And Barthelemy St. Hilaire, in the preface to his valu- able translation of the Logic of Aristotle into French, has demonstrated how widely the modern German writers of eminence, Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling, have departed from the path of useful philosophy, by neglecting the chart and guidance of Aristotle, and mingling, like Hegel, under the title of logic, in one mass of confusion, metaphysics, the entire body of philosophy, the intelligence of man in all its develop- ments, nay the very history of humanity itself*. * See Logique d'Aristote, par J. Barthelemy St. Hilaire : preface, p. 149. Paris, 1844. KANT. 285 REFLECTIONS ON KANT. The name of St. Hilaire brings us to the inquiry whether there be anything in the philosophy of Kant enabling us to solve questions left difficult and dark by his predecessors. St. Hilaire*, surely a competent judge, has asserted that in Kant's judgement respect- ing the categories of Aristotle, there are almost as many errors as thoughts ; that he mistook altogether the design and spirit of Aristotle's logic; that while Aristotle was seeking the most general signification of all words in their relation to things, the design of Kant was wholly different ; that while Aristotle was building his logic upon observation and experience, as he built his natural history, his meteorology, and his politics, Kant was seeking for pure conceptions of the understanding and necessary forms of thought. Though Aristotle has never spoken of what Kant calls conceptions, Kant would judge Aristotle as if Aristotle were merely one of his own disciples, but a faithless or stupid disciple. If St. Hilaire is right, the offence is great. There can be no progress in philosophy, when the paths smoothed by preceding labourers are not only deserted, but their very di- rection and character misrepresented, for the sake of acquiring a false distinction by the pretence of new discoveries and superior methods of procedure. Kant as a thinker appears to have purposely isolated himself from mankind. He was not only self-ba- * Preface, p. 80. 286 KANT. nished from the commonwealth of literature by the use of a language peculiar to himself, but there is ground for thinking that he loved much more to dog- matize among people who could not correct him, on subjects which they either had not studied or could not comprehend, than to find out what had been al- ready wisely established, and to render more intelli- gible and easy what was before difficult and obscure. It has been observed by Remusat, a favourable critic, that the student should bring to his pages a very amiable spirit, and be willing to interpret him in the manner most favourable to truth and to himself. But an author, whether he write to instruct or to please, should tax the patience of his readers as little as pos- sible. If he cannot attract their sympathies by the graces of composition, he should not repel them by harshness and barbarisms, for which there can be no excuse in necessity. Sciolists and novices in meta- physical speculation, who are ever ready to mistake obscurity for depth, may continue to look into the dark waters for what they will never find. But to German transcendentalism the disciple of Aristotle and Bacon applies the proverb, " He who blows into the dust will be sure to fill his own eyes." The injustice which Kant has done to Aristotle is accordant with the treatment of his more immediate predecessors. By the absence of careful reference to their pages, he conceals his own misconceptions or misrepresentations, and secures an air of novelty for statements and views which, so far as they are intelli- KANT. 287 gible, are by no means original or peculiar. Thus in the preface to his ' Prolegomena zur Metaphysik' he gives an account of the influence of Hume's specula- tions upon his own*. But could any one understand what Hume's views and speculations were from Kant's account ? We have seen how obscure and inconsis- tent Hume's language and statements are ; yet it is necessary to know them accurately, in order to under- stand how far comments upon them are just. How vain is the reply to assertions which, perhaps, were never made; and, on language originally vague and inconsistent, how idle are comments still more mys- terious ! " Since the Essays of Locke and Leibnitz, or rather since the origin of metaphysics, so far as their history reaches, no circumstance has occurred which could be more decisive of the fate of this science, than the at- tack which David Hume made upon it. He brought no light to this part of cognition, but he struck a spark, by which, had it met with susceptible tinder, a light steadily increasing might have been obtained. Hume set out from a single but important notion in metaphysics, namely, the connection of cause and effect, and with this the consequent conceptions of power and action ; and he requires of Reason to an- swer him, what right she has to think that something may be so laid down, that if it be settled or granted * There appears to have been an early translation of Hume's Essays into German, in four volumes, from which, in his notes, Kant quotes a passage. 288 KANT. (gesetzf) something else must also of necessity be granted ; for this the notion of cause implies. He proved incontrovertibly that it is impossible for rea- son to conceive of such a ^connection a priori and from notions ; for this involves necessity. But we cannot discover why, because something is, something else must necessarily be ; and how the notion of such a connection a priori can be introduced. Hence he inferred that reason entirely deceives herself with this idea, and takes it falsely for her own child, when it is nothing but a bastard of the imagination, which, im- pregnated by experience, has brought certain concep- tions under the law of association, and substitutes a subjective necessity thence arising, that is custom, for an objective insight. Hence he concluded that reason has not a power of thinking of connections of this sort, of themselves universally, for her concep- tions would be in that case mere fictions ; and all her cognitions pretending to subsist a priori would be mere falsely stamped common experiences, which is as much as to say that there are no metaphysics, and can be none*." After some observations on the effect of Hume's conclusion in setting the good heads of his time to work to solve the problem, and on his being misun- derstood by them all, the transcendental philosopher * I have seen several translations of this passage (Kant's Sammt- liche Werke, vol. iii. pp. 5, 6), but it is difficult to give a satisfactory one ; part of it is given from the Latin version of Born, in Stewart's Dissertation, p. 193, quoted from Willich. KANT. 289 goes on : " The question is not whether the concep- tion of causation is right, useful, and relatively to the whole cognition of nature indispensable, for of this Hume never harboured a doubt ; but whether it is thought of a priori by reason, and in this manner has internal truth independent of all experience, and consequently more extensive utility, which is not li- mited to objects of experience merely ; on this subject Hume wanted information, and, as he himself tells us, always kept his mind open to instruction, if any one would vouchsafe to bestow it upon him." " I freely confess that it was this very hint of David Hume which first roused me from my dogmatic slum- ber, and gave to my investigations in the field of con- templative philosophy a totally different direction. I was far from acceding to his conclusions, which I con- sidered to arise only from this, that he did not con- template the whole question, but only a part of it, which could lead to nothing, unless the whole were taken into account. When we proceed from a well founded, though not thoroughly digested thought, suggested by another, we may certainly hope, by con- tinued investigation, to advance further than the acute man could do to whom we are indebted for the first spark of the light. I first inquired, therefore, whether the doubt of Hume could be regarded as a general one. I soon perceived that the conception of the con- nection of causes and effects is by no means the only one by which the understanding thinks of the con- nections of things a priori (or as Born has it, ex u 290 KANT. anticipatione), but rather that the whole of metaphy- sics depends on these (conceptions?). I endeavoured to ascertain their number, and when this succeeded with me beyond expectation, I advanced to the deduc- tion of those conceptions, which I was now persuaded were not derived from experience, as Hume feared, but arise from the pure understanding. This deduction, which seemed impossible to my acute predecessor, and which no one besides him had conceived, although every one confidently used such conceptions, without caring on what their objective validity depended, this deduction, I say, was the most difficult which could be undertaken for the behoof of metaphysics ; and what made the matter worse, metaphysics, as far as the science already existed, could render me no assistance, since the very possibility of metaphysics depended on that deduction. When, therefore, I had succeeded in solving the question of Hume, not merely in the particular instance, but in respect of the whole faculty of the pure reason, I could then take sure steps, though slow ones, so as at length to deter- mine fully and on universal principles, the whole ex- tent of the pure reason, both as to its boundaries and materials. This metaphysics required, to erect a sys- tem on a plan determinate and secure." On this passage Mr. Stewart has given some useful and instructive observations, showing the injustice of Kant to his predecessors, and the absence of that originality to which he lays claim. But it is open to much graver objections. KANT. 291 After that careful examination of Mr. Hume's lan- guage and reasoning, which the reader may be sup- posed to have made, he is prepared for an estimate of the value of the foregoing representation. And it may be asked, would Hume have recognized his own meaning or thought in the dress which Kant has given to it? Would he have assented to the correctness of such an account of his problem, doubt, scruple, or whatever other name be given to his theory of the origin and his opinion of the value of our ' idea of necessary connection' f our notion of cause and power? ' Would he have understood it ? There is no clear statement, in the midst of what professes to be an historical account, of Hume's real argument and position. There is nothing in Hume about ' subjective necessity' or * objective validity' nothing about a conception of a connection of things a priori. Such language, borrowed from the school- men, would probably have been as distasteful and un- intelligible to him as to subsequent thinkers. Nobody would conceive, from anything which Kant has said, that Hume contended, rightly or wrongly, that " this idea of a necessary connection amongst events arises from a number of similar instances which occur of the constant conjunction of these events." There is no- thing in Kant to help us in ascertaining whether it do or do not arise from this source. The absence of distinct reference to Hume's actual language, and even to the particular Essay in question, is destruc- tive to exact inquiry. Hume's question was not u 2 292 KANT. " whether the conception of cause is thought of a priori by reason, and in this manner has internal truth independent of all experience?'' He would either not have understood, this language, or he would have said it was idle, since in his own opinion he had proved, at any rate he had laid it down as a first principle, that every idea arises from an impression, and therefore there could be in the human mind no idea or conception a priori, if by a priori be meant conceptions antecedent to all impressions ad extra, or to all experiences. The proposition just mentioned was the real foundation or starting-point of Hume's metaphysics. It pervades his metaphysi- cal and sceptical Essays. That proposition, with its various applications, forms the subject of Brown's mi- nute and careful criticism in his f Essay on Cause and Effect,' where Hume's inconsistencies are pointed out. Yet it is one which Kant has never touched ; and he did not perceive that the man who, like Hume, de- duced all ideas from impressions, and yet compre- hended under impressions all our inward passions, emotions, and desires, that is, the most complex states of feeling, the rank growth of an indefinite ex- perience, had done nothing to clear but much to perplex the question of the origin of our ideas, of the security of our knowledge, and of the compass of the human understanding. The language and the principles of the Kantian or critical philosophy can never come into general use in England, being remote from the tastes, the habits, and KANT. t 293 the practical aims of the English scholar, gentleman, statesman, or man of business. Nevertheless a cer- tain number of writers and readers will continue to trouble themselves with the transcendental school of philosophy, flattering themselves that their notions on the highest subjects will transcend thereby the no- tions of ordinary men. The name of Coleridge, who did what could be done to introduce into the speech and thought of Englishmen the distinction between the understanding and the reason*, between the spe- * See Coleridge's ' Friend,' 5th Interposed Essay, vol. i. edit. 1818; the article on Coleridge's Plagiarisms, in ' Blackwoocl's Magazine' for March, 1840 ; and the note in Sir W. Hamilton's ' Dissertation on the History of Association,' appended to his edition of Reid, p. 800. " L'entendement est la faculte des regies, la raison la faculte des principes ; a 1'une, les regies de 1'experience ; a 1'autre, les principes des regies." So C. Remusat in the ' Essay on Kant,' vol. i. p. 405. Unfortunately for such distinction, the words understanding and reason have got a meaning and force in the English language incon- sistent with it, of which meaning it is impossible to deprive them. I have read attentively the long note in Hamilton, p. 806, and the short one in Thomson, on the words subject and object, subjective and objective, and have often considered their worth without finding any. The meaning is for the most part arbitrary ; that is, such as may be assumed and conceded for the moment without being in har- mony with received use or any substantial advantage. They are commonly interchangeable, every subject being the object, and every object the subject, of thought, consideration, and reasoning. " The subject" says Mr. Thomson, " is the mind that thinks" " The subject of knowledge is exclusively the ego or conscious mind" says Sir W. Hamilton. The objection is that such a mean- ing is wholly contrary to the received use, and to the etymology of the term. The subject of a discourse is always that particular matter or range of idea which subjects that is, lies under (sub- 294 KANT. culative and the practical reason, and to make the terms subject and object, aesthetic and dialectic, avail- able for common use, may long continue to exert some influence, notwithstanding -the proof that he copied largely from the Germans without acknowledging his obligations, trusting to their statements and references without attempting to verify them, and thus affecting a knowledge of the schoolmen, which might easily appear considerable amid the total ignorance of other men. It may long continue to be thought and said, especially by younger men, whose time and powers will be wasted in the pursuit of shadows, or of sounds less real and instructive even than shadows, that there is a depth and truth, a fundamental science, in the ' Critique of Pure Reason/ which would resolve all doubts and difficulties could we but reach it. It wul be said that no one can judge of Kant's philoso- jicio) the thinking power; like the insect or the drop for the microscope, not the magnifying or visual power itself. We speak of the subject under consideration, and the object of our attention : the first has reference to the course and flow of our thoughts, the second to the use and impression of the senses such as a sound, a light, etc. But the meaning is by no means constant. As to the compounds, subject-object, and object-object, they are self-destructive. The attempted explanations of such compounds, so absolute, and so relative, are worse than useless ; would they were amusing ! They only support Hobbes in the opinion that there is nothing so absurd but it may be found in the books of philosophers. The terms subjective and objective are not infrequent in Cud- worth and Norris, and writers of their day. Probably they were gradually dropped by subsequent metaphysical writers, by Locke and his successors, because they wanted other, and found better, terms to express all that they wished to say. KANT. 295 phy who has not mastered his peculiar style. Ob- scurity will be in the master an argument for depth, and in the disciples, who cannot, however, be interpre- ters, an argument for penetration. But what is im- plied by this ? Are there phenomena of nature and of the mind capable of being discerned in Germany and expressed in German, which cannot be expressed in English, though with less conciseness and felicity ? Are the definitions of terms, fitted for reasoning in German, incapable of being rendered fit by any trans- mission into English ? There is no doubt a wide difference between the mental habitudes and charac- teristics of the German metaphysicians and the Eng- lish, but the difference may be lessened by a willing- ness to approach each other; and the only mode of doing this is by a scrupulous adherence to the com- mon ground of fact well ascertained, carefully sifted, and faithfully mirrored in language not to be mis- taken. Do we see in Kant or his translators any evidence of this philosophic spirit and philosophic power? Was it not far less his ambition to arrive at truths where others had arrived before him, to rest on facts where others could rest with him, than to strike into new paths, to found a new school of in- quiry and philosophy, in which he alone was to be leader and master ? With this view, was it not much easier to use terms in a manner regardless of their customary use than to observe facts, overlooked be- fore, but whose value must be recognized the moment attention is directed to them? Hence Aristotle, 296 KANT. Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke were held comparatively light in his esteem, notwithstanding what he has said occasionally in their praise. It was not to be sup- posed that they had any adequate insight into the nature either of matter or of mind. As Euclid and Euler are to be of no moment until the question is answered, " how are pure mathematics possible ?" so Locke and Hartley are not to be allowed to contain any valuable observations on the laws and powers of the human mind until they have answered a question peculiar to the transcendental philosopher, according to whom " all metaphysicians were to be suspended from their occupation until they had answered the question, ' Wie sind synthetische Erkenntnisse a pri- ori moglich ?" (" How are synthetical cognitions a priori possible ?") a question ridiculous by reason of the absence of meaning in the terms. For it may be asked, first, do they exist ? possible in reference to whose or what capacity? what is a cognition a priori ? and next, what a synthetical cognition a priori ? Not only are the words analytical and synthetical continually applied by Kant to judgements or propo- sitions which are neither one nor the other, but the words a priori and a posteriori are also applied by him to propositions, to facts, and conceptions, some- times admissible, at others doubtful, as if such words were significant of qualities by which these concep- tions and propositions could be satisfactorily distin- guished from each other, and classified accordingly. KANT. 297 It is now high time to consider and to determine how far Kant's obscurity, as the acknowledged foun- tain of a stream whose waters are colouring and ob- scuring the progress of English metaphysical science, arises merely from this perversion of terms, from the use of terms apparently logical, learned, and classical in an illogical, unlearned, and barbarous manner. Almost every page of Kant's ' Critique/ whether you read it in German, Latin, or English, will furnish ample material to guide in the decision of this ques- tion; and that, not merely where he undertakes to correct Aristotle, as in respect of the categories, pre- dicaments, or post-predicaments, but where he darkens by attempted explanation the common or fundamental conceptions of the human mind, whether innate or ac- quired. If we examine first Kant's metaphysical ex- planation, and next his transcendental exposition of the conceptions of space and time, we find the follow- ing assertions : 1 . Space is no empirical conception derived from external experiences. And this for the one reason repeated in various forms, a reason which is in fact but a repetition of the assertion, namely that external experience itself is first only possible by the representation of space already existing in the mind, and lying at the foundation of experiences ; 2. Space is a necessary representation a priori which lies at the foundation of all external intuitions ; 3. It is no discursive or universal conception of the relation- ship of things in general, but ' a pure intuition'; 4. Space is represented as an infinite given quantity. 298 KANT. Then, after being told that we must think each con- ception as a representation contained in an endless multitude of different possible representations, he concludes, consequently the original representation of space is intuition a priori, and not conception* '. These assertions are followed by conclusions from the above conceptions, which are 1. "Space repre- sents no property at all of things in themselves ; 2. Space is nothing else but the form of all phenomena of the external senses, i.e., the subjective condition of sensibility, under which alone external intuition (aussere Anschauung) is possible to us." We might here ask how far the sensations of smell, of sound, of taste, which are among the phenomena of our senses, would give any notion or conception of space without the help of sight and touch, and how far space can be rightly called their form ; but passing this, and pass- ing also an attempted distinction between sensible in- tuition and pure intuition, we come to the conclusion " that the empiric reality of space is to be maintained (in respect to all possible external experience), al- though we acknowledge the transcendental ideality of the same ; that is, that it is nothing, so soon as we omit the condition of the possibility of experience, and * This is from the translation of the 'Critique,' published by Picker- ing, in 1838. I admit it does not fairly represent the German, an edition of which, by Karl Rosenkrantz, of Leipzig, 1838, is before me ; but no possible translation makes any important difference. On Kant's contorted and abusive use of terms, the reader must consult Sir W. Hamilton's ' Dissertation on the Philosophy of Com- mon Sense/ edit, of Eeid, pp. 762-768, 769. KANT. 299 assume it (space) as something which lies at the foundation of things in themselves." Then follows a metaphysical explanation and trans- cendental exposition of Time : which also is, 1. No empirical conception ; 2. It is a necessary representa- tion, lying at the foundation of all intuitions, given a priori ; 3. Upon this necessity, a priori, is grounded the possibility of apodictical principles, or axioms, as to time in general. 4. Time is no discursive or gene- ral conception, but a pure form of sensible intuition. Different times are only parts of the very same time. That these statements have in them nothing par- ticularly novel, any one may see who looks into the writings of Cudworth and Price, referred to by Mr. Stewart, or into the amusing disquisitions of Soame Jenyns, who, in the fourth, on the nature of time, says, "It is only the mode in which some created beings are ordained to exist, but in itself has really no existence at all;" or into the early work of Law, on ' Space, Time, Immensity, and Eternity/ or Watts' * Philosophical Essays/ But be they new or old, they are indefensible. They are assertions which cannot be accepted as just. They have no foundation in reason, being unsupported alike by reflection on what passes within and observation of things with- out. They all proceed upon the false assumption, which is the vital principle of the Kantian philosophy, that there are representations (a very bad word) or conceptions given subjectively, and existing a priori in the mind, which are necessary to the admission of 300 KANT. objective realities. This is wholly incapable of proof. It is contrary to the known manner in which our knowledge of objects and of their qualities, and their relation to each other, is attained. When Kant lays down the axioms, that different times are not con- temporaneous, but in succession, and that different spaces are not in succession, but contemporaneous, it may be asked how any one comes to assent to these axioms but by having observed some things to exist together in space, and some events to follow each other in succession. And be the assertions re- specting space and time, true or false, valuable or worthless, no light is thrown upon the origin of our ideas and the certainty of our knowledge, nothing is proved with respect to the powers, operations, and habitudes of the human mind. To appreciate the value of all this language about space and time, it is necessary to consider the spe- culations and sentiments of preceding thinkers ; to compare their definitions ; and to ask ourselves whe- ther these definitions and assertions render our ideas clearer, or serve any purpose in reasoning for the sup- port of further conclusions. It may be further asked, whether similar accounts may be given with equal propriety of all other abstract terms or complex ideas, such as truth, virtue, beauty, glory, life, the soul, the will; whether these are pure intuitions existing a priori in the mind ? We may ask whether the same account may or may not be given of our notions of the elements, air, fire, water, moisture, heat, and so KANT. 301 on, and all things whatsoever, whose objective reality may perhaps be conceded, but whose philosophical definitions will depend on their subjective character; that is, on the mode in which the mind conceives them, and reasons upon them. How much more satisfactory is the account of space and time, of body and motion, given by Maclaurin, in his account of Sir I. Newton's discoveries ! " Space is extended without limits, immovable, uni- form and similar in all its parts, and void of all re- sistance. It consists indeed of parts which may be distinguished into other parts, less and less, without end, but cannot be separated from each other, and have their situation and distances changed." " Body is extended in space, moveable, bounded by figure, solid and impenetrable, resisting by its inertia, divisible into parts, less and less without end, that may be separated from each other, and have their situation or distances changed in any manner." " Erona the succession of our own ideas, and from the successive variations of external objects in the course of nature, we easily acquire the ideas of dura- tion and time, and of their measures. We conceive time, or absolute time, to flow uniformly in an un- changeable course, which alone serves to measure with exactness the change of all other things." He goes on with an account of motion, real or ab- solute, relative and apparent. The worth of these definitions or accounts consists, not merely in their subserviency to subsequent rea- 302 KANT. soning and conclusion, not merely in their consistency with all other phenomena and noumena with all that is objective and subjective, if we must use those terms, but in their applicability to our notions of par- ticular spaces and particular times, as well as to the abstract notions, if such there be. Unfortunately, with the abstract notions alone the transcendentalist deems it proper to concern himself ; and, by attempt- ing to account for the abstract notions, and define the terms, without any regard to particulars, he soon reasons them away to nothing, and all his language is destitute of practical value and application. Such mental philosophers, like botanists and physiologists who build arbitrary systems without attention to na- ture, are soon encumbered with their own rubbish. The worth of Maclaurin's account is evident, by its applicability to all spaces and all times, to all the phenomena of the heavens and the earth, to seasons and their change, to the largest and longest conceiv- able as well as to the smallest and shortest, to the revelations of the telescope and the microscope, to astronomical spaces and geological eras and epochs, the experience of a life and the history of a nation and of the world. It is consistent with any and every measure of them; time being measured by motion, and space by body. Far different is it with the language of the transcendentalist. It is utterly incapable of satisfactory application to particulars. Our notion of the space occupied by a particular body, our notions, for example, of the space of a KANT. 303 room, a house, a garden, a field, an estate, a king- dom, a globe, a planetary system, may be called pure intuitions, or representations a priori lying at the foundation of things, if any one chooses so to call them. But he who maintains that our notions of such particular spaces, and of the relative propor- tions of bodies in them, do not come from sensible observation, and are not dependent upon observation ab extra, appears not to be worth an argument. Now if our notions of any and all the parts of space that is to say, of all given or actual spaces, are altogether dependent upon sensible observation, and do not and cannot exist without it, with what pro- priety can you maintain that we have in our mind a notion of space in the abstract, existing previous to all observation as a pure or a priori intuition ? The very existence of one and the same abstract notion in different minds may be questioned, and the term space is only valuable when employed in some posi- tive relation to existing bodies. So with regard to time and times. If we have not in our minds a priori the ideas of a minute, an hour, a day, month, year, or any measured period, if our ideas of these parts of time are entirely dependent upon the succession of impressions, and of observed changes and motions, by means of which we make these divisions, and understand one another's lan- guage in reference to them, if no one of these ideas would exist without the uniformity of the sensible impressions to which they refer, upon what grounds 304 KANT. can it be maintained that every man, that every child has a notion of time in the abstract, existing as a pure intuition, previous to all experience? It is contrary to all we observe of the progress and deve- lopment of the intellect. You may call time a neces- sary representation, which lies at the foundation of all intuitions ; " eine nothwendige Vorstellung*, die alien Anschauungen zum Grunde liegt." But the language is without meaning, or fallaciously, unscien- tifically metaphorical. Time is no representation of anything. A representation cannot lie at the foun- dation of anything. Intuitions, in the sense of the transcendentalist, whether internal or external, for he does not scruple to speak of both kinds, do not exist. Every proposition may be called an intuitive truth to which assent is given the moment it is heard, the terms being understood ; and because it requires no reasoning, nor new observation to support it. Does the readiness of the assent and the perception of the truth depend on the conformity of the propo- sition to universal experience, or on ideas for which no experience has been necessary ? Ear more to the purpose, in point of thought and reasoning, than all the indefinite verbiage of the transcendentalist, far more consistent with all the phenomena of observation and the uses of science, with the Newtonian philosophy of the universe, and the Hartleian theory of association, are the ingenious * On the vague generality of the word Vorstellung, see Sir W. Hamilton, whom nothing escapes, in his edit, of Reid, p. 805. KANT. 305 remarks of a forgotten and now almost unknown English writer, to which it is a pleasure to turn, and in which the thoughtful reader may find some little satisfaction. "1. As space in the total is illimitate and immense, so is time in its totality non-principiate and interminable. 2. As every moment of time is the same in all places, so is every canton or part of place the same in all time. 3. As place, whether any or no body be allocated therein, doth still persist the same immovably and invariably, so doth unconcerned time flow on eternally in the same calm and equal tenour, whether any or no thing hath duration therein, whether anything be moved or remain quiet. 4. As place is incapable of expansion, discontinuity, etc., by any cause whatever, so is time incapable of accele- ration, retardation, or suspension, it moving on no less when the sun was suspended in the days of Joshua than at any time before or since. 5. As God was pleased out of the infinite space to elect a certain determinate region for the situation, so hath He, out of infinite time, elected a determinate part for the duration of the world. 6. And therefore, as every- thing, in respect of its here and there, enjoys a pro- portionate part of the mundane space, so likewise doth it, according to its now and then of existence, enjoy a proportionate part of mundane duration. 7. As in relation to place we say everywhere and some- where, so in relation to time we say always and some- times : and as it is competent to the creature to be only somewhere in respect of place, and sometime in x 306 KANT. respect of time, so it is the prerogative of the Creator to be everywhere as to place, and for ever as to time ; and therefore those two illustrious attributes, immen- sity and eternity, are proper only to God. 8. As place hath dimension permanent, whereby it responds to the longitude, latitude, and profundity of body, so hath time dimension successive, to which the motion of bodies may be adequated ; hence comes it that as by the longitude of any standing measure (e.g. an ell) we commensurate the longitude of place, so by the flux of an horologe do we commensurate the flux of time " From this parallelism it is difficult not to conclude that time is infinitely older than motion, and conse- quently independent upon it, as also that time is only indicated by motion, as the mensuration by the men- sura*." Good sense like this is consistent with any and all other propositions which we may lay down, not only * Abbreviated from the 'Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charl- toniana.' See supra, p. 215. Hobbes defines Space " the phantasm of a thing existing without the mind simply" and Time, a phantasm of motion. See his * Philosophy of Place and Time,' Molesworth's edit. vol. i. pp. 94-96. All that the logician requires is that the subsequent reasoning be consistent with the definition; and per- haps this definition will be found as useful, and the subsequent reasoning as much to the purpose, as anything in Kant. Apply the language of the latter to the philosophy of Galileo and Kepler, as it is developed in their own works, or in the ' Lives of Eminent Men/ published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- ledge, a precious and admirable volume, and its worthlessness becomes transparent. KANT. 307 concerning time and space, but concerning the bodies that fill the one, and the events that follow in the other. The doctrines and the principles of the aesthe- tic transcendentalist, whether they be a priori judge- ments or the contrary, are inconsistent alike with our common language, and with all the perceptions and notions to which that language is adapted. In the tolerably intelligible and certainly conscien- tious account of the philosophy of Kant, which we find in the essays of Remusat, the proposition that there are in the mind cognitions or conceptions given a priori antecedent to experience, is the gate of en- trance to the whole field of his speculations. It is continually repeated, continually implied ; whoever declines assent to it is stopped at the threshold. " Experience gives," according to Kant, " not a ri- gorous universality, but a generality springing from induction. But there are judgements rigorously uni- versal: such are mathematical propositions. Reason employs such judgements, and takes them for points d'appui. Could experience exist if there were not rules which give it form and value ? The conditions by which a judgement is good or bad, are apparently ' a priori' in the mind. Mathematics are built upon ideas a priori * . ' ' Is not this mere assumption, not only unsupported by evidence, but refuted by the consideration that no two persons reason together save by the help of agreed signs significant of ideas common to both, forming a * Abbreviated from Eemusat. x 2 308 KANT. part of their common conscious experience, of which universality, or absence of exception, is an ingre- dient? while not a single term employed in these assertions can be of value except as associated with the same or a like idea, whencesoever gotten. When it is asserted that mathematical ideas, that is, the ideas of figure, number, quantity, or magni- tudes, of lines, angles, circles, proportion, and so on, that the propositions or judgements relating to them whether in arithmetic, algebra, or geometry exist in the mind a priori, antecedent to experience and observation, the assertion seems nothing better than a bold defiance of nature and fact. In mathe- matical reasoning, no axiom is more constantly em- ployed than this ' things which are equal to the same are equal to one another.' Are the ideas of equality and inequality in the mind of a child before things have been observed, measured, or weighed? He must be obstinately determined to support a theory who has the hardihood to assert it. Among the many writers who have undertaken to give an account of Kant's philosophy, scarcely any attempt it by a close adherence to his own language. It may be therefore always a question whether the account is correct and ought to be accepted. But whether we read the original, or study it in a trans- muted and diluted form, the most important inquiry is, what new facts we obtain, before unknown or dis- regarded, and to what new principles and laws of the mind we are conducted by a more able or judicious KANT. 309 classification of phenomena previously known and admitted. The account given under the article Kant in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques ' is highly favourable, and evidently written by a warm admirer. Let us take an important passage. " The a priori principles, which serve to constitute the knowledge of nature, or, as Kant says, to render experience possible, that is to say, the principles of speculative or theoretic reason, are without doubt necessary principles ; but what right have we to af- firm that this necessity is not purely relative to the constitution of our mind ? How can we pretend that they are anything but the conditions imposed by this very constitution on the possibility of experience? But if, on the other side, we conceive anything which escapes these conditions, on what foundation are we to determine its nature and to affirm its reality, at least when we do not address ourselves to morals, that is to say, when we do not pass from the specula- tive to the practical reason ? So far there will be for us only pure conceptions, possible, without doubt, and perhaps even necessary for the attainment of specu- lative knowledge, but whose objective reality will re- main hypothetical. But ask the practical reason, that is to say, examine the principles a priori, which it imposes on the will : these principles are necessary not only for our will ; they are absolutely necessary, for they are imposed equally on the will of every rational being whomsoever; consequently they have an objective value, which it is impossible to doubt. 310 KANT. Behold then, established by the practical reason, an objective truth, absolutely independent of experience the truth of the moral law. However, all which is necessarily bound to this truth, everything which is a condition or consequence of it, must be admitted by this very thing. Now, such are precisely the liberty of the will, the life of the soul after death, the Di- vine Providence. The first is the very condition of the moral law ; the other two are consequences of it. Thus the practical reason, in laying down the moral law as an absolute truth, secures at the same time the objective reality of that of which the speculative reason can affirm only the possibility. The moral law is therefore, according to Kant, the sole foundation on which we can rest, in order to determine or affirm anything beyond experience ; and, since this founda- tion is the only one, every determination and affirma- tion of this kind has value only in so far as it rests upon, and finds its limits in, this very condition. It is thus that Kant opposes to the scepticism to which the critic of speculative reason has conducted him, a moral dogmatism, which has for its foundation the indestructible authority of the moral law, and for its corollaries the fact entirely certain of liberty which fact is the very condition of the operation of this law, and belief in the immortality of the soul, and in Divine Providence, without which the moral destination of man could not be accomplished. Such is the solution to which Kant arrives upon that great question, which he has made the principal object of KANT. 311 his Critick. " Metaphysical scepticism and moral dogmatism behold, in a word, on this point the twofold residt of the Critick of Kant*!" And are we in these days to accept this as the philosophy of the mind? Is this a satisfactory ac- count of the grounds and certainty of human know- ledge, of the powers and operations of the human understanding, of the pure reason? In these asser- tions, unsupported by argument or evidence, in a a mass of terms thus used without regard to pro- priety or definition, in a scepticism thus dogmati- cal, united with a dogmatism thus sceptical, are we to find repose? By reason thus suicidal, its two arms, the speculative and practical, fighting against each other, are the most difficult of philosophical questions to be supposed at rest? Assume, if you will, as postulates and axioms necessary for all phi- losophy, the liberty of the will, the existence of a moral law, the immortality of the soul, and a Divine Providence ; but do not pretend that by virtue of these assumptions you rightfully claim to be mon- arch of metaphysical science, or that you have thrown any light upon the manner in which the mind comes to be furnished with its ideas, upon the laws of thought, upon the extent and limits of human know- ledge, the power or weakness of the human under- standing. He who turns over the pages of Hobbes, and Locke, and Hartley, and believes they contain * Translated from the French; 'Dictionnaire des Sciences,' vol. iii. pp. 404, 405. 312 ON THE TERMS some valuable sense and truth, explanatory of the na- ture of the mind, can only smile with astonishment at the high pretensions, the mysterious jargon of the transcendentalist, and call to mind the youth and the philosopher so admirably described in the ' Rasselas ' of Johnson ; when the pupil, after listening for some time to a discourse on what it is ' to live according to Nature/ feeling that he should understand the master less as he heard him longer, " bowed and was silent ; and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied, rose up, and departed with the air of a man who co- operated with the great and unchangeable system of things/' ON THE TERMS A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. The terms a priori and a posteriori are now con- tinually used as epithets descriptive of qualities, real or imaginary, by which certain ideas and principles, certain conceptions, judgements, and intuitions, are supposed to be distinguished from other ideas and principles. Of this, the foregoing pages supply many instances. What is the distinction ? Is it intelligi- ble? Is it useful? " Principles a priori bear the name," says the translator of Kant*, "not merely on this account, that they contain in themselves the foundation of other judgements, but because they are not them- * ' Kant's Critic of Pure Reason,' p. 142 ; Pickering's edit. 1838. The translation may not be good ; but could any translation be given not open to insuperable objections ? A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. selves grounded upon higher and more general cog- nitions. Still this property does not exempt them always from a proof. For although such (queer e, proof) could not be carried further objectively, but rather lies at the foundation of all cognition of its object, this still does not prevent a proof from being possible to be procured from the subjective sources of the possibility of the cognition of an object in gene- ral ; nay,, even that it is necessary, since the propo- sition otherwise would bring upon itself the greatest suspicion of a mere subreptitious assertion." Allowing this to be English, allowing for some obvious changes of the terms from a principle, which is a statement used in proof, to a proposition, which is commonly a statement to be proved, are we any nearer to a comprehension of the judgements not grounded upon higher and more general cognitions, and therefore called a priori, by summoning to our aid, in proof of their possibility, "the subjective sources of the possibility of a cognition of an object in general"? Of these subjective sources we con- fess a perfect ignorance, and feel ourselves in rayless darkness. The perusal of such a passage is like en- trance into a damp, dark cavern, in which we have nothing to guide, instruct, or amuse us, but the echoes of our own noises. A passage from a thoughtful English writer, which relates to the historical and illustrates the modern use of the terms now under consideration, will show the importance of attending closely to their meaning. 314 ON THE TERMS " Pure logic/' (says Mr. Thomson, in his ' Outline of the Necessary Laws of Thought') " treats only of those laws and conditions to which objects of sense are subjected in the mind ; and hence it is called an a priori science. It unfolds the laws of the intettectus ipse, and gives no account of the impressions of the senses. This view of logic it is hoped will meet with general assent." The hope appears a desperate and forlorn one. What is there in the logic of Aristotle, in Whately, De Morgan, or the Mills, about the laws and conditions to which objects of sense are subjected in the mind? and how can you treat of these without any account of the impressions of the senses? He adds : " Before leaving the subject, it must be noted that the term a priori has undergone important changes of meaning. In Aristotle's philosophy the general truth is 'naturally' prior (irporepov rfj ^va-et) to the particular, and the cause to the effect. But since we know the particular before the universal, and the effect before we seek the cause, the particular and the effect are each prior in respect to us (irporepov Trpos ripas). (Anal. Post. 1. ii. ; Top. 6. iv. ; Meta- phys. 5. (A) xi. p. 1018, edit. Berol.) Following this, the schoolmen call the argument which proceeds from cause to effect a priori demonstration. But with Hume ( c Sceptical Doubts ') a priori has the sense given in the text, which Kant has fixed* in the lan- * On Kant's use of the terms a priori and a posteriori, and twist- ing of other received logical terms into new significations, I com- mend to the reader's earnest attention the remarks of Sir William A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. 315 guage of philosophy ; and we purposely abstain from touching the great question of metaphysics how much of our knowledge is from the mind itself, and how much from experience. The conflicting opinions upon this matter will never be reconciled ; and per- haps the best service which philosophy could receive, would be rendered by marking out the region which must be mutually ceded by the opposite schools." On this passage I remark, that Aristotle's mean- ing is clear enough, and worthy of himself. He fre- quently intimates that nature proceeds upon a general law or principle, of which individual things or phe- nomena present to us the examples, and that in na- ture the order or law exists before the individual thing or phenomenon, which is but a consequence of that order or law ; in other words, the general cause pre- cedes every individual effect. There is a foundation for this position in philosophical thought and scientific observation. Thus it is the law of gravitation which sooner or later brings every ripe and un gathered apple to the ground. Thus it is the law of vegetation, or the continued action of the same causal power, which produces the blossom and fruit, season after season, upon every tree. Thus the laws of planetary motion determine the place in the heavens of every wandering star at every given moment. But Aristotle also de- Hamilton, in his * Dissertation on the Philosophy of Common Sense/ p. 762 et seq., which contains a vast amount of useful historical matter, but with many assertions over which the thought- ful reader will pause with hesitation. 316 ON THE TERMS cides, at least by implication, that for man there can be no a priori knowledge of nature or its laws, no a priori judgement or principle, because he must ob- serve individual things before he can generalize; he can only deduce nature's order or laws from the phe- nomena ; and he can know nothing of effects or causes prior to observation that is, to experience. There is an admirable passage on the value of the word 'prior/ or the Trpdrepov, in the Categories of Aristotle, of which the following translation may be proposed*. " One thing is said to be prior to another in four respects : first and chiefest, in respect of time, in reference to which one thing is said to be older and more ancient than another ; by its time being longer, it is called older and more ancient. Secondly, one thing is before another when there is no reciprocal correspondence in the order or consequence of their existence, as, for instance, one is prior to two, because of two things existing, it follows immediately that one exists ; but from the existence of one it is not neces- sary that there are two ; so that there is no corre- spondence between the existence of one thing and the existence of any more. Hence it appears that what- soever is prior is such that its existence is not con- sequent upon the existence of any other thingf (or, * I translate from Bekker's Aristotle' (4to. Berol. 1831. p. 14). Those who have attempted to turn Aristotle into exact and elegant English know its difficulty. "|" 'A(' ov p,f) dvTio-Tpffal rj TOV elvat dKo\oi>0rj meant, I collect and infer, or, as I have sometimes thought it might be, I think or reckon with another, to count together, computatio, as Hobbes calls it. 322 ON THE TERMS but, on the contrary, to include, whatsoever is confor- mable to and within the range of our experience, at least when we lay down true propositions concern- ing it. But perhaps the. question is only intended to put in another form an inquiry into the value of Locke's two sources of knowledge, sensation and re- flection ; and it means, how many of our ideas have their origin in the one source, how many in the other? and how many true propositions the wisest are in possession of, relating to each ? But even with that meaning, the question is not a very wise one, be- cause we are without means of measurement; while nothing that Locke has taught is controverted, and no light upon his philosophy is thrown, by any opi- nion respecting the quantity of knowledge traceable to sources with which he did not concern himself. By a man's mind is commonly meant either the ac- tual amount of his knowledge, howsoever obtained, or the instrument and faculties by which he acquires knowledge of any sort or degree. " There are of knowledge two kinds," says Hobbes* / t/ with that clearness and strength which satisfy and gratify ; " whereof one is knowledge of fact, the other, knowledge of the consequence of one affirmation to another. The former is nothing else than sense and memory, and is absolute knowledge, as when we see a fact doing or remember it done ; and this is the knowledge required in a witness. The latter is called science, and is continual ; as when we know that if * ' Leviathan,' ch. ix. : Of the several subjects of knowledge. A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. 323 the fyure shown be a circle, then any straight line 1 /trough the centre shall divide it into two equal parts ; and this is the knowledge required in a philosopher, that is to say, of him that pretends to reasoning." This last kind of knowledge seems much the same with what Locke calls demonstrative, and includes his relation of ideas, or perception of agreement and disagreement of ideas, with one another. But whe- ther this be true or not, the above distinction is as good as it is simple, and is in harmony with all we know and all we think, whether of inductive or de- ductive science. 2. Whatever we know of the mind itself is from the mind. Its powers and qualities are known by their exercise ; and the powers may be confessed in- nate, although no idea, especially in the form of a pro- position, can be called so. Thus we know from reflec- tion alone, taught by experience, what is meant by the will, the memory, the judgement, a sensation, a thought, and by ah 1 other terms significant of emo- tions and passions, and all our internal states. Gene- rally speaking, these terms do not require, and per- haps they scarcely admit of, definition. Yet the phi- losopher may try, and often with success, to analyse the more complex states of mind and feeling into the more simple and elementary. Thus the will may be defined, that state of desire, accompanied by con- sciousness of power, which immediately precedes muscular action. Every one is conscious of the dif- ference between an accidental and an intentional Y 2 324 ON THE TERMS movement, between a pain endured and a pain in- flicted, between a pleasure unexpected and a pleasure sought and procured. Motives and intentions, im- mediate or remote, mingle with and modify, if they do not constitute, the will, which is sometimes signifi- cant of the single and simple desire preceding a par- ticular act, sometimes significant of a more complex a less definite and distinct condition of the mind, accompanying a series of acts, and extending its in- fluence over a longer time. Care must be taken that a different definition, or idea of it, be not assumed or implied in the same argument. Let us take an account or definition of memory. "Memory," says Ergates, in the 'Physiological Inqui- ries*/ " memory is a recurrence of sensations which existed formerly, produced by the operation of some internal changes, after the causes by which the first sensations were excited have ceased to exist/' In such a definition or account of memory, is there not at once too much and too little ? To sensation should be added, at least, "ideas of sensation" and of re- flection, and former mental states results of previous thought. From it should be taken away all allusion to theory about the manner in which the recur- rence of sensation is produced. An inquiry into the internal changes which may precede memory is not necessary to understand the term. The assumption that some, though unknown, internal changes, whe- * A small volume just published, and understood to be by Sir Benjamin C. Brodie. A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. 325 ther of the brain or not, do precede and produce it, ought not to be mixed up with a definition of me- mory itself. The word memory has not commonly, nor ought it to have philosophically, any reference to such changes, whether they exist or not. But, be the definition of the terms significant of mental states right or wrong, it is required by good reasoners that the subsequent reasoning be consistent with the de- finition, that is, with itself. Now, as there are many sensational states, many shades, for example, of whiteness and blueness, and of other colours, and many kinds of sweet and bit- ter, many tastes and many sounds which cannot be described or defined, and which cannot be conceived by those who are not able to make acquaintance with them through the eyes, ears, and palate, so there are many states of desire and aversion, of joy and sorrow, which cannot be described in words, and are wholly incommunicable ; and the best terms, which we can employ as significant of such states, can only be in- telligible to those who interpret them by help of a similar or analogous past experience. 3. All mental and emotional states are phenomena of consciousness ; but the word consciousness covers, or includes, all that we rejlect upon, all that we experi- ence. Is there any mental power or state that does not imply a sensational experience? In order that a sensation be remembered, that its recurrence be dreaded or desired, it must have been first expe- rienced. Before an act can be willed, the results of 326 ON THE TERMS a muscular act being anticipated, there must have been experience of similar results from similar mus- cular action. The sucking of a child is at first auto- matic, and may be called instinctive; in process of time it becomes voluntary. The arts of talking and walking are acquired by effort and degree. At first each step and each word require the will ; soon they become automatic, or secondarily automatic. And thus the study of the voluntary and the mechanical conditions of our mental and physical frame, under the guidance of the Hartleian theory of Association, becomes a most important and most interesting part of the science of human nature. The memory of pleasure originates the desire to renew it, of pain, the desire to avoid it. Memory and desire are ele- ments in the formation of the will. Whoever marks the growth of thought, and its expression, in a child, observes that, after the first dawn of intelligence, in the notice of objects, accompanied with smiles or tears a language not confined to the human race, it soon begins to mark, with a term significant, some outward object, such as mother, nurse, flower, tree, dog, cat, and so on, each term being associated with a cluster of sensible impressions. When the child has been accustomed to recall the sensations which have occurred together in past time, and to anticipate their recurrence in the future, and to mark the cluster of sensations by a term or sign, then the term, whenever used in the absence of the object or objects, calls up, in Hartleian language, the minia- A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. 327 tures of the sensations. By degrees the child learns to interpret and apply a variety of terms significant of inward or emotional states, of desire and aversion, of hope and fear, pain and pleasure, memory and for- getfulness. It begins to explain its physical condi- tions, mental or metaphysical, objective and subjec- tive ; and it speaks of being hungry and thirsty, en- vious or complacent, knowing or ignorant. 4. These facts being heeded, the existence of any a priori or intuitive knowledge, in the sense of knowledge altogether independent of or antecedent to experience, can never be admitted. Every finite created mind emerges, so to speak, out of a state of nothingness, darkness, ignorance. It has nothing but what is given it. It knows nothing but what it learns. In the sense of a recipient of impressions, every mind may at first be compared to a tabula rasa, to which Aristotle justly compares the soul or thinking power ; and even if there may belong to the tabula, metaphorically speaking, a colour of its own, which gives to the impressions a tint peculiar to the individual, of that tint no opinion can be formed prior to experience. In most cases, it is certain that the mind acquires all its valuable and communicable knowledge by slow degrees; though the degrees in facility or power of acquisition be infinitely varied. Of self-knowledge, sometimes called the most valua- ble knowledge, the knowledge of the inward pro- pensities and powers which affect our conduct and 328 ON THE TERMS happiness as individuals, there can be none, till, as the divinest of poets expresses it, " Till old experience do attain To something of prophetic strain." 5. If there be truths, or axioms, entitled to be called a priori, such truths and axioms cannot con- tradict our experience, but must be conformable and in harmony with it. If not derived from experience, they must be supported by it. The terms in which such a priori judgements are expressed must be in harmony with all our natural and acquired associa- tions, when they embody propositions which have the firm, unhesitating, and unqualified assent of the un- derstanding. And further, in order that a founda- tion be laid for the use of language, mutually intelli- gible, in order that two or more persons may reason and syllogize together, the phenomena of sensation and thought must be common to all who use the lan- guage ; and the terms so used must be the received, authorized, and standard coin of the realm of the re- public of letters ; not the spurious and unrecognized issue of some private speculator or joint-stock com- pany, whose promise to pay in the full value of ster- ling sense will perhaps never be honoured. It is the utter ignorance or perverse rejection of the Hartleian theory of Association, which raises so many difficul- ties in the path of inquirers, who will not accept its aid to remove them*. * On the received use of the terms " argument or reasoning a priori and a posteriori ," some accounts are given and some exam- A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. 329 These remarks on the great metaphysical question of the day may place it in a light new to some read- ers, and help to its decision. It cannot be necessary to enlarge further on the common and formerly received meaning of arguments a priori and a posteriori. But, as Bernier's Abridg- ment of Gassendi on the Understanding is less readily met with than some of the other works to which a note refers the reader, the following remarks of that writer on the subject seem to be worth attention, es- pecially in connection with what has been said above respecting Aristotle. " The understanding always commences with known individual things. Thence it happens that when we say, with Aristotle, that singulars are truly more known and more manifest in respect to us (quoad nos), but that universals are more known and manifest as to nature (manifestiora naturd), it is certainly very dif- ficult to understand well what he would say ; for all the notion and evidence which we can have of uni- versals depends on the notion and evidence of the individuals. "No doubt we prove many things of such and pies may be found in Law's Preface to the translation of King on 'The Origin of Evil,' p. ix.; in Watts' Logic; in the learned dis- sertation of Waterland upon * The Argument a priori for proving the Existence of a First Cause,' before referred to ; and in Dr. John Clarke, on the Origin of Evil. Our own modern logicians, Whately, De Morgan, and Mill, do not make such kinds of argu- ment the subject of their particular attention, nor admit any dis- tinction as an important part of logic. 330 A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI. such individuals by general axioms, which are con- sequently more known and more manifest, but we have first drawn these axioms from individuals, that is, by an induction which -we have made of many in- dividuals; insomuch that all the clearness and cre- dence which these axioms have in our esteem, they owe* 1 it to preceding singulars, which have so much the more right to have this clearness and credence attached to them when the formal axiom is present, ' propter quod unumquodque est tale, et illud ma- gis est tale/ " Hence it happens that we have ordinarily more consideration for the demonstration called propter quid, or a priori, than for that which we call quia, or a posteriori ; because the former proceeds from uni- versals to particulars from causes to effects, while the latter proceeds in a manner wholly contrary. We must nevertheless see whether we have a right to do this ; since no demonstration a priori can have cre- dence, or be received, without supposing the demon- stration a posteriori, by which it must be proved. For how is it, for example, that, having to prove that man feels, from this proposition, Every animal feels ; how, I say, will you establish the truth of this position, should some one hesitate to grant it, except by making induction of the individual animals, of whom there is not one that does not feel*?" * Translated from the French of Bernier's Abridgment of Gas- sendi, ' De 1'Entendement,' vol. vi. pp. 349-441. 331 OUTLINE OF THE PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Bacon. English philosophy, mental and moral no less than physical, properly begins with the great name of Bacon. In writers of an earlier date, such as Anselm and Bradwardine*, some anticipations of the most profound metaphysical speculations of a later day may be found. They discussed the nature and freedom of the will, the arguments for a Provi- dence, the dependence of man on the laws of nature. But they can scarcely be said to have entered upon the study of the mind as a distinct subject for sci- entific observation, even had they written in English. Not so Bacon. His comprehensive mind failed not to observe how necessary it is, with a view to the advancement of learning, to know the nature and power of the instrument with which man acquires knowledge, the mind, according to Aristotle, being the 'form of forms-)-.' * Thomas Wright published in 1604 a work on the ' Passions of the Mind,' of considerable interest. Huarte's ' Triall of Wits/ translated out of Spanish into Italian, and Englished out of the Italian in 1596, is also a book full of curious metaphysic thought. But they are fitter for the antiquary and minute inquirer than for one who would take a rapid but just view of the progress of men- tal philosophy since the revival of letters. Anselm in some mea- sure anticipated Descartes. Bradwardine, whose works, ' De Causa Dei,' etc., were edited by Sir H. Savile in 1618, was the first English Necessarian. The reader may consult Chalmers' Biogra- phical Dictionary, and Priestley's Works, vol. iii. p. 456. J" On the meaning of the word form, see a very good note in Thomson's ' Outline,' pp. 27-31. 332 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. The Essays of Bacon, first published in 1597, under the title ' Counsells Civil and Moral,' are a treasury of observations on what has since been called 'private ethics/ In the ^Advancement of Learning/ first printed in 1605, in all that relates to the rea- son and the four kinds of demonstration, to inven- tion, to suggestion and the art of memory, to the false appearances imposed upon us by the general nature of the mind, by every man's individual nature, by custom, and by words, we have a rich collec- tion of pregnant hints, if not anticipating much that Hobbes, and Locke, and Hartley afterwards taught, following the Baconian method, yet laying deep the foundation for their work, and in harmony with all that has since been discovered and enforced by the physicians and metaphysicians of most exact and patient observation*. We should not now define metaphysics to consist " in the inquiry of formal and final causes," as Bacon * The passage on the connection of the mind and body their mutual influence and dependence, suggests the thought that Leib- nitz had not studied Bacon carefully enough to profit by him as he might have done. See * Advancement of Learning,' Bacon's Works, 4to edit. 1778, pp. 64-70. The letter and discourse to Sir Henry Savile, touching helps for the intellectual powers, appears to be a fragment unfinished, but eminently worthy of the great author. It was first published in Stephens' collection, but unfortunately ap- pears without date as to the time of its composition. The modern editors of English classics and philosophers, such as Bacon and Hobbes, would do well to mention the copies and editions which they have used for their reprints, and to mark the time when the several works were composed. When the works are not printed in the order in which they were originally published, nor accom- panied by any dates of original publication, nor by any biography PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 333 does*; although this is perhaps what Kant would make it, interpreting him charitably, when he speaks of transcendental metaphysics, because he makes no distinct reference to Bacon or Bacon's meaning. Me- taphysic is become a humbler study. It is now ge- nerally confined to an analysis of the faculties of the mind. It deals with the study of the extent and limits, the power and weakness of the human under- standing in the search after truth ; and with the study of the propensities to action, of pleasures and pains, with a view to the regulation of the desires and pas- sions. But Bacon suggested the path. " The know- ledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man," says Baconf, " is of two kinds ; the one re- specting his understanding and reason, and the other his will, appetite, and affection; whereof the former produceth position or decree, the latter action or exe- cution." "Human philosophy hath two parts, ra- tional and moral." Of the first part of the 'Advancement of Learning/ Bacon sweetly says, " This writing seemeth to me not much better than that noise or sound which musi- cians make while they are tuning their instruments, which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards. So have I been from which the dates can be gathered, the study of the author's mind, and of the course and changes of his thoughts and occu- pations, is involved in difficulties, which such information would help to remove. * Works, 4to, vol. i. p. 57. t Ib. vol. i. pp. 72, 73, 334 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. content to tune the instruments of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands." The first part was but a prelude to the second ; the ' Instauratio Magna, of Novum Organum for the Interpretation of Nature/ published and dedicated to King James in 1620. With its noble and immortal aphorisms, it may be compared to a splendid over- ture, prophetic of choicest melodies soon to delight the ear, and breathe into the soul a spirit of power and hope far above its ordinary moods. The axioms and aphorisms which Bacon lays down, as essential to the profitable pursuit of the knowledge of material and external nature, are also applicable to the study of the mind. The same tendency to hasty generalizations from partial and imperfect ob- servation is to be guarded against. The same con- stant recurrence to observation of facts and instances is to be observed. The same emancipation from the slavery of words is to be achieved. The laws of thought, like those of matter, must be studied in and deduced from phenomena; and the phenomena can only be known by observation, first of what passes in ourselves, and next by the signs of the processes to which other minds are subject. Thus in the philo- sophy of the mind, no less than in the philosophy of matter, experience and induction, in Bacon's sense of these terms, constitute by far the best, if not the only demonstration. " Sed demonstratio longe opti- ma est experientia ; modo haereat in ipso experimen- to" (Aphorism Ixx.). The principles of Bacon were PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 335 appreciated and acted upon by Hobbes and Gassendi, by Locke and Newton, by Boyle and Hartley, all of whom entered into his spirit and followed in his path ; while Descartes showed not a little jealousy of the great master, and employed his imagination in con- structing a priori systems; and even Leibnitz was not a little unwilling to be guided by one, in whose light his own grew dim or was eclipsed*. " If the moral philosophers, that have spent such an infinite quantity of debate touching good and the highest good, had cast their eye abroad upon nature, and beheld the appetite that is in ah! things to re- ceive and to give ; the one motion affecting preserva- tion and the other multiplication ; which appetites are most evidently seen in living creatures, in the plea- sure of nourishment and generation ; and in man do make the aptest and most natural division of all his desires, being either of sense of pleasure, or sense of power ; and in the universal frame of the world are figured, the one in the beams of heaven which issue forth, and the other in the lap of the earth which takes in : and again, if they had observed the motion of congruity or situation of the parts in respect of the * How altered is the state of opinion in England since Warbur- ton, among his memoranda, wrote : " Descartes and Leibnitz were both great geniuses. I pity the first, for he was a visionary : I despise the other, for he was a cheat"! See selection of papers of Warburton, edited by Eev. Francis Kilvert, 1841, p. 332. It is said of Mr. Jackson, that he once heard Sir Isaac Newton pleasantly tell Dr. Clarke that he had broken Leibnitz's heart with his reply. See Whiston's Hist. Memoirs of Dr. Clarke, p. 132. 336 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. whole, evident in so many particulars : and lastly, if they had considered the motion familiar in attraction of things, to approach to that which is higher in the same kind : when by these observations, so easy and concurring in natural philosophy, they should have found out this quaternion of good, in enjoying or fruition, effecting or operation, consenting or pro- portion, and approach or assumption, they would have saved and abridged much of their long and wandering discourses of pleasure, virtue, duty, and religion. So likewise, in this same logic and rhetoric, or acts of argument and grace of speech, if the great masters of them would but have gone a form lower, and looked but into the observations of grammar concerning the kinds of words, their derivations, de- flexions, and syntax, specially enriching the same with the helps of several languages, with their differing proprieties of words, phrases, and tropes, they might have found out more and better footsteps of common reason, help of disputation, and advantages of cavilla- tion than many of these which they have propounded." (' Valerius Terminus, of the Interpretation of Nature/ Bacon's Works, 4to, vol. i. p. 380.) Upon this suggestion of Bacon, Hobbes and Locke appear to have acted, however unconsciously. The sense of pleasure and the sense of power were, in the estimation of Hobbes, the great if not sole movers of mankind the real and rightful governors of the political and moral world. The later and larger por- tions of Locke's Essay turn on the kinds and the PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 337 value of words ; not indeed on their derivation, but their definition, that is, their fitness for the purpose of exact reasoning and true science. In Home Tooke's estimation, it was more a work on grammar than on the mind. It might be a very profitable task so to systematize the works of Bacon and of Hobbes, as to mark exactly the points of agreement in what they teach concerning human nature, and concerning the advancement not only of learning, but with it all the interests of mankind. Of all the writers who have put their thoughts on record for the delight and improvement of mankind, Bacon seems most to deserve the praise that he never sleeps. I speak of his philosophical works. Open where you will, his pages teem with observations and expressions worthy of everlasting remembrance ; rich with a knowledge of fact, a purpose of good, and a felicity of illustration, that mixture of fruit and flower which constitute the highest feast of reason, a banquet for the mind wholesome and delicious. He may not be always faithful to his own principles. He may sometimes be rash in concluding, and mistake a complex for a simple phenomenon. He may not be always just to his predecessors, and Aristotle certainly deserved from him a better title than that of sophist*. * " The ' Organon' of Aristotle and the ' Orgamun' of Bacon stand in relation, but the relation of contrariety : the one considers the laws under which the subject thinks ; the other, the laws under which the object is to be known. To compare them together is there- fore to compare together qualities of different species. Each proposes a different end ; both in different ways are useful ; and both ought to Z 338 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. But no philosopher has equalled him in the utterance of great thoughts in a style proportionately great ; and his works are indeed as an awaking, a trumpet-note, " both of the wants in man's present condition, and the nature of the supplies to be wished." His errors as a man are unwillingly remembered in connection with so much intellectual greatness. No man has so largely overpaid the evil which he inflicted on the liv- ing generation, by the greatness and splendour of his bequests to posterity. Hobbes. It must have been between the years 1612 and 1620, in which last year the second part of the 'Novum Organum Scientiarum' was published, that Hobbes assisted Bacon in turning his writings into Latin, Hobbes being then in repute for the excel- lence of his Latin style. We are indebted primarily be assiduously studied." So Sir W. Hamilton, note, p. 712, to Reid's ' Brief Account of Aristotle's Logic.' This is said loosely, with more apparent, than adequate truth. Aristotle's doctrine of the syllo- gism, or view of the laws of inference, is here chiefly regarded. But he never mistook this doctrine for a complete view of the laws of the mind, nor advanced it for more than it was worth. His 'Ethics,' and 'Rhetoric,' and 'Natural History,' and paper on ' The Soul,' are Baconian, so to speak, in method and spirit. Of Bacon it certainly is not true, that in attention to " the laws under which the object is known," a sentence which does not express happily either the aim or character of his ' Instauratio Magna,' he over- looked the laws affecting the mind itself; or, as he expresses it, "the doctrine of the soul and of its faculties." The real relation of Bacon to Aristotle is not a subject for hasty decision. Something is said of it, and with his lively force, in Macaulay's article on Bacon, though more of Bacon's relation to Seneca and to Plato. The depreciation of syllogism and induction drew forth the defence of both by Mr. De Morgan, in his ' Formal Logic.' PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 339 for our knowledge of this intercourse between the philosophers of Malmesbury and of Gorhambury to that singular being, John Aubrey, the antiquary, him- self a friend of Hobbes a pupil of the same tutor*. Aubrey's account runs thus : " The Lord Chancellor Bacon loved to converse with him. He assisted his lordship in translating several of his essays into Latin; one I well remember is that of the 'Greatness of Cities :' the rest I have forgott. His lordship was a very con- templative person, and was wont to contemplate h\ his delicious walkes at Gorhambury ; and dictate to Mr. Bushell, or some other of his gentlemen, that attended with ink and paper, ready to sett down presently his thoughts. His lordship would often say that he bet- ter liked Mr. Hobbes taking his thoughts than any of the others, because he understood what he wrote ; which the others not understanding, my lord would many times have a hard task to make sense of what they writtf." It has been considered remarkable that Locke has nowhere expressed any obligations to Hobbes, nor spoken respectfully of his intellect and writings ; but it is still more remarkable that Hobbes has never alluded to this intimacy with Bacon, nor uttered a word of grateful admiration. We do not know that Locke ever saw Hobbes, though they were forty years * Aubrey communicated to Antony a Wood the particulars in- serted in the ' Athense Oxonienses ;' and from Aubrey, Blackbourn got the information inserted in the ' Vitse Hobbeanse Auctarium.' f See ' Letters written by eminent Persons, and Lives of eminent Men, by John Aubrey, Esq.' (1813, vol. ii. p. 602. Edited by Bliss.) 'A 2 340 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. contemporaries, and there is reason for thinking that Locke never paid that attention to the works of Hobbes which they deserved at his hands. In the case of Bacon and Hobbes there was, it appears, intimate personal intercourse. Hobbes was twenty-eight years the younger ; yet the sense of generous appreciation appears, by the above testimony, only on the side of Bacon*. It is possible that Hobbes remembered with pain Bacon's moral defects ; for he had none of Ba- con's passion for wealth, splendour, and power. It was about the time of this intimacy with Bacon, or soon after, that Hobbes began to be deeply impressed with the nullity of the logic and metaphysics of the -schools, and to perceive the importance of attending to the mathematical modes of reasoning in connection with the study of morals and politicsf. Yet perhaps we cannot attribute much influence to the authority and guidance of Bacon in the formation of Hobbes's in- tellect. Both were born great ; that is, endowed with * Bacon's name occurs once in the English works of Hobbes, vol. vii, p. 112, and once in the Latin works, vol. iv. p. 316 ; but only in connection with experiments relating to water and its motion. Bacon died in 1626. It was not till about twenty years after that Hobbes first appeared as an author in the book, ' De Give' ; although he had printed his translation of Thucydides as early as 1628. t It seems scarcely credible that he was forty years old before he looked on geometry, when his attention was accidentally attracted to Euclid's Elements, which lay open before him in a gentleman's library. That book now forms a part of every boy's education ; yet, such is Aubrey's account. What could have been the course of edu- cation at Oxford when Hobbes was at Magdalen Hall, whither he went, as a good scholar, in 1603 ? PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 341 a pre-disposition to thought, with an inherent energy of mind, which would have forced their way to distinc- tion, through all impediments, independent of slight adventitious aids ; like that ivy which, by its power of native growth, whether it cling to the mouldering wall or the decaying tree, overtops and at length up- holds that from which it originally derived support. Nature and history were for both the great instruc- tors. To both the past and the present opened their treasures. Both were earnest to extend and to secure the empire of man over nature and himself. In addition to this intercourse with Bacon, Hobbes enjoyed the society, and even intimacy, of most of the great thinkers of his day ; but of no one more remarkable than the great Galileo, whom he is said to have attended daily when at Pisa in Italy, where he was with his patron from the year 1634 to 1637. They are reputed to have been alike in temperament and manners, and united in friendship the more closely because both had been tormented by the censures of the ecclesiastics. Something of resemblance is discer- nible in their portraits ; in the square and expansive brow, in the deep-sunk and piercing eye, in the firm and expressive mouth. A difficulty in the study of Hobbes 's philosophy and writings arises from the circumstance that the same thoughts and principles are repeated so often, in dif- ferent forms, in what appear to be at first so many different works. Not only have we his philosophy in an English and Latin form, but in the ' Treatise con- 342 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. cerning Human Nature/ in the ' De Corpore Politico, or the Elements of Law, moral and politic, ' both of which were extracted from him by friends, and pub- lished in 1650, and again in the ' Philosophical Ru- diments concerning Government and Society/ printed in 1651, we have only an extended view of the little treatise ' De Give/ first printed for private circulation in 1642; while the matter of all appears in the most mature form in the ' Leviathan/ wherein his system of religious, political, and moral principles is complete, and digested with great care and pains*. The independence and originality, the earnestness and depth of Hobbes' thoughts, together with his clear, nervous, masterly style, cannot fail to attract the ad- miration of every generous and high-minded reader. Such a reader perceives at once that he has in him " such things as challenge the greatest attention /' and he has only to read the epistle dedicatory to the Earl of Devonshire, and the preface to the reader, pre- fixed to the 'Philosophical Rudiments' in 1651, to conceive for the author high esteem, " as a man who thought no expense of time and industry too great for the scrutiny of truth /' and who sought for it in the most difficult matters, in moral and civil prudence, " matters most necessary to the completion of that happiness which is consistent with human life." Public opinion has its effective Index Expurgatorius. No body of men exercises a more powerful influence over public opinion in England than the clergy; but * See Life of Hobbes, prefixed to the folio of 1771, p. xv. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 343 no works are more fatal to this influence, none more hostile to spiritual pretensions and ecclesiastical do- mination, than those of Hobbes. Hence no writer of equal merit has been so much neglected, none is so entirely out of fashion ; yet no writer is more fitted to form the strong, the independent, self-relying mind ; to remove from fact and nature the veil of words, to make us understand both what we think and why we think it. He regarded the clergy as factious towards the state, tyrannous and grasping towards the people. Their conduct in his day gave much reason for so re- garding them. Religion was then, as often before and since, if not the chief source of civil discord, at least a great element in the excitement and the strife. There can be no more effectual preservative against the tendency to mistake submission to a priest and a credulous superstition for the spirit of religion, and against the tendency to confound the Church of Christ with a body of domineering ecclesiastics, than that part of the Leviathan' entitled ' Of the Kingdom of Darkness/ The comparison of the Papacy with the kingdom of the fairies, and the short account of the whole synthesis and construction of the Pontifical power, is a delicious morsel of history and satire. It is not, however, the clergy only who appear to disadvantage in the ' Leviathan/ but human nature itself. Men are there represented as in constant dan- ger from one another, the objects of a just suspicion and mistrust ; herding together solely for mutual pro- tection, and kept together by the necessary ties of a 344 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. selfish interest ; using each other's weaknesses for self- glorification, envy and malice being large ingredients in the compound of good manners and social order. If any metaphysician desefve the title of sensationalist, it may be Hobbes. Significant of an opinion of fact, it is no title of reproach. All our conceptions, accord- ing to him, proceed from the sense or action of things upon the brain. If any moralist deserve to be called selfish, it is Hobbes, who says that by love is under- stood the joy man taketh in any present good ; and who speaks of the affection which men bestow on strangers, as " either contract, whereby they seek to purchase friendship ; or fear, which maketh them to purchase peace!' (Human Nature, ch. ix.) With him, might is the foundation of right, and goodness is con- stancy in attention to self. Obedience to law must be enforced by power; and moral obligation* arises from fear of evil and necessity of submission. Yet, whatever his defects, the metaphysician will delight in the depth and truth of his observations on the intellect, the imagination, and the passions ; the logician will peruse and re-peruse his excellent remarks on definition and demonstration, and the nature and value of first principles ; and the philosophical Chris- tian will weigh with candour and attention his esti- mate of the relation of the Church to the State, of Scripture to the civil law, and learn to test in silent * " There can be no obligation without an obliger," says Seldon, in his ' Table Talk,' a book which indicates, if not the influence of his friend Hobbes, a general harmony of opinion. PROGRESS OF KNGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 345 meditation the amount and value of his faith, and the real but secret nature of his hopes and fears. It is not easy to give a short, and at the same time just, account of the moral and political princi- ples of Hobbes. In 1637, Hobbes returned from Italy with the Earl of Devonshire into England. The troubles in Scotland growing high, and popular dis- content spreading southwards, threatening the entire subversion of the peace of the island, he bent his thoughts to politics, and composed something against the pestilential opinions which began generally to pre- vail. It was this that engaged him to commit to pa- per certain observations, out of which he first composed his book 'De Give,' and which grew up afterwards into that system called the Leviathan/ " The true scope of his discourse was no more than this," says the author of the Life prefixed to the folio of 1751, " that security can be only enjoyed where there is peace; that peace cannot be maintained without dominion ; that dominion cannot be supported without arms ; that arms will prove but a weak defence, if not put into one hand ; and, even then, that they will scarcely re- strain such as shall be prompted to discord by the fear of an evil greater than death itself, which is the case in religious disputes." This account of the scope of the 'Leviathan' is just. The most doubtful proposi- tion is, " that arms will prove but a weak defence, if not put into one hand." The comparative safety of the mass of the people under a despotism, and under a mixed form of government, is a subject which Hobbes 346 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. has discussed, but on which the materials for forming a just judgement have much increased since his time ; and we must be sensible, that there had been no such experience before his days,~as there has been since, of the peace and prosperity of mankind under a consti- tutional monarchy and in a free republic. Enough has been made of the peculiarity, and, as some think, the absurdity, of certain of his definitions; such as, that " laughter proceedeth from a sudden con- ception of some ability in him that laugheth;" " glory is the passion which proceedeth from the imagination or conception of our own power above the power of him that contendeth with us*/' But he is not without sentiments which imply a delicate and refined appre- ciation of true goodness of heart and the true graces of life and happiness ; thus he says, " that much laugh- ter at the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds, one of the proper works is to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able." As with other philoso- phical writers, perhaps it is less by the chief propo- sitions which he seeks to establish, than by the pro- found truth of incidental and subordinate passages, that the excellence of Hobbes is to be appreciated. So with the greater poets, it is less the subject and construction of their poem, than the beauty of fa- vourite passages, that wins admiration, and leaves an indelible impression on the memory and the heart. If we judge of Hobbes by the dedication to his * See chap, ix., ' Treatise on Human Nature.' PROGRESS Of ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 347 patron and the preface to the reader, attached to the ' Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society/ we shall give him credit for pure motives, and form an opinion highly favourable of his temper and intent. He saw his country boiling hot with ques- tions concerning the rights of dominion and the obe- dience due from subjects, the true forerunners of an approaching war. He hoped to persuade his readers rather "to brook with patience some inconveniences under government (because human affairs cannot pos- sibly be without some), than self-opinionatedly to dis- turb the quiet of the public ; that, weighing the justice of things, not by the persuasion and advice of pri- vate men, but by the laws of the realm, they would not suffer ambitious men to wade through streams of blood to their own power ; that they would esteem it better to enjoy themselves in the present state, than, by waging war, endeavour to procure a reformation for other men in another age, themselves in the mean- while either killed or consumed with rage/' He first sets it down for a principle, " by experience known to all men, that the dispositions of men are naturally such, that except they be restrained through fear of some coercive power, every man will distrust and dread each other; and as by natural right he may, so by necessity he will, be forced to make use of the strength he hath toward the preservation of himself." " Though mankind be not wicked by nature, nor all nor the larger part wicked, yet, because we cannot distinguish the wicked from the righteous, there is a 348 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. necessity of suspecting, heeding, anticipating, subju- gating, self-defending, ever incident to the most honest and fairest conditioned." Building on this founda- tion, he demonstrates first, that the state of men, with- out civil society, properly called the state of nature, is nothing else but a mere war of all against all ; and in that war, all men have equal right to all things : next, that all men, as soon as they understand this hateful condition, have a natural desire to be freed from this misery. But this cannot be done, except by compact they all quit that right they have to all things. He then declares what the nature of compact is ; by what the right of one might be transferred into another to make their compacts valid; also, what rights and to whom they must be granted, for the establishing of of peace ; meaning, what those dictates of reason are, which may be properly termed the laws of nature. These he discusses under the title Liberty. Under the title Dominion he shows what civil go- vernment is, and the supreme power in it, and what the divers kinds are ; he discusses their several con- veniences and inconveniences ; he unfolds what those things are which destroy it, and what his or their duty who rule in chief. Under the title Religion he endeavours to demon- strate, by strong reason, that the powers exercised by rulers over their subjects, and the obedience due from subjects unto their princes, are not contrary to religion, nor to the Christian religion. Finally, he re- quests his readers, " if they meet with some things PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 349 which have more of sharpness, and less of certainty, than they ought to have, since they are not so much spoken for the maintenance of parties as the esta- blishment of peace, and by one whose just grief for the present calamities of his country may justly be allowed some liberty, to deign to receive them with an equal mind." In the tone of this address to his readers, there is much to win respect; nor can there be a doubt of Hobbes's earnest desire for truth and peace, and of his profound and anxious thought on the most difficult and important questions in moral and political philosophy. But his opinion of human nature, of its inherent and unconquerable selfishness and folly, oozes out when he exhorts his readers to consult their ease and enjoy- ment, rather than seek to procure a reformation for other men in another age; while all that he says, under the head of Liberty, indicates his belief, not only in the original, but the continued and lasting pre- dominance of the selfish passions, of suspicious and hostile feelings. The defects of Hobbes seem to lie rather in what he omits than in what he asserts. Thus he frequently alludes to the infinitude, the eternity, the omnipotence of the Deity. He expatiates not on his wisdom and his goodness. He admits, for piety's sake, the pro- priety of giving to the Divine Being every title indi- cative of our desire and willingness to honour him ; but he urges no reasons for that honour, and is evi- dently a stranger to the fervours of devotion. He con- 350 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. tends that sovereign power is the source and founda- tion of law, and that punishment or fear of evil alone enforces obedience. He rarely, if ever, intimates that the power, whether divine er human, originally bene- volent, is exercised for good; and although this in- dubitably follows from what he himself lays down, it enters not into his philosophy to consider how the motives to obedience may be strengthened by a per- ception of the ultimate harmony between self-love and social, the human and divine. He argues at length, from passages of Scripture, that obedience to the civil sovereign, being Christian, is a part of the duty of a Christian ; but he drops no word of encouragement for any Christian believers to seek the improvement of the civil law, by an infusion of the peace-preserving and benevolent spirit of the Gospel. It may be true, that the natural state of man is, very often and very much, a state of warfare. The history of nations commonly accounted civilized, testifies the amount and constancy of the struggles in which mankind engage for aggran- disement or preservation. How bloody are the early annals of all civilized countries ! What treachery, ra- pine, and murder make up the history of the Middle Ages ! Until times comparatively recent, how foul and savage have been the domestic feuds of Scot- land ! What frightful suffering has the mad ambition of France repeatedly spread over Europe ! * What * See a description of the horrors of the wars of Francis I. and Charles V. in Sismondi's 'Histoire des Francais,' vol. xii. p. 74, and ' Essay on the painful moral of History,' by the Rev. George Walker. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 351 horrors afflicted the Netherlands under the govern- ment of Alva ! How long, how melancholy, are the records of persecution for opinion's sake ! What a iii i iul in the shape of man, and under the name of Christian, was the Inquisitor ! It may be true that a selfish interest is the secret spring of a vast majority of human actions ; for every individual has the care of his individual life, which is made up of bodily func- tions and of mental trains. It may be true that men enter into society for mutual safety, and convey to a supreme power, or common master, something of ori- ginal freedom, called natural right, to secure a greater good, under the name of social right. But when Hobbes labours to support the paradox, that man is not born fit for society*, and that he is made so only by education, he is merely fighting against him- self. For if, according to himself, faith and com- pacts are necessary to civil societies, he should have shown, not merely that children and fools are inca- pable of appreciating their defects and wants, but that men, as rational beings, are unfitted to form com- pacts and to observe faith. He should have shown that men are, by nature, more disposed to roam the desert and the prairie, as solitary beasts of prey, than to be united in bands of friendly alliance and joyful communion. He omits to observe that man, in his wildest state, exhibits the influence and appreciates the happiness of the domestic and social relations ; that if by the necessity of nature he is driven into * See tlic note, vol. ii. p. 2, Moleswortk's ' Hobbes.' 352 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. society, he is soon bound to it by the strongest ties of habit, and by the immediate and constant percep- tion of advantage ; that the conjugal, parental, and filial affections are early developed ; and that the de- sire for self-preservation is stimulated, and the mo- tives for personal security are strengthened, by what- soever makes life itself more happy as well as more secure. But the impossibility of being happy in one- self without seeing others also happy; the pleasure, genuine, though rare, of contributing to human enjoy- ment and improvement; the natural strength and rapid development of the social affections, their purity and their force; the power of self-sacrifice for the sake of country and mankind, whose interests are iden- tified with the pursuit and dissemination of truth and liberty ; these are considerations which rarely, if ever, enter into the speculations of Hobbes. He did not view nature from the golden side. He dwelt more on that which was to be feared or despised in man, than to be loved and honoured. Though he lived among the first men of his time, he formed no ardent friend- ships. He knew not, from his own experience, the influence of any refining domestic ties, and earnest social affections. To enjoy the ease which was his utmost moral ambition, he was content with finding shelter and protection in the house of a powerful pa- tron; and, from his chamber of security and seclu- sion, he looked out upon the world, only to observe and register the struggles and animosities of nation against nation, sect against sect, neighbour against IMIOGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 353 neighbour; and while he employed his reason in spe- culating on the causes of social discord and the secu- rities of peace, he examined the nature of the human passions and the strength of the human understand- ing, with the value of common language and the no- tions in repute, to discover and expose the dangerous and evil tendencies of the one, and the weakness and absurdity of the other. Yet, though Hobbes looks habitually on the darkest side of human nature, no writer is more suggestive. With unsparing hand he strips off the disguises and lays bare the pretences by which men who relinquish no interest, who forego no pleasure, which submission to power and compliance with custom can secure them, would persuade themselves and others that they are the most religious, most patriotic, and most benevo- lent of beings ; but at the same time he compels the candid and disinterested reader to turn a searching eye upon the condition of the inner man, and to ex- amine in what respects his purposes and conduct are conformable to that rule of life which the understand- ing approves, and the conscience acknowledges as binding. Upon that great question raised by Hobbes, namely, in what cases the private conscience or opi- nion should be obeyed when it dictates a course con- trary to that which public authority in the shape of law, civil and ecclesiastical may determine to en- force, he may throw no valuable light ; but when touching on the impotence of human laws and institu- tions, among men who dread a greater evil than any 2 A 354 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. which their fellows can inflict, or hope a greater good than any they can give, he makes us comprehend the serious nature of the position taken when we assume superiority to the leaders of society around us in our knowledge of truth and human good, and identify, perhaps too readily and confidently, the dictates of our own reason with the laws of nature and of God. No great writer can be judged by a selection of peculiar, and perhaps highly exceptionable, passages. From this rule Hobbes is the last to be exempt. A good body of important rules for social conduct, and of hints for the improvement of life and society, may be gathered from his pages, by one who searches them in the love of truth and goodness. He is commonly quoted as if he had said and taught that " might is right ;" and it is true that, in what he calls a state of nature, a state in which human law restrains not, and reason has reached no sense of a divine law, the power of a man to get and to keep constitute his right; but, in such a condition of things, moral terms are no more applicable to men than to the beasts of the forest. It is more just to Hobbes to represent him as maintaining that "might makes right;" a truth which no one can consistently dispute who judges law to emanate from power, and rights to be possessions or liberties or faculties secured to an agent by laws hu- man or divine. The divine power must be the first and original source of all rights enjoyed by beings created and subordinate, whether in relation to other beings they be subject or sovereign, governors or I'KMHJRESS OF ENGLISH I'll H.OSOi'H Y. 355 govern^!. The will or law of God is to all mankind the ultimate rule of right. It would have helped Hobbes, in some portions of his argument, had IK; adverted to the derivation of the terms ' right ' and \/V/-v// a derivation which furnishes the clue to their only valuable meaning. The right and the just are clearly that -which is ordered, first, by the law of God the supreme will ; or, secondly, the law of the land the civil or supreme earthly power ; or, third- ly, the law of society or public opinion, imperfectly declared; or lastly, the law of conscience that opi- nion of good which determines every man in his pri- vate course. When these laws or commands point to one and the same course of action, coalesce in their decision, and that course is practically followed, then we may say that all is right*. Those who talk of the rights of man as well as of the laws of nature are sel- dom aware how much their meaning is disguised in metaphor, and how often they conceal the most anar- chical and dangerous fallacies under the specious gloss of liberty and truth. In reading Hobbes, it must ever be remembered that he is writing against anarchy and those who fa- * The article on " Rights" in the ' Encyclopedia Britannica' is worth attention. It divides them into natural and adventitious, alienable and inalienable, perfect and imperfect. On the first it takes the view of Hobbes; on the last it shows the difficulty of draw- ing the lines of moral right with distinctness and precision. See also Bentham's papers " on anarchical fallacies and on principles tending to anarchy," full of a just political pliilosophy, and deserv- ing careful study. Vol. ii. and iii. of Bowring's edition of Bentham. 2 A 2 356 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. voured it, or the principles which led to it. His mind was sorely impressed with the frightful evils of civil contest, which in his view were more dreadful than those of despotism ; and without attempting to over- throw, appearing rather to support, the authority of the Scriptures, he wished to guard against the danger of that private interpretation of them which encou- raged rebellion against the civil sovereign. The Co- venanter, wielding the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other, and gloating over the texts of the Old Testament to inflame his wrath against his mis- believing neighbours, as the enemies of Israel and of Jehovah, was in his opinion a most unhappy model of the man and of the Christian. In the attempt to de- pict the incompatibility of such a character with civil order and improvement, he could hardly avoid senti- ments offensive to those who, upon different principles or pretences, were disposed to exercise a tyranny op- pressive and injurious, and to claim exclusive privi- leges which must foster in the rest of the community a natural and well-founded jealousy. One of the most obnoxious sentiments of Hobbes was that the Deity was a spirit corporeal, meaning 1 a substance that has magnitude.' Incorporeal sub- stances pure spirit without body, were words to him without meaning, incomprehensible. In a- remarkable passage, he maintains " that the universe, that is, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal ; that it hath dimensions, namely length, breadth, and depth and because the universe is all, that which is no PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 357 of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere. Nor does it follow from hence that spirits are nothing, for they have dimensions, and are therefore really bodies, though that name be given in common speech to such bodies only as are visible, or palpable, that is, have some degree of opacity. But for spirits, they call them incorporeal ; which is a name of more ho- nour, and may therefore with more piety be attri- buted to God himself; in whom we consider, not what attribute expresseth best his nature, which is incomprehensible, but what best expresseth our de- sire to honour him*." This opinion, of what he calls the corporeity of the Deity, was connected by Hobbes with a theory of the origin and cause of motion. There is no such thing, he asserts, as an incorporeal movement^; and by mo- tion Hobbes endeavoured to explain everything, as far as explanation is possible to man, namely, sensation and perception, and all the affections and qualities of the mind, as well as all the changes and appear- ances of matter ; and from it he deduced the neces- sity of human actions. Prom these opinions it was inferred that Hobbes was an atheist at heart, and that his philosophy was atheistic ; and among those who so considered it Dr. Samuel Clarke ranks first and highest. Dr. Clarke devotes to Hobbes a great portion of the latter part of his demonstration of the Being and Attributes * Works : Leviathan, vol. iii. p. 672. f Works, vol. i. p. 430. 358 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. of God. He uses towards Hobbes no language of virulence, but endeavours to play him off against himself, nor altogether without success. But Dr. Clarke has mixed up two questions wholly distinct : the existence of an intelligent first cause, having a power of beginning motion, who has endued created beings with perception and motion ; and the question of the freedom of the human will. He has not ad- duced from Hobbes any passage in which he denies the first proposition ; and a careful reader easily discerns a wide difference between the language and senti- ments of Hobbes and those of Spinoza. The omni- science, omnipotence, eternity, and goodness of the Deity, Hobbes has never questioned, nor is there any- thing in his works inconsistent with belief in them. He has avoided the use of the word matter, and pre- ferred that of body, which he considered to be in- volved in that of substance. His philosophy of body, or natural philosophy, and the attempt to account for the origin of motion, must not be confounded with his religious philosophy, if such it may be called. The last is best seen in the final chapters of the ' Philo- sophical Rudiments of Government and Society ;' and the rational Christian will find nothing to disapprove in his language concerning the Deity. " But that we may understand what manner of wor- ship of God natural reason doth assign us, let us be- gin from his attributes. Where, first, it is manifest that existence is to be allowed him ; for there can be no will to honour him who, we think, hath no being. IMNKJIIKSS OF KNULIS11 I'HILOSOPHY. 359 Next, those philosophers who said that God was the world, or the world's soul, that is say, a part of it, spake unworthily of God; for tluy attribute nothing to him, but wholly deny his being. For by the word God we understand the world's cause ; but in say- ing that the world is God, they say that it hath no cause, that is as much as there is no God. In like manner, they who maintain the world not to be cre- ated, but eternal, because there can be no .cause of an eternal thing, in denying the world to have a cause, they deny also that there is a God. They also have a wretched apprehension of God, who, imputing idleness to him, do take from him the government of the world and of mankind. For say, they should acknowledge him omnipotent : yet if he mind not these inferior things, that same threadbare sentence will take place with them : ' quod supra nos, nihil ad nos :' what is above us doth not concern us. And seeing there is nothing for which they should either love or fear him, truly he will be to them as though he were not at all. Moreover, in attributes which signify greatness or power, those which signify some finite or limited thing are not signs at ah 1 of an honouring mind. For we honour not God worthily, if we ascribe less power or greatness to him than possibly we can. But every finite thing is less than we can, for most easily we may always attribute more to a finite thing. No shape therefore must be assigned to God, for all shape is finite ; nor must he be said to be conceived or comprehended by imagination, or any other faculty 360 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. of our soul ; for whatsoever we conceive is finite?' . . He concludes : " He therefore who would not ascribe any other titles to God than what reason commands, must use such as are either negative, as infinite, eter- nal, incomprehensible, etc. ; or superlative, as most good, most great, most powerful, etc. ; or indefinite, as good, just, strong, creator, king, and the like ; in such sense as not to describe what he is (which were to circumscribe him within the narrow limits of our phantasy) ; but to confess his own admiration and obedience, which is the property of humility and of a mind yielding all the honour it possibly can do. For reason dictates one name alone which doth signify the nature of God, that is existent, or simply that he is : and one in order to, and in relation to us, namely God, under which is contained both King, and Lord, and Father." " The charge of Atheism" says Dr. Priestley*, " has been so much hackneyed in religious controversy, as to * See the Introduction to 'A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity, in a correspondence be- tween Dr. Price and Dr. Priestly.' (Priestley's Works, vol. iv. p. 12.) He adds in a note, " Whatever views of Divine revelation were en- tertained by this philosopher, he has not always been fairly contro- verted;" and he afterwards points out the partial and unfair man- ner in which Lord Clarendon and even Leland treated him. " I am rather surprised," says Dr. Priestley, in another part of his works (vol. iii. p. 457), " that Mr. Locke, who seems to have been so much indebted to Mr. Hobbes for the clear view which he has given us of several principles of human nature, should have availed himself so little of what he might have learned from him on this subject" (viz. of the doctrine of necessity). " I cannot find, what I would gladly discover, that Mr. Locke acknowledged his precursor either in the PROGRESS OF ENGLISH have passed almost into ridicule. It was the common charge against the primitive Christians, and has hardly ever failed to be urged, on one pretence or other, against every man who has dissented from the gene- rally received faith. But perhaps no character has suffered more generally, and at the same time more undeservedly, on this account, than that of Mr. Hobbes, who, notwithstanding his heterodoxy in politics, ap- pears to me, as far as I can judge from such of his writings as have fallen in my way, to have been no atheist, but a sincere Christian, and a conscientious, good man." The passage is worthy of Dr. Priestley's discriminative, candid, and fearless mind ; worthy of one anxious and careful to judge for himself, without any bias of prejudice or interest, and for truth's sake alone. No doubt it is very difficult to determine what degree of importance Hobbes attached to the light and truths of Scripture, what hopes and fears from their promises or threatenings he entertained in his secret heart. He strains not a few passages to a purpose evidently beside and beyond that of the writer or Essay or his Defences. In his 'Second Reply to the Bishop of Wor- cester' he seems to shun the acquaintance ; for, referring to some statement of his opponent, he says, ' I am not so well read in Hobbes or Spinoza, as to be able to say what were their opinions in this matter.' He presently after alludes to them as ' those justly de- cried names.' " I have already intimated, p. 340 supra, that Locke was not well read in Hobbes, and that his agreement with Hobbes in some prin- ciples was owing to the influences of Gassendi. A wide difference in political views may account for some of that aversion which Locke expresses. 362 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. speaker, as when he argues for an unlimited obedience to civil rulers, from the direction of Christ to his hear- ers to obey the instructions of those who sit in Moses' seat. He calls fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed, religion; not allowed, superstition. It may be' asked, is such a notion of religion compatible with any serious faith in the government of a good Providence ? and what room or provision does it leave for gratitude and hope ? He calls the scriptural writers " an innocent kind of men, without much knowledge of the world." It is lan- guage so different from that commonly used by all who wish to be understood as reverencing the Bible, and deriving from it their light of duty and comfort in sorrow their rule of life and their hope in death, that it needs a very large allowance for all the peculia- rities of the human mind to believe him sincere, or using other than the argumentum ad hominem, in the attempt to support, by the Scriptures, his own views of the natural moral laws, and of the duty of obe- dience in all things to the civil power. Could he have believed, it may be asked, in a power of ration- ally and philosophically interpreting the Scriptures by the help of learning and the learned, when he contended that the right and power of interpretation rested with the State? The answer may be, that he thought the disadvantages of allowing the right of a private interpretation greater than that of refusing it ; that the learned must submit their judgement, as he himself professed to do, to the supreme power; PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 363 and he docs less than the Papist, who places his ec- clesiastical superiors above the State, and no more than the statesman, who enjoins what shall be taught as the doctrine of Scripture, who determines what men shall be teachers in the Church, on what conditions they shall hold livings and enjoy benefices, who decides what assemblies of Christians and what ceremonies shall be lawful. His principle of the subordination of the clergy to the state was nothing more than the Erastianism* upheld by some of the most noted of the clerical order and others in England long before and after his day, among whom may be placed Hooker and Parker, Whitgift and Lightfoot, Selden and Whit- lock. In the present day there seem not to be two opinions among thinking men, who are not biassed by their order, on the necessity of submission to the civil * Tlie book of Erastus, an eminent German physician, the full title of which is " Explicatio gravissimae qusestionis utrum Excom- municatio, quatenus religionem intelligentes et amplexantes, a Sacra- mentorum usu, propter admission facinus arcet, mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata sit ab hominibus," was published in 1589, six years after his death, according to his dying request. It is signifi- cant of the times that both the place of publication and name of the editor and publisher were concealed, Pesclavii being put for Londini, and Sultaceterum for Castelvetrum. The book is probably scarce, little known, and less read ; but full of just criticism, solid learning, and wise thought. In seventy-five theses he examines the nature of ex- communication, so far as it is determined by the Scriptures ; he shows that excommunication, as practised in the Roman Catholic church and by the clergy, was a usurpation contrary to the spirit of Chris- tianity ; and that all power of punishing for ofiences, and of exclud- ing from privileges, religious as well as civil, ought to reside in the magistrate alone. There is a copy of the work, with valuable MS. notes, in the library of Dr. Williams' foundation in Eedcross-street. The necessary or useful relations of the church to the state, and 364 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. power on the part of those who are discharging a duty which the state prescribes, or enjoying privileges which the state secures. Those who have controverted Hobbes have rarely treated him with fairness. What can be more in accordance with the abject views of human na- ture, which Hobbes is charged with, than the intima- tion to Sir C. Cavendish by Clarendon, as recorded by himself: " For such a book, by the constitution of any government now established in Europe, whether mon- archical or democratical, the author must be punished in the highest degree, and with the most severe penal- ties" ? Tenison, who published the ' Creed of Hobbes examined/ in 1670, makes it the business of his little book " to expose this insolent and pernicious writer ; to show unto his countrymen that weakness of head and venom of mouth which is in the philosopher, who hath rather seduced and poisoned their imaginations than conquered their reason." He alleges twelve arti- cles as those of Hobbes's ' Creed/ selecting the most obnoxious opinions or statements, but not always of the clergy to the church, are subjects that must occupy more and more the attention of statesmen and philosophical inquirers. The history of opinion on the subject is full of interest. Erastus had among his predecessors Occam, so called from the village of that name in Surrey, who, in the fourteenth century, opposed the tyranny of the papal over the civil power, in a book ' De Potestate Ecclesiastica et Sseculari.' Of this, or a part of it, entitled " A Dialogue between a Knight and a Clerke, concerning the power spiritual and temporal," a most interesting account may be found in Oldys' ' Librarian,' p. 5. Erastus has been followed by Archbishop Wake in his ' Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods asserted, 'in 1697. Many supported Wake in the controversy on the rights and powers of the English Convocation. Hoadly, and more recently Wliately, take similar views in their ^ermons on the Kingdom of Christ. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 365 adhering to Hobbes's own language; rather giving inferences from some of his expressions and argu- ments without regard to the qualifying considerations and practical ends with which in Hobbes's mind they were connected. Both Clarendon and Tenison were very unjust to the philosopher of Malmesbury, by charging him with design to support the usurpa- tion of Cromwell ; but from the fact that his book 'De Give' got abroad as early as 1642, which con- tained the elements of his philosophy of man and of government, as weh 1 as from his own credible assur- ances, it is clear that the evils of civil war and of popular discontent had early led his thoughts to con- sider the true bonds of civil society, the conditions of civil liberty, and the compatibility of the exercise and utterance of private judgement with social union and the public interest. Among the most candid, liberal, and philosophical of the antagonists of Hobbes, the amiable Richard Cumberland, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, de- serves honourable mention. The ' Disquisitio Philoso- phica de Legibus Naturae/ in which he professes to refute the elements of the moral and political philo- sophy of Hobbes, came forth in 1672, about seven years before the death of Hobbes, then an octogena- rian, and probably little disposed to pay attention to his new and youthful critic. Mr. Hallam has judici- ously devoted to Cumberland a good portion of his literary labour, and given a very fair view of his merits and defects. In his attempts to unfold the principle 366 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. we are can> i e d by the laws of nature to the prac- tice of virtue, which consists in the pursuit of the common good, some anticipation may be traced of the Hartleian theory concerning the development of the social affections, and the ultimate coalescence of uni- versal philanthropy with refined self-interest. But even Cumberland does not do justice to Hobbes's in- tentions. The tone of his book is pleasing ; but his style is diffuse and his terms very indefinite. Of this fault we are perhaps less aware when we read it in the Latin than in translation. Probably Hobbes would not have disputed the main principle which Cumber- land sought to establish, namely, "that the pursuit, according to our ability, of the common good, con- duces to the good of each of its parts, in which our own felicity, as that of one part, is contained." But of the common good our knowledge is comparatively imperfect. Our power to promote it is confined within limits infinitely small. We promote it most when we serve the interests and discharge the duties which are our peculiar province that is, when we care for those individuals specially dependent on our care*. Hobbes is remarkable for his anticipation of many of the doctrines subsequently adopted and expounded * Compare Cumberland, 1, 16. A translation of Cumberland's ' Disquisitio' was published in 1727, in 4to, by the Rev. John Max- well, accompanied by dissertations on the laws of nature. In this work the thread of the verbosity is so much finer than the staple of the argument, that it may have suggested to Johnson that delicious bit of satire upon the philosopher who explained what it is to live ac- cording to nature, already alluded to as occurring in the ' Hasselas.' PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 3G7 by the profoundest investigators of the mind. He at- tributes the beginnings of all the thoughts of man, to that which we call sense ; " for there is no conception in a man's mind, which hath not, at first totally, or by parts, bivn begotten upon the organs of sense ; the rest are derived from that original." In attributing the beginning of sensation to motion, he may be considered to have made some approaches to the theory of vibra- tions which Sir Isaac Newton suggested, and which Hartley afterwards adopted and developed. Even Locke leaned to the opinion, if we judge from some passages in the 8th chapter of his second book, where he speaks of" all sensation being produced in us only by different degrees and modes of motion in our animal spirits, variously agitated by external objects," and of " bodies producing ideas in us manifestly by impulse, the only way which we can conceive bodies to operate in." Hobbes has been also represented as understanding fully the principle of Association, when, under the head of imagination, he teaches that " not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently;" " that the train of the thoughts or of mental discourse is of two sorts, the first unguarded, without design, and inconstant; the second more constant, as being regulated by some desire and design*." This however seems no more * See Dr. Whewell on Hobbes, in his recent volume on the His- tory of Moral Philosophy, Lecture II. ; and Sir W. Hamilton on * The History of Mental Association,' in his edition of Reid, pp. 892, 893. " The cause of the coherence or consequence of one con- ception to another is their first coherence or consequence at that time, that they are produced by sense ; as, for example, from St. An- 368 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. than Aristotle taught before him in connection with the phenomena of memory, and with the efforts of the mind to recall what was formerly observed or known but cannot be immediately remembered, on which Sir W. Hamilton has founded the opinion that Aristotle was the first teacher of the doctrine of Mental Associ- ation. But notwithstanding some explanation of the phenomena of memory, and of terms significant of the passions, in a manner accordant with the law of asso- drew the mind runneth to St. Peter, because their names are read together ; from St. Peter to a stone, from the same cause ; from stone to foundation, because we see them together." Treatise on Human Nature, ch. iv. " The train of thoughts, or mental discourse, is of two sorts. The first is unguided, without design, and inconstant ; wherein there is no passionate thought, to govern and direct those that follow to it- self, as the end and scope of some desire or other passion ; in which case the thoughts are said to wander, and seem impertinent one to another, as in a dream. Such are commonly the thoughts of men that are not only without company, but without care of anything ; though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without harmony ; as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any man, or, in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of the mind a man may oft perceive the way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another. For in a dis- course of our present civil war, what could seem more impertinent than to ask (as one did) what was the value of a Roman penny ? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thought of the war introduced the thought of the delivering up of the King to his enemies ; the thought of that, brought in the thought of the deliver- ing up of Christ ; and that again the thought of the thirty pence which was the price of that treason ; and thence easily followed that malicious question ; and all this in a moment of time, for thought is quick." Leviathan, ch. iii., Of the Consequence or Train of Imagi- nation. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. .'U> ( .) elation, that either Aristotle or Hobbes understood that law, or had any perception of its importance in explaining the phenomena of the mind and reasoning, in forming the character and affections, as afterwards expounded in the works of Hartley, Brown, and Mill, were an assertion not to be received without a much more exact comparison than has yet been instituted or given to the world. There were other points clearly intimated by Hobbes on which Locke laid no little stress, such as th&t truth always involves a reference, tacit or express, to propo- sitions ; that government is founded on a compact, virtual or express ; that the doctrine of the Messiah- ship of Christ is the simple and single fundamental article of the Christian faith as developed in the Scrip- tures ; principles on which Locke dwelt at length in his Treatises on Government, his letters on Tolera- tion, and his admirable work on the ' Reasonableness of Christianity according to the Scriptures/ I have been the longer upon Hobbes, from a convic- tion that he deserves to occupy a far higher place in the estimation of English readers, even of the most liberal school, than is usually allowed him. Yet none but the disinterested lovers of truth and goodness, warped by no sinister bias of interest or ambition, agitated by no passion for place and pelf, degraded by no depend- ence on the opinion of a greater or lesser public, yet earnest in pursuit of human good, should trouble them- selves with his pages, which, like a medicine bitter but wholesome, purge the mind from prejudices of selfish - 2 B 370 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. ness and vanity, and clear the understanding to appre- ciate the sources of its weakness and its strength. Comparing him with Montaigne, Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyere, Hallam, an upright and not usually a se- vere judge, says thai; " a cold and heartless indiffer- ence to right distils from his pages." I should rather say, there is in him a sort of contemptuous and bitter satisfaction in exposing the selfishness, falsehood, and cruelty of mankind, the shallowness of much that passed for phitosophy, the predominance of the animal and hos- tile passions, and especially the pretences of men desi- rous of power and reputation, concealing their real ends; and all this without any corresponding regard to the unnoticed virtues of our common humanity and the kindly offices of daily domestic life to balance the impression. This gives an air of cynicism and mis- anthropy to his philosophy, more apparent than real. It is not without good effect in counteracting that weak and amiable sentimentalism, which delights to view mankind as merely the creatures of innocence and misfortune ; which sometimes indulges a morbid ten- derness for crime and criminals; and forgets that the chief part of human suffering arises from the op- pression of the few, the supineness of the many, the avarice, the self-indulgence, the negligence, and vice of all*. * I cannot forbear reprinting the admirable remarks on Hobbes by Mr. Austin in his 'Province of Jurisprudence Determined.' The note is long, but the book is now scarce and out of print, and the matter is of supreme importance. " By his modern censors, French, German, PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 371 In reading Hobbes, we cannot but observe with pleasure how vast is the improvement in the state of and even English, Hobbes's main design, in his various treatises on po- litics, is grossly and thoroughly mistaken. With a marvellous igno- rance of the writings which they impudently presume to condemn, they style him ' the apologist of tyranny ;' meaning by that rant, that his main design is the defence of monarchical government. Now, though he prefers monarchical to popular or oligarchical government, it is certain that his main design is the establishment of these pro- positions : 1. That sovereign power, whether it reside in one, or in many or a few, cannot be limited by positive law ; 2. That a present or established government, be it a government of one, or a govern- ment of many or a few, cannot be disobeyed by its subjects consist- ently with the common weal, or consistently with the law of God as known through utility or the Scriptures. That his principal pur- pose is not the defence of monarchy, is sufficiently evinced by the following passages from his ' Leviathan : '* The prosperity of a peo- ple ruled by an aristocratical or democratical assembly, cometh not from aristocracy or democracy, but from the obedience and concord of the subjects : nor do the people nourish in a monarchy because they are ruled by one man, but because they obey him. Take away, in a state of any kind, the obedience, and consequently the concord of the people, and they shall not only not nourish, but in short time be dissolved. And they that go about by disobedience to doe no more than reforme the commonwealth, shall find they doe thereby destroy it.' ' In monarchy one man is supreme ; and all other men who have power in the state, have it by his commission, and during his pleasure. In aristocracy or democracy there is one supreme assembly ; which supreme assembly hath the same un- limited power that in monarchy belongeth to the monarch. And which is the best of these three kinds of government, is not to be disputed there where any of them is already established.' So many similar passages occur in the same treatise, and also in his treatise ' De Give,' that they who confidently style him the ' apologist of tyranny or monarchy,' must have taken their notion of his purpose from mere hearsay. A dip here or there into either of the decried books would have led them to withhold their sentence. To those who have really read, although in a cursory manner, these, the most 2 B 2 372 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. society since his time. He evidently could not con- ceive that condition of constitutional liberty which, lucid and easy of profound and elaborate compositions, the current conception of their object and tendency is utterly laughable. " The capital errors in Hobbes's political treatises are the follow- ing: 1. He inculcates too absolutely the religious obligation of obedience to present or established government. He makes not the requisite allowance for the anomalous and excepted cases wherein disobedience is counselled by that very principle of utility which indicates the duty of submission. Writing in a season of civil dis- cord, or writing in apprehension of its approach, he naturally fixed his attention on the glaring mischiefs of resistance, and scarcely adverted to the mischiefs which obedience occasionally engenders. And although his integrity was not less remarkable than the gigantic strength of his understanding, we may presume that his extreme timidity somewhat corrupted his judgement, and inclined him to insist unduly upon the evils of rebellion and strife. 2. Instead of directly deriving the existence of political government from a per- ception by the bulk of the governed of its great and obvious expe- diency, he ascribes the origin of sovereignty, and of independent political society, to a fictitious agreement or covenant. He ima- gines that the future subjects covenant with one another, or that the future subjects covenant with the future sovereign, to obey without reserve every command of the latter ; and of this imagi- nary covenant, immediately preceding the formation of the political government and community, the religious duty of the subjects to render unlimited submission, and the divine right of the sovereign to exact and receive such submission, are, according to Hobbes, necessary and permanent consequences. He supposes, indeed, that the subjects are induced to make that agreement, by their percep- tion of the expediency of government, and by their desire to escape from anarchy. But, placing his system immediately on that inter- posed figment, instead of resting it directly on the ultimate basis of utility, he often arrives at his conclusions in a sophistical and quib- bling manner, though his conclusions are commonly such as the principle of utility will warrant. The religious duty of the subjects to render unlimited obedience, and the divine right of the sovereign to exact and receive such obedience, cannot, indeed, be reckoned PROGRESS OP ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 373 since the Revolution of 1688, the British dominions have enjoyed, and in which so many of the citizens of amongst those of Hobbes's conclusions which that principle will justify. In truth, the duty and the right cannot be inferred logic- ally even from liis own fiction. For, according to his own fiction, the subjects were induced to promise obedience, by their perception of the utility of government ; and, 'since their inducement to the promise was that perception of utility, they hardly promised to obey in those anomalous cases wherein the evils of anarchy are sur- passed by the evils of submission. And though they promised to obey even in those cases, they are not religiously obliged to render unlimited obedience ; for, as the principle of general utility is the index to religious obligations, no religious obligation can possibly arise from a promise whose tendency is generally pernicious. Be- sides, though the subject founders of the political community were religiously obliged by their mischievous promise, a religious obliga- tion would hardly be imposed upon their followers, by virtue of a mischievous agreement to which their followers were strangers. The last objection however is not exclusively applicable to Hobbes's peculiar fiction. That, or a like objection, may be urged against all the romances which derive the existence of government from a fan- cied original contract. Whether we suppose, with Hobbes, that the subjects were the only promisers, or we suppose, with others, that the sovereign also covenanted ; whether we suppose, with Hobbes, that they promised unlimited obedience, or we suppose, with others, that their promise contained reservations ; we can hardly suppose that the contract of the founders, unless it be presently useful, imposes religious obligations on the present members of the com- munity. "If these two capital errors be kept in mind by the reader, Hobbes's extremely celebrated, but extremely neglected, treatises may be read to great advantage. I know of no other writer (ex- cepting our great contemporary Jeremy Bentham) who has uttered so many truths, at onqe new and important, concerning the neces- sary structure of supreme political government, and the larger of the necessary distinctions implied by positive law. And he is sig- nally gifted with the talent, peculiar to writers of genius, of inciting the mind of the student to active and original thought. 374 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. this great country, of every grade, unite to consider j and to pursue the public good ; in which there has j been unexampled security for person and for pro- perty ; ample liberty of "discussion and of the press, without danger to the public peace ; while, aided by " The authors of the antipathy with which he is commonly re- garded, were the papistical clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, the high-church clergy of the Church of England, and the Presby- terian clergy of the true-blue complexion. In matters ecclesiastical (a phrase of uncertain meaning, and therefore of measureless com- pass), independence of secular authority was more or less affected by churchmen of each of those factions. In other words, they held that their own church was co-ordinate with the secular govern- ment ; or that the secular government was not of itself supreme, but rather partook in the supreme powers with one or more of the clerical order. Hobbes's unfailing loyalty to the present temporal sovereign, was alarmed and offended by this anarchical pretension ; and he repelled it with a weight of reason, and an aptness and pun- gency of expression, which the aspiring and vindictive priests did bitterly feel and resent. Accordingly, they assailed him with the poisoned weapons which are ministered by malignity and cowardice. All of them twitted him (agreeably to their wont) with flat atheism ; whilst some of them affected to style him an apologist of tyranny or misrule, and to rank him with the perverse writers (Macchiavelli, for example) who really have applauded tyranny maintained by abi- lity and courage. By these calumnies, those conspiring and potent factions blackened the reputation of their common enemy. And so deep and enduring is the impression which they made upon the public mind, that ' Hobbes the atheist,' or ' Hobbes the apologist of tyranny,' is still regarded with pious or with republican horror, by all but the extremely few who have ventured to examine his writings. " Of positive atheism ; of mere scepticism concerning the exist- ence of the Deity ; or of, what is more impious and mischievous than either, a religion imputing to the Deity human infirmities and vices ; there is not, I believe, in any of his writings, the shadow of a shade." I'KOCJKESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 375 tlir fostering influence of commerce and literature, of art and science, there has been an increasing adap- tation of institutions to the welfare and improvement of every sect and class ; and the problem of tffe great- est degree of individual freedom, compatible with the general good and the speedy, upright, and effective administration of law, approaches solution. Locke. Amid the abundance of critical remarks on Locke, which have dropped from metaphysical writers since his time, and which show that no book in the Eng- lish language has commanded more attention and ex- erted greater influence than the ' Essay on the Human Understanding/ there exists no criticism of marked importance and authority in which the contents of the Essay are fully and carefully examined, and its true merits are determined. Among the critics, a high place, as we have seen, must be assigned to Leibnitz ; less on account of the success with which he has con- troverted Locke's views, than of his great name and learning, and of the pains with which he went over every part of the Essay. Yet the ' Nouveaux Essais' of Leibnitz have had few readers in England, partly because the path of inquiry pursued in it is remote from common studies, still more perhaps because the clearness and simplicity were wanting in him, for which Locke on the whole is remarkable, notwithstand- ing the occasional clouds allowed, through inadver- tence, to gather and settle over his path. After what has already been said of Leibnitz, it will be enough to repeat that none of the leading principles of Locke are 376 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. overthrown by him; and in many important respects there is a complete agreement, e.g. that of the har- mony between faith and reason. The most successful and valuable criticisms are those in which his great stores of philological learning are brought forth in sup- port of Locke's hints on words and language ; and in which he defends Aristotle and syllogism from Locke's inconsiderate disparagement*. The subject of the first book of Locke's ' Essays/ Innate Principles, has been somewhat fully dis- cussed, not to say disposed of, in the foregoing pages. Those who contend that Locke has not established his negative generally show that they have paid little attention to his arguments, that they do not under- stand the question, that they have not carefully weighed, as they do not quote correctly, his language. They confound the presence and existence of some determi- nate ideas at an advanced period of life with the capa- city for forming and entertaining them. They confound * See particularly the ' Nouveaux Essais,' on the Reason, book iv. ch. 17. It may be doubted whether Locke had read Aristotle in the original, or studied the Analytics, Ethics, and Rhetoric as they came from the author. In his estimate of the nature and value of syllo- gism he appears to have considered only the abuses of it among the schoolmen, whose influence still reigned in the Universities when Locke was a student, not yet overthrown by Bacon, nor the la- bours of Ramus and Wilson, and Bishop Sanderson. What particu- lar instances of abuse of syllogism among the schoolmen had given Locke his evident disgust it is not easy to decide. A short and very just view of the place which logic and the syllogism ought to hold in our esteem, is given in the closing pages of Thomson's ' Outline of the Laws of Thought.' PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 377 the uniform or probable development of certain fun- damental conceptions or notions, such, for instance, as those of space, time, number, and causality, inse- parable from all intellectual functions and processes, and necessary to all reasoning, with their presence in the mind of an infant or an embryo. They assume that the ideas which they choose to call innate, and which they arbitrarily fix upon without any definite principle of selection or any attempt at enumeration, are not complex ; that they are not capable of being traced to ulterior sources, that is, to more simple ideas of sensation or reflection. They assume, not only that they exist in all rational minds capable of being defined or sufficiently clear for reasoning, but that they are wholly independent of impressions from without. They also imagine that an idea or a principle is of less value or of less authority in proportion as it is deducible from any other latent root or fact or law of the mind, as if then destitute of the stamp of nature and but an arbitrary construction of the human will. But the question turns upon what is the law of nature and of the mind? That any idea or principle should be imagined of less value when shown to grow necessa- rily out of our constitution, and to be the legitimate result of the exercise of the senses and thoughts thence arising, seems to be an absurdity too great to be en- tertained by any man who is capable of estimating the difference between a child, a Hottentot, a wild Indian, and a Bacon or Newton, a Galileo or Humboldt ; be- tween the vacancy of ignorance on the one hand, and 378 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. a mind enriched with all the sources of information, and all the stimulants and aids to reflection, which be- long to man in the most highly refined and civilized condition. Declaimers, addressing an audience dis- posed to agree with them, may appeal with safety to the deep indestructible principles of our nature, and talk of the instinctive emotions welling up from the foun- tains of the heart, and of the primary innate convictions stamped upon the mind ; but the moment a doubtful proposition is enunciated, or a phrase that jars upon the ear of reason is breathed, the force of the appeal is gone, and the hearer inwardly ejaculates, " What will this babbler say ? " He multiplies words without knowledge ! Every word which the rhetorician utters is merely an illustration of the nature and power of the. law of association, governing the intellects and emo- tions of his hearers. One simple paragraph of Locke decides the question. " If we will attentively consider new-born children, we shall have little reason to think that they bring many ideas into the world with them. For bating, perhaps, some faint ideas of hunger and thirst and warmth, and some pains which they may have felt in the womb, there is not the least appear- ance of any settled ideas in them ; especially of ideas answering the terms which make up those universal propositions that are esteemed innate principles. One may perceive how, by degrees, afterwards ideas come into their minds ; and that they get no more, nor no other, than what experience and the observation of things, that come in their way, furnish them with : PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 379 which might be enough to satisfy us, that they are not original characters stamped upon the mind*." The difficulties of Locke's 'Essay/ and the objections raised against it, have arisen chiefly out of the contents of the second book, in which he unfolds his view of the original sources of all our ideas. " These two, I say, viz. external material things, as the objects of sen- sation ; and the operation of our own minds within, as the objects of reflection, are to me the only origi- nals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings." " 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, which are all those different perceptions they produce in us ; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations." A beautiful passage follows on the state of a child at his first coming into the world, and on the late pe- riod in which the operations of the mind are made the distinct and separate objects of contemplation. In the existence, influence, and importance of sen- sations and ideas of sensation, all philosophers seem agreed. The use of language depends, it is evident, upon the reality and uniformity of the impressions of the senses, and on the presence of similar ideas and feelings in thinking minds connected with them. Were there not marks or signs commonly agreed upon, sig- nificant of such impressions and of the associated ideas * Essay, book i. eh. 4, 2. 380 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. and feelings, there could be no mutual converse. Ne- vertheless two great questions have arisen, and are yet in abeyance, touching Locke's account of the sources of our ideas, and affecting' chiefly the second of the two, which he calls reflection. First, whether it be really a distinct source, and not ultimately resolvable into sensation. So thought Condillac, who called ideas of reflection" transformed sensations," a phrase which met with no acceptance, and is not a happy one to ex- press the mental phenomena. So thought Hartley, who says, " It appears to me that all the most com- plex ideas arise from sensation, and that reflection is not a distinct source, as Locke makes it." So thought also Peter Browne, Bishop of Cork, who contends " that that maxim of the logicians, nihil est in intel- lect^ quod non fuit prius in sensu, is to be taken for a sure and fundamental truth ; the true meaning of which is, that the ideas of sense are the first founda- tion on which we raise our whole superstructure of knowledge, and that all the discoveries we can make in things temporal and spiritual, together with the most refined and abstracted notions of them in the mind of man, take their rise originally from sensation!' It is remarkable that this Bishop of Cork considered the dangerous and sceptical influence of Locke, who was no favourite with him, to arise out of his having made reflection a distinct source of ideas*. * Those who do not consult Condillac's ' Traite des Sensations/ a book well worthy of attention, will find him not unfairly represented in Brown's thirty- third 'Lecture on the Philosophy of the Mind.' PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 381 A second question is admitting the reality and value of Locke's two sources, whether the enumera- tion is complete, and there be not ideas of the highest importance referable to some other source. So thought Dr. Price, who says, " It is hard to determine exactly what Locke meant by sensation and reflection ;" " that it will be impossible to derive some of the most im- portant of our ideas from them." He adds, towards the close of his section on the origin of our ideas in general : " After the mind, from whatever possible causes, has been furnished with ideas of any objects, they become themselves objects of our intellective fa- culty, from whence arises a new set of ideas, which are the perceptions of this faculty" He speaks also of " ideas arising from intuitions of the natures of things." The logician may ask, what is this new in- tellective faculty? How does it differ from Locke's reflective power ? and what is the determinate charac- teristic of this set of ideas, to constitute the class ? of what one thing or object of nature have we an intui- tion prior to observation and reflection ? And if we have not an idea of the simplest object of external na- ture prior to observation, what valuable ideas can we have of the operations and principles of the human mind and morals, intangible and evanescent as the phenomena of imagination and emotion are, without reflection the element of self-knowledge ? See also * Hartley on Man'; 'Eighty-eighth Proposition on Logic '; and Browne's ' Procedure, Extent, and Limits of the Human Under- standing, 1729 ' (a book to which Stewart has drawn attention), part 3, chapter 1, et seq. Compare also Locke, b. ii. c. 12. 8. 382 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Dr. Reid, whom Price admired, gives us about twelve instinctive principles of nature or elements of knowledge in his inquiry into the mind*. It is clear that Locke has failed to satisfy a large number of emi- nent writers on the mindf. The student must give his deepest attention to these questions, turning the mind inward on itself, aided by whatever light other investigators may have thrown upon its darkest recesses; but always carefully dis- tinguishing the statements of Locke himself from those of any other writer, whether of his own school or a school the most opposed to his. . * See Priestley's enumeration, in his Examination of Reid. t In the course of some admirable observations on Locke by the Rev. John J. Tayler, in his ' Retrospect of the Religious Life of England' (p. 348), the following passage occurs : " He (Locke) looked for the ultimate source of knowledge and ground of certainty, not in abstractions, which he treated as gratuitous figments of the mind, but in facts of a twofold order which admitted of no dispute, the impressions of sense and the suggestions of consciousness ; the mind, as he argued, coming into the world a mere tabula rasa, and deriv- ing the ideas which furnish the materials of its knowledge exclusively from this twofold experience. It may be questioned whether this view, called forth by a strong feeling of error in the opposite direc- tion, embraces the entire subject of the mind, and does not rather confine itself to one side of it; whether it allows enough to the influ- ence, not indeed of innate ideas, but of inherent tendencies, some common to the race, some peculiar to individuals, and giving birth to all the varieties of genius and character which control the asso- ciations and determine the conclusions of the mind, independent of all external influence, and so yield a higher kind of certainty on some subjects, than is attainable by logical deduction from the simple facts of experience" On this passage I remark 1st. That the phrase "suggestions of consciousness" does not express happily Locke's second source of ideas namely, " reflection on the operations of our PROGRESS OP ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 383 Having laid down these two sources of our ideas, Locke proceeds to consider them as simple and com- plex ; the former simple ones coming both from sen- sation and reflection, " the materials of all our know- ledge, neither invented, nor framed, nor to be de- stroyed ; the latter, made at pleasure" " the mind having the power to repeat, compare, and unite the simple ideas even to an almost infinite variety." (Book ii. ch. 2, p. 2). But this power of the rnind to make complex ideas for itself requires qualification. What we can do is to put together arbitrarily a cluster of own minds;" but this is of minor importance. 2nd. That Locke's view of the sources of our knowledge allows quite as much to " in- herent tendencies," whatever these may be, as any other view or system : it is not incompatible with any truth concerning these ten- dencies. It has never yet been shown, and it ought not to be taken for granted, that there are associations and conclusions on any subjects " independent of all external influences," and not flowing from " in- ward experiences," in Locke's sense of the terms. By an inherent tendency we may understand a tendency or predisposition, arising out of the physical frame and constitution, to remember (associate) some ideas rather than others. No philosophical observer doubts the existence of such a tendency. Locke expressly asserts it ; and his view of the mind is quite compatible with any amount of strength in it. 3rd. There is no higher certainty attainable on any subject of human thought than that which arises from the evidence of the senses, or which consists of rational conclusions the agreement of ideas and propositions with that evidence. If we do not know and rely upon our own sensations, thoughts, and feelings, we can know nothing else. No " higher certainty" is conceivable than that felt in conclusions fairly deduced from, or necessarily involved in, premises received as true. On this all mathematical and moral evidence and reasoning, that is, all truth, ultimately rests. It is the spring of induction and deduction. It includes instances and principles, phe- nomena and laws. 384 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. simple ideas, and to give to that cluster a name ; as centaur, hippogriff; and we call the cluster of ideas, attached to the name, a complex idea. To what ex- tent, however, this power of the mind over its simple or complex ideas reaches, and how far the nature of the complex ideas is adequately explained by Locke, are matters for consideration arising out of the sub- sequent chapters. Among the simple ideas of sensa- tion, Locke gives a whole chapter to solidity, selected somewhat arbitrarily for discussion : solidity, he says, distinguishes the extension of body from the exten- sion of space; and he passes on to consider other simple ideas both of sensation and reflection. In these chapters, the 7th and 8th, he has laid himself open to the just animadversion of successive critics, such as Stillingfleet, Berkeley, and Dugald Stewart. His dis- tinction between the primary and secondary qualities of matter, a distinction made by preceding writers and perhaps prevalent in his day, is now universally given up ; nor, can many of his sentiments and statements be successfully defended by his warmest admirers. One apologetic sentence of Locke's requires to be often borne in mind by the candid reader. Powers in out- ward objects to produce ideas in us, he says, " I call qualities ; and as they are sensations or perceptions in our understandings, I call them ideas : which ideas, if I speak of sometimes as in the things themselves, I would be understood to mean those qualities in the objects which produce them in us." In the course of his ' Essay' he is often regardless of this distinction, PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 385 and confounds qualities of outward objects with ideas of them in our minds. Regardless of a just order, when we might expect him to proceed with the discussion of ideas he inter- poses three chapters, 9th, 10th, and llth, on the faculties of the mind. These chapters deserve careful perusal from the student; but his view of the faculties of the mind cannot be regarded as complete, nor his discussion of them as very satisfactory*. A sweet modesty graces their close, conciliating the reader. " I pretend not to teach," he says, " but to inquire ; and therefore cannot but confess here again, that ex- ternal and internal sensation are the only passages that I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room." " These are my guesses concerning the means whereby the understanding comes to have and retain simple ideas." What are the faculties of the human mind ? After all that has been written on this branch of philosophy, we are yet so much in the dark, that few even of the most thoughtful agree in their enumeration and de- scription. When Bacon, in his ' Advancement of Learning,' speaks of the faculties of the soul, he had evidently formed no distinct view of the nature and number of * It is significant of the slight importance which Locke attached to these chapters, that he passes them over without comment in the abstract of the Essay given to Le Clerc, published in French in the ' Bibliotheque Choisie,' and printed in Lord King's Life of Locke. 2 c 386 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. these faculties, though he abounds with excellent ob- servations on the memory and its improvement, on the imagination and its pleasures, on the reason and its uses. In his general distribution of human know- ledge, he tells us, that history addresses itself to the memory, poetry to the imagination, philosophy to the reason. He divides the soul into two parts, the un- derstanding or reason, and the will or appetite ; but when he treats of the understanding or reason, which terms he uses synonymously, he turns from an analysis of it to speak of the arts of invention, of judging, of remembering, and of demonstrating. When Hobbes treats of the virtues commonly called intellectual*, he contents himself with speaking of such abilities as men commonly admire and desire in them- selves ; of a wit natural and acquired, quick or slow ; of good judgment, discretion and prudence, and power. In his work on human nature he begins with the sense, and proceeds to the imagination, remembrance, and discourse. Hartley, after treating of the ideas generated from sensations and their association, proceeds to consider the application of his theory to the understanding, af- fection, memory, and imagination ; and in the accuracy and fulness of his observations of fact, in the charm of a condensed thought and simplicity of style, he far excels all other metaphysical writers. Reid, in his ' Essays on the Intellectual Powers/ begins with the powers we have by means of our ex- * Leviathan, ch. viii. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 387 tcrnal senses, under which he treats of sensation, per- ception, and its objects ; and he then treats of memo- ry, conception, abstraction, judgment, and reasoning. Dugald Stewart, in his 'Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind/ discusses attention, conception, abstrac- tion, the influence of association, memory, and the imagination. It is evident from his pages how little philosophers agree in the use of these terms, how often they are used interchangeably, and how many different terms are significant of the same phenomena and processes of thought. James Mill, in his 'Ana- lysis of the Mind/ following very much the order of Hartley, treats first of sensation, then of ideas and the association of ideas, next of naming. He discusses well the use and value of the terms consciousness and conception ; he observes that Mr. Stewart did not understand the real distinction between conception and imagination ; he believes the last to consist in trains of ideas ; and he proceeds to treat of classifi- cation, abstraction, memory, belief, ratiocination, and evidence. Thus, with some agreement, there is great diversity among philosophers in their enumeration and analysis of the faculties of the mind, soul, reason, or understand- ing, which terms, for the purposes of analysis, are used synonymously. Hence much of the difficulty and perplexity in the character and condition of men- tal science. A reference to the pages of Brown and Abercronibie would strengthen this evidence, and a collection of the definitions would be very curious. 2 c 2 388 PROGRESS OE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 4 Adam Smith founds his theory of moral sentiments upon sympathy, which he makes a distinct principle of our nature and of the mind, without seeking to de- termine how much all sympathy is dependent on me- mory, imagination, and the judgment. Some writers, following Kant, make the pure reason a faculty dis- tinct from the understanding ; and others speak of an aesthetic faculty, to which they assign the province of taste. Common language implies that whatever in- crease of power may be gained by culture or habit to the original capabilities of our nature, such increase of power may be considered new faculties. Thus we talk of a faculty for languages, for music, for drawing. Faculty seems here facilitas from / ado a power of accomplishing. Now, since the memory, the imagi- nation, and the reason, whatever its functions, are concerned in everything which we attempt and ac- complish, these may be considered primary faculties. To return to Locke. Perception he treats of as the first faculty, Retention the next, Discerning he calls another faculty; and, among other operations, he speaks of comparing, compounding, naming, and abs- tracting. It is evident that "perception" as the first step and degree towards knowledge, and the inlet of all the materials of it, is with Locke sometimes equivalent to sensation, sometimes to reflection*. * Locke's Essay, b. ii. ch. 9, 15. Comp. b. ii. cli. 1 and 6. Locke often uses the word perception in the sense of a sensation ; at other times in the sense of the recognition of an idea as an idea of sensation or of reflection. Thus he says (b. ii. ch. 8, 1), " What- soever is so constituted by nature as to be able, by ' affecting our PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 381) Perception, like consciousness, is therefore a word of little value in the analysis of the mind ; for to have a sensation or idea, and to perceive that we have it, or to be conscious we have it, is all one. When treating of perception as a faculty of the mind exer- cised about its ideas and the inlet of all knowledge, he had forgotten his frequent use of the word in pre- vious chapters, particularly in the first of the second book on the original of all our ideas, where he says, " To ask at what time a man has first any ideas, is to ask when he begins to perceive : having ideas, and perception, being the same thing!' After all that has been written on perception and theories of perception, it will never have other than a general and vague signification, being equivalent, as Locke suggests, to thinking in general. Thus we speak of a man of quick or of dull perceptions, having reference to the speed with which he arrives at just conclusions from the incidental phenomena of the senses, whether as to their causes or consequences. Its etymology may be some guide to its best mean- ing ; perception, from percipio, being an idea caught (per) by means of some sensation. Thus we hear words, and perceive their meaning. We see a smile or frown, and perceive the thought or feeling which senses, to cause any perception in the mind,' doth hereby produce in the understanding a simple idea." Is there any difference in such a passage between an affection of the senses, a perception in the mind, and an idea in the understanding ? Are they not different phrases for one and the same phenomenon? Compare ch. i. 3 and 4. 390 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. occasions it. We perceive the conclusion at which an argument or speech is tending, before it is an- nounced ; we perceive, that is, we anticipate the re- sult in which a train of events will issue, or to follow the employment of certain means and agencies, before it comes about. But this use of the words perceive and perception, however common, will not be accept- able to all philosophers ; for Sir William Hamilton expressly says*, we perceive nothing but what is ac- tually present to an organ of sensef ; and " that we reach a distant reality, not by sense, not by percep- * See a note to his edition of Eeid, p. 247. f Among the dissertations, historical, critical, and supplementary, appended by Sir W. Hamilton to his edition of Eeid, is one, Note C, " On the various theories of external perception," in which he considers that he has accomplished his primary end, which was to display, to discriminate, and to lay down a nomenclature of the vari- ous theories of perception, actual and possible. But in describing or attempting to ascertain the doctrine of preceding metaphysicians, especially that of Eeid and Stewart, he introduces a number of new terms which help us to understand neither the philosophers nor the mind. He speaks of two kinds of consciousness one a conception, the other a perception (p. 820) ; of two or four kinds of perception one presentative, the other representative. ; one mediate, the other immediate (822) ; he talks of egoistical and non-egoistical idealism, presentationists and representationists. That we may appreciate the value of these terms, he refers us chiefly to his own notes and papers. Among them is the remarkable one (p. 806) on the terms object and objective, subject and subjective. The learned reader will consider whether his knowledge of the mind be improved, and any useful distinctions arrived at, in these papers of Sir W. Hamilton. The less learned may be advised to compare with them the chapters of Hobbes (Leviathan, ch. vii. and viii.), on the Ends of Discourse and the Virtues commonly called intellectual, and the contrary Defects. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 391 tion, but 1 1/ inference!' This limitation of perception to mere sensation is quite inconsistent with the old and received use of the term, of which we have many examples in the common version of the Scriptures ; a very good standard of legitimate English. An admi- rable instance is given by Johnson, under the word perceive : Mark ii. 8, " Jesus perceived in his spirit, that they so reasoned within themselves." We have another in 1 Sam. iii. 8, " And Eli perceived [that is, he drew the conclusion] that the Lord had called Samuel." Of memory Locke treats under the term retention. Of all the faculties of the mind, commonly so called, the memory seems the most clear and determinate in its character and functions. Its importance is univer- sally recognized. Its influence dawns with the first smile of intelligence in infancy, and in mature life it is in constant exercise, essential to all intellectual func- tions and processes ; an ingredient in all the moral affections, dispositions, and habits. Without memory, though present sensations should make a present im- pression, there could be neither reason, nor hope, nor desire. The mind would be only like a mirror, that passively reflects the transient image, or an in- strument that produces sounds unconsciously. A me- mory, full, exact, and ready, is the chief element of all intellectual power. Most of Bacon's hints on the culture of the intellectual power, in the fragment to Saville, turn upon helps for the memory. The eleventh chapter Locke entitles " Of discerning 392 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. and other Operations of the Mind." He calls the"power of discerning and distinguishing between the several ideas we may take notice of in our minds, a faculty;" and adds: " If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts; in this, of hav- ing them unconfused, and being able nicely to distin- guish one thing from another where there is but the least difference, consists in a great measure the exact- ness of judgment and clearness of reason which is to be observed in one man above another." But when we discern that a colour is not a sound, that a smell is not a taste, is this owing to a peculiar faculty? Has not Locke here made a faculty for himself, or ascribed to a peculiar faculty a common phenomenon of the mind, inseparable from sensation, perception, and me- mory, and from every process of thought and reason- ing ? In the same chapter Locke speaks of comparing, compounding, and abstracting ideas as other opera- tions, intimating a design to treat of them more fully afterwards. He was attacked by Berkeley*, not with- out reason, for what he says of general signs and uni- versal ideas; and while we trace in the observations on the faculties of brutes as compared with men, on the characteristics of wit and judgment, much that indicates acute thought, the careful reader discerns a want of clearness and mastery of the subject. He considers the faculty of abstracting or making general ideas as peculiar to man, and that which puts a per- * Comp. Berkeley's ' Principles of Knowledge,' p. 9, and Locke, b. iii. ch. 3, and on General Terms. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 393 feet distinction betwixt man and brutes. But though brutes do not use general signs, it does not at all follow that they have not the power of abstracting. In denying them this power, it seems to me that Locke is much too positive. Thus, a dog abstracts his master from his dress, and mankind from other animals. Animals certainly remember, imagine, or dream, and infer or conclude. These elements of reason they possess ; and could they tell us all their ideas, they would probably surprise us by the amount of their power in forming, cherishing, and associating ideas, in anticipating consequences, and in feeling at- tachments. The exact student will turn with interest to those chapters of the fourth book (the fourteenth and seven- teenth), in which Locke treats of the judgment and the reason as distinct faculties. He will observe that in the former he says : " The mind has two faculties conversant about truth and falsehood; first, know- ledge, whereby it certainly perceives and is undoubt- edly satisfied of the agreement or disagreement of any ideas. Secondly, judgment, which is the putting ideas together, or separating them, when their cer- tain agreement or disagreement is not perceived, but presumed, which is, as the name imports, taken to be so before it certainly appears. If it so unites or separates them as in reality things are, it is right judgment." Reason Locke describes variously, as "that faculty whereby man is supposed to be dis- tinguished from beasts ;" " as necessary and assist- 394 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY ing to all our other faculties, and indeed containing two of them, viz. sagacity and illation or inference which finds out the means or intermediate ideas, and rightly applies them to discover certainty in de- monstrations, and probability in opinion." In reason he considers there are four degrees first, the disco- vering of truths ; second, the methodical disposition of them ; third, the perceiving their connection ; and fourth, making a right conclusion. In the chapter on Reason, he discusses, as before observed, the use of syllogism, which upon the whole he considers but as " the art of fencing with the little knowledge we have, without making any additions." Even were it only this, a mere art of fencing, it might be useful exercise and practice the gymnastics of the mind. But it is remarkable that Locke did not perceive that mathematical demonstrations, instead of being without syllogisms, are strictly syllogistic, and that true syllogism, Aristotle's legitimate logic, is nei- ther more nor less than that exercise of the reason- ing power, that art of adjusting terms, collecting inter- mediate ideas, and discovering connections and depen- dencies, on the importance of which he is himself dwell- ing through the whole of the last two books of his Essay. If all reasoning, whatever the subject, can be reduced to syllogistic form, as the profoundest reason- ers seem to admit, it is manifestly no mean part of knowledge to be able to distinguish a perfect from an imperfect syllogism, and to know what sorts of con- clusion are legitimate under certain sorts of premiss. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 395 Such knowledge would seem to have a much closer connection with all the business of human life, and all the exercises of the understanding, than that of many branches of physical science, which are far more re- mote from any immediate purpose of utility ; such as the characteristics, subdivisions, classes, and proper- ties of mosses and ferns, of seaweeds and shells. But no part of knowledge, no path of curiosity, is to be despised. It is no more an argument against formal logic that a country gentlewoman naturally connects the ideas of wind, clouds, rain, wetting, taking cold, relapse, and danger of death, and easily understands that she must not go abroad in bad weather after a fever, than it is an argument against grammar that the same gentlewoman speaks and writes correctly without having studied the rules, or in her own mind distinguishing and remembering the names of the parts of speech. The account which Locke has given of the faculties of the mind, his attempt at an analysis of the reason, cannot be regarded as distinct and successful. When writing of the judgment and reason in the fourth book, he had probably forgotten what he had said of per- ception, retention, and the discerning faculty in the second; and no small part of the obscurity of the Essay arises from this want of distinctness in the ar- rangement and treatment of his matter concerning the faculties commonly called intellectual. To ordi- nary readers this must be a source of obscurity and confusion next in its influence to the cloud that 396 PROGEESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. lowers under the word ' idea/ and the related words, simple and complex, mixed modes, relations, sub- stances, and essences. In an essay on the human understanding we should 'now expect a more distinct account of these faculties, and their peculiar or dis- tinctive functions, and indeed we have it in Hartley and in James Mill. That Hume, in his ' Treatise on the Understanding/ and Kant, in his ' Critic of the pure Reason/ have supplied any deficiency in Locke or corrected any error in him, I have failed to dis- cover. Upon the imagination, as a distinct faculty, Locke has not touched; and the omission has been made a heavy charge against him*. He speaks indeed of "pictures and visions of the fancy/' and could not be unaware of the nature and importance of a fa- culty which he has himself not seldom beautifully exercised. A chapter upon it would have been most welcome from his hand, and made a valuable addition to his work. Its omission may be due to the consi- deration that the imagination is subservient for the most part to pleasure and amusement, while Locke was concerned with the pursuit of truth, and with the exercises of the understanding in relation to the reality and extent of human knowledge. He appears to have considered it more dangerous than useful, * See particularly Sedgwick's ' Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge,' pp. 49, 50, edit. 1834. The Professor makes ' the omission' of what he calls ' the faculties of moral judg- ment, ' another great fault of Locke. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 307 more a friend to error and superstition than to truth and philosophy. But even in this view, its influence over the mind and reasoning powers deserved his more considerate attention, while the imagination is not without importance in the discovery and develop- ment of strictly scientific truth. It is an element in what we call invention, not merely as exercised in works of imagination commonly so called, poems and tales, the novel and the drama, pictures, statues, and music, but in all the arts and ends of life, in tracing the connection between causes and effects, means and ends, and in all that contributes to conviction and per- suasion, that is, logic and rhetoric. When analysed, perhaps it will be found to consist in the voluntary combination of the ideas of sensation and reflection, simple or complex, in an order different from that in which they were originally impressed, whether for pur- poses of pleasure or utility. By it we renew past en- joyments and anticipate new, and thus we are enabled to adorn, enjoy, and enrich the present. Its existence and power among the faculties of the mind furnishes one of the best illustrations of the wisdom and be- nevolence of the Author of our frame, since it is to the capacities of the mind what perfume and colour and form are to external nature, whence come the charms of variety and beauty in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. It is to the mind what the breath of summer is to the strings of the ^Eolian harp, or the light of day to the bosom of the still and all-reflect- ing lake. The sense of beauty springs from the ima- 398 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. gination. Affection and love accompany her path. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, fol- low in her train, and do her selectest homage. Even the logician and philosopher confess her "awful charms." Religion sanctions and hallows her influ- ence. Upon the whole, the simple division of the primary faculties adopted by Bacon* seems as good as any that has been suggested since ; 1, memory; 2, imagina- tion ; 3, the reason. The memory recalls and cherishes the impression of the past in the order synchronous and successive. Imagination combines and deals with them for the purpose and gratification of the present. Reason examines the necessary connection, agreement or disagreement of ideas, of causes and effects, and especially recognizes the relation of all events and all being to law, and this may be considered its highest function. Of reason it may be said that it marks objects, and their conceived relations to one another, with appropriate names; that it arranges and classi- fies ; it distinguishes, separates, and combines ; it * In a passage in the ' Novum Organum' (lib. 1, 127), in which Bacon expressly considers his logic of induction applicable to the study of mental and moral affections and states, as well as to inani- mate nature, he speaks particularly : " De motibus mentalibus memo- ries, compositionis et divisionis, judicii, et reliquorum." The distinc- tion attempted by some moderns between the reason and the under- standing, as faculties with separate and distinguishable functions, seems to me arbitrary, unintelligible, no less inconsistent with the usage of the past than incapable of useful application to the future. A really useful analysis of the " pure reason" must be something very different from Kant's ' Critic.' PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 399 counts and concludes ; it forms propositions and traces connections and consequences. Thus its two great functions may be considered to be induction and deduction, of which geometry and the mathe- matics furnish the most simple, easy, and perfect ex- amples. Its province is the attainment of knowledge and the establishment of truth. But I do not pre- sume to attempt an exact philosophical analysis of the functions included in what we term exclusively and par excellence the Reason. There is beautiful simplicity and force in the Baconian statement and division, that memory makes the historian ; imagina- tion the poet and the artist ; reason the philosopher. Each of these faculties is accompanied in every mo- ment of exercise by perception and consciousness, while sensation may be regarded as the root and trunk of which these are the flower and fruit. Having disposed however summarily of the facul- ties, Locke proceeds to the discussion of " complex ideas'' his chapter on which is by no means a happy one. He speaks of such ideas as being compounded and decompounded, and reduced under three heads : 1st, modes, which also he divides into simple and com- plex, apologizing for the use of the term ; 2nd, sub- stances ; 3rd, relations. He then enters upon a dis- cussion of the simple modes of space, duration, and number ; of infinity ; of other simple modes, meaning the sensations of sound, taste, colour, and the ideas of such sensations. On modes of thinking, modes of pleasure and pain, 400 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. he gives a very instructive and useful chapter, wor- thy of great attention ; the long chapters on Power, and on Identity and Diversity are interposed; he then touches more fully on what he calls mixed modes, complex ideas of substances and of relations ; and finishes with the chapters on ideas, as they are obscure and confused, real and fantastical, adequate and inadequate, true and false. Having touched before on the origin, nature, and metaphysical difficulty of the ideas of space and time, I shall not dwell at length on Locke's account, nor examine closely his definitions, but repeat an obser- vation implied on the former occasion. It is this : Whether we have, or have not, determinate ideas of space and time, whether they are complex, sim- ple, or abstract ; whether we can or cannot give satis- factory and available definitions of the terms signi- ficant of the ideas, both the ideas and terms are then clearest and most useful when considered as alto- gether relative, space as related to bodies, and time as related to the succession of impressions. Take other words, such as magnitude or size, height and depth. The abstract ideas are obscure. The terms are clearest when relative to objects compared and measured, and to the conceived position of an ob- server ; that is, to the present or remembered impres- sions of sense. Careful examination of Locke's second book will furnish the student with a variety of observations, acute, profound, instructive ; but he will detect not a PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 401 little obscurity and inconsistency, arising from phrases ill guarded, and corroborating the account of the man- ner in which the Essay was composed, namely, by snatches and at distant intervals; the matter being put together before the whole subject and the depen- dence of the several parts had been well considered, and the arrangement fully determined. The use of the terms simple and mixed modes, which seems in a great measure peculiar to Locke, is now almost obso- lete, and a source of difficulty to the ordinary reader of the Essay, without any corresponding advantage. It would make a volume, if all the exceptionable and infelicitous passages in the chapters on Ideas were marked and duly commented upon. But the logical reader will see without difficulty Locke's defects. He will see that when he wrote these chapters he had not wholly disengaged himself from the jargon of the schoolmen or later metaphysicians about modes and accidents, substances and essences. He will see that he often confounds ideas with the objects which give oc- casion to them ; that he speaks of the mind as com- pounding and decompounding ideas, when it is only embarrassed by words without distinct ideas annexed. It will be seen that the vast importance and influence of language, and the necessity of taking into account its rationale and philosophy, had not dawned upon Locke's mind when he wrote this part of the Essay ; that he became more and more deeply alive to it as he advanced towards the conclusion ; and that if Locke had from the first entertained the views which he sub- 2 D 402 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. sequently unfolded, as to what words are and what are not susceptible of definition, much of what he has written on ideas, obscure and confused, adequate and inadequate, true and false, would have been omitted, more would have been modified, and all would have been improved. In proportion as Locke himself went over what he had written, he found that he had much to alter and to add. In a very inter- esting letter to Dr. Sloane, dated December 2, 1699, he says: "I took the liberty to send you, just be- fore I left town, the last edition of my Essay. There are two new chapters in it : one of the Association of Ideas, another of Enthusiasm. These two I ex- pect you should read and give me your opinion upon, though I have made other large additions*." With re- spect to the chapter on Poioer in particular, we see the difficulties in which Locke felt himself involved, and the little satisfaction which it gave, partly by the correspondence with Limborch, which occupied Locke within a few months of his decease, partly by the ad- * This is said of the fourth edition, printed in 1698. The chapter on Identity and Diversity was added at the instance of Molyneux to the third edition, which contained also, in the epistle to the reader, a characteristic vindication of his view of " moral relations," in re- ply to the animadversions of Mr. Lowde, who published in 1692 a discourse concerning ' The Nature of Man.' See the letters between Molyneux and Locke, Law's edit., vol. iv. p. 292, and the note by Law, vol. i. p. 209. Compare a remarkable passage referring to the Chapter on Power, in the preface to Law's edition. The letter to Dr. Sloane is now among the MSS. of the British Museum. It is printed in Forster's Original Letters of Locke, Sid- ney, and Shaftesbury (1830). PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 403 ditions and alterations made in the third and subse- quent editions, to which he thus beautifully alludes: ' The ideas of will, volition, liberty, and necessity, in this chapter of Power, came naturally in my way. In a former edition of this treatise I gave an account of my thoughts concerning them, according to the light I then had ; and now, as a lover of truth, and not a worshiper of my own doctrines, I own some change of my own opinion, which I think I have discovered ground for. In what I first writ, I with an unbiassed indifferency followed, truth whither I thought she led me. But neither being so vain as to fancy infallibi- lity, nor so disingenuous as to dissemble my mistakes for fear of blemishing my reputation, I have, with the same desire for truth only, not been ashamed to pub- lish what a severer inquiry has suggested. It is not impossible but that some may think my former notions right, and some (as I have already found) these latter, and some neither. I shah 1 not at all wonder at this variety in men's opinions : impartial deductions of rea- son being so rare, and exact ones in abstract notions not so very easy, especially if of any length. And therefore I should think myself not a little beholden to any one who would, upon these or any other grounds, fairly clear this subject of liberty from any difficulties that may yet remain." (Book ii. ch. 21, 72.) We learn from the correspondence with Molyneux that some parts of the third book of the Essay con- cerning words, though the thoughts were easy and clear enough, yet cost Locke more pains to express 2 D 2 404 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. than all the rest ; and we see him again struggling with difficulties in a net of his own making, when touching on real and nominal essences, names of mixed modes and of substances. At length he breaks into light as he advances to consider the imperfection and abuse of words, and the remedies for these imperfec- tions and abuses, with which he concludes this book. "I must confess then, that when I first began this discourse of the understanding, and a good while after, I had not the least thought that any consideration of words was at all necessary to it. But when, having passed over the original and composition of our ideas, I began to examine the extent and certainty of our knowledge, I found that it had so near a connection with words, that, unless their force and manner of sig- nification were first well observed, there could be very little said clearly and pertinently concerning know- ledge ; which, being conversant about truth, had con- stantly to do with propositions. And though it ter- minated in things, yet it was so much for the most part by the intervention of words, that they seemed scarce separable from our general knowledge." " I am apt to imagine that were the imperfections of language, as the instrument of knowledge, more thoroughly weighed, a great many of the controversies that make such a noise in the world, would of them- selves cease ; and the way to knowledge, and perhaps peace too, lie a great deal opener than it does*." * The above is quoted by Tooke, ' Epea Pteroenta,' vol. i. pp. 31, 32, Taylor's edition. Locke's Essay, b. iii. ch. 9, 10, 11. While PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 405 Two exquisite sections* follow, on the difficulties arising from words in discourses of religion, law, and morality, "matters of the highest concernment." And to these, as well as to the practical treatise on the Conduct of the Understanding, which is their corol- lary, the observation of the excellent Hallam will ap- ply j " I cannot think any parent or instructor jus- tified in neglecting to put them in the hands of a boy when the reasoning faculties become developed. It will give him a sober and serious, not flippant or self-conceited, independency of thinking ; and, while it teaches how to distrust ourselves and to watch those prejudices which necessarily grow up from one cause or another, will inspire a reasonable confidence in what he has well considered, by taking off a little of that engaged in this Work, I have looked with pleasure into the copy of Locke's Essay formerly belonging to John Home Tooke, with his MS. notes in pencil, now happily deposited in the British Museum. The notes are such as the reader of the ' Epea Pteroenta' would ex- pect. He observes the superiority in the tone and spirit of Locke's preface and dedication to anything to be found in Harris, the author of the Hermes. He marks with strong disapprobation ' No ! no ! no i ' the many chapters and passages relating to complex, adequate and inadequate, false and obscure, ideas ; intimating that all the dif- ficulties and obscurities arise not from ideas, which are well enough, but from mistakes in words, incorrect language, and bad grammar. He grasps with eagerness at every passage intimating Locke's atten- tion to philology and early dictionaries. The late Sydney Smith, in his amusing, and in many respects excellent, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, joins J. H. Tooke with Hume, as one of the authors who disparage Locke : but surely this is a mistake. * Book iii. ch. 9, 22, 23. 406 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. deference to authority which is the more to be regret- ted in its excess, that, like its cousin-german, party spirit, it is frequently united to loyalty of heart and the generous enthusiasm of youth." The attention which Locke gives to ideas, and his frequent introduction of that word, when his meaning would be clearer had he attended more to things or propositions, has darkened more particularly his discus- sion of the applicability of demonstrative reasoning to morality, a subject to which he has reverted again and again, and with which he has mixed up a considerable number of sentiments that cannot be accepted*. Be- fore examining his views on this topic with the care which it demands, it is worth while to observe that Locke's division of knowledge into three kinds, intui- tive, demonstrative, and sensitive, is open to objection. The division is not good, because the two first seem to rest upon and to include the last, and it may be questioned whether Locke has assigned to each kind a mark sufficiently distinct. His account of knowledge seems in itself unsatisfactory ; he represents it as con- sisting alone in " the perception of the connection and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas." This notion is very often repeated, and * The portions of the Essay in which this subject is touched are, b. iii. ch. 11, 16-18 ; b. iv. ch. 2 and 3, 18-20 ; ch. 4, 6-10 ; ch. 12, 6 to the end. These passages the student should carefully compare and endeavour to analyse. All that Locke says elsewhere on truth, certainty, general and trifling propositions, on maxims, ideas, their origin, their combination, their archetypes, will be mo- dified by the result of such analysis. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 407 it is one on which he lays great stress. Surely he is much nearer to the truth and to the account which would in general be given, when he intimates, as in several other places, that our knowledge consists in having ideas conformable to the real qualities of things, and that words are valuable only as they lead us to the " thoughts of things" When, therefore, he speaks (b. iv. ch. 2, 1) of a " kind of truths which the mind perceives at the first sight of the ideas together by bare intuition" without the intervention of any other idea, and " of this kind of knowledge as the clearest and most certain that human frailty is capable of"! and when he adds, " Thus the mind perceives that white is not black, that a circle is not a triangle, that three are more than two, and equal to one and two ;" it is apparent that what we know is merely that one object or idea is not another; that we have different names for different objects or impressions, sensations, or ideas ; and that we are not to call one by the name which it has been agreed shall be the name of another. This knowledge, if worthy to be called such, is after all more a knowledge of names, and of agreed signs for ideas, than of the agreement or repugnancy of ideas among themselves ; about which, as will be shown, there is much difficulty. Another notion, which I humbly think is a very se- rious error on Locke's part, runs very much through the latter part of the Essay. It is the more neces- sary to point out this error distinctly, because it has not been dwelt upon, if observed, by former critics. Nay, 408 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. it has been assumed that Locke is correct, and his opi- nion has been adopted and enforced by some of his thoughtful successors*. The notion is this : that the complex or abstract ideas, the essences of mixed modes, are made by the understanding, "very arbitrarily," " independent from any original patterns in naturef." "There is nothing more evident, than that for the most part, in the framing these ideas, the mind searches not its patterns in nature, nor refers the ideas it makes to the real existence of things ; but puts such together as may best serve its own purposes, without tying itself to a precise imitation of anything that really ex- ists." This Locke afterwards modifies a little by the statement that such ideas "are not indeed jumbled together at random, but SUITED TO AN END." " Though they be combinations that are loose enough, and have as little union in themselves as several other to which the mind never gives a connection that combines them into one idea ; yet they are always made for the con- venience of communication, which is the chief end of language." He contends, nevertheless, that " for the originals of mixed modes, and for the meaning of terms significant of such modes, we need look no further than the mind itself, where their original patterns and es- sences are; and hence "that the real and nominal essence in mixed modes are the same." He asks, * See a passage in Law's preface, page ix, and compare the dis- sertation by Gay, prefixed to Law's translation of King, ' De Ori- gine Mali.' t See b. iii. ch. 5, 5, 6, 7. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 409 " whether children learn not the names of mixed modes before they have their ideas ? What one of a thou- sand ever frames the abstract idea of glory or ambition before he has heard the names of them ? In simple ideas and substances, I grant, it is otherwise, which being such ideas as have a real existence and union in nature, the ideas or names are got one before the other as it happens*." This whole argument he considers " new and a little out of the way." It is on the ground of the supposed similarity of the complex ideas of morality to the ideas concerned in mathematical reasoning, " in this respect, that they are alike framed by the mind without any real archetypes, that he founds his opinion of the pos- sible application of demonstrative reasoning to mora- lity as well as to the mathematics-)-." * Book iii. ch. 5, 15. f Comp. b. iii. ch. 11, 15. Morality being such combinations of ideas not having standing patterns existing their names may be defined. Men may exactly know the ideas that go to each com- position, and so use their words in a certain and undoubted signifi- cation ; perfectly declaring what they stand for. And therefore the negligence or perverseness of mankind cannot be excused, if their discourses in morality be not much more clear than those in natural philosophy, since they are about ideas in the mind, which are none of them false and disproportionate, they having no external beings for the archetypes which they are referred to, and must correspond with. Supposing the last sentiment well founded, it seems to me that it should have led Locke to an opposite conclusion. For is it not the want of a standing pattern existing, which renders the name indis- tinct, and the attainment of an acceptable definition difficult, if not impossible ? Comp. also, 18 ; " Another reason that makes the defining of mixed modes so necessary, especially of moral words, is what I men- 410 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Now Locke has repeatedly observed, that our com- plex ideas are collections of simple ideas, and that abstract names are only valuable as they stand always for the same collections. The conveniency of language consists, he justly says, in the tying of similar collec- tions by one term together. But if the most complex ideas are collections of simple ideas ; if they may at last be analysed into simple ideas, of which they are composed; and if the simple ideas, whether of sensa- tion or of reflection, come from existing things ; (e. g. simple ideas of sensation from objects, beings, or substances whose qualities affect the senses, and simple ideas of reflection from conditions or states of the mind, and inward feelings known by consciousness, which is here but another word for reflection, and which states and feelings are capable of being marked and recognized by words), it follows that the terms significant of the complex ideas have just as much re- ference to real existences as the terms significant of the simple ideas which enter into the complexity, and tioned a little before, namely, that it is the only way whereby the signification of the most of them can be known with certainty. For the ideas they stand for being for the most part such, whose com- ponent parts nowhere exist together, but scattered and mingled with others, it is the mind alone that collects them, and gives them the union of one idea ; and it is only by words, enumerating the several simple ideas which the mind has united, that we can make known to others what their names stand for ; the assistance of the senses in this case not helping us by the proposal of sensible objects, to show the ideas which our names of this kind stand for, as it does often in the names of sensible simple ideas, and also to some degree in those of substances." PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Ill X no more. Take Locke's favourite instance. What a great mixture of independent ideas are contained in that complex one of a procession, a triumph! ideas of persons, habits, tapers, orders, motions, sounds, cha- riots, horses, elephants, banners, the fasces, laurels, captives, conquerors. Surely Locke is wrong in sup- posing that such a complex idea or cluster of mul- titudinous impressions, synchronous and successive, is more arbitrary that is, less dependent on real out- ward existences and phenomena than the idea of any one of the substances, gold, wood, cloth, tallow, iron ; or any one of the sensations, of colours, sounds, mo- tions, without which there could be neither procession, nor idea of it, nor term significant. " When we speak," says Locke*, " of justice and gratitude, we frame to ourselves no imagination of any thing existing which we could conceive ; but our thoughts terminate in the abstract ideas of those vir- tues, and look not further, as they do when we speak of a horse or iron, whose specific ideas we consider not as barely in the mind, but as in things themselves, which afford the original patterns of those ideas." I apprehend this is wholly fallacious ; and if Locke had not elsewhere made the certainty and reality of knowledge to consist in the conformity of ideas to the real qualities of objects if he had not strenuously maintained its reality on that ground, the charge of scepticism might have been brought with more sem- blance of plausibility against him, as maintaining that' * Book iii. ch. 5, 12. 412 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. moral ideas were wholly arbitrary, and that the terms significant of them had no clear, positive, and trace- able relation to existing beings. It is true that ideas, whencesoever derived, exist nowhere but in the mind; but the ideas themselves and terms significant are of value solely by their relation to the actual phenomena of nature, and the real and positive conditions of hu- man feeling and human beings. In reasoning upon moral relations, such as justice and gratitude, our thoughts no more terminate in the abstract ideas than in the case of the horse or iron. The actual rela- tions of moral beings to one another are the subject of thought and question. The terms are of value, and attempts to settle that value are of importance, solely on account of their reference to existing beings. The archetypes or patterns of moral ideas, to use Locke's words, are the pleasures and pains of existing moral beings. Because they are so, it is necessary to seek, and desirable to determine, of what combinations of simple ideas the complex ones are made up ; for upon this depends the significancy of the terms. Yet senti- mental moralists, confident in their knowledge of the Deity's revelations, and giving to their private notions the reverenced name of conscience, which they do not admit to be perverted or ill-informed in their own case, despise inquiry into the sources and securities of hu- man happiness, and stigmatize the calculation of plea- sures and pains as a cold utilitarian selfishness. This is the ignorant and fashionable sentimentalism of the day. It may be itself the cloak of a selfish and malignant PROGRESS OF ENGLISH FHILOSOPHT. 413 spirit ; a shelter for every species of fraud, vice, false- hood, injustice, and oppression. Of the worth of such a theory, Philip the Second of Spain presents a nota- ble illustration. He thought he should be wanting in his duty to God, to the Church, and the State, if he did not exterminate heretics with fire and sword. But whence had he obtained his notions of the Deity, of the Church, and of the State ? Of what sort were his moral instincts and innate ideas, and in what mould cast ? He brought them from Spanish nurses and the school of the Jesuits. And when the plea of conscience is set up for a practice adverse to the happiness of mankind, and for an opinion that sanctions such prac- tice, and which appears to another utterly erroneous and mischievous, of what value is the plea ? what test does it furnish of truth or virtue ? Among the many admirable observations which Mr. Hallam has made on Locke, there are some re- lating to Locke's error about the want of correspon- dence between the mathematical conceptions and the real existence of geometrical figures, which deserve repetition here, no less on account of their intrinsic worth, than of their connection with inquiries into the nature of demonstrative reasoning and the cer- tainty of our moral knowledge. After quoting se- veral passages from Locke, and among them the fol- lowing, "All the discourses of the mathematicians about the squaring of a circle, conic sections, or any other part of mathematics, concern not the existence of any of those figures; but their demonstrations, 414 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. which, depending on their ideas, are the same whether there be any square or circle in the world or no;" Mr. Hallam observes, " A geometrical figure is a portion of space contained in boundaries determined by given relations. It exists in the infinite round about us, as the statue exists in the block. No one can doubt, if he turns his mind to the subject, that every point in space is equidistant in all directions from certain other points. Draw a line through all these, and you have the circumference of a circle ; but the circle itself and its circumference exist before the latter is delineated. The orbit of a planet is not a regular geometrical figure, because certain forces disturb it. But this disturbance means only a deviation from a line which exists really in space, and which the planet would ac- tually describe, if there were nothing in the universe but itself and the centre of attraction. The expression therefore of Locke, ' whether there be any square or circle existing in the world or no/ is highly inaccu- rate, the latter alternative being an absurdity. All possible figures, and that in 'number numberless/ exist everywhere ; nor can we evade the perplexities into which the geometry of infinites throws our ima- gination, by considering them as mere beings of rea- son, the creatures of the geometer, which I believe some are half-disposed to do, nor by substituting the vague and un philosophical notion of indefinitude for a positive objective infinity*/' * Hallam's Literature of Europe, vol. iv. pp. 280 etseq. The reader will do well to consult the instructive paragraph which follows this PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 415 This error of Locke's, of a supposed want of con- formity in real existences to the mathematical ideas of figure and number, is the more remarkable on account of his frequent allusions to the strength and clearness of mathematical reasonings, derived from the diagrams and the sensible impressions. "Wrong names," he observes, with great truth, "in moral discourses, breed usually more disorder, because they are not so easily rectified as in mathematics, where the figure once drawn and seen makes the name useless and of no force. For what need of a sign, when the thing in Mr. Hallam's Literature, and mark attentively the whole of his criticism on Locke. Locke's Essay, b. iv. ch. 4, 8. " That which is requisite to make our knowledge certain, is the clearness of our ideas ; and that which is required to make it real, is that they answer their archetypes. Nor let it be wondered that I place the certainty of our knowledge in our ideas, with so little care and regard (as it may seem) to the real ex- istence of things, since most of those discourses, which take up the thoughts, and engage the disputes of those who pretend to make it their business to inquire after truth and certainty, will, I presume, upon examination, be found to be general propositions and notions, in which existence is not at all concerned" Then, following Mr. Hallam's quotation : " In the same manner the truth and certainty of moral discourses abstracts from the lives of men, and the exist- ence of those virtues in the world, whereof they treat. Nor is Tully's Offices less true, because there is nobody in the world that exactly practises his rules, and lives up to that pattern of a virtuous man which he has given us, and which existed nowhere when he writ, but in idea. If it be true in speculation, *. e. in idea, that murther deserves death, it will also be true of any action that exists conformable to that idea of murther. As for other actions, the truth of that proposition concerns them not. And thus it is of all other species of things which have no other essences but those ideas which are in the minds of men." 416 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. signified is present, and in view ? But in moral names that cannot be so easily and shortly done, because of the many decompositions that go to the making up the complex ideas of those modes. But yet, for all this, miscalling of any of those ideas, contrary to the usual signification of the words of that language, hin- ders not, but that we may have certain and demon- strative knowledge of their several agreements and disagreements, if we will carefully, as in mathematics, keep to the same precise ideas, and trace them in their several relations one to another, without being led away by their names. If we but separate the idea un- der consideration from the sign that stands for it, our knowledge goes equally on in the discovery of real truth and certainty, whatever sounds we make use of*." It is remarkable that Locke did not perceive, when writing such a passage, that if our ideas want confor- mity to the reality of nature, if our moral ideas do not conform to the positive relations of moral beings, we cannot properly be said to have moral knowledge at all. Our notions, without such conformity, are merely dreams. A madman may reason consecutively and demonstratively upon his own erroneous concep- tions ; but he is mad nevertheless, and the madness consists in the want of conformity between his ideas and the reality of things. The man who believed he was made of glass, was right in concluding that he must not knock himself against a wall. His first idea was the great delusion. False assumptions are pro- * Essay, b. iv. ch. 4, 9. PROGRESS OP ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 417 l>a !>ly a far more frequent source of error than incon- sequential reasoning. Thus it appears that Locke, in seeking to determine the nature of demonstration, has dwelt too much on the agreement and disagreement of ideas, and ideas alone. If he were right in this, of course it would lead us to consider whether there be any, and what may be the specific difference between the ideas of figure, number, and magnitude, and the ideas of morality ; and no doubt there is a simplicity and uniformity in the ideas, or it were better to say, the subject-matter of geometrical reasoning and of arithmetical and alge- braic calculation, not belonging to the subject-matter of moral reasoning*. There is, as Locke perceived, far greater complexity in the latter. It is further evi- dent that Locke had not a clear view of the nature of demonstration. To demonstrate is to show that a proposition not granted to be true is true by virtue of some premiss previously admitted or assumed as a criterion of truth, or by virtue of some other truth previously demonstrated. Such is Mr. De Morgan's * Hence, perhaps, something of mechanical character in all the branches of mathematics, exclusively pursued. Notwithstanding the intensity of application, the closeness and continuity of attention required for them, to which comparatively few are equal, but which are in themselves most valuable and enviable qualities of the intel- lect, yet, when exclusively pursued) they may give a character of nar- rowness and poverty to the understanding. The furniture of the mind, supplied by figures and numbers only, may have far less con- nection with all the wants and uses of life than that stored up by the diligent and philosophical student of history and nature, of lite- rature and art. 2 E 418 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. just account of it ; and it deserves to be well laid up in the mind. If we examine Locke's favourite ex- ample, the demonstration that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, the ideas of any given angles in a given figure remain distinct, and probably no young geometer ever thinks about the agreement or disagreement of the ideas, but he refers the angles in question to a common measure which all angles have ; he considers their equality to all the pos- sible angles on the same side of a straight line ; and he admits the proposition because he has admitted this common measure or test; and he perceives that the reasoning will apply to every example. This simplicity and uniformity in the subject-matter of mathematical reasoning, and comparative complexity m the subject-matter of moral science, has not been sufficiently regarded by those who have sought to dis- tinguish between contingent and demonstrative reason- ing, as if the contingency were in the reasoning, not in the matter. The relations of figure and numbers, an- gles and lines, magnitudes and motions, to one another, which are the subjects of mathematical investigation, and on which the axioms and definitions turn, remain the same through all time and to all observers. The figure of the earth, and all figure and all number, that is, everything with which the geometrical and arithmetical reasoner is concerned, are the same now as in the days of Euclid and Archimedes. But the phenomena with which moral propositions and historical statements are concerned, are comparatively evanescent. It is irapos- PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 419 sible to fix and recall them, to renew them in precisely the same conditions. The actors in the tragedy of the death of Caesar, their actual thoughts and passions, are no more. A brief record, the words of an historian, alone remain to excite our imagination and form opi- nion. Still it is only in proportion as mankind are sub- ject, from age to age, to similar thoughts and passions, that is, in proportion as their physical and mental frame presents some uniform characteristics, that we can ar- rive at general propositions in morality, the truth and value of which must ever rest, like those of mathema- tics, upon the facts, upon certain ever-recurring, if not permanent phenomena, determinate and admitted. But general propositions consist of words or signs ; and the sole question is, how far the words or signs are free from ambiguity. Now Locke decides that the names of simple ideas, and those only, are incapable of being defined. This he illustrates at some length, and on it we have already made some observations. But the names significant of complex states, we are told, maybe defined*. If then the complex ideas or states are made up of a collection of simple ideas, it follows that we can only define by enu- merating the several simples that enter into the col- lection ; that is to say, in the examination of complex * Hartley, Prop. 80, divides words into four classes. 1. Such as have ideas only. 2. Such as have both ideas and definitions. 3. Such as have definitions only. 4. Such as have neither ideas nor definitions. I demur to the last class, and to his reason for making such a class. How can particles vary the sense of a sentence, if they nothing of themselves ? 2 E 2 420 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. states of mind, and in the definition of the terms signifi- cant, we must find out and enumerate the more simple and elementary. Now the subject-matter of morality being the actions, habits, and dispositions of moral agents, their motives and consequences, their causes and effects, supposing every action to have an object, and that object or motive to be the attainment or com- munication of a pleasure, the avoidance or infliction of a pain, to some sentient being, it follows that a study of human pleasures and pains must form the chief part of the study of morality. Morality thus be- comes neither more nor less than the study of human happiness and of the rules or means for promoting and securing it ; and until this is clearly seen and admitted by professed moralists, no progress can be made in the scientific treatment of their subject. In this view the classification made by Hartley in the first instance, and by Bentham afterwards*, of pleasures and pains, form by far the most important contributions to ethical science in modern times. In the chapter on the improvement of our know- ledge the 12th of the 4th book Locke returns to the proposition that " morality is capable of demon- stration'' and he talks " of the habitudes and relations of the ideas, which are the real essences that ethics are conversant about." But, after all, he gets no fur- ther than this one rule, " to get and fix in our minds clear, distinct, and complete ideas, as far as they are to be had, and annex to them proper and constant names." Now distinct ideas are gotten from careful PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 421 observation of nature; that is, in morality, of the ac- tions and passions of men; and our chief concern must be the propriety and constancy of the names. In the chapter on wrong assent or error, in one short sentence Locke puts in a strong and just light the connection between men's notions of truth and mora- lity and their practical behaviour : " as the foundation of error will lie in wrong measures of probability, so the foundation of vice will lie in wrong measures of good." If this be true, and perhaps on close exami- nation of fact it will be found to be a pregnant truth, the object of the scientific moralist is evidently to find out for himself and point out to others, the right mea- sures of good. Where are these measures to be had? Is this only an improved form of the old inquiry after the summum bonum ? It is but an endeavour to determine the rule of life. Now the common practice of mankind affords some rule or measure ; their opinions or principles, in so far as we can gather them, a better rule ; the opinions of the select few, of the choicest thinkers or most careful observers, a still higher rule ; and the rule of life thus formed may be supposed to harmonize with what is called the divine rule, as deduced from nature and Scripture. Thus the devout theist, the philosophical Christian, the patriot citizen, the lover of mankind, will be least at a loss to determine what is the rule of life and duty. For the most part, what- ever difficulties or differences there may be in the theory of morals, there is an agreement in practical re- 422 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. suits ; and the voice of mankind, by express laws, by books, by converse, and by daily examples, agrees in pronouncing some actions and their class right and virtuous, others as determinately wrong and vicious. Yet such is the complexity of the matter entering into the settlement of moral truth, and such the obscu- rity and ambiguity of the terms, that when the most candid give a close attention to the subject, they find themselves embarrassed to a degree which, without such attention, they could not have anticipated. When, for example, we peruse a chapter in Blackstone's Com- mentaries touching on public or private wrongs ; when we seek to determine the difference between justifi- able and felonious homicide, between killing by cul- pable neglect of proper precaution against accident and killing with intent to take away life, without law- ful plea of self-defence, with malice aforethought ; and when further we attend a court of law and bring logic and philosophy to bear upon the evidence there given and the language there employed by witnesses, by the counsel, and by the judge, we learn the difficulty of ap- preciating, by agreed measures, the complex matters concerned in moral and social right, and of determi- ning the application of the rules to particular cases. We shall be often deeply affected by a sense of the difficulty and obscurity attending first upon inquiry into the facts, and next, upon clothing in suitable lan- guage the impressions of facts, which go to the settle- ment of moral truth. The intent of the law-makers, the application of that intent to the case in hand, the t'KO<;HKss ol I.N(ilJSll 1'IIILOSOPHY. 423 guilt of the respective agents in their present infraction of the law, the amount of evil accruing from that in- fraction, and the means of preventing the like evil in time to come, all appear involved in hopeless obscu- rity ; and a rare combination of integrity and experi- ence is required for a safe conclusion. Yet such is the perverseness of mankind, that even those, from whom better things might be expected, systematically discou- rage a serious attention to the difficulties and obscu- rities of moral and political science; and they who descend with the lamp of patient thought into the darkest caverns of prejudice and error, who take most pains to shed a ray of light upon the path of safety and of progress, are commonly vilified as the advo- cates of sensualism and selfishness. As the last chapters, on the imperfection and abuse of words, and the remedies thereof, constitute the most valuable portion of the third book, so the later chapters of the fourth book of the Essay, on the ex- istence of a Deity, the improvement of knowledge, the nature and degrees of assent and error, on faith and reason, and the division of the sciences, deserve the deepest attention. No writings in the English lan- guage breathe a purer and loftier spirit, or tend more powerfully to form the candid, philosophical, religious mind. It is not only that high ethical character to which Mr. Hallam does full justice, that freedom from the spirit of party and absence of partiality even to his own opinions, apart from the evidence which facts and reasonings furnish, but what is more, because so 424 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. rare in the philosopher, a constant remembrance of the relation between the human finite intellect and the infinite unknown ; that modest sense of human igno- rance and error, combined with an anxiety to turn to good account whatever can be known with any ap- proach to certainty ; and above all, that disposition to find the final cause of everything in the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator ; these are the moral graces that shed their halo round the memory of the illus- trious Locke, and make his Essay on the Understand- ing at the same time a work well fitted to purify and enlarge the heart. Should any taste for genuine Eng- lish thought and literature survive the present race of thinkers, should it again be reckoned among the need- ful accomplishments of an English gentleman to know well the greatest and best authors of his country, the estimation of Locke will rise once more to its just height, and the candid youth of universities and halls will be taught to pronounce with veneration the name of the most philosophical of Christians, the most Chris- tian of philosophers. A review of the writings and philosophy of Locke would be unpardonably defective without some careful reverential notice of the works, whose merit has been thrown too deeply into the shade by the peculiar h}ter- est of the Essay. The sixteen years, which Locke spent chiefly at the seat of the Masharns at Gates, from the time of the Revolution in 1688 to his death in 1704, give us a most agreeable picture of the life of a patriot and philosopher. The Essay on the Understanding had PROGRESS OP ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 425 been prepared for the press and was finished in Hol- land about the end of 1687*; the papers on Toleration also had been published in Latin before Locke returned from Holland, and the Thoughts on Education had been communicated to Edward Clarke, of Chipley, in letters, before 1G90. Still the larger part of the four goodly quartos which now make up Law's edition, were written during those years of comparative retirement, the fruit of his mature and patient thought, the produce of an industrious hand, guided by a benevo- lent, religious mind. Thanks to the smoky atmosphere of London, and to the asthmatic pains and troubles which drove him to the fields of Essex ! To these we owe in part, under Providence, the noblest vindications of civil and religious liberty, some of the worthiest tri- butes to the reasonableness and value of the Christian's faith, which adorn the literature and history of England. They compelled the philosopher's withdrawal from engagements, honourable and important, which the greatest and best of his country pressed upon his ac- ceptance ; and this retirement gave him " leisure for immortal occupations." No foreign critic can be expected to do full justice to the merits and character of Locke. He is the type of the English mind, and " its large, sound, round- about sense." His spirit was eminently practical. He had in view, in all his writings, a direct practical result. He never for a moment forgot the subserviency of * The original copy is said to exist, dated 1671. See Lord King's Lite, vol. i. p. 10. 426 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. truth to virtue, of virtue to happiness. To the last he studied no less for his own improvement than for that of his country and mankind ; and he had the happi- ness of laying deep the foundation of England's future greatness, in two most important constitutional mea- sures, the one touching its material prosperity, the other its religious and moral progress, in which, to his immortal honour, his influence over the sovereign and the government was exerted with the best effect. The Act of Toleration was among the earliest fruits of that revolution which placed William and Mary on the throne, and was passed in the first session of 1689. " There is a tradition," says Lord King*, " that the * See King's Life, vol. i. p. 327. In a careful Life, more distinct information on such a point, and extracts from Locke's correspon- dence, would have been given. The following translation of the por- tions of Locke's letters relating to the subject may be acceptable to the reader. But the whole correspondence will be found translated by J. T. Butt, Esq., in the Monthly Repository for 1818, vol. xiii., with good historical notes. " In Parliament measures are already commenced in favour of toleration under a double title namely Comprehension and Indul- gence. The first proposes that the benefits of the Church are to be extended, so that by the removal of part of the ceremonies it may comprehend more persons. The other aims at the toleration of those, who will not or cannot unite themselves to the English Church on the offered conditions. How lax or strict these conditions will be, I scarcely yet know ; but this I feel, that the episcopal clergy do not much favour these and other matters, which are now agitated ; whether to their own or the republic's advantage, let them see. Farewell. Your most affectionate J. L." This is dated, " London, March 12, 1689." A second letter is dated, " London, 6th June, 1689." " I do not doubt that you have heard before this that toleration is now at length established by law among us. Not perhaps with that PROCJRKSS ()!' IvMiLlSH I'llILOSOPH Y. 427 terms of the Toleration Act were negotiated by Locke himself: and the fact is in some degree confirmed by an expression in one of his letters to Limborch." The subject had long employed Locke's thoughts. The Ittter to Limborch, written while he was in conceal- ment in Holland, in 1685, was translated into English in 1689 by a nephew of Andrew Marvell's a Rev. Mr. Popple, and defended against one Proast in two later publications in 1690. The considerations on the state of the coinage concerning raising the value of the money and lower- ing the interest, were printed in 1691, and some fur- ther considerations in 1695. They were addressed to latitude which you and the like of you, without ambition or dread of Christian truth, might wish. But it is something to go thus far. With these beginnings I hope the foundations of liberty and peace are laid, on which the Church of Christ may be once for all esta- blished. None are prohibited from worship of their own, nor ex- posed to punishments, except it be the Eomanists, provided only they will take the oath of fidelity, and renounce transubstantiation and certain dogmas of the Romish church. But the Quakers are ex- cused from the oath ; nor upon them would that confession of faith, which you will see in the Act, have been obtruded by a bad example, if some of them had not offered that confession, an imprudence which many among them, and those the more earnest, greatly de- plore. I thank you for the copies of the tract concerning tolerance and peace which you have sent me : the bound I have received ; the unbound have not yet come to hand. I understand that some Eng- lishman is already employed in translating the little book concerning toleration. That principle, so favourable to peace and probity, I wish everywhere to prevail. I rejoice that you have written the history of the Inquisition, and hope it will soon come forth, a work useful and expected. I have sent to Le Clerc the Act passed in favour of tolera- tion, from whom you will learn how far this liberty is extended." 428 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. the great Lord Somers, and show Locke's mastery over the principles of what has since been called " po- litical economy," as well as the pure patriotism and high moral feeling which animated all his proceedings. He cleared the subject of trade and commerce and the uses of money from mystery. His wisdom happily was recognized. His advice, that there should be no alteration of the standard, nor any attempt to raise the denomination, was followed. The consequence was that disturbances in many parts of the country were quieted. The clipped and bad coin in circulation was called in, and the great recoinage of 1695 restored the current money of the country to the full legal standard ; and England was saved from one cause of those convulsions which have afflicted her nearest neighbours. Besides these labours in connection with the reli- gious liberty of his country and the security of its com- merce, Locke had been employed in examining the rational foundations of human society and the philo- sophy of government. In 1689 he gave to the world the fruit of his meditations, in two treatises on the subject ; in the first, overthrowing the false principles of Sir Robert Filmer and his followers, whose works even Locke's antagonism and Algernon Sydney's ela- borate papers on government before him have scarcely saved from oblivion ; the second, treating of the true original, extent, and end of civil government. Of the excellent fifth .Chapter, in this second treatise, Mr. Hallarn justly says, " it would be sufficient, if all PROGRESS 01 FACT, is II PHILOSOPHY. Locke's other writings had perished, to leave him a high name in philosophy." The same may be said of its later chapters on prerogative, conquest, usur- pation, tyranny, and the dissolution of governments. The treatise was written, it has been supposed, to justify the Revolution of 1688, which placed William the Third on the throne, but it has nothing of a party character. It is the result of those profound and anx- ious thoughts on the philosophy and ends of govern- ment, called forth in times of political disturbance and change ; and it remains one of the few very important works which our literature has to boast on that diffi- cult subject, deserving the special study of the edu- cated Englishman*. " The importance of labour in the production of wealth," says James Millf, " was very clearly perceived both by Hobbes and Locke;" * Of the works on the philosophy of government, the most impor- tant in English literature seem to be, after Bacon and Hobbes, the following. Dr. John Taylor's ' Elements of Civil Law,' 3rd edit. 1755 ; Beccaria's ' Treatise on Crimes and Punishments,' translated in 1766; Priestley's ' Essays and Lectures;' Bentham's 'Fragment on Go- vernment,' a critique on Blackstone's Preface, and his ' Treatise of Morals and Legislation ; ' Paley's * Political Philosophy ; ' James Mill's Article 'On Government' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7th edit. ; Austin's 'Province of Jurisprudence determined.' Besides these we have a slight treatise by Mackintosh ' On the Law of Na- ture and Nations,' and an ' Essay' by Sir "W. Temple. We have also translations of Grotius, Puffendorf, and Montesquieu, and nu- merous works on the English Government and Constitution, besides the works on political economy. But the greatest and best writers may be considered to have built upon Locke's principles and sprung from his school. f Article on ' Political Economy,' Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xviii. p. 273. Locke's Treatise on Government, ch. v. 40-43. 430 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. but after quoting the sections* in which Locke shows " that if we rightly consider things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expenses about them, what in them is purely owing to nature and what to labour, we shall find that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of la- bour ;" and again, " 'tis labour which puts the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth anything ;" he adds, " this is a very remark- able passage. It contains a far more distinct and com- prehensive statement of the fundamental doctrine, that labour is the constituent principle of value than is to he found in any other writer previous to Smith, or than is- to be found even in the Wealth of Nations!" Labour, Locke teaches, in the beginning gave a right of pro- perty, in the maintenance of which right all society is interested, and for which chiefly it is constituted, right and conveniency going together. He appears to have a great advantage over Hobbes in the view that, not merely mutual fear, which if alone prevailing must drive every individual into solitude, but obliga- tions of necessity, convenience, and inclination, which God put him under, drove man into society, fitting him also with understanding and language to enjoy it. Locke also maintains much more distinctly and im- pressively than Hobbes the responsibilities and duties of the governing, as well as of the governed, in a civil society. " Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws, can neither of them con- * Locke, ch. v. 40, 41, 42, 43. PROGRESS <>1 KNCMSII PHILOSOPHY. 431 sist with the ends of society and government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to pre- serve their lives, liberties, and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to secure their peace and quiet. It cannot be supposed that they should intend, had they a power so to do, to give to any one or more an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them. This were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of nature, wherein they had a liberty to de- fend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man, or many in combination." Adam Smith, in his great work, ' The Wealth of Nations/ has not treated his subject historically ; but in his early chapters on the origin of the use of money, and the settlement by law of its relative value in ex- change, he might have adverted with advantage to Locke's clear views upon this subject, and to his great influence in saving England from those evils which in other countries have arisen from the pernicious inter- ference of governments with the standard of value. The 'study of Locke would probably have saved him from some other errors into which he seems to have fallen, as to the relative productiveness of labour, and its uni- formly equal value. The absence of any reference to these papers of Locke on the part of Adam Smith is one indication, among many others, of the neglect or 432 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. the partiality with which English literature and philo- sophy have too commonly been treated in Scotland. The chief difficulty in Locke arises from his supposing the existence of a known lawof nature, distinct enough to be recognized, directing men in their conduct to each other antecedently to their entering into civil so- ciety ; by which law he seems to understand some- thing more than a principle of self-preservation, a perception of the advantage to be derived from some restraint of individual liberty and submission to a common rule. When he makes individual assent the foundation of obligation to civil obedience, the reader must carefully note the many modes in which he sup- poses that assent to be tacitly given ; and how it is implied in any the least enjoyment of a privilege or right conferred by an existing community ; such as " a lodging only for a week ; or whether it be barely tra- velling on the highway ; and in effect it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government*." Paley, in his chapter on the duty of submission to civil government, discusses briefly, but dismisses sum- marily, the notion of its being founded on compact, though supported by the venerable name of Locke. He asserts that " no such compact was ever made in reality, no such original convention of the people was ever holden, or in any country could be holden, ante- cedent to the existence of civil government in that country." But surely it is true that in all govern- * Locke on Government, b. ii. cli. 8, 119. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 433 nicnts, called constitutional, the actual laws have been matters of express compact between the parties go- verning and the parties to be governed, as in the case of our own Magna Charta, and the earlier statutes of the Witenagemote ; and in the earliest forms of govern- ment supposable, the parental or patriarchal, there is an implied compact of obedience on the one hand, for care, provision, and protection on the other. Whatever views may be taken of the origin of civil government, and of the forms deemed most fit to at- tain its ends, certainly no philosopher would think any government defensible in so far as it was proved or believed to be hostile to human happiness, or would deny that form to be the best which could be shown to secure the greatest amount of human good. The maxim at the end of the Roman law, quoted by Bacon in his Essay on Judicature, " salus populi suprema lex," must be the maxim of every philosophical legis- lator*/' In the treatise on government Locke makes great use of the matter of the tenth section of the first book * A controversy of considerable interest and importance arose out of these papers on government in the latter half of the last cen- tury, between Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, who attacked and mis- represented, and Dr. Joseph Towers, who ably and successfully vin- dicated, Locke's principles. The political and other tracts of Towers, collected in three volumes in 1796, now scarce in their collected form, are an able and valuable vindication of civil and religious liberty, of philosophical and enlightened religion. Dr. Towers, the assistant of Dr. Kippis in the ' Biographia Britannica,' was one of the first to perceive and correct the offences of Hume against the principles of both. 434 PROGRESS OY ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, where Hooker enters upon the origin of government, and founds all upon consent. Hooker did not live to finish his great work. The subject seems to have~been too difficult for him. The later books, though probably not altered from the MSS., are evidently not as he would have pub- lished them, had he lived to send them forth*. Upon the whole, Hooker must be considered as resolving the Church as a power into the State, and his work was equally exceptionable to Episcopalians and Pres- byterians, that is, to all who had high notions of ec- clesiastical independence and supremacy. Fuller, in * Can the Cliurch have a polity, in a strict sense, that is, be a so- ciety, wherein the majority enforce their will and opinion by tempo- ral penalties ? Can it be anything but a society, like that of the first Christians, voluntarily meeting to cultivate together, with forms changeable at pleasure, the feelings of devotion, benevolence, and hope? "Our citizenship" (TroA/revpi), says Paul, "is in heaven." Philippians iii. 20. " The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them ; but it shall not be so among you," said the Saviour, " for whoso is greatest among you, let him be your servant." " The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual." A number of passages will occur to the thoughtful reader. An important criti- cism of Hooker and his connection with Locke occurs in Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i. pp. 292-302. See also a note at the end of the Rev. J. J. Tayler's E-etrospect of the Eeligi- ous Life of England. Mr. Hallam says, " that whatever may be the imperfections of the Ecclesiastical Polity, they are far more than compensated by its eloquence and reasonings ;" but with the highest admiration of the piety and general spirit of Hooker, and the gran- deur of his march as to style of composition, I cannot feel that he mastered his subject, or that his reasoning is satisfactory. His im- portant terms, especially in the later books, are by no means cleared from ambiguity, and his sense is overpowered by his literature and learning. PlUHiKKSS OF KMJMSII PHILOSOPHY. 435 his notice of Hooker, among the worthies of Devon, puts in his quaint way the difficulties felt by his readers. " Hereupon it is that they (/. e. people who read his book with a prejudice, that as Jephtha vowed to sacrifice the first living thing which met him, these are resolved to quarrel with the first word which oc- curreth therein) take exception at the very title there- of, ' Ecclesiastical Politic/ as if unequally yoked, Church with some mixture of citiness ; that the dis- cipline, jure divino, may bow to human inventions. But be it reported to the judicious, whether, when all is done, a reserve must not be left for prudential sup- plies in Church government'' The judicious will not undertake to explain very confidently the meaning of these last words. Before these admirable treatises on civil society, or what concerns the happiness of a community, were written, Locke had turned his attention to the subject of education, and the formation of individual improve- ment and character. Nowhere does his admirable tem- per and philosophy shine more brightly than in those thoughts dedicated to his friend Edward Clarke, of Chipley. " He has uttered more good sense on the subject," says Hallam*, " than will be found in any preceding writer." " Much has been written, and often well, since the days of Locke ; but he is the chief source from which it has been ultimately derived. The patient attention to every circumstance a peculiar characteristic of the genius of Locke is in none of his * Literature of Europe, vol. iv. ch. 4. 2 F2 436 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. works better displayed. His rules for "the health of children, though sometimes trivial, since the subject has been more regarded ; his excellent advice as to checking effeminacy and tknorousness ; his observa- tions on their curiosity, presumption, idleness, on their plays and recreations, bespeak an intense, though calm, love of truth and goodness ; a quality which few have possessed more fully, or known so well how to exert, as this admirable author." It is pleasing to compare Locke's treatise with Mil- ton's on the same subject. Both were called forth at the instigation of eminent friends. Milton dedicates his to Master Samuel Hartlib, an active promoter of all that was good in his day, one of whom all that we can now learn is eminently favourable ; Locke his to Edward Clarke, of Chipley, and speaks with interest of some children and parents, now unknown, whom he had specially in view. Both display the character- istics, the peculiar mental habitudes and tastes, of the authors. While Milton's is a brief plan, and upon the whole a very impracticable one, of an academy or gym- nasium for an assemblage of youth educated together, Locke is more full on the special influences to be ex- erted by parents or tutors on the individual. Milton seems to have least hesitation in prescribing a wide range of intellectual tasks particularly when enu- merating the classical authors, whom he supposes his pupils competent to master. He talks of " heroic poems and Attic tragedies, of stateliest and most regal argu- ment," and of " recreating and composing the travailed PllOGKKSS OF ENGLISH Pll I l-OSOl'll Y. 437 spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of music heard or learned." Locke speaks of gardening and carpentering as diversions not unsuited for a gentle- man. In gardening he delighted and excelled. In the soft air of lawns and flowers his difficulty of breath- ing was relieved. He tells us, " it is very seldom seen that any one discovers mines of gold or silver in Parnassus ; that it is a pleasant, but a barren soil." This is in connection with the practice of exercising boys much in making Latin verses, now far less in fashion than formerly. " Of music," he says, " that it wastes time and engages in odd company, and is seldom much commended and esteemed among men of parts and business. But," he adds, and here Milton and all good men are at one with him, " the great business of all is virtue and wisdom a mastery over the inclinations, and submitting ap- petite to reason. Under whose care soever a child is put, during the tender and flexible years of his life, this is certain, it should be one who thinks Latin and language the least part of education ; one who, know- ing how much virtue and a well-tempered soul is to be preferred to any sort of learning or language, makes it his chief business to form the mind of his scholars, and give that a right disposition, which if once got, though all the rest should be neglected, would in due time produce all the rest ; and which, if it be not got and settled, so as to keep out ill and vicious habits, languages, sciences, and all the other accom- 438 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. plishments of education, will be to no purpose but to make the worse and more dangerous man*." In the year 1697 Locke was engaged in contro- versy with Stillingfleet, the JBishop of Worcester, on the merits of certain portions of the Essay on the Understanding, which the Bishop thought open to objection. These portions had supplied John Toland with some of the weapons with which, in his work entitled ' Christianity not Mysterious,' he was consi- dered to wound the Christian religion in its vital or tenderest parts. A very unfavourable estimate of the Bishop's share in the controversy is given by Law, in his Life of Locke. But Mr. Hallam considers that the Bishop does not make so poor a figure as is com- monly supposed. The patience and care with which Locke examines his statements and pursues him through every turn are almost unique in controversy, and Locke's prolixity indicates not only the man of leisure, but the invalid. While he treats the Bishop with formal deference, he is sore and indignant at being mixed up with writers in whose conclusions and arguments he was in no way concerned, with Hobbes and Spinoza, no less than Toland. If the Bishop had any advantage over Locke, it was in connection with those notions about ideas, as a ground of certainty, wherein, as we have intimated and as the controversy with Stillingfleet further shows, Locke is often at fault. Toland' s work, though it gave great offence at the time, appears now but a very mild defence of the sim- * Locke on Education, 177. I'iUHiKKSS OF KNdUSIl PHILOSOPHY. plicity and intelligibleness of the Christian scheme, since we have become accustomed to the extravagances of German rationalism, under cover of which a man holds himself entitled to the name of Christian because he obeys the high impulses and instincts of his own spiritual nature, even when he finds himself impelled to deny the existence of an historical Christ, and even of a personal Deity*. To the generality of readers probably the most interesting portion of Locke's letters to Stillingfleet \\ ill be the conclusion of his second letter, where he discusses the supposed connection between the irii ma- teriality and natural immortality of the human soul, and the opinions of the ancients on this point, and enlarges on the value of the Christian religion, in bringing life and immortality to light. Locke here shows himself familiar enough with Cicero, Plato, and Aristotle. He indicates also the relative importance which will be attached to an historical revelation, ac- cording as the natural arguments for a future state rise or fall in estimation. Some, with Leibnitz, we * See an instructive letter of Niebuhr to a friend, relative to Cousin's cloudy utterances, the echoes of Hegel, in the Life of Niebuhr, translated by Miss Winkworth ; and Andrews Norton on the * Latest Form of Infidelity.' Toland was from the first a troublesome adventurer, and seems to have ended with being an atheist of Spinoza's school. But he had much curious learning, and was perhaps persecuted into atheism, when, if he had been let alone, he would have struggled out of that whirlpool of scepticism, and reached some terra fir ma of philosophy on which the seeds of social virtue and religion may be sown with promise and ripen for harvest. 440 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. find still disposed 'to contend "that it must be infi- nitely more advantageous to religion and morality to demonstrate that the soul is naturally immortal, than to rest the belief in a future state upon the promise of God;" others again, with more support in the lan- guage of the New Testament, will maintain with Locke, that though the light of nature gave some ob- scure glimmering, some uncertain hopes of a future state, yet human reason could attain to no certainty about it, but that it was " Jesus Christ alone who had brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." We derive from what may be called, though perhaps not deservedly, Locke's minor works, much valuable light on the course of his reading and studies. In these he acknowledges his obligations to Descartes for freeing him from the trammels of the schoolmen, and teaching him to think for himself, not for any accurate knowledge of the human mind and constitution. We see that he had studied Bacon and Gassendi, and that high estimation of Hooker, to which we have already alluded, whom he calls the arch-philosopher. The opi- nion expressed above, that he was not well read in Hobbes, is confirmed by a passage towards the close of his second vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, in reply to Dr. Edwards, wherein Locke says that he did not know that " certain words, equi- valent to his proposition that Jesus is the Christ, were in the Leviathan, or anything like them*." * Law's edition of Locke, vol. iii. p. 270. HUN 1IT PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOP^^^ r4Atn -^\^ In 1G95 Locke published his Reasonableness of Christianity, according to the Scriptures, at first -ano- nymously, but it was soon known to be his. This work may be considered the earliest philosophical de- fence of Revealed Religion in the English language, a defence of Christianity in the sense in which the Armiiiian or latitudinarian divines of the Church of England and the learned English Presbyterian dissen- ters of a later day have understood it. After showing, by copious extracts from the New Testament, that the one simple doctrine which lies at the foundation of the Christian faith is that Jesus is the Christ, he vindicates its importance by a summary of the related principles and of the advantages accruing from their establish- ment and diffusion. First, it made the " one invisible and true God" known to the world, and that with such evidence and energy that polytheism and idolatry have nowhere been able to withstand it ; 2, it gave that " clear knowledge of their duty which was wanting to mankind;" 3, it brought in a plain, spiritual, suitable worship of the I)eity, teaching every one to look after his own heart, and to know that it was that alone which God had regard to and accepted; 4, it brought the greatest encouragement to a virtuous and pious life by its doctrine of a future state before our Saviour's time not wholly hid, yet not clearly known upon which foundation, and upon which alone, morality stands firm and may defy all competition ; 5, and be- sides all this, it gives the promise of divine assistance, God's spirit, to help us to do what and how we should. 442 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Whatever deficiencies there may be supposed to be in Locke's view of revealed religion, the philosophical and devout religionist of every school will read with can- dour and delight, the admirable observations with which he has accompanied .and enforced it, and the more he reads and ponders them, the more highly will he esteem their truth and beauty. Fabricius*, in his Syllabus of the writers who have written on the truth of the Christian religion, enume- rates as of the English school before Locke, Stillingfleet, Baxter, Whitby, Henry More, Jeremy Taylor, Samuel Parker, Burnet, and Halliwell. Some translations of Grotius had appeared, which Fabricius does not men- tion, and a few other works not unworthy of attention to the minute inquirer. In the writers whom he does mention, many profound and valuable remarks in vin- dication and illustration of the religion of the Old and New Testament Scriptures may be found. But they are all more darkly tinged with what the scholar and philosopher of our day would be apt to consider error and superstition than Locke. The writer who seems to come nearest to him in the excellency of his matter and thought on this great subject is the learned, eloquent, and philosophical Dr. Isaac Barrow, whose sermons on the Christian religion were edited by Til- lotson in 1683. Barrow was an eminent Arminian divine ; and his sermons on God the Father Almighty, on Jesus as the true Messiah, and particularly one on * J. A. Fabricii Delectus argumentorum et syllabus Scriptorum qui veritatem R. C* asseruerunt. 4to. PROCJUKSS OK KMJUSII I>11 ILOSOPH Y. 443 (lie excellency of the Christian religion, while full of noble thoughts on reason and duty and natural reli- gion, are for the most part in beautiful harmony with Locke's conceptions, although expressions occasionally drop from him which Locke would not have used. Locke's high social position and reputation contri- buted to draw to his work on Christianity the greatest attention, independently of its intrinsic merits. It was natural that it should be attacked in some quarters, as warmly defended and applauded in others. He was soon charged with Socinianism, in those days and still a very odious epithet, very few having read a line of the works of Socinus, Crellius, Schlichtingius, and the other learned Fratres Poloni. Among the violent op- ponents of Locke, one Dr. John Edwards was fore- most, a bitter and prolific polemical writer, who in his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism, 1695, a Discourse on Truth and Error, and Socinianism Un- masked, emptied the vials of his wrath upon Locke's metaphysics and religion, and scrupled not to apply to him the epithets false, perfidious, shuffling, among many others characteristic of the writer and his age*. Locke soon published a first and second vindica- * This John Edwards was the son of Dr. Thomas Edwards, a fa- mous Presbyterian writer, and enemy to the Independents, the au- thor of the ' Grangrsena.' He inherited the bitterness of a father, who considered toleration the last and strongest hold of Satan. He was but one of a number of Edwardses, who were zealous against heresy and Socinianism. Two gloried in the name of Jonathan Edwards, one of Wrexliam in North Wales, and a second of New Jersey in America, author of the celebrated treatise against free-will. 444 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. tion of his work in reply. Ear from treating his op- ponent with the severity which some have charged upon him, he exhibits a patience and condescension, of which only his anxiety for truth and goodness could be the spring. Locke met -with an able and warm supporter in a rector of Steeple, in Dorsetshire, the Rev. Samuel Bolde, whose tracts in vindication of the Essay on the Human Understanding and of the work on the Reasonableness of Christianity, in reply to Edwards and Broughton and Norris, were collected in 1706. Mr. Locke was also complimented by a writer who dedicates to him one of the Unitarian tracts, in 4to, entitled ' The Exceptions of Mr. Edwards, in his Causes of Atheism against the Reasonableness of Chris- tianity as delivered in the Scriptures, examined, etc.,' 1695. " Some ingenious persons have judged this piece to be by Locke himself, and if," says his edi- tor,* "they are right in their conjecture, as I have no doubt they are, the address to himself that is prefixed to it must have been made on purpose to conceal the true author, as a more attentive perusal of the whole tract will convince any onef." * Bishop Law's Preface, pp. vi. vii. f" The conclusion is much in Locke's style and temper, but that the dedication to himself should be Locke's own though it be a modest composition, savours perhaps too much of artifice for that upright and conscientious philosopher. These double-columned prints, as Edwards styles them, published during the last decennium of the se- venteenth century, under the patronage of Firmin and his associates, display quite as much learning and acuteness on the subject of " pri- mitive Christianity" as will be found in any subsequent productions in English theological literature, and they kept public attention quite PROGRESS 01 KNCI.lsil PHILOSOPHY. 4-1-5 Thus the controversies produced by Mr. Locke's writings were warm and active, and no doubt they contributed powerfully to that silent change in men's views and tempers, and that greater exactness in their reasonings on philosophy and religion, that sobriety of thought and mutual toleration, which began to pre- vail at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The four last years of his life were employed by Locke in the calm and diligent study of the Scriptures; and particularly of the writings of St. Paul. Of this we have the pleasing and valuable fruits in the Para- phrase and Notes upon the Epistles to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Corinthians, but more especially in the admirable preface, which appears to be the ear- liest work in English on the philosophical criticism of the Scriptures, a short piece, which no man who would study for himself the important records of revealed re- ligion can be excused for neglecting to peruse. " In his paraphrase and notes upon the Epistles of St. Paul," says Bishop Law, " how fully does our author obviate the erroneous doctrines (that of absolute reprobation in particular) which had been falsely charged upon the Apostle ! And to Mr. Locke's honour it should be re- membered, that he was the first of our commentators as much alive to it. Then Sherlock and Wallis shook the Univer- sities with their differences, and the learned author of the treatise ' De Uno Deo Patre/ Crellius, was in frequent conference with Archbishop Tillotson, and sometimes an inmate of his house. An anonymous work on Mr. Locke's religion was printed in 1700, which has been attributed to Atterbury. It is not without learning and some acquaintance with the metaphysics of his day. 446 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. who showed what it was to comment upon the Apo- stolic writings ; by taking the whole of an epistle toge- ther, and striking off every signification of every term foreign to the main scope of it ; by keeping this point constantly in view, and carefully observing each re- turn to it after any digression ; by tracing out a strict, though somewhat less visible, connection in that very consistent writer, St. Paul, touching the propriety and pertinence of whose writings to their several subjects and occasions he appears to have formed the most just conception ; and thereby confessedly led the way to some of our best modern interpreters." The works of Lord Barrington, of the learned Peirce of Exeter, of the not less learned Dr. George Benson, and particularly that of Dr. John Taylor on the Epistle to the Romans, bear testimony to the salutary influ- ence of Locke on rational theology and the interpre- tation of Scripture. Lord Barrington wrote much in vindication of dissent and of civil and religious liberty. Strong testimony to the influence of Locke in the for- mation of his opinions is borne by his son Shute Bar- rington, the Bishop of Durham*. The ' Miscellanea Sacra' were published in 1725. In the same year, James Peirce, of Exeter, dedicated to the nephew of Locke, Sir Peter King (who was in that year created Lord Chancellor, with the title of Baron of Ockham), his Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles to the Co- lossians, Philippians, and Hebrews, after the manner * See the Life prefixed to the edition edited by the Rev. George Townsend, p. xx. PROGRESS ol KMM.ISI1 PHILOSOPHY. I I? of Mr. Locke. This was followed by Dr. Benson's work on the remaining Epistles, to Philemon, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, and Titus, in 1734; and by Benson's history of the first planting the Christian religion in 1735. An edition of Dr. Taylor's work on the Romans came forth in 1745. Its invaluable key to the Apostolic writings was wisely placed by Bishop Watson, in his excellent collection of theological tracts, in company with some of the works of Locke, Barring- ton, and Hartley. But one learned dissenting divine, the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts, who made great, though not always wise, use of Locke's philosophical writings in his Logic, and his little work on the Im- provement of the Mind, much praised by Dr. John- son, represents Locke in heaven as repenting of this work on Paul ; and the poetical divine concludes some verses on this subject by making the philoso- pher exclaim, " Eternal darkness veil the lines Of that unhappy book, Where glimmering reason with false lustre shines, Where the mortal pen mistook What the celestial meant!" These lines however were written in Watts 's earlier days. He lived to nearly the middle of the eigh- teenth century, dying in 1748 ; and in his age would probably have looked back with the greatest satis- faction to the lines, full of praise and admiration, ad- dressed to John Shute, afterwards Lord Barrington, ' On Locke's dangerous Sickness some time after 448 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. he had retired to study the Scriptures/ dated June, 1704. And must the man of wondrous mind (Now his rich thoughts are just refined) Forsake our longing eyes? Reason at length submits to wear The wings of Faith ; and lo, they rear Her chariot high, and nobly bear Her prophet to the skies. We have now seen that in the philosophy of the mind, of government, of education, and of the connec- tion between natural and revealed religion, Locke stands far above all his predecessors after the revival of letters ; and further, that he prepared the way for whatever additions have been made since his day to our knowledge of the human mind, of the principles of moral and political philosophy, and to the rational criticism of the Scriptures. We have shown what are his real merits, and his chief defects ; and this is essen- tial, not only to the just appreciation of the admirable philosopher himself, but, what is of more importance, to an estimate of the present condition of the science of mind and morals, and to any well-founded expectations of the progress of mankind in self-knowledge, which is the instrument of self-government and improvement, and in the virtues and habits which are the best se- curity for social happiness. He therefore is scarcely worthy of the name of Englishman, he can have no proper sense of the value of the literature and institu- tions of his country, who does not assign to Locke a place in the first rank among the instructors and be- PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 449 ju'tartors of his species. There Barry has placed him, conspicuous among his great compeers, in that ad- mirable but little estimated production of England's art the large picture of Elysium, which adorns the room of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi, a pic- ture which renders heaven inviting by the noble so- ciety which it assembles, and which awakens the rap- ture of confidence and hope in connection with the assurance of the poet " Yet there the soul shall enter which hath earned That privilege by virtue*." We now come to the important question, what has been done since Locke's time, and by whom, to ad- vance our knowledge of the laws of thought ? Hartley. In the later editions of Locke's Essay ap- peared a chapter on Association, a term not originating with Locke, but significant with him of a certain num- ber of facts, such as the connection of ideas with sen- sations, which he thought particularly worthy of atten- tion in the study of the mind. He applied it to explain some of the remarkable peculiarities in the temper and habits of individuals; and that in this light only or chiefly he viewed the law of association is evident from the posthumous work on the Conduct of the Under- standing, where he enlarges somewhat upon it. Thus in the Essay he dwells on what is odd and extrava- gant in the opinions of men ; on a sort of madness to which the minds of some are subject from wrong con- nections of ideas ; on darkness bringing with it the * Wordsworth's Laodamia. 2 G 450 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. ideas of goblins and sprites ; on custom " settling habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of deter- mining in the will, and of motions in the body ; all which seems to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which once set agoing, continue in the same steps they have been used to." He intimates however that some of our ideas have a natural correspondence and connection one with another ; that it is the office and excellency of our reason to trace these ; and that those who have children, or the charge of their educa- tion, should diligently watch and carefully prevent the undue connection of ideas in the minds of young peo- ple. " Though I have (he observes, 41 of the Con- duct of the Understanding), in the second book of my Essay concerning human understanding, treated of the association of ideas, yet having done it there histori- cally, giving a view of the understanding in this as well as its several other ways of operating, rather than designing there to inquire into the remedies that ought to be applied to it, it will under this latter considera- tion afford other matter of thought to those who have a mind to instruct themselves thoroughly in the right way of conducting their understandings ; and that the rather, because this, if I mistake not, is as frequent a cause of mistake and error in us, as perhaps anything else that can be named ; and is a disease of the mind as hard to be cured as any, it being a very hard thing to convince any one that things are not so, and natu- rally so, as they constantly appear to him." It had been well had Locke pursued the inquiry PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 451 into the natural and rational connections and corre- spondence of ideas. He however caught but a dim view of the influence of custom in forming the mind and character towards the close of his meditations. It was reserved for the great and good Dr. Hartley to follow up the inquiry, and to demonstrate the entire dependence of the phenomena of language, and con- sequently of reasoning, upon the principle of associa- tion, and to show the immense influence of that prin- ciple upon all the affections and habits, the emotions and passions, of our active and moral nature, of which the love of money and the desire of reputation and glory afford the most obvious instances and proofs. Among those who affect a knowledge of the philosophy of mind, hardly one can be found who disowns alto- gether the vast importance of this principle of associa- tion ; but very few recognize the full extent of it ; still fewer are disposed to do justice to Hartley in deve- loping the theory. The injustice of the Scotch school to his merits, the bitterness of Stewart in connection with his memory and name, are unaccountable. Even the English school of metaphysics, so far as it is re- presented by some of the modern utilitarians, if Mill's analysis of the human mind may be considered a standard, has cast only dark shadows over the remains of the sweet-tempered philosopher whose religious faith and anticipations that school would hold in scorn. The dissertation by Gay, of Sidney College, Cam- bridge, of whose studies and life unfortunately little 2 c2 452 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. can now be recovered*, appended to Law's translation of King ' On the Origin of Evil/ further suggested the possibility of accounting for almost all the com- plicated phenomena of the human mind, its powers and dispositions, by the principle of association. In that dissertation Mr. Gay had observed, that " our approbation of morality and all affections whatsoever are finally resolvable into reason pointing out private happiness, and are conversant only about things ap- prehended to be means tending to this end ; and that whenever this end is not perceived, they are to be ac- counted for from the association of ideas, and may properly enough be called habits." It was in oppo- sition to Francis Hutcheson's theory of a moral sense, who published his Inquiry into the original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue in 1726, that Gay sent forth his dissertation. But his observations amount to little more than conjectures! . The following are among the important proposi- tions which Hartley has demonstrated : 1, that sen- sations leave traces of themselves in the mind, such as are called simple ideas of sensation ; 2, that it is the tendency of simple ideas to run into complex ones by means of association; 3, that voluntary and semi- voluntary motions are deducible from association, the * "Our Bishop (i. e. Law) always spoke of this gentleman in terms of the greatest respect. In the Bible, and in the writings of Mr. Locke, no man, he used to say, was so well versed. Law calls him ' honest Mr. Gay.' " Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. pp. 66, 535. f" See the second of the valuable Introductory Essays prefixed to Priestley's Abridgment of Hartley, 1775, p. xxii. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 453 voluntary being sometimes converted by association into automatic, the automatic into voluntary ; 4, that compound or mental pleasures and pains arise from simple bodily ones by means of words, symbols, and associated circumstances ; 5, that the arts of logic and rational grammar depend entirely on association ; 6, and that our passions and affections can be no more than aggregates of simple ideas united by association. The bearing of these important truths upon all mental and even physical science, upon the principles of reli- gion and morality, upon education and the whole dis- cipline of life, must strike the minds of the thoughtful and inquisitive at once ; but their importance can be fully appreciated only by the diligent study of Dr. Hart- ley himself, who has pursued his theory with a patience and caution, an exactness and consistency, unequalled by any other metaphysical writer. He has examined, in a manner worthy of the subject and a great philo- sopher, the agreement of the phenomena of sensation generally, that is to say, of taste, sight, smell, hearing, and touch, of muscular motion, intoxication, disease, sleep, dreams, and other conditions of our bodily frame, with his doctrine of vibrations and of the generation and association of ideas. By these he has explained, in a rational and clear manner, the formation of the pas- sions and affections in all their complexness, as we find them in actual and social life. He has divided our intellectual affections, that is, our intellectual pleasures and pains, into six classes ; namely, those of imagination, ambition, self-interest, sympathy, theo- 454 PROGRESS or ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. pathy, and the moral sense. All these classes have their minor subdivisions. They all presuppose the existence and continuance of pleasures and pains of mere sensation, from which all take their rise. Al- though the classification may not be considered quite satisfactory, nor the order in which he has handled them the most natural, no approach had been made before Hartley's time to a more convenient or philoso- phical division and classification of the phenomena. It assigns a place for every important principle or truth which concerns our individual and social improvement and happiness. The only other moralist who has attempted a sci- entific and practical catalogue, an exact, careful, and useful division of our pleasures and pains, is Bentham. According to Bentham, the several simple pleasures of which human nature is susceptible are these : 1, the pleasures of sense ; 2, of wealth ; 3, of skill ; 4, of amity ; 5, of a good name ; 6, of power ; 7, of piety; 8, of benevolence ; 9, of malevolence ; 10, of memory; 11, of imagination ; 12, of expectation ; 13, those de- pendent on association ; 14, of relief. Bentham's remarks on morals must be judged of in connection with his purpose. He had in view chiefly the principles of legislation and the objects and duties of the legislator. He therefore touches but inciden- tally on the formation of a rule of life, or the maxims which should govern private behaviour, and which he calls private ethics. These rules or maxims he con- siders dependent upon those particular conditions . of PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 455 age, sex, health, social connections and relations, pro- perty, etc., which are so variable as almost to baffle classification and enumeration. Hence, while he con- tends that pleasures are valuable in proportion to their duration, their intensity, their security, their fecun- dity, and their purity, he leaves his reader without means of judging how far, in his opinion or in truth, the pleasures of amity, of benevolence, of the moral sense, and of religion, admitting the last to coincide with those of utility and of enlightened benevolence, are more durable, more pure, more fertile than the simple pleasures of the senses. Nor is his account and division of the several pleasures very satisfactory. From his catalogue we might strike out, with advan- tage, the pleasures of malevolence. For malevolence can only arise from the recollection of past, or the an- ticipation of future suffering ; and if we are ever male- volent, if we really wish evil to another sentient being, it must be on the ground of some associated good of a remedy for an evil past or, since the past is irrevocable, the prevention of a like evil in time to come. On a close examination of his classes it will be found that they run much into each other in the manner which Hartley has beautifully shown. Thus Bentham speaks of the pleasures of novelty excited by the appearance of new ideas, which he calls, at one time, pleasures of the imagination ; but he tells us at another, they may be excited by the appearance of sen- sible objects. And we may have novelty in odours, tastes, shades of colour, and forms of beauty, which 456 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. are pleasures of the senses. He speaks of the plea- sures of imagination produced by association. But all the pleasures of wealth, of piety, of memory, ima- gination, and expectation resolve themselves into cases of association, which cannot therefore be made a dis- tinct class. He also identifies the pleasures of amity with those of honour and the moral sense ; and the connection no doubt is very close. But if the moral sense be a compound of our opinions respecting the value or lawfulness of pleasures and the guide to their enjoyment, its pleasures resolve themselves into self-ap- proval or amity. They must spring from a conscious- ness of acting ourselves, or from observing others to act, in conformity with our rule. In this respect Hartley has a great advantage. He not only leads the individual to aspire, but points the way, and builds the steps by which he may ascend. He proves that the pleasures of the senses, the most innocent and allowable, are subordinate to the deve- lopment, and become enhanced by the pursuit, of the pleasures of sympathy, of imagination, of the intellect, and of the moral sense ; that the pleasures of sensa- tion, imagination, of the intellect, of ambition, require to be regulated by a regard to the moral sense ; and that the moral sense itself is purified and perfected by theopathy, that is, by the precepts of piety or the love of God. " For the perpetual exertion of a pleasing affection towards a Being infinite in power, knowledge, and goodness, who is also our friend and father, can- not but enhance all our joys and alleviate all our sor- PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 457 rows; the sense of his presence and protection will restrain all actions that are excessive, irregular, or hurt- ful ; support and encourage us in all such as are of a contrary nature ; and infuse such peace and tranquil- lity of mind, as will enable us to see clearly and act uniformly. The perfection, therefore, of every part of our natures must depend upon the love of God, and the constant comfortable sense of his presence. " With respect to benevolence, or the love of our neighbour, it may be observed, that this can never be free from partiality and selfishness, till we take our station in the divine nature, and view everything from thence, and in the relation which it bears to God." Now if there be any ground for believing in the existence of an intelligent Creator and governor of the universe, infinite in power, and willing the happiness of his creatures, these views of duty and rational self- interest are demonstrably just. But they are alien from the views and speculations of the political utilitarian school, who, if they do not expressly renounce and sys- tematically argue down the sublime pleasures of the religious sense or sanction, evidently treat them as purely visionary, irrational, and impossible. Perhaps they habitually conceive of religion in the light of a dangerous, pernicious, and malignant fanaticism and superstition. I conceive that Bentham, in whatever he has of va- luable truth, and he has much, for who can read his sixth chapter, on the circumstances influencing sensi- bility, without being wiser and better? in his analysis 458 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. of motives and his classification of pleasures and pains was far more indebted to Hartley and his school, per- haps than he was aware of, certainly than he has ac- knowledged. He refers indeed to Priestley's edition of Hartley for a very satisfactory account, upon the principle of association, of the phenomena and influ- ence of habit. But Hartley's rule of life was not in- cluded in Priestley's edition, and to the complete work I have not found an allusion in Bentham. He ac- knowledges that he took his favourite principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number from Priest- ley's Essay on Government, in 1768, or from Bec- caria, whom he calls " an angel of light." He seems not to have been aware that he was perfectly antici- pated in his view of the sanctions of morality by Gay, in the dissertation often alluded to*. * It is remarkable that Dr. Whewell, in his recent History of Moral Philosophy, has not even mentioned the name of Hartley, though he has devoted many lectures to Bentham's morals and legis- lation. Dr. Whewell gives two reasons why we cannot make the truth, " that actions are right and virtuous in proportion as they promote the happiness of mankind," the basis of morality; first, " we cannot calculate all the consequences of any action ; second, happiness is derived from moral elements, and therefore we cannot properly derive morality from happiness." I submit, in reply, first, that we calculate, as much as we can j that it is by such calculation only we arrive at or justify general rules ; that in the most impor- tant steps of life, and where we have no rules, or very imperfect rules, as in the use of superfluous wealth, in the choice of a pro- fession of a dwelling of companions or society, of relaxations, we always act upon such calculation of consequences as is within our power. He that is habitually reckless of consequences is in danger of being habitually immoral or a vicious fool. Secondly, what is meant by moral elements ? Dr. Whewell uses morality in a double PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 459 The merits of Hartley, his most important views and propositions, with the facts and arguments adduced in support of them, have been systematically ignored by most of those who even in England have treated of the same subjects after him, and ventured criticisms on his system. Of this I shall adduce striking instances, while I show the true relation in which some of the more eminent later metaphysicians, such as James Mill, Brown, Adam Smith, Alison, Paley, and Tucker, stand to Hartley. Thus James Mill prefaces the chapter on the Asso- ciation of Ideas, in his Analysis of the Mind, with a quotation from Brown's Lectures ; yet he took from sense, at one time as an epithet for the actions or mores of men ; at another, for a system of rules to be applied to those actions. His argument appears to be, that because happiness is derived from hu- man actions therefore the consideration of that happiness can fur- nish us with no rules, can be no sufficient criterion of the worth of some acts, the worthlessness of others. The inference should be pre- cisely the contrary. In another sentence he takes the term virtue in two or more senses : at one time it seems the name of an act in it- self; at another, for a rule of action, or the conformity of that act to a rule ; and at another, for a portion of the happiness resulting from an act, " one of the things determining happiness" Dr. Whewell appears not to have read the answers given by Mr. Austin, in his ' Province of Jurisprudence,' to the old and oft-repeated objections to the principle of utility and the difficulties attending it. And he applies to such a system as Eutherforth's the epithets low and lax and poor. Are there fewer difficulties attending any other system P To whose system will he give the names of liigh and strict and rich ? From whose system will he hope to derive a greater num- ber of acts beneficial to mankind, or more strength and fervour of benevolent effort and disposition ? The philosopher and Christian will welcome the system, be it whose it may. 460 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. Hartley its chief matter*. From Hartley came the im- portant distinction of the two cases of association, the synchronous and the successive. From Hartley came the principle that the causes of strength in association are two the vividness of the associated feelings, and the frequency of the association ; and that simple ideas run into complex ones by means of association. He has mentioned Dr. Hartley, at the close of his chapter, as calling the union of two complex ideas into one by the name of a duplex idea ; but I have not found the word duplex in Hartley. What Hartley lays down in the fourth corollary of his twelfth proposition is, that " as simple ideas run into complex ones by association, so complex ideas run into decomplex ones by the same; but here the varieties of the associations, which increase with the complexity, hinder particular ones from being so close and permanent between the complex parts of decomplex ideas, as between the simple parts of com- plex parts of complex ones : to which it is analogous in languages, that the letters of words adhere closer together than the words of sentences, both in writing and speaking." Mr. Mill's subsequent chapters on naming, on classification, memory, belief, and ratioci- nation are all founded on Hartleian principles, and coloured with Hartleian language; but without any acknowledgment of obligation to that great author, whose chapters on words and the ideas associated with them, may be justly considered the basis of all accurate metaphysical study. * Compare Hartley's Tenth Propos. with Mill's Analysis, p. 53. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 4G1 Dr. Brown, himself one of the best investigators of the mind among the Scotch, devoted many of his Lectures to the phenomena of what he calls sim- ple and relative suggestion ; " of these two orders of feelings, and these alone," he says, " consists the whole varied tissue of our trains of thought*." The author whom he seems to consider as worthy of most attention for his classification of the associate feelings is Mr. Hume, to whom the philosophers of his own country are accustomed to refer. But Hume knew compara- tively nothing of the nature and importance of the law of association. In a criticism on Dr. Hartley (43rd Lecture), Brown acknowledges that there is consider- able acuteness displayed in his work, that it contains some successful analyses of complex feelings, and that it has been of service in promoting a spirit of inquiry. He asserts however that the advantage has been in- considerable compared with the great evil which has flowed from it, by leading the inquirer to acquiesce in remote analogies and to adopt explanations and arrangements of the phenomena of mind, not as they agree with the actual phenomena, but as they chance to agree with some supposed phenomena of our ma- terial part. Of this evil he has adduced no instance. He has not condescended to quote with care a single sentence of Hartley, nor adduced an example of such a misled inquirer. He has chosen to represent the hypothesis of vibrations as merely Hartley's ; but the * Dr. Brown's 'Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind,' from 34th to 52nd. 462 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. truth is, that the suggestion, as it emanated from Sir Isaac Newton, had produced on the students of human nature, before Hartley's time, a far deeper impression than any but minute and careful inquirers into the history of metaphysical speculations would suppose. I gather this from a remarkable passage in Dr. John Clarke's work on the Origin of Evil, and incidental ob- servations in other authors*. * " The seat of sensation is in the brain. In order therefore to perception, it is necessary that the particular motions excited by external objects should be conveyed thither ; which make different impressions, or raise different ideas in the mind, as they are propa- gated by a different medium or through different senses. Thus, to produce vision it is necessary that the object be capable of reflect- ing rays of light, and that those rays also should be capable of being reflected ; that they may be thrown upon the eye ; and the same may be said of refraction likewise, that they may meet to form the image at the bottom of the eye. Hence it is that the eye is composed of different humours, having different degrees of the power proportioned to the distance. It is also necessary that the rays of light should be very small, that they may freely pass through those humours : yet that they should be of different bigness and shape, to excite different sorts of colours by their vibrations. After this manner the images of external objects are conveyed to the bottom of the eye, from whence they are carried along through the optic nerve to the senso- rium, and are there taken notice of by the mind ; in order to effect which it is necessary also that these vibrations should be continued along those nerves, which are therefore compounded of solid, uni- form, and transparent capillaments containing a medium proper for that purpose. In the same manner are sounds likewise excited by the different vibrations of the air, in the same proportion as those of light, and carried to the sensorium by the auditory nerves. These are all subject to particular laws, the least alteration or disturbance of which immediately creates a proportionable disorder or confu- sion." Dr. John Clarke's Enquiry into the Origin of Evil, vol. i. pp. 250-252. 1722. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 4G3 Had Brown taken his view of the doctrine of Asso- ciation from Hartley's statements, he would not have said that the term was limited to those states of mind which are exclusively denominated " ideas ;" and " that this has deprived us of the aid which we might have received from it in the analysis of many of the most complex phenomena;" nor would he have proposed to drop the term association, to make way for that of suggestion. Dr. Hartley had shown at large before him that every sensation possible to the human frame may by association enter into our more complex emo- tions, and " that the influence of the associating prin- ciple extends not to ideas only, but to every species of affection of which the human mind is susceptible." Dr. Brown, like a racer bfolting from the course, in- stead of bending his efforts steadily towards the goal, breaks away into the regions of poetry and rhetoric, and dazzles us with the splendours of Virgil, and Ci- cero, and Seneca, and Akenside, when his reader is anxious to consult the simple phenomena of his own mind, or to listen reverently to the oracles of nature and of truth. Thus the question, "what are the general circum- stances which regulate the succession of our ideas? what the primary and secondary laws of simple and re- lative suggestion ?" a question propounded in the 34th is not answered till we come to the 37th Lecture of his volume. The remarks on these laws, however just, are perfectly familiar to the Hartleian. Though he has not told us very distinctly what the primary 464 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. laws of suggestion, founded on the mere relations of objects or feelings to each other, are, he gives the name of secondary laws to those operations which account for the variety in the effects of the former. The oc- casional suggestions that flow from the primary are various, according as the original feelings have been, 1st, of longer or shorter continuance ; 2, more or less lively ; 3, of more or less frequent occurrence ; 4, more or less recent ; 5, more or less pure from the occasional and varying mixture of other feelings ; 6, according to differences of original constitution ; 7, ac- cording to differences of temporary emotion ; 8, ac- cording to changes produced in the state of the body ; 9, according to general tendencies produced by prior habits. In the 45th Lecftire, following Hartley, with- out acknowledgment, he arranges the phenomena of relative suggestion under the two orders of coexistence and succession. He proposes to drop the term association to make way for that of suggestion; but the suggestion has not been adopted because the terms had been already ap- propriated to their respective meanings. Association expresses the primary fact. Before one object, sen- sation, or idea can suggest another, they must have been previously experienced in company ; that is, there must be a previous association binding them together in order of time or place. It is remarkable that Brown has not dwelt on the phenomena of language, on the suggestion of ideas by words, to illustrate the importance of the law of association. Yet he has made PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 465 great use of the principle throughout his volume, in explaining every important faculty whether concep- tion, memory, imagination, or reasoning; and every natural or acquired emotion, immediate, prospective, or retrospective ; and every complex notion, such as those which we form of matter and resistance. He has made use of it when contending, in opposition to Dr. Reid, who calls perception " a peculiar mental faculty'' that " perception, in its relation to our origi- nal sensations of touch, as much as in relation to the immediate feelings which we derive from smell, taste, sight, and hearing, is only one of the many ope- rations of the suggesting or associating principle." He tells us that " of the influence of association on the moral character of man, the whole history of our race, when we compare the vices and virtues of ages and nations with each other, is but one continued though varied display." He illustrates its influence at great length and with great beauty of sentiment and language in "the moral inspiration of parental love," in the force and direction given to the pas- sion of ambition. He might have found a familiar instance of its power in the passion for money, and its intensity in the habits of the miser. While going over all this ground he has not adverted to the inves- tigations of the great Hartley, whose principles he was indeed confirming, but whose facts in illustra- tion of the principle are more numerous and more impressive, and whose deductions and methods are more simple, more logical, more convincing. Is there 2 H 466 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. anything in Brown equal in value to this single co- rollary of Hartley* ? " It is of the utmost conse- quence to morality and religion, that the affections and passions should be analysed into their simple compounding parts by reversing the steps of the as- sociations which concur to form them. For thus we may learn how to cherish and improve good ones, check and root out such as are mischievous and im- moral, and how to suit our manner of life, in some tolerable measure, to our moral and religious wants. And as this holds in respect of persons of all ages, so it is particularly true and worthy of consideration in respect of children and youth. The world is indeed sufficiently stocked with general precepts for this pur- pose, grounded on experience; and whosoever will follow these faithfully may expect general good suc- cess. However, the doctrine of association, when traced up to the first rudiments of understanding and affection, unfolds such a scene as cannot fail both to instruct and alarm all such as have any degree of in- terested concern for themselves or of a benevolent one for others. It ought to be added, that the doctrine of association explains also the rise and progress of those voluntary and semivoluntary powers which we exert over our ideas, affections, and bodily motions (as I shall show hereafter), and by so doing this teaches us how to regulate and improve these powers," Hartley afterwards shows in a most instructive and philoso- phical manner, by the power of using the hand and * Compare Brown, Lecture 25, and Hartley, Props, xi. and xxi. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 467 the legs gradually acquired by children, of producing intelligent sounds, of speaking and writing, and by a variety of other instances, that the voluntary and semi- voluntary motions are deducible from association, and " that it will be found upon a careful and impartial in- quiry that the motions which occur every day in com- mon life, and which follow the idea called the will immediately or mediately, do this (i.e. do occur and do follow) in proportion to the number and degree of strength in the associations." This is true, and one of the most important and suggestive truths connected with the structure and laws of the mind. It fur- nishes the real clue to the explanation of character and habit. It suggests the proper methods for self-disci- pline and improvement, and for the discipline and im- provement of others. Every object in life confirms its truth. The rod of the schoolmaster, the sceptre of the sovereign, the ermine of the judge and the lawn of the priest, the cradle of the infant and the grave of the philosopher, the dungeon and the church, the charge to the jury and the sermon of the preacher, owe their influence entirely to the force and character of the as- sociations; and every habit and propensity illustrate the law of association, from those of the epicure and the anchorite to those of the saint and the philan- thropist. One very elegant production of an English divine settled in Edinburgh deserves mention in connection with the history and nature of the doctrine of associa- tion, ' Essays on Taste/ by Archibald Alison, father 2 H 2 468 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. of the modern historian. Alison seems to have con- sidered Dugald Stewart as the writer who gave the bias to his speculations ; and with the unfailing prac- tice of the coteries of Edinburgh, Adam Smith lauds Alison and Alison lauds Smith. He has not men- tioned the name of Hartley, but he has proved that our emotions of the beauty and sublimity of the mate- rial world and of the human countenance and form are resolvable into cases of association ; and in the same manner he might have proved, what he has only sug- gested, that our emotions of moral beauty and sub- limity, our moral sentiments of every kind, are entirely resolvable into the operation of the same great law, namely, the law of sensible pleasures and pains pass- ing gradually into intellectual and moral ones. The Essays of Alison are a charming illustration of the truth of the Hartleian chapters relating to imagination and to sympathy. Whatever is correct in Adam Smith's ' Theory of Moral . Sentiments/ a work of earlier date, deserving much attention, easily falls in with the Hartleian the- ory. For what is that power of sympathy, of throw- ing ourselves into the situation of another, imagining the feelings of others, and supposing ourselves specta- tors of our own conduct, but the renewal of the trains of association, but the application of notions and feel- ings, already gotten by experience, to new junctures as they arise? The theory is obviously inadequate for an explanation of all the phenomena of our moral life, and for the formation of a wise rule. By making PROGRESS OP ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 469 present or popular sentiments the test of right and wrong, it affords no provision for the elevation and improvement of the popular standard of right. It will not bear a close examination, since the sympathies of men with each other, and their no less real and important antipathies, are dependent on their edu- cations, habits, interests, connections, tastes, society, party, and professed religion. But the book, full as it is of inconsistencies, of ill-considered and incorrect ex- pressions, illustrates the value of one of the elements in forming the rule of life, namely, the common sen- timents of mankind ; and when it tells us that actions of a beneficent tendency, which proceed from proper motives, seem alone to require a reward ; actions of a hurtful tendency seem alone to deserve punishment, it points in the right direction, and grows into harmony with the soundest and most thoughtful philosophy. When we compare such writers as Locke, Cumber- land, Law, Butler, Hartley, Tucker, Paley, Austin, and even Bentharu together, we perceive them to agree in the following fundamental principles : that the will of God is the fountain of moral obligation ; that the tendency of actions to ultimate happiness is an index to the tacit commands of God, or the chief guide to the knowledge of His wih 1 ; that the Deity wills the happiness of his creatures, therefore the means of that happiness, therefore virtue, which is the employment of the means ; that the dictates of natural and re- vealed religion, and the dictates of right reason and the principles of utility, suggest the same rule of life, 470 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. and coalesce in their instruction ; that rational and refined self-interest, and the truths or principles of religion, natural and revealed, point to one and the same course of life, to the culture of the same private and public affections, the discharge of the same social obligations and duties ; or, what is the same thing, the pursuit of the same end, namely, the happiness of mankind. I have classed Butler with Paley, Law, and Hartley, that is, with those who may be called the religious utilitarians. He is not commonly considered of that school. But there is no substantial difference as to facts or principles. Repeated perusal has satisfied me that Butler is perfectly utilitarian, substantially Hart- leian. He has not accounted nor attempted to ac- count for the facts in the same way. He has not traced, with care and exactness, the phenomena of hu- man affections to their ultimate principles or laws. He has not gone so deeply into the origin and forma- tion of the several affections and moral feelings, nor deduced the rules of life with the same care and pre- cision. His language is more vague and less consis- tent ; still there is a harmony in general views and results. Examine, for instance, his three first sermons on Human Nature. He lays down what no one dis- putes, or is worth disputing with if he does, that (1.) " there is such a thing, in some degree, as real good- will in man to man;" (2.) " that the several passions and affections contribute to public good as really as to private " (3.) " that there is a principle of reflection in PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 471 men, by which they approve or disapprove their own actions ;" " that conscience is this principle of reflec- tion." These are the three points established in his first sermon ; but he talks in it of self-love, as if there were an affection for self independent of, and distinct from, the particular gratifications and pleasures sought for, and of men violating their nature, as if their na- ture did not include everything done and every thought of the mind; as if propensities to evil were not as natural as propensities to good, forgetting the theo- logy which teaches that propensities to evil alone are natural. The second sermon is less happy, owing to this unadvised use of the terms nature and self- love. The attempt to show the natural supremacy and sacred authority of conscience seems partly su- perfluous, since the subordination of other principles, passions, and motives of action, its office as regulator, is assumed in the definition or notion of it; and partly unsatisfactory, since, if conscience be but the principle of reflection, applied to our conduct, to ac- tions, their motives, "and their consequences, if the reflection turns on the conformity of actions to the rule, which is their Tightness ; the question, how we come by the rule, and what or who gives it authority, remains unanswered. A similar error pervades the third sermon. There is no value in the phrase of " man being a law to him- self," every man being at liberty, and feeling himself at liberty, except where some law, the dictate of a power superior, restrains him. However, in the con- 472 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. elusion of the whole argument which he is insisting upon, Butler is eminently utilitarian, and as much an advocate for a so-called selfish system in his view of the foundation and end of morals, as Bentham him- self. Thus he says, " Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the same way. Duty and interest are perfectly coincident, for the most part, in this world ; but entirely and in every instance, if we take in the future and the whole, this being implied in the notion of a good and perfect administration of things." The concluding sermons upon the love of our neighbour, the love of God, and the ignorance of man, are in perfect and beautiful accord- ance with the Hartleian theory and principles ; but they are far less clear and determinate in their directions, less full and abundant in their suggestions as to the means and methods of improving the temper and making the heart better, and " avoiding that general wrong frame of mind, from which all the mistaken pursuits and far the greatest part of the unhappi- ness of life proceeds/' " He who should find out one rule to assist us in this work, would deserve infi- nitely better of mankind than all the improvers of other knowledge put together." Now Hartley has found out many rules, and his merits in this respect are supreme. I shall not touch at length upon Paley. There is little evidence of reading or of deep thought in his 1 Moral and Political Philosophy/ His clear forcible style has done more for his popularity and influence than PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 473 his principles or arguments. Tucker's ' Light of Na- ture ' was his favourite book. Now Tucker's philosophy is, with some exceptions, a sort of diluted Hartleianism. Its loose and rambling method makes it rather pain- ful than satisfactory to the logical reader, however amusing and suggestive for an hour of vacancy. If the most important phenomena of the mind and the best portions of the best writers are comparatively neglected, even among the few who, in England, may be thought to have paid most attention to mental and moral science, still less can the literati of Gemany and France be supposed to know what is most valu- able in the English masters. In the scarce Latin tract by Hartley, reprinted in the volume of 'Metaphysicians of the Eighteenth Century ' prepared by Dr. Parr, there is a passage so remarkable for its wisdom, that I cannot but sum up and enforce the matter of these pages with truth so valuable. While it points to the quarter whence light may be expected, it prophesies the darkness that must continue till that light shall dawn. Had not the Eng- lish metaphysician been driven from his rightful place of estimation by unhappy prejudices, hastily taken up and sedulously propagated, the history of mental science would have been brighter, its study more agreeable, and the culture of it far more fruitful. In the translation, I drop the few phrases relating to vi- brations, as not necessary to the principle. " The doctrine of Association moreover is absolutely necessary to form a true logic. Nor will it be suffi- 474 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. cient for this purpose, that attention be given only to associations formed in mature life. We must attend to them in their very cradles. We must investigate, with the greatest care, the impressions and ideas which are joined by custom with single words and sentences, and thus at length arrive ~ at a right determination concerning the nature of the ideas affixed to words, and the assent and dissent which are connected with propositions. When these things are physiologically treated, new light will forthwith dawn on the arts of thinking and discoursing. All are agreed in exclaim- ing with one voice, that the advancement of science is most impeded by the ambiguities and overwhelming mass of words ; and that the strifes of the learned are, with scarcely an exception, nothing but vain logoma- chies. It is to be desired therefore, that the nature and use of words being carefully sifted, the useless be thrown aside, the vague be limited, and that the sci- ences themselves be advanced by tools more simple and more adapted for use. Now here the doctrine of Association, unless I greatly err, will afford excellent aid, and will conduce most powerfully, as well to root out altogether prejudiced opinions, as to build up the sciences in solid form, and to free them from the sophistries and subtleties of sceptics*/' * " Doctrina porro Associations ad veram logicem condendam om- nino necessaria est. Neque satis erit in hunc finem, ut quis perse- quatur associations setate matura factas. Ordiendum est ab ipsis incunabulis. Perquirendum accuratissimae queenam Impressiones et Ideae, i. e. vibrationes et vibratiunculse cum singulis vocibus et sen- tentiis usitato conjungantur ; et sic demum recte statuetur de na- PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 475 When we open a ' Critic/ or pretended examination and analysis of the pure reason, and find such expres- sions as the amphiboly and antinomy of reason ; ' ex- ternal and internal intuition; 'analytical cognitions a priori? ' synthetical cognitions a posteriori / or when opening Schelling's 'Transcendental Idealism/ we stumble at the threshold on such a sentiment as " that all knowledge consists in the agreement of the objec- tive with the subjective/' a repetition of language which we find in Nprris's ' Intelligible World/ and by him probably borrowed from the later Platonizing schoolmen, and which means either the agreement of ideas with realities, or has no meaning ; when a pe- culiar knowledge of the mind, some rare insight into its darkest recesses, is conceived to lie hid under such phraseology, yet, after the closest attention, no new facts, no principles in harmony with the rest of our thoughts and feelings, capable of application to the tura Idearum vocibus affixarum, assensusque et dissensus, qui pro- positionibus adhibentur. His autem physiologice tractatis, novum lumen protinus accedet artibus cogitandi et disserendi. Cordati omnes uno ore clamant, augmentum scientiarum quam maxim e im- pediri verborum ambiguitatibus, et mole obruente ; litesque erudi- torum fere universas esse nil nisi logomachias inanes. Optandum est itaque, ut verborum natura et usu diligenter excussis, abjici- antur inutilia, limitentur vaga, s'cientiseque ipsae apparatu simpli- ciore, et ad praxin accommodatiore, instruantur. Egregiam vero hie operam praestabit, ni fallor, Doctrina Associationis, qualis a doc- trina vibrationum nasci supra ostensa est, simulque magnopere con- ducet, turn ad radices prsejudicatarum opinionum penitus extirpandas, turn ad scientias solide aedificandas, expediendasque a Scepticoruni implicationibus et argutiis." 476 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. conduct of the understanding, suited to the wants and business of life, can be discovered, it is evident that we are driven back upon such truth as Hartley expresses. We are compelled to acknowledge that the study of words, their etymology, their natural his- tory, so to speak, as a guide to the associated sensa- tions and ideas, must constitute one chief portion of mental philosophy. The English metaphysicians and logicians alone appear to feel this. Mr. De Morgan, in his ' Formal Logic/ rightly conceives that the ulti- mate elements of logic lie wrapt up in whatever sound truth can be arrived at respecting the relations of ob- jects, ideas, and names. In regard to the common terms of logic, a refer- ence to etymology readily suggests their appropriate meaning. Take the words, subject, copula, predi- cate, premiss major and minor, proposition, analytic, synthetic, conclusion, de-monstrate, e-vidence, in-fer- ence, de-duction, in-duction ; the scholar, knowing their derivation from the Greek or Latin, easily dis- cerns their meaning and the reason for their use. It is observable that almost all the terms common in metaphysical books, significant of mental operations and conditions, are of Latin or Greek origin. Such are sensation, perception, conception, conscious, con- science, with its associates and derivatives, abstraction, intuition, imagination, fancy, memory, association, sug- gestion, attention, observation, apprehension, volition, comprehension, discernment, recollection, etc. For the organs and operations of sense we have short PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 477 emphatic words, such as eye, head, ear, nose, smell, taste ; and for the strong emotions and passions, such as love, hate, joy, grief, woe, which come to us gene- rally more from the Saxon element of our language ; although the connection even of these with the Latin is, in many cases, easily traceable ; but for the ab- stractions of the mind, for what we may call the conditions and laws of thought, we have only such long classical terms as the above. Now the so-called mental philosophers have turned for the most part to the mind itself, selecting arbitrarily its more ob- scure phenomena in order to fasten on these terms a meaning more precise than that of common use, and often inconsistent with it. But if terms were used without much precision, loosely and interchange- ably, by the writers from whom they have descended, such as Cicero and Plato, how vain seems the effort to seek for nicer distinction in later days and to hope that any distinction will be habitually observed ! How idle seems the attempt to assign to the mind as many distinct faculties, with separate functions and opera- tions, as there are compound terms of Latin origin to express its complex affections and associations ! How much better to turn to etymology to find easy defini- tions, and meanings more accordant with the common acceptation, which meanings were likely to flow as by a kind of legitimate authority from the first examples, as a slight acquaintance with etymology teaches. It is true that many terms come in time to change their meaning, and scarcely a trace of the original applica- 478 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. tion is left in the adopted and existing sense. But this is less the case with terms of scientific use and with the compounds of classical origin' than with words of constant application in the familiar uses and chan- ging customs of common life, such as gate, city, wit, and the French eglise. To the value of the per in per-ception I have already adverted. A similar observation holds in respect of con in con-ception. To conceive is to put ideas to- gether. The expressions, ' I can easily conceive that/ or ' I could not have conceived that he would act in such a manner/ signify, either I can or cannot recon- cile the new statement or idea presented to the mind with previous notions. To the etymology in the case of the word conception, the late Mr. Mill has adverted in his chapter on that subject. " It is applied," he says, " exclusively to cases of the secondary feelings ; to the idea, not the sensation, and to compound, not to single ideas." " I conceive, that is, I take together a horse ; that is, the several ideas combined under the name, and constituting a compound idea." No doubt the terms conscious and conscience had refer- ence originally to what two or more persons knew together, as Hobbes has suggested, and hence came easily to signify what was known confidently or inti- mately. Intuition from intueor, attention from adtendo, faculty from facio, abstraction from abstralto, are easily seen to draw their force from their fountains; the analogy of mental actions to material processes being always discernible in the expressions applied to the PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. 479 mind. So the participles right, just, absolute, infi- nite, abstract, concrete, and many others, have a clear and useful meaning when the force of the verbs from which they come is kept in view ; and metaphysicians lose themselves by trying to fix a meaning on such participles and adjectives irrespective of those realities and particulars, whether objects of sense or conditions of human thought and action, to which alone they can be applied with meaning and advantage. After all, as Locke often suggests, a good dictionary is the best metaphysical treatise*. When, by reference to etymology, or any other and better method, a definite and satisfactory meaning, a meaning significant of fact, shall be given to the terms employed in mental and moral science, the study will be cleared from the difficulties and obscu- rity now surrounding it, and the reasoning will be- come more satisfactory. The laws of the mind, like the so-called laws of material nature, will be perceived to be classes of facts, or the permanent order and suc- cession of undisputed phenomena. In both cases the * Mr. Samuel Bailey, the author of many excellent works on the mind, in a recent volume has dwelt on the value and distinction of the terms discerning, perceiving, and conceiving. He has gone over much of the ground touched in these pages, and with very striking agreement in the results of metaphysical study ; particularly in his remarks on the force of general and abstract terms, and in his view of the evils arising from the treatment of mental abstractions as real entities. He has not adverted to etymology as a useful and safe guide to the meaning of metaphysical terms. Perhaps his discussion of that meaning might sometimes have been cleared and simplified had he done so. 480 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY. laws can only be derived from, and be verified by, observation and experience. If they do not rest upon these, and be not conformable to them, they are mere hypotheses or dreams. Opinionum commenta delet dies ; naturae judicia confirmat. When the mind is thus studied, its leading faculties, memory, imagina- tion, and reason, will be found to work upon one simple principle, that of association, which, like the sap, or the element of nutrition to the vegetable king- dom, will be an ultimate principle, beyond which in- vestigation cannot go. These faculties, aided by lan- guage, their chief instrument, will be seen fraught with use and beauty, God's choicest gifts. For by their aid, all the traces of beneficence that reign in nature become transfused into the mind, and again the pleasurable emotions of the mind become reflected in the forms of external nature, to which a new and permanent interest is given by their perceived con- nection with benevolent design, that is, with the hap- piness present or to come of sentient, intellectual, and active beings. Imbued with this principle, the mind, though it be but a dark cavern, echoes faintly the first mandate, " Let there be light ;" or like a mirror, though it be broken, contorted, and foul with dust, it becomes capable of reflecting, in some humble mea- sure, the divine conception, when " God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good !" One great and inestimable advantage the disciple of Bacon, Locke, and Hartley must enjoy over the pupils of every other school. A philosophy, intelli- PROGRESS OF KNCLlsil I'll M.osoNI Y. 481 gible, consistent, and practical, will supply him with u number of rules available for constant self-regula- tion, improvement, and happiness. Sympathy with the pure and lofty spirit of the masters, and the constant study of their works, will mould the temper to a like heavenly frame. Through the purification of the heart the understanding will be cleared. No fumes of pre- judice and passion, of envy or malignity, will rise to dim the eye of the mind. Curiosity, stimulated by the desire of good, will issue in truth and the attain- ment of useful knowledge. All that is solid and in- structive in science, all that is sublime and beautiful in the order of nature, graceful and sweet in poetry and the expression of human sentiment, all that is de- licate, tender, consoling and elevating in common life and the instruction of Scripture, will mix with it and vanish into it, to enhance the radiance of the glory of God. Teaching us that benevolence is the fountain and happiness the end of universal being, by attract- ing to itself all our pleasures, and by softening, if not subduing, all our pains, such philosophy will place us among the men who " With God himself Hold converse ; grow familiar, day by day, With his conceptions ; act upon his plan, And form to his the relish of our souls." Then, in the exquisite language of Milton : "How charming is divine Philosophy ! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns." 2 i APPENDIX. I. An Account of Locke's last hours, Death, and Character, // lated from Le Clerc's Eloge of Locke (Bibliotheque Choisie, vol. vi. p. 395, 1705). FOB more than a year before he died, his weakness became so great that he could not apply himself powerfully to anything, and could scarcely write a letter to one of his friends without pain. Hitherto he had written with his own hand everything which he had occasion to write, and as he was not accustomed to dictate, he could not avail himself of the services of a secre- tary. Although his frame became weaker, his temper did not change, and if his chest had permitted him to take part in con- versation, he would have been still the same. A few weeks before his death, he foresaw that his time was not long, but it did not prevent him from being as gay as usual, and when surprise was expressed, he was wont to say, " Live, while you live." The study of Holy Writ had produced in him a piety lively and sincere, though far removed from affectation. As he re- mained a long time unable to go to the church, he thought proper, some months before his death, to take the Lord's Sup- per at home, as is done in England, and two of his friends par- took of it with him. When the minister began to officiate he said to him, "that his feelings were those of perfect charity towards all mankind, and of sincere union with the Church of Christ, by whatever name distinguished." He was too en- lightened to take the Communion as a symbol of schism and division, as many ill-instructed people do, who, when they take the Communion in their church, condemn all other Christian 2 i 2 484 APPENDIX. societies. He was deeply penetrated with admiration of the wisdom of God in the manner in which he had willed the sal- vation of mankind, and when he conversed thereon, he could not refrain from exclaiming, " Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God !" He was persuaded that every one must be convinced of this by reading the Scrip- tures without prejudice ; and ta this he exhorted often those with whom he conversed towards the close of his life. His application to this study had given him an idea of the Chris- tian religion more noble and more enlarged than that which he had before entertained ; and if he had had sufficient strength to commence new works, there is much ground for thinking that he w r ould have composed some designed to convey to the minds of others, in all its vastness, this great and sublime idea. Some weeks before his death, as he could no longer walk, he had been carried in an arm-chair about the house ; but La'dy Masham having gone to see him the 27th of October, 1704, instead of finding him in his study, as usual, found him in bed. On her expressing surprise, he said to her, that he had resolved to stay in bed, as he had fatigued himself too much by rising the day before, that he could not sustain this fatigue, and that he knew not that he should ever get up again. He could not dine that day ; and after dinner, those who loved his company, having gone into his room, proposed to him to read something to oc- cupy his mind ; but he declined it. Nevertheless, some one hav- ing brought some papers into his room, he wished to know what they were, and they read them to him ; after which he said that what he had to do here must be done forthwith, and he thanked God for it. Thereupon they approached his bed, and he added his wish, "that they would remember him in the evening prayer." They said to him, that if he would like it, all the family would come into his room to offer prayer, and he consented. They then inquired if he thought himself about to die, and he replied, that perhaps it might happen that night, but that it could not be delayed three or four days. He had then a cold sweat, but recovered soon after. They of- fered him a little mourn (a strong beer which is made at Bruns- wick), which he had taken with pleasure a week before. He thought it the least injurious of strong beverages, as I myself APPENDIX. 485 have heard him say. He took some spoonfuls of it, and drank to the health of the company, saying, " I wish you all happi- ness when I .shall have departed." The persons who wnv in his chamber having gone out, except Lady Masham, who re- mained sitting by his bedside, he exhorted her to regard this world only as a state of preparation for a better, adding, that he had lived long enough, and that he blessed God for having passed his life happily ; yet that this life appeared to him as a mere vanity. After supper, the family went up into his cham- ber again to pray to God, and between eleven and twelve he appeared a little better. Lady Masham having wished to watch by him, he would not permit it, and said that perhaps he should sleep ; but that if he felt any change he would call her. He did not sleep ; but resolved to try to get up on the morrow, as he did. They carried him into his study, and placed him on a more comfortable chair, where he slept at in- tervals a considerable time. Appearing a little revived, he wished that they would dress him as he was accustomed to be, and asked for some small beer, which he very seldom tasted, after which, he entreated Lady Masham, who was reading the Psalms in a very low voice, to read aloud. She did so, and he appeared very attentive, until the approach of death prevented it. He then requested this lady to read no more, and a few minutes after, on the 28th of October, 1704, about three o'clock in the afternoon, in his seventy-third year, he expired. Thus died one of the most excellent philosophers of our day, who, after having thoroughly examined all parts of philosophy, and having developed its most secret mysteries with uncom- mon penetration and exactness, happily turned his attention to the Christian religion. He examined it at the fountain, and, with the same freedom with which he had treated the other sciences, and he found it so reasonable and so beautiful, that he consecrated the remainder of his life to it, and endeavoured to impart to others that high esteem which he had conceived for it. He mingled with it no melancholy, no superstition, as sometimes happens to people who give themselves up to de- votion only after disappointment (chagrin). The same light which had guided him in his philosophical studies, guided him in that of the New Testament, and lighted up in his heart a 486 APPENDIX. piety perfectly rational, arid worthy of Him who has given us reason, to profit by revelation, and whose revealed will sup- poses the use of all the good faculties which he has given, to know, to admire, and to obey it. It is not necessary here to eulogize the mind of Mr. Locke, nor to speak of its comprehensiveness, its penetration, its ex- actness. His works, which may be read in many languages, are the proof of it, and his eternal monument. I shall only give here the portrait received from an illustrious person to whom he was perfectly known. " He was, she says (and I can confirm the testimony in great measure by what I have myself seen here), a profound philo- sopher, and a man fitted for great affairs. He had great know- ledge of elegant literature, and manners full of politeness and most engaging. He knew something on almost every subject which can be useful to mankind, and searched to the bottom every subject which he had studied ; but he was superior in all these acquirements in this, that he did not appear raised in his own esteem on account of this illumination. No one wore less the air of a master, nor was less dogmatical than he, and he was by no means hurt when people did not enter into his opi- nions. There are however a species of squabblers, who, after having been often refuted, return again and again to the charge, and do nothing but repeat the same thing. He could not endure these people, and spoke of them sometimes with a little heat, but he was the first to recognize his idle distur- bance. " In the least affairs of life, as well as in speculative opinions, he was ready to give himself up to Eeason, whoever it was that led him thither ; the faithful servant, or, if you will, the slave of Truth, whom he never abandoned, and loved for herself alone. He accommodated himself to the capacity of humbler minds, and in disputing with them, diminished not the force of their reasonings against himself, though they might not have been well expressed. He conversed with pleasure with persons of all sorts, and endeavoured to profit by their intelligence, which arose not only from the good manners imparted by his education, but from an opinion that there was scarcely a per- son from whom he could not learn something advantageous. VI'l'KNDIX. II nice lie had learned so many tilings eoneeniiiii; the art* (rud- that In. seemed to have made these things his partimlar study, and they who pursued these things profeMOonattj, often profited by his knowledge and consulted him \\ it h pleasure. " If there were anything to which he could not accommodate himself, it was had manners, which filled him with disgust when he saw that they sprang, not from ignorance of the world, but from pride, barbarism, bad temper, brutal stupidity, and other such like vices. Yet he was very far from despising any one. because he had a disagreeable exterior. He regarded civility not only as a thing agreeable and fit to gain affection, but as a duty of Christianity, which ought to be observed the more, as persons do not commonly attend to it. He recommended with this view a treatise by the gentlemen of Port Royal (Sur les Moyens de Conserver la Paix avec les Hommes), and he highly approved the sermons which he had heard from Dr. "Whichcot on this subject, and which have since been printed. " His conversation was very agreeable with all persons, and even to ladies ; and no one was better received than he among persons of the highest rank. For he was by no means austere, and as the conversation of persons of condition is usually more easy and less formal, if Mr. Locke had not these talents natu- rally, he had acquired them by intercourse with the world ; and this rendered him so much the more agreeable to those who, not knowing him, did not expect to find these manners in a man so much devoted to study. Those who sought the acquaint- ance of Mr. Locke, to learn from him whatever a man of his knowledge could teach, and who approached him with respect, were surprised to find in him, not only the manners of a man well-bred, but all the politeness which they could desire. " He spoke often against ridicule, which requires delicate 1 mndling in conversation, and is dangerous if not well managed. He could employ raillery as well as most people ; but he never said anything which could shock or injure any one. He knew how to soften whatever he said, and give it an agreeable turn. If he rallied his friends, it was for some considerable fault, or upon some point which would turn to their advantage when they knew it. As he was wonderfully civil, even when he com- menced his raillery, they fell as well assured of something 488 xU'PENDIX. obliging as when he at length expressed it. He never ridiculed a misfortune or a natural defect. " He was very charitable to the poor, provided they were not idle, vicious, nor such as never went to any church, but fre- quented the alehouse on Sunday. He had special compassion for those who, after having laboured as much as they had been able in youth, sank into poverty in their old-age. He would say it was not enough to save them from dying of hunger, but that we ought to help them to live with some comfort. Thus he sought opportunities of doing good to those who deserved it, and often in his walks he visited the poor of the neighbourhood, and gave them something wherewith to comfort them in their necessities, or to purchase the remedies which he prescribed for them if they were sick and had no doctor. He did not like anything to be wasted which might be useful ; this was, in his opinion, to lose the treasure of which God has made us the economists. Thus he was a man of order, and one who kept exact accounts of everything. "If he was subject to any passion, it was that of auger; but he mastered it by reason, and it rarely led him to any wrong. He saw perfectly its folly. He used to say that it availed no- thing, neither in the education of children nor keeping servants in order, and that it tended to destroy the authority which might be exerted over them. He was kind towards his ser- vants, and took pains to instruct them with gentleness as to the manner in which they were to serve him. " Not only did he keep strictly a secret entrusted to him, but he never mentioned again what might be injurious, though he had not been warned to silence ; nor did he at any time by in- discretion or inattention do mischief to his friends. He was particular in keeping to his word, and what he promised was sacred. He was scrupulous as to the recommendation of per- sons whom he did not know, and never could bring himself to praise those whom he thought not praiseworthy. When told that his recommendations had not the effect that was expected, he said, * that it arose from this, that he never deceived any one by saying more than he knew ; that whatever he was an- swerable for must be found such as he described; otherwise his recommendations would never have any weight.' AIM'KMHX. 489 "His greatest enjoyment \\as thai of com ith intelli- gent persons, and he valued their society. He had all the <|iiali- ties which could render his friendship delightful. He played cards only out of good nature, though being often in the com- pany of persons who did so, he played not badly, when the oc- casion came. But he never proposed it, and said that it was only an amusement for those who had no conversation. In dress he was neat, without affectation, without singularity. He was naturally very active and always employed, as much as his health would permit. Sometimes he took pleasure in working in a garden, which he understood perfectly well. He loved a walk, but his weakness of chest not permitting him to walk much, he took exercise on horseback after dinner, and when he could not bear the fatigue of this, in a wheel-chair ; and wished always to have company, though only that of a child, for he de- lighted in the conversation of children well brought up. " The weakness of his health gave inconvenience to no one but himself, and the only pain w r hich he occasioned was that of observing him to suffer. His mode of living was like that of others, except that he drank only water, and believed that this had preserved his life so long, in spite of his feeble constitution. He attributed to the same cause the preservation of his sight, which was very little injured at the close of his life, for he could read by candlelight books of all kinds, if the type was not very small, and he never used glasses. He had no other incon- venience but that of his asthma, except that about four years before his death he became very deaf. This lasted however scarcely more than six months. Finding himself deprived of the pleasure of conversation, he expressed his doubts in a letter to one of his friends whether it were not better to be blind than deaf. But he suffered very patiently his disadvantages." "We have here the portrait of this great man, drawn from nature and by no means flattered. I wish it were in my power not only to render the memory of him immortal, but still more to give his mind an eternal life, by inducing men of letters to seek truth, to love it, and defend it as he did. But better than all my praises and exhortations would be the study of his works ; and I learn that he has left one on the conduct of the understanding in pursuit of truth, which will soon be given to 490 APPENDIX. the world. The bookseller who prints this * Bibliotheque' will publish it in French with his other posthumous works. On the 28th of October, 1853, the 149th anniversary of his death, I visited the tombs of Locke and of the Mashams in the churchyard of High Lever in Essex, in company with a learned friend, the Rev. Benjamin Mardon. The day was calm and bright. Instead of lamenting, with Bishop Law, the tomb's de- cay, we had the pleasure of finding it in excellent preservation, and of reading on the spot the beautiful and characteristic epitaph written by the philosopher himself. II. Examples of the Prevalence of the Opinion of Locke's Connec- tion with Scepticism and with Hume. " Mr. Hume's religious opinions chiefly appear in his ' Philo- sophical Essays.' In these he endeavours, on the system of Locke, who was a firm believer in Christianity, to rear a sys- tem of materialism. He advances sentiments which subvert the foundations of morality and religion, and aims wholly to set aside all proofs of a divine revelation." HENRY. A. ROWLAND, ' On the common Maxims of Infidelity .' New York. 1850. The late Eev. JOSEPH MILKEE, A.M., in section viii. p. 154, of his work entitled, ' Gibbon's Account of Christianity considered, together with some Strictures on Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion' A.D. 1781, thus severely animad- verts on Mr. Locke's theological writings : " Mr. Locke led the fashion in introducing a pompous parade of reasoning into religion ; from that time a rational religion has been the cant term with all who profess to be wiser than others. The pro- per humble subserviency of reason to Christianity as a very useful but submissive handmaid, has been discarded. He ap- pears to know little or nothing of that divine faith which the Scripture describes ; from Locke down to Hume, that is to say, from a cold historical assent down to atheism itself, or to what UM'KMHX. I'.) I is much the same, Ihere lias been a ^niiliial melancholy deelcii- sion tVoin evangelical simplicity. Reason has impertinently meddled with the Gospel, and that with such overbearing sedu- lity as to darken it more and more ; and rivers of tears \\mihl not suffice to bewail the increase of moral misery \\ hieli, since Mr. Locke's time, has pervaded these kingdoms." Quoted hi/ the late KEY. E. WALLACE, ' Antitrinitarian Biography? under the article l John Locke? vol. iii. p. 409. Locke was vindicated from the attacks of Milner and an- other author, Mr. Kett, by Thomas Ludlam, of Leicester, who published, with his brother William, 1807, some useful essays, scriptural, moral, and logical, designed to promote attention to clearness of ideas, precision of expression, and accuracy of reasoning. " Again, we think it quite legitimate to infer the character and tendency of any school of thought from the writers it has actually produced. And. what lias been the school that has grown out of the 'sensational' philosophy of Locke? From this school has sprung the materialism of Priestley, the French school of Deism that preceded the Revolution, the atheism of Darwin, the utilitarian ethics of Bentham and of Paley. On the other hand, from the Cartesian idealism we derive, in di- rect'descent, the devout (if somewhat exaggerated) spiritualism of Malebranche, of Bishop Berkeley, of Pascal, of Fenelon, to say nothing of the brilliant array of German thinkers of Leib- nitz, Kant, and Eichte of Schelling and of Hegel, with the modern school of Cousin in France ; writers destined, we believe, to emancipate Christianity from the trammels of scholasticism, and to give it once more the Catholic character and spiritual power contemplated by its holy Founder." Westminster Re- view ; Article on Rogers' } s Reason and Faith, vol. Ivi. Oct. 1851. The author of the above did not condescend to spell quite correctly the names of some of the philosophers to whom he refers. A very different spirit pervades subsequent articles in the Eeview, such as that entitled ' Iconoclasm in German Philosophy? Review of Schopenhauer, New Series, vol. iii. for April. ' Universal Postulate? Review of Metaphysical Works. vol. iv. Oct. 1853. 492 APPENDIX. " It may appear strange to say that sensationalism is conform- able to Cartesian principles, and that Locke, Condillac, Diderot, with all their numerous and unhappy progeny, are legitimate descendants of Descartes ; since he gives to his doctrines an air of the purest theism, and would establish on a solid basis the spirituality of human minds. But the theism of Descartes is wholly paralogistic ; his doubt, methodical and absolute ; and the endeavour to make inward feeling the basis of everything knowable, necessarily led to the negation of every material and sensible reality. He who starts from doubt can only end in doubt ; because the summit of the scientific pyramid must re- semble the foundation. He who sets out from fact cannot arrive at truth, since fact is contingent and relative ; and truth in its radical character is necessary and absolute. Moreover sensa- tionalism (il sensismo), despoiled of the contradictions of its partisans, and reduced to its true essence by the severe logic of David Hume, is peculiarly sceptical, terminating in a sub- jective play of the mind which is constrained to dally with ap- pearances after removing all reality ; and it manifests itself as the ultimate end of every doctrine which places the elements of knowledge in the sentiment of the individual mind. If Locke, and even Condillac, knew not how to avert this conse- quence, they showed themselves more prudent than Descartes, by rejecting the bold rationalism which the French philosopher had fabricated in the air ; and if less sagacious, they appeared at any rate more judicious." Translated from the Italian of VINCENZO GIOBERTI : ' lutroduzione allo Studio della Filosofia, vol. i. pp. 139, 140. Brussels, 1844. Gioberti gives the following estimate of English philosophy as compared with the French and German : " English philo- sophy, of which we have not yet said a word, occupies a middle place between the French and the German, and partakes of the mixed genius of the present inhabitants of Great Britain, who are allied to the German race through the Anglo-Saxons, the Danes, the Normans, and some more ancient migrations, and to the Celtic through the remains of the Cimri and the Gauls. Hence arises that wonderful temperament of the Eng- lish genius, and the civil greatness of the nation, whose man- liness is the more striking in comparison with the childishness APPENDIX. or decrepit ude of the other European nations The English genius is allied to the Positive, and most skilful in Ili: studies and the business of exterior life ; but it does not forget, on that account, that the true value of material things depends on the conceptions of the mind, and that practical sense can- not have place without morality and religion." in. A remarkable Passage from Sir Mattneic Hale's l Primitive Ori- gination of Mankind' (1677, pp. GO, 61), showing the State of Opinion on Innate Ideas or Connate Principles before or about Locke's Time. " I come now to consider of those rational instincts, as I call them, the connate principles engraven in the human soul, which, though they are truths acquirable and deducible by ra- tional consequence and argumentation, yet they seem to be inscribed in the very crasis and texture of the soul, antecedent to any acquisition by industry or the exercise of the discursive faculty in man ; and therefore they may be well called antici- pations, prenotions, or .sentiments characterized and engraven in the soul, born with it, and growing up with it, till they re- ceive a check by ill customs or educations, or an improvement and advancement by the due exercise of the faculties. I shall show first what they are : secondly, what moves me to think that such are connatural. " 1. Touching the former, I think those implanted and con- natural anticipations are these : namely, that there is a God ; that he is of greatest power, wisdom, goodness, and perfection ; that he is pleased with good and displeased with evil ; that he is placable ; that he is to be feared, honoured, loved, worshiped, and obeyed ; that he will reward the good and punish the evil; a secret sentiment of the immortality of the soul, or that it survives the body, to be capable of rewards and punishments, according to its deportment in this life ; certain common no- tions of moral good and evil, of decorum and turpe ; that faith and promises are to be kept ; that a man must do as he would be done by; that the obscene parts and actions, though other- 494 APPENDIX. wise natural, are not to be exposed to public view, obvelatio pudendorum; that a man must be grateful for benefits re- ceived. These, and some such common notions or intimate propensions, seem to be connaturally engraven in the soul antecedently to any discursive rationication ; and though they are not so distinct and explicit, yet they are secret biases, in- clining the human nature primarily to what is useful and con- venient for it in proportion to the state of an intellectual nature." .... He goes on to call them certain rational in- stincts, a certain congenite stock of rational sentiments, predis- posing and inclining to the good and convenience proportion- able to a rational and intellectual life. " 2. And that which inclines me to believe this is, not only the congruity of the supposition to the convenience of the hu- man nature, and the instance of the sensible instincts in the animal nature proportioned to their convenience, and the great importance of them to the convenience thereof; but also that which is observable in the attentive consideration of the manners of mankind in general, which seems to have those common sentiments in them, and to accord in them in a very great measure ; and though evil customs and education much prevails among men, yet it doth not wholly obliterate these sentiments, at least from the generality of mankind." IV. Opinion of Hume ly the Translator of Buffer's 'First Truths.' " Hume is indeed a metaphysician of such subtilty, at least, that his own conceptions appear to have escaped the intelli- gence of himself. I have frequently analysed a multiplicity of his sentences, paragraphs, and pages : I have assiduously endeavoured to affix the properest idea to each word, and to consider the whole in all the points of view within my power ; and yet without a possibility of comprehending his intention. Diffident of my own abilities, I have consulted men of distin- guished eminence in metaphysical learning: these also have united in the previous conclusions. Of this fact I can adduce innumerable instances, that through his Essays, together with MM'KMHV l'.).'> usual imintelligibility, lie has not only lu-ni guilt\ nt'inlru- opinions which him 1 no other tendency than thai .- \Yniah-. K',2 1. Gassendi, Exercitationes Paradoxicco adversus Aristoteleos. 1625. Grotius, Do Jure Belli; its Introduction ront.iins a state- ment of the principles of morals prevalent in Christendom. 1627. Hakewill's, George, Apologie of tin- JV\\rr and Providence of God in the Government of the World. 1637. Descartes' Discourse on Method ; Dioptrics. 1637. Barlow, Dr. Thomas, Exercitationes aliquot Metaphysics de Deo, 4to, Oxon. 1638. Brerewood, Edward, Tractatus Lojjici. 10 in. Ethici. 1640. Anderson, Robert, Logica ; a compendium of Aristotle. 1641. Descartes' Meditationes de Prima Philosophia. 1641. Crakanthorp, Logica. 1642. Hobbes, De Give ; a few copies. 1645. Herbert, Lord, De Causis Errorum ; annexed to a third edi- tion of De Veritate. 1646. CulverwelTs Discourse of the Light of Nature. 1650. Hobbes' Treatise on Human Nature, and Elements of Po- licy, or of the Law. 165 1 . Philosophical Rudiments of Government and Society ; Leviathan ; with his Life. 1655. Elementa Philosophise. 1656. Ward, Seth, Exercitationes in Hobbii Philosophiam. 1656. Crellius, John, Prima Ethices Elementa ; Ethica Christiana ; Ethica Aristotelica ad S. L. Normanne emendata. 1658. Gassendi's Syntagma Philosophicum ; Logic, Physics, and Ethics. 1661. Glanvil, Joseph, Vanity of Dogmatizing. 1663. Lucy, William (Bishop of St. David's), Observations on Hobbes' Leviathan. 1663. Charleton, Dr. W., Account of the Philosophy of Gassendi. 1666. Parker, S., Free and Impartial Censure of the Platonic Phi- losophy. 1667. Ward, Seth, Essays on the Attributes of God, Immortality of the Soul, etc. 1669. Ramus, Peter, Dialectics duo libri ; a reprint by Dounam. 1669. De la Forge, De Mente Humana. 1670. Pascal, B., Pensees. 1670. Spinoza, Tractatus Politico-theologicus. 1670. Tenison, T., Creed of Mr. Hobbes Examined. 1672. Cumberland, R., De Legibus Nature. 498 APPENDIX. 1672. Puffendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium. See Kennett's edition with Barbeyrac's Preface and Notes. 1672. Le Grand, Apologia pro Renato Descartes, an Answer to Parker. 1672. Milton, J., Artis Logicse plenior Institutio, ad Rami metho dum concinnata. 1673. Ferguson, Robert, Discourse of Moral Virtue and Grace. 1674. Malebranclie, Recherche de la Verite. 1674. Tepelin, J., Historia Philosophise Cartesianse. 1675. Institutio Philosophise secundum principia Renati Des- cartes, in usum Juventutis : much read in Cambridge. 1676. Clarendon's Survey of Errors in Hobbes' Leviathan. 1676. Glanvil, Joseph, Essays on several Subjects in Philosophy and Religion. 1677. Spinoza, Opera Posthuma. 1678. Parker, S., De Deo et Providentia. 1678. Bernier's Abrege de la Philosophic de Gassendi. 1678. Burthogge's Organum ; or, Discourse of Reason and Truth. 1678. Cudworth's Intellectual System. 1678. Edwards on the Will. 1679. More, Dr. H., Collected Works. 1681. Parker, S., Divine Authority of the Law of Nature. 1682. Baxter's Immortality of the Soul and Nature of Spirits. 1682. Rust, Dr., Discourse of Truth, with Glanvil's Lux Orientalis. 1683. Arnauld, A., Des vraies et des fausses Idees contre Male- branche. 1684. Whitby, D., Ethices Compendium, a text-book at Oxford. 1684. Leibnitz, Acta Eruditorum ; Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas. 1686. Horneck, Anthony, First Fruits of Reason. 1687. Wallis, Institutio Logicse, ad communes usus accommodatse. 1689. Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. 1689. Regis, J. S., Systeme de la Philosophic. 1689. Huet, P., Censura Philosophise Cartesianse. 1690. Aldrich, Compendium Artis Logicse. 1693. Bentley, R., On the Folly of Atheism. 1694. Burthogge, R., On Reason, and the Nature of Spirits ; Au- thor of a Letter to Mr. Locke, 'On the Soul of the World and of particular Souls/ in Lord Somers' Tracts, vol. ii. p. 229. 1695. Toland's Christianity not Mysterious. 1695. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. 1695. Norris, J., Account of Reason and Faith, in reply to Locke. APPENDIX. 1 ( ' ( > lt> ( J(). Leibnitz, Reflexions sur 1'Essai de rEntendnm-nt Ilniimin do M. Locke. 1697. Boldo, S., Tract in Vindication of Locke. 1697. Collier, ,I-r., Essays on Moral Subjects. 1698. Lowde on the Nature of Man. 1699. Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue; surreptitiously printed. 1700. Account of Mr. Locke's Eeligion ; supposed to be by A 1 1 . Philosophical Discourse on the Nature of Humnn IV \\ itli remarks on Berkeley. 1777. Sharpe, Gram illc, Tract on the Law of Nature and Princi- ples of Action in Man. 1779. Sharpc, Granville, Dialogues concerning Innate Principles. (See M. E. for year.) 1780. Buffier, First Truths, translated, with Preface. 1781. Tucker, Joseph, Treatise concerning Civil Government. 1781. Kant, Immanuel, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 1782. Towers, Dr. Joseph, Vindication of Locke's Political Prin- ciples. 1785. Eeid, Dr. T., Essays on the Intellectual Powers. 1785. Paley, Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. 1786. Tooke, J. Home, Epea Pteroenta. 1788. Eeid, Dr. Thomas, Essays on the Active Powers. 1789. Bentham, J., Principles of Morals and Legislation. 1.789. Cooper, Thomas, Ethical Tracts. 1790. Alison, Arch., Essays on Taste. 1790. Gisborne, Thomas, Examination of Paley. 1790. Trembley, Essai sur les Prejuges. 1792. Gregory, Dr. James, Philosophical Essays on the relation of Motive and Action, and that of Cause and Effect, etc. 1792. Stewart, Dugald, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. 1793. Crornbie, Dr. A., on Philosophical Necessity. 1793. Godwin, W., Inquiry concerning Political Justice. 1794. Doddridge,Dr., Lectures on Pneumatology, Ethics, and Divi- nity, third edition, by Kippis. 1794. Darwin, Dr. E., Zoonomia ; or, Laws of Organic Life. 1794. Morell, Thomas, Notes and Annotations on Locke, written by order of Queen Caroline. 1795. Intellectual Physics, believed to be by Governor Pownall, of Bath. 1796. Gilbert's Law of Evidence, with an Abridgment of Locke by C. Lofft. 1797. Croft, Dr., Defence of Paley 's Moral Philosophy. 1798. Willich, Dr. A. F. M., Elements of Critical Philosophy, from Kant. 1798. Brown, Dr. Thomas, Observations on Darwin's Zoonomia. 1799. Monboddo, Lord, Ancient Metaphysics, 6 vols. 4to. 1800. Cogan, Dr. T., Philosophical Treatise on the Passions. 1800. Pearson, Dr., Two Pamphlets against Paley. 1801. Malmesbury, Lonl. edition of Hams'> Philological and Phi- losophical Works, with Lit'r. 504 APPENDIX. 1801. Belsham, Thomas, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. 1806. Brown, Dr. T., Essay on Cause and Effect, second edit. 1806. Knight, R. P., Essay on the Principles of Taste. 1807. Cogan, Dr. T., Ethical Treatise. 1809. Kirwan, Richard, Metaphysical Essays. 1810. Stewart, Dugald, Essays on t^e Philosophy of the Mind. 1817. Cogan, Dr. T., Ethical Questions. 1832. Austin, John, the Province of Jurisprudence determined. 1835. Hampden, Dr. R. D., Lectures introductory to the Study of Moral Philosophy. 1842. Bowen, Francis, Critical Essays on Subjects connected with Speculative Philosophy. Boston, U.S. 1849. Lectures on the Application of Metaphysical Science to the Evidences of Religion. 1850. Smith, Rev. Sydney, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philo- sophy. 1852. Whewell, Dr. W., Lectures on the History of Moral Philo- sophy in England. 1854. Outline of the Laws of Thought, by William Thomson, M.A. To these should be added the modern works of highest repute on Logic, by Whately, De Morgan, and Mill ; the dissertations on the History of Philosophy, by Stewart and Mackintosh, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; works on Physiology as connected with the Mind ; and the books of Mr. S. Bailey ; but with recent works well known I have been less particular as to the date of their ap- pearance. A similar table might be compiled for France and Germany. THE END. JOHN EDWABD TAYLOR, PBINTEB, LITTLE QUEEN STBEET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED C^CUIATION DEPARTMENT This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. are subject to immediate recall. INTERLIBRARY L OAN .mi 30 1976 i ifvllV/ OFT f"*Al IP BERK UfHiV. 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