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'-/-,' 


THE  COLLECTED  WOIIKS 


III' 


DlIGALl)    STEWART. 


vol..  I. 


n 


THE  COLLECTED  WORKS 


o: 


DUGALD  STEWART,  ESQ.,  F.R.SS., 

HOHORART  MBICBBR  OF  THE  IMPBRIAL  ACADEMr  OP  aCI£NCE8  AT  ST.  PBTEB8BUSO ; 
MRMBSR  UP  TUB  BOTAL  ACADBMT  OP  BBRUB  *,  AKD  OP  THE  AMBBICAB  « 
;  PHILOSOPHICAL  80C1BTT  HELD  AT  PHILADELPHIA  ;  PROPE880B  OP 

u  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  IX  THE  UNIVERBITT  OP  BDIRBUROH. 


EDITED  BT 


SIR  WILLIAM  HAMILTON,  BART., 

ADTOCATB;  a.m.  (OZOR.).  BTC.  ;  COIKISPOBDIIIO  MBMBBB  of  fBB  IBSTITCTB  or  PEABCB  ; 
BOMOBAET  MBJCBBB  OP  TBB  LATIR  80CIBTT  OP  JB9A.  BTO.  :  PBOPIBtOB  OF 
LOGIC  ABD  HBTAPBTSICt  IB  TOB  UBITBBSITT  OP  BDIBBUEOB. 


VOL.  I. 


EDINBURGH :  THOMAS  CONSTABLE  AND  CO. 

HAMILTON,  ADAMS,  &  CO.,  LONDON. 


MrK'CTI.IV 

H. 


IDlMtl'ftUU  :  T.  C0V8TABLI,  rmiRTIB  TO  BKB  MAJUTT. 


DISSERTATION: 


EXniBtTlNO  TUB  PR00RE8H  OF 


METAPHYSICAL,  ETHICAL,  AND  POLITICAL 

PHILOSOPHY, 


SINCE  THE  REVIVAL  OF  LETTERS  IN  EUROPE. 


WITH  NUMEROUS  AND  IMPOBTANT  ADDITIONS  NOW  FIRST  PURLISHRD. 


BY 


DUGALD  ITEWART,  ESQ. 


EDITED  BY 

SIR  WILLIAM   HAMILTON,   BART. 


EDINBURGH :  THOMAS  CONSTABLE  AND  CO. 

HAMILTON,  ADAMS,  &  CO.,  LONDON. 

MDCCCLIV. 

H  ■ 


llANFoSf 


LIBRARY 

H 


ADVERTISEMENT   BY  THE   EDITOR. 


Or  Mr.  Stewart'8  historical  Dissertation  on  the  progress  of 
Philosophy,  there  are  two  editions ;  wliieh  being  both  prepared 
vdth  the  participation  of  the  Author,  must,  consequently,  both 
be  consulte<l  by  an  Editor  in  the  constitution  of  a  comprehensive 
and  authoritative  text.  In  both  also  the  Dissertation  is  prefixed 
to  re-impressions  of  the  Encyclopiedia  Britannica ;  for  the  right 
has  not  hitherto  been  exercised  of  publishing  it  separately,  or 
in  a  collection  of  Mr.  Stewart's  writings. 

The  First  Part  of  the  Dissertation  originally  appeared  in 
1815;  the  Second  Part,  in  1821.  The  two  were  reprinted 
continuously  in  a  second  edition  several  years  subsequently, 
and  stereotyiHKl.  The  editions  are  substantially  identical ;  but 
in  the  second  there  are  found  a  few  additions,  and  at  least  two 
omissions,  (pp.  201,  613.)  Tlie  present  volume  is  printed  from 
the  second  edition,  collated,  however,  with  the  first.  The 
omitted  passages  have  been  reinstated,  but  explicitly  dis- 
iinguisheil ;  it  has  not,  however,  been  thought  necessary  to 
discriminate  the  printed  additions. — So  much  as  to  the  pub- 
lished sources ;  it  is  now  requisite  to  ndd  somewhat  in  regard 
to  the  unpublished. 


VUl  ADVERTIREMEKT  BY  THE  EDITOR. 

In  the  present  edition  of  the  Dissertation,  beside  the  con- 
cluding Chapter  of  Part  Third  and  its  relative  Note,  wliich 
now  appear  for  the  first  time,  there  are  given  numerous  and 
extensive  additions,  both  in  the  body  of  the  work,  and  in  the 
notes.  These,  as  inserted,  are  all  marked  by  their  enclosure 
within  square  brackets.  They  are,  liowever,  to  be  divided  into 
two  classes,  as  derived  from  different  sources.  In  the  first  place, 
Mr.  Stewart's  own  interleaved  copy  of  the  original  edition  of 
both  Parts  of  the  Dissertation,  contributes  various  corrections 
and  amplifications.  These  have  all  been  made  use  of,  and 
their  insertion  is  simply  indicated  by  the  brackets.  In  the 
second  place,  the  other  authorities  from  which  new  matter  has 
been  obtained,  (but  for  Part  Second  only,)  stand  on  a  less 
favoiu*able  footing;  in  so  far  as  whatever  they  afford  was, 
after  being  written,  omitted  by  Mr.  Stewart  himself  from  the 
Dissertation  as  published.  These  omissions,  however,  seem 
to  have  been  made  under  an  anxiety  to  bring  the  work,  as 
connected  with  the  Encyclopaedia,  within  a  narrower  compass, 
(see  p.  201,)  and  not  in  consequence  of  any  rejection  of  the 
passages  as  in  themselves  either  erroneous  or  redundant. 
Their  insertion  is,  therefore,  now  marked  not  only  by  the 
brackets,  but  expressly  as  resto^rUioris ;  jand  though  printed 
without  other  distinction,  it  should  be  mentioned  that  they 
also  are  founded  on  two  several  documents.  They  are  partly 
taken  from  the  original  proof  of  the  Dissertation ;  it  being 
explained  that  Mr.  Stewart  was  in  use  to  have  the  whole,  or  a 
large  portion  of  an  intended  publication,  set  up  at  once  in  type, 
and  on  tliis,  at  his  leisure,  he  made  any  alterations  which  he 
thought  expedient.  Such  a  proof  of  Part  Second  is  preserved, 
and  it  supplies  much  that  is  new  and  valuable.  Again,  there 
remains  of  the  same  Part  a  copy  of  the  author's  original 
manuscript,  which  exhibits,  in  like  manner,  many  jmssages 


ADVEUTISEMENT  BY  THE  ]a)lTOU.  IX 

which,  though  unpublished,  uierit  preservation.  Of  this,  it 
indeed  appears  that  Mr.  Stewart  was  fidly  sensible.  For  he, 
has  not  only  printed  in  the  second  edition  some  insertions 
drawn  from  all  the  three  sources,  (insertions  which,  as  stated, 
do  not  in  the  present  publication  show  any  sign  of  discrimina- 
tion ;)  but  on  the  third  document — the  original  manuscript, 
it  is  prominently  noted  in  his  daughters  handwriting,  that 
"  this  particularly  is  to  be  pre8er\'ed  with  care,"  as  containing 
'^  some  valuable  passages  not  printed."  Accordingly,  these 
omissions  have,  in  a  great  measure,  l)een  recovered,  and  as 
already  noticed,  those  from  the  two  last  sources  are  indifferently 
marked  out  by  the  word  restored. 

In  the  historical  devcloi)ment  of  a  series  of  opinions  so  com- 
plex, conflictive,  and  recondite,  it  could  not  but  happen,  be 
their  general  agreement  what  it  might,  that  the  conclusions  of 
the  author  should  to  the  editor  apjHMir  occasionally  to  require, 
beside  defence,*  perliaps  supplement,  qualification,  or  even 
correction.     But  as  I  am  |)ersuaded  of  its  propriety,  so  I  have 

*  I  may  take  tluHopportiiDity  of  Kup-  Tcrsy  conconiiiig  Pcrt'cption  liaR  been 

plying  an  example. — Mr.  Fearn,  in  bin  carriecl  on  during  near  a  centur)' ;  I  will 

iagenious   work,   ^irtt  Linen   of  the  venture  to  l)elieve,  tberc  is  not  tbe  mont 

Human  3Hnd^  (1820,)  bw«,  tbrougbout  diHtant  bint,  in  anyone  of  tbeir voluraeH, 

a  long  preface,  mmie  n  vebcnient  attack  tbat  a  varikty  of  roIourM  is  necessary 

on  Mr.  Stewart,  for  statements  contained  for  tbe  act  of  perceiving  vUibU  figure  or 

iu  the  First  Part  of  bis  Dissertation,  in  outline:  nor  do  tbey  at  all  bint  at  any 

regard  to  colours,  (tn/Va,  pp.  131-134;)  sucb  aKscrtion  as  being  made  by  any 

asserting,  that  tbe  fivct.  which  is  8Ui>-  writer,  ancient  or  modern."    Tbe  italicn 

posed  to  be  there  fir$t  alleged,  bad  been  and  capitals  are  Mr.  Feam*8. — llu;  letter 

taken,  without  acknowledgment,  frcmi  bis  to  T)r.  lioid,   "  of  forty  years  before,*' 

(Mr.  Fearn's)  writings.  Mr.  Fearn  says.  and  now  lirnt  printed,  (p.   133,   ne*/.,^ 

(p.  lix-) — "  To  justify  most  conclusively  <>ompleteIy  vindicates, — what   be   bini 

my  af4Kcrtions,  made  at  tliflerent  times.  self  coidd  not  condos<'end  to  do, — Mr. 

tbat    tbe  original   notice   of  even    tbe  Stewart's  statements.    He  therein,  ifiter 

t/eneric  fart  renides  with  myhclf,  I  now  r/Zm,  expressly  maintains: — "Totbisupi- 

procced  to   observp,    tbat,   altbongb    I  ni<»n  [lieid's]  I  cannot  stibscril>e  ;  iKK^ause 

liave  bail  occasion  to  periihe,  and  make  it  api>cai'8  to  me  to  be  evident,  tbat  our 

very  frequent  references  to,  the  wurkw  [lerceptionH  of  (^ol«»ur  and  figure  are  not 

of  Bkkkelky,  of  IItme,  of  T)k.  1Ikii».  <»nly    received   by    the  Hume    orpin    ol 

and  of  Profk8S<»k  Stkwaiit,   Initween  ►'••n>e,  but  that  tbe  rnrii'ties  in  our  /mt- 

>\hom  it  in  undeniable  tbe  great  rontro-  ccptiom  of  rofonr  HVf  tb«!  mmns  of  our 


X  ADVERTISEMENT  BY  THE  EDITOR. 

undertaken  the  office  of  his  editor  under  the  condition — that 
Mr.  Stewart's  writings  should,  in  this  collective  edition,  be  pub- 
lished without  note  or  comment  The  only  annotations,  there- 
fore, which  I  have  deemed  it  necessary  or  even  projKjr  to 
append,  are  such  as  were  required  in  the  execution  of  my 
editorial  functions  By  exception,  however,  one  or  two  biblio- 
graphical facts  of  some  importance,  but  generally  unknown, 
have  been  simply  supplied.  WTiere  also  Mr.  Stewart  had 
neglected  a  useful  reference,  such  has  been  silently  filled 
up ;  while  verbal  inaccuracies  and  imperfections  have,  ill  like 
manner,  been  emended.  Beside,  therefore,  the  principal  value 
bestowed  on  this  edition  of  the  Dissertation  by  the  extent  and 
importance  of  its  new  matter ;  it  is  hoped,  that  the  book  has 
thus  been  rendered  more  convenient  for  study,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  useful  subsidiaries  of  a  well  digested  Index,  and  of  an 
appropriate  disposition  of  minuter  running  titles. 

W.  H. 

Edimburoh,  April  1854. 


perception  of  visible  figure."    Compare 
also  his  doctrine  on  p.  552. 

It  may  here  be  added,  that  the  whole 
speculation  concerning  the  realizing,  not 
only  to  imagination  but  to  sight,  of 
breadthUss  lineSj  (a  speculation,  in  fact, 
hardly  contemplated  by  Mr.  Stewart,) 
can  be  traced  to  Aristotle,  but  more 


explicitly  to  Produs  and  his  scholar, 
Ammonins  Hermice;  while  in  modern 
times,  I  find  the  phsenomenon  signa- 
lized, among  others,  by  Clavius,  by 
D^Alembert,  and  by  Dr.  Thomas  Young. 
Nor  should  it  now  remain  a  paradox ; 
nor  even  an  unemployed  truth. 


CONTENTS. 


DISSERTATION. 

PROCIRE88  OF  M  ETA  PHYSIC  A  I.,  KTHICAI.,  AND  POLITICAL  PIIII^BOPIIT. 

Paoi 
Pkefa<-f,  containing  Bomc  Critical  RomnrlcH  on  the  DiHoonnie  prefixed  to 

the  French  EncycloptMlift.      .....  1 

PART  FIRST.— Tntrodlxtiox,  .....  23 

CiiAiTKR  I.  I*n)prcM  of  Philosophy  from  the  Rovival  of  JiVttom  to  the 

publicHtion  of  Bacon *8  Philoftophicnl  Works,  25 

(*HAiTBii  II.  ProgresR  of  Philosophy  from   the  publication  of  Bacon*a 
Philosophical  Works  tiU  that  of  the  Essay  on  Hnraan  Tnder- 
standing. 
Skit.  1.  ProgrcHs  of  PhiloHophy   in   England  during  this  |)oriod. — 

I^on,       .......  68 

Ilobbes,  .....  .  7\i 

Antagonists  of  Hoblics,     .....  8/i 

Sf.(T.  "2.  Progress  of  Philosophy  in   Fmnc#*  during  the  Seventeenth 
Century. — 
Montaigne. — C'horron. — Jja  Kochcfoucauld.  08 

Descartes. — Gaasendi. — Malehranche,      .  .         ll'i 

Sett.  3.  Progress  of  Philosophy  during  the  Seventeenth  C'entury  in 
Homc  parts  of  Europo  not  included  in  the  preceding 
Review,  .  .  .  .170 

PART  SE<X)ND.— IsTKonucTios,  .....        203 

Progress  of  Metaphysics  during  the  Eighteenth  Century. — 

Sr«t.  1.  Historical  ond  Critical  Review  of  the  Philosophicnl  Wnrks  of 

T/Ocke  and  T/cibnitz. — I^ickc,     ....        20(> 
Sect.  2.  Continuation  of  the  Review  of  T/x'ke  and  Ijcibuitz. — I^'ibnitz,     '.WJ 


xu 


CONTENTS. 


I'AOI 


Skct.  3.  Of  the  Metaphysical  Speculations  of  Newton  and  Clarke. — 
Digresrion  with  respect  to  the  System  of  Spinoza, 
CollinSi  and  Jonathan  Edwards. — Anxiety  of  both  to 
reconcile  the  scheme  of  Necessity  wiih  Man's  Moral 
Agency. — Departure  of  some  later  Necessitarians  from 
their  yiews,        ...... 

Sect.  4.  Of  some  Authors  who  have  contributed,  by  their  Critical  or 
Historical  Writings,  to  diffu.He  a  taste  for  Metaphysical 
Studies. — Bayle. —  Fontenelle. — Addison. — Metaphysi- 
cal Works  of  Berkeley,  .... 

Sect.  6.  Uartleian  School,      ...... 

Sbot.  6.  Condilhic,  and  other  French  Metaphysicians  of  a  later  date, 

Sect.  7.  Kant,  and  other  Metaphysicians  of  the  New  German  School, 

SiCT.  8.  Metaphysical  Philosophy  of  Scotland, 


287 


313 
352 
358 
389 
427 


PART  THIRD.— 
Plrogress  of  Ethical  and  Political  Philosophy  during  the  Eighteenth 

Century. — 
Chapter. — (Fragment  in  conclusion.) — Progress,  Tendencies,  Results,         487 

Notes  and  Illustrations, 

To  Part  I.,  ......  529 

To  Part  II.,  ......  550 

To  Part  III.,  ......  614 

sufplemknt,      ........        615 

Index,  ........        619 


PREFACE. 


CONTAINING  SOME  CRITICAL  RBMAIUCS  ON  THE  DISCOURSE 
PREFIXED  TO  THE  FRENCH  ENCYCLOPEDIE. 


When  I  ventured  to  undertake  the  tank  of  contributing  a 
Preliminary  Dissertation  to  these  Supplemented  Volumes  of  the 
Encydopcedia  Britannica,  my  original  intention  was,  after  the 
example  of  D'Alemlx»rt,  to  have  l)egim  with  a  general  survey  of 
the  various  departments  of  human  knowle<lge.     The  outline  of 
such  a  survey,  sketched  by  the  comprehensive  genius  of  Bacon, 
together  with  the  corrections  and  improvements  suggested  by 
his  illustrious  disciple,  would,  I  thought,  have  rendered  it  com- 
paratively easy  to  adapt  their  intellectual  map  to  the  jiresent 
advanced  state  of  the  sciences ;  while  the  unrivalled  authoritv 
which  their  united  work  has  long  maintained  in  the  republic  of 
letters,  would,  I  flattered  myself,  have  softened  those  criticisms 
which  might  be  expected  to  be  incurred  by  any  similar  attemj)t 
of  a  more  modern  hand.     On  a  closer  examination,  however,  of 
their  labours,  I  found  myself  under  the  necessity  of  abandoning 
this  design.     Doubts  immediately  occurred  to  me  with  respect 
to  the  ju.stne8s  of  their  logical  views,  and  soon  terminated  in  a 
conviction,  that  these  views  are  radically  and  essentially  erro- 
neous.    Instead,  therefore,  of  endeavouring  to  give  additional 
currency  to  sj)eculations  which  I  conceived  to  be  fundamentally 
unsound,  I  resolved  to  avail  myst^lf  of  the  present  op])ortunity 

VOL.  T.  A 


ON  D  ALEMBERT's  ENCYCLOPEDICAL  TREE,  3 

executing  successfully  this  chart  or  tree,  a  philosophical  delinea- 
tion of  the  natural  progress  of  the  mind  may  (according  to  him) 
furnish  very  useful  lights ;  although  he  acknowledges  that  the 
results  of  the  two  undertakings  cannot  fail  to  differ  widely  in 
many  instances — ^the  laws  which  regulate  the  generation  of  our 
ideas  often  interfering  with  that  systematical  order  in  the  rela- 
tive arrangement  of  scientific  pursuits,  which  it  is  the  purpose 
of  the  Encyclopedical  Tree  to  exhibit^ 

In  treating  of  the  first  of  these  subjects,  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  D'Alembert  has  displayed  much  ingenuity  and  invention ; 
but  the  depth  and  solidity  of  his  general  train  of  thought  may 
be  questioned.  On  various  occasions,  he  has  evidently  suffered 
himself  to  be  misled  by  a  spirit  of  false  refinement ;  and  on 
others,  where  probably  he  was  fully  aware  of  his  inability  to 
render  the  theoretical  chain  complete,  he  seems  to  have  aimed 
at  concealing  from  his  readers  the  faulty  links,  by  availing 
himself  of  those  epigrammatic  points,  and  other  artifices  of 
style,  with  which  the  genius  of  the  French  language  enables  a 
skilful  writer  to  smooth  and  varnish  over  his  most  illogical 
transitiona 

The  most  essential  imperfections,  however,  of  this  historical 
sketch,  may  be  fairly  ascribed  to  a  certain  vagueness  and  inde- 
cision in  the  author's  idea,  with  regard  to  the  scope  of  his  in- 
quiriea  What  he  has  in  general  pointed  at  is  to  trace,  from 
the  theory  of  the  Mind,  and  from  the  order  followed  by  nature 
in  the  development  of  its  powers,  the  successive  steps  by  which 


'  The  true  reason  of  this  might  per- 
haps have  heen  assigned  in  simpler 
terms,  hy  remarking  that  the  order  of 
inTention  is,  in  most  cases,  the  reverse 
of  that  fitted  for  didactic  communication. 
This  observation  applies  not  only  to 
the  analytical  and  synthetical  processes 
of  the  individual^  but  to  the  progressive 
improvements  of  the  apedea^  when  com- 
pared witli  the  arrangements  prescribed 
by  logical  method  for  conveying  a 
knowledge  of  them  to  students.  In  an 
enlightened  age,  the  sciences  arc  justly 


considered  as  the  basis  of  the  arts  ;  and, 
in  a  course  of  liberal  education,  the  for* 
mer  are  always  taught  prior  to  the  latter. 
But,  in  the  order  of  invention  and  dis- 
covery, the  arts  preceded  the  sciences. 
Men  measured  land  before  they  studied 
speculative  geometry ;  and  governments 
were  established  before  politics  were  stu- 
died as  a  science.  A  remark  somewhat 
similar  is  made  by  Celsus  concerning  the 
history  of  medicine  :  "  Non  medicinam 
rationi  esse  posteriorem,  sed  post  medici- 
nam inventam,  rationem  esse  quiesitam." 


4  DIB8EBTATI0K. — PIOtFACR. 

the  curiosity  niiiy  be  conceived  to  have  been  gnuluaUy  con- 
ducted from  one  intellectual  pursuit  to  aiiotlicr ;  liut,  in  tbo 
execution  of  this  design,  (which  in  itself  is  Iiigldy  iiliilosophical 
and  interesting,)  he  does  not  appear  to  liave  paid  due  attention 
to  the  essential  difference  between  the  history  of  the  human 
speciea,  and  that  of  the  civilizt'd  and  inquisitive  individual. 
The  former  was  undoubtedly  that  which  principally  figured  in 
his  conceptions  ;  and  to  wliich,  I  apprehend,  be  ought  to  have 
confined  himself  excbisively  ;  whereas,  in  fact,  he  has  ho  com- 
pletely blended  the  two  subjects  together,  that  it  is  often  impos- 
sible U>  say  wliich  of  them  was  up]>ermo9t  in  his  thoughts.  The 
consequence  is,  that  instead  of  throwing  upon  either  those 
strong  and  steady  lights  which  might  have  lieen  expected  from 
his  powers,  he  has  involved  both  in  additional  obscurity.  This 
indistinetuess  is  more  peculiarly  remarkable  in  the  lieginning 
of  his  Discourse,  where  he  represents  men  in  the  earheat  infancy 
of  science,  before  they  had  time  to  take  any  precautions  for 
securing  the  means  of  their  subsistence,  or  of  their  safety, — aa 
philoBophizing  on  their  eeusations, — on  the  existence  of  their 
own  bodies, — and  on  that  of  the  mjiterial  world.  His  Dis- 
course, aceonlingly,  sets  out  with  a  series  of  Meditations,  pre- 
cisely analogous  to  those  which  form  the  introdnctiou  to  the 
philosophy  of  Descartes  ;  meditations  which,  in  the  order  of 
time,  have  been  unifonnly  posterior  to  the  study  of  external 
natims ;  and  which,  even  in  such  an  age  as  the  present,  are 
confined  to  a  comi>aratively  small  number  of  recluse  meta- 
physicians, 

Of  this  sort  of  conjectural  or  theoretical  history,  the  most 
unexceptionable  specimens  which  have  yet  appeared,  arc  indis- 
putably the  fragments  in  Mr.  Smith's  posthumous  work  on  the 
Histfiry  of  Astronomy,  and  on  that  of  the  Ancient  Systems  of 
Physics  and  Mettiphysies,  That,  in  the  latter  of  these,  he  may 
have  occasionally  accommodated  his  details  to  his  own  peculiar 
opinions  concerning  the  object  of  Pliiloeophy,  may  perhaps,  with 
some  truth,  be  alleged ;  but  he  must  at  least  be  allowed  the 
merit  of  completely  avoiding  the  error  by  which  D'AIembert 
was  minled  ;  and  even  in  (hose  insfanei'tt  wbeir  he  himself  Beemn 


ON  d'alembekt'h  kncyclopedic  al  trke.  5 

to  wander  a  little  from  the  right  path,  of  fumishmg  his  suc- 
cessors with  a  thread,  leading  by  easy  and  almost  insensible 
steps,  from  the  first  gross  perceptions  of  sense,  to  the  most 
abstract  refinements  of  the  Grecian  schools.  Nor  is  this  the 
only  praise  to  which  these  fragments  are  entitled.  By  seizing 
on  the  different  points  of  view  from  whence  the  same  object 
was  contemplated  by  different  sects,  they  often  bestow  a  certain 
degree  of  unity  and  of  interest  on  what  before  seemed  calculated 
merely  to  l)ewilder  and  to  confound  ;  and  render  the  apparent 
aberrations  and  caprices  of  the  understanding  subservient  to 
the  study  of  its  operations  and  laws. 

To  the  foregoing  strictures  on  D'Alembert  s  view  of  the  origin 
of  the  sciences,  it  may  be  added,  that  this  introductory  part  of 
his  Discourse  does  not  seem  to  have  any  immediate  connexion 
with  the  sequel  We  are  led,  indeed,  to  expect,  that  it  is  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  study  of  the  Encylopedical  Tree  after- 
wards to  be  exhibited ;  but  in  this  expectation  we  are  com- 
pletely disappointed ; — no  reference  to  it  whatever  being  made 
by  the  author  in  the  farther  prosecution  of  his  subject.  It 
forms,  accordingly,  a  portion  of  his  Discourse  altogether  foreign 
to  the  general  design  ;  while,  from  the  metaphysical  obscurity 
which  pervades  it,  the  generality  of  readers  are  likely  to  receive 
an  impression,  either  unfavourable  to  the  perspicuity  of  the 
writer,  or  to  their  own  powers  of  comprehension  and  of  reason- 
ing. It  were  to  l)e  wished,  therefore,  that  instead  of  occupying 
the  first  pages  of  the  Encydoptdiey  it  had  l)een  reserved  for  a 
separate  article  in  the  body  of  that  work.  There  it  might  have 
been  read  by  the  logical  student,  with  no  small  interest  and  ad- 
vantage ;  for,  with  all  its  imperfections,  it  bears  numerous  and 
precious  marks  of  its  author's  hand. 

In  delineating  liis  Encyclopedical  Tree,  D'Alembert  has,  in 
my  opinion,  been  still  more  unsuccessful  than  in  the  8i)ecula- 
tions  which  have  been  hitherto  under  our  review.  His  venera- 
tion for  Bacon  seems,  on  this  occasion,  to  have  prevented  him 
from  giving  due  scope  to  his  own  i)owerfid  and  fertile  genius, 
and  has  engaged  him  m  the  fruitless  task  of  attempting,  by 
means  of  arbitrary  definitions,  to  draw  a  veil  over  uicurable 


niBSKRTATIOS. — ^PRETAOE. 


ishee.    In  this  part  of  Bacon's  logic,  it  miiRt,  b 


defects  and  blei 

tlie  BBme  time,  be  owned,  that  there  is  sometliing  jieculinrly 
captivating  to  the  fancy ;  and,  accfirdinglj',  it  has  united  in  its 
favour  the  sufirages  of  almost  all  the  succeeding  authors  who 
have  treated  of  the  same  subject.  It  will  l>e  necessary  for  me, 
therefore,  to  explain  fully  the  founds  of  that  censure,  which, 
in  opposition  to  so  many  illustrious  namen,  I  have  jiresumed  to 
bestow  on  it. 

Of  the  leading  ideas  (a  which  I  more  particularly  object,  the 
following  statement  is  given  by  D'Alembert.  I  qiiote  it  in 
preference  to  the  corresponding  passage  in  Bacon,  as  it  contains 
various  explanatory  clauses  and  glosses,  for  which  we  Eire  in- 
debted to  the  ingenuity  of  the  commentator. 

"  The  objecl*  about  which  our  muids  are  occupied,  are  either 
spiritual  or  material,  and  the  media  employed  for  thiH  purpose 
arc  our  ideas,  either  directly  received,  or  derived  from  reflec- 
tion. The  system  of  our  direct  knowletlge  consists  entirely  in 
the  passive  and  mechanical  accumulation  of  the  particulars  it 
comprehends ;  an  accumulation  which  belongs  exclusively  to 
the  province  of  Memoiy,  Eeflection  is  of  two  kinds,  according 
as  it  is  empl<^e(.l  in  i-easoning  on  the  objects  of  our  direct  ideas, 
or  in  studying  tliem  as  models  for  imitation, 

"  Thus,  Memory,  Reajwn,  strictly  so  called,  and  Imagination, 
are  the  tliree  modes  in  which  the  mind  ojKjrates  on  the  subjects 
of  its  thoughts.  By  Imagination,  however,  is  here  to  be  under- 
stood, not  the  facidty  of  conceiving  or  represeuting  to  ourselves 
what  we  have  formerly  jtcrceived,  a  faculty  which  diflers  in 
nothiTig  from  the  memory  of  these  perceptions,  and  which,  if  it 
were  not  relieved  by  the  invention  of  signs,  woidd  be  in  a  state 
of  continual  exercise.  The  power  which  we  denote  by  tins 
name  has  a  nobler  province  allotted  to  it,  that  of  rendering 
imitation  subservient  to  the  creations  of  genius. 

"  These  tliree  faculties  suggest  a  corresponding  division  of 
human  knowledge  into  three  branches: — 1.  History,  which 
derives  its  materials  from  Memory ;  2.  Philosophy,  wiiieh  is 
the  product  of  Reason ;  and  3.  Poetry,  (comprehending  under 
this  title  all  the  Fine  Arts,)  which  is  the  offNjiring  of  Tmagina- 


ON  d'aLEMBER1''8  ENCYCLOPEDICAL  TREE.  7 

tiou.^  If  we  place  Reason  before  Imagination,  it  is  because 
this  order  appears  to  us  conformable  to  the  natural  progress  of 
our  intellectual  operations.*  The  Imagination  is  a  creative 
faculty,  and  the  mind,  before  it  attempts  to  create,  begins  by 
reasoning  upon  what  it  sees  and  knowa  Nor  is  this  all.  In 
the  faculty  of  Imagination,  both  Reason  and  Memory  are,  to  a 
certain  extent,  combined — ^the  mind  never  imagining  or  creat- 
ing objects  but  such  as  are  analogous  to  those  whereof  it  has 
had  previous  experience.  Where  this  analogy  is  wanting,  the 
combinations  are  extravagant  and  displeasing ;  and,  conse- 
quently, in  that  agreeable  imitation  of  nature,  at  which  the 
fine  arts  aim  in  common,  invention  is  necessarily  subjected  to 
the  control  of  niles  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  philosopher 
to  investigate. 

"  In  farther  justification  of  this  arrangement,  it  may  be  re- 
marked, that  Reason,  in  the  course  of  its  successive  operations 
on  the  subjects  of  thought,  by  creating  abstract  and  general 
ideas,  remote  from  the  perceptions  of  sense,  leads  to  the  exer- 
cise of  Imagination  as  the  last  step  of  the  process.  Thus 
metaphysics  and  geometry  are,  of  all  the  sciences  belonging  to 
Reason,  those  in  which  Imagination  has  the  greatest  share. 
I  ask  pardon  for  this  observation  from  those  men  of  taste,  who, 
little  aware  of  the  near  affinity  of  geometry  to  their  own  pur- 
suits, and  still  less  suspecting  that  the  only  intermediate  step 


'  The  latitude  given  by  D^AIembert 
to  the  meaning  of  the  word  Poetry  is  a 
real  and  very  important  improvement 
on  Bacon,  who  restricts  it  to  fictitious 
History  or  Fables. — {De  Aug.  SciewL  lib. 
ii.  cap.  i.)  D*Alembert,  on  the  other 
hand,  employs  it  in  its  natural  signifi- 
cation, as  synonymous  with  inveniion  or 
creation.  "  La  Peinture,  la  Sculpture, 
1* Architecture,  la  Pocsie,  la  Musique,  et 
leurs  difierentes  divisions,  composent  la 
troisi^me  distribution  gcn6rale  qui  nait 
de  rimagination,  et  dont  les  parties  sent 
comprises  sous  le  nom  de  Beaux-Arts. 
On  pent  les  rapporter  tons  k  la  Poesie, 
en  prenant  ce  mot  dans  sa  signification 


naturelle,  qui  n^est  autre  chose  quMn- 
vention  ou  creation.** 

*  In  placing  Reason  before  Imagina- 
tion, D'Alembert  departs  iirom  the  order 
in  which  these  faculties  are  arranged  by 
Bacon.  ^  Si  nous  n'avons  pas  place, 
comme  lui,  la  Raison  apr^s  Tlmagina 
tion,  c'est  que  nous  avons  suivi,  dans 
le  systdme  Encyclopedique,  I'ordre  m6ta- 
physique  des  op6rations  de  I'esprit, 
plutdt  que  Tordre  historique  de  ses  pro- 
gr^s  depuis  la  renaissance  des  lettres.'* 
— (Disc.  PriUm.)  How  far  the  motive 
here  assigned  for  the  change  is  valid, 
the  reader  will  be  enabled  to  judge 
from  the  sequel  of  the  above  quotation. 


DiaSEBTATlOM. — PBEFACE. 

iHjtweini  llifiii  ia  formed  by  nietapliysicK,  are  ilisjuiHeil  tii  t'ni|iioy 
their  wit  in  depreciating  its  value.  The  trutli  is,  thnt,  to  tlio 
geometer  who  invents,  Imagination  is  not  less  essential  than  to 
the  poet  who  creates.  They  operate,  indeed,  dilFerentiy  on 
their  objeet,  the  former  aitetracting  and  analyzing,  where  the 
latter  combinea  and  adorns; — two  procesees  of  the  mind,  it 
must,  at  the  same  time,  be  confessed,  wliich  seem  from  expe- 
rience to  be  so  little  congenial,  thjit  it  miiy  lie  donbted  if  the 
talents  of  a  great  geometer  and  of  a  great  jioet  will  ever  be 
imited  in  the  Hame  jjerson.  But  whether  these  talents  be,  or 
be  not  mutually  exclusive,  certain  it  is,  that  they  who  posseEii 
the  oue,  have  no  right  to  des^iise  those  who  cultivate  the 
other.  Of  all  the  great  meu  of  antiquity,  Areliimedes  is  [ler- 
liaps  he  who  is  the  Wst  entitled  to  be  placed  by  the  side 
of  Homer,' 

D'Alcmliert  afterwards  proceeds  to  observe,  that  of  these 
three  genend  branches  of  the  Encyclopedical  Tree,  a  natural 
and  convenient  subdivision  is  atl'onled  by  the  meta]ihyHical 
distribution  of  things  into  Material  and  Spiritual.  "  Witli 
these  two  classes  of  existences,"  he  observes  farther,  "  history 
and  philosophy  are  equally  conversant ;  but  as /or  the  lmagi?ia- 
Hottj  her  imitaliona  are  entirely  confijt&t  to  the  maieriat  world  ; 
— a  cireumstaiice,"  he  adds,  "  which  conspires  with  the  other 
arguments  above  stated,  in  justifying  Bacon  for  assigning  to 
her  the  last  place  in  his  enumeration  of  our  intellectual  facul- 
ties,"' UiKin  this  subdivision  be  enlarges  at  some  length,  and 
with  couKiderable  ingenuity;  but  on  the  present  occasion  it 
would  be  qiute  snjierfluous  to  follow  him  any  fitrther,  as  more 
than  enough  has  been  alrcadj'  quoUn,!  to  enable  my  readers  tv 


'  In  thin  eiclnaivB  liinitiilion  oflUepro- 
vinoe  of  Iinaginiition  In  things  material 
*nd  sensible,  D'Alcmbert  has  foltowcd 
the  definitioa  givca  Uj  Deacurtes  in  liis 
■ecand  Meditation  : — "  Imaginari  niklt 
alitul  (tl  quant  m  toi'ponix  figarnm 
tat  tmaiiinnn  rasteinpiiri,-" — a  power 
of  the  niind,  wbicli  (m  1  liaie  eUerliere 
obKin'ed)  appeare  lo    mt    to    he   juool 


preaiacly  expreseed  ia  our  language  by 
the  ward  Conoepluni.  The  prOTincH 
asKigiied  to  Imngination  by  D'Atembert 
is  mora  flxtennive  (hon  thin,  for  he  ui- 
cribiM  Id  ber  olui  a  crsnlive  and  combin- 
ing power ;  but  slill  hie  delinilinn  agraaa 
with  thnt  of  Descnrtca,  innaiuncb  aa  it 
BiclndEs  CDlirelj  frum  her  dominion  both 
lliu  iiilollcclual  mid  the  moral  worlds. 


ox  D  ALEMBERT  H  ENCYCLOPEDICAL  TKEE. 


)) 


judge,  whether  the  objections  wliich  I  am  now  to  state  to  the 
foregoing  extracts  be  as  sound  and  decisive  as  I  apprehend 
them  to  be. 

Of  these  objections  a  very  obvious  one  is  suggested  by  a  con- 
sideration, of  which  D'Alembert  himself  has  taken  notice, — 
that  the  three  faculties  to  which  he  refers  the  whole  o})eration8 
of  the  understanding  are  perpetually  blended  together  in  their 
actual  exercise,  insomuch  that  there  is  scarcely  a  branch  of 
human  knowledge  which  does  not,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
furnish  employment  to  them  all.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that 
some  pursuits  exercise  and  invigorate  particular  faculties  more 
than  others ;  that  the  study  of  History,  for  example,  although 
it  may  occasionally  require  the  aid  both  of  Reason  and  of  Ima- 
gination, yet  chiefly  furnishes  occupation  to  the  Memory ;  and 
that  this  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  logical  division  of  our  mental 
powers  as  the  ground-work  of  a  corresponding  Encycloi>edical 
classification.^  This,  however,  will  be  found  more  siHJcious 
than  solid.  In  what  respects  is  the  faculty  of  Memory  more 
essentially  necessary  to  the  student  of  history  than  to  the 
philosopher  or  to  the  poet ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  what 
value,  in  the  circle  of  the  sciences,  would  be  a  collection  of 
historical  details,  accumulated  without  discrimination,  without 
a  scrupulous  examination  of  evidence,  or  without  any  attempt 
to  compare  and  to  generalize  ?  For  the  cultivation  of  that 
species  of  history,  in  particular,  which  alone  deserves  a  place  in 
the  Encyclopedical  Tree,  it  may  be  justly  affirmed,  that  the 
rarest  and  most  com[)rehensive  combination  of  all  oiu*  mental 
gifts  is  indispensably  requisite. 

Another,  and  a  still  more  formidable  objection  to  Bacon  s 


'  I  allude  here  to  the  following  apo- 
logy for  Bacon,  suggested  by  a  very 
learned  and  judicious  writer: — 

'*  On  a  fait  ccpcndant  h  Bacon  quel- 
ques  reproches  assez  fondes.  On  a  ob- 
serve que  sa  classiHcation  des  sciences 
repose  sur  une  distinction  qui  n'cst  pas 
rigoureuse,  puisque  la  niemoirc,  la  nii- 
son,  et  1' Imagination  concourent  neces- 


sairement  dans  chaquc  art,  comme  dans 
chaque  science.  Mais  on  peut  repondre, 
que  I'une  ou  Taut  re  do  ces  trois  facultes, 
quoique  secondee  ])ar  les  deux  autres, 
peut  ccpendant  joucr  le  ro\e  principal. 
En  prenant  la  diKtinction  de  Bacon  dans 
CO  sens,  sa  clasMiBcation  rcste  exacte,  et 
devient  trus  utile.'* — Dcgernndo,  Hist. 
Conip.  tome  i.  p.  298. 


10 


DISHERTATtOH. — PRSrACR. 


claBsificattou,  may  be  deriveil  from  the  very  imperfect  ami  |)iir- 
tial  analynis  of  the  mind  which  it  aBsumes  as  its  liasis.  Why 
were  the  powers  of  Abstraction  and  Generalization  passed  over 
in  eilence  ? — ^powers  wliich,  according  aa  they  are  cultivated 
or  neglected,  constitute  the  most  essential  of  all  distinctions 
between  the  intellectual  characters  of  individuals.  A  corre- 
sponding distinction,  too,  not  less  important,  may  I>e  reraarke<l 
among  the  objects  of  hiimati  study,  according  as  our  aim  ia  to 
treasure  up  pai'ticular  facts,  or  to  esfjiblish  general  ctinclusions. 
Does  not  this  distinction  mark  out^  with  greater  precision,  the 
limits  which  separate  pldlosophy  from  mere  liistorical  narrative, 
than  that  which  turns  upon  the  different  provinces  of  Beason 
and  of  Memory  ? 

I  aliall  only  add  one  other  criticism  on  tliis  celebrated  enimie- 
ration,  and  that  is,  its  want  of  distinctness,  in  confounding 
together  the  Sciences  and  the  Arts  imder  the  same  general 
titles.  Hence  a  variety  of  those  capricious  arrangements, 
wliich  must  immediately  strike  every  reader  who  follows  Bacon 
through  his  details ;  the  reference,  for  instance,  of  the  mechani- 
cal arts  to  the  deparbnent  of  History;  and,  consequently, 
according  to  his  own  annlysis  of  the  naind,  the  ultimate  refer- 
ence of  these  arts  to  the  faculty  of  Memory :  while,  at  the  same 
time,  in  )iis  tripartite  division  of  the  whole  field  of  human 
knowletlge,  the  art  of  Poetry  has  one  entire  province  allotted 
tti  itself. 

These  ohjectiona  apply  in  common  to  Bacon  and  to  D'Alem- 
bert  That  which  follows  has  a  particidar  reference  to  a 
jiasBage  already  cited  from  the  latter,  where,  by  some  false 
refinements  concerning  the  nature  and  functions  of  Imagination, 
he  has  renderetl  the  classification  of  his  jiredecessor  incompar- 
ably more  indistinct  and  illogical  than  it  seemed  to  be  before. 

That  all  the  creations,  or  new  combinations  of  Imagination, 
imply  the  previous  process  of  decomposition  or  analysis,  is 
abundantly  manifest  j  and,  therefore,  without  departing  from 
the  common  and  popular  nse  of  language,  it  may  un- 
doubtedly Ije  said,  that  the  faculty  of  abstraction  is  not  leas 
essential  to  the  Poet,  than  to  the  Geometer  and  the  Meta- 


ON  D  ALEMBERT  8  ENCYCLOPEDICAL  TREE. 


11 


physiciaD.i  But  this  is  not  the  doctrine  of  D'Alembert.  On 
the  contrary,  he  affirms,  that  Metaphysics  and  Geometry  are, 
of  all  the  sciences  connected  with  Reason,  those  in  which 
Imagination  has  the  greatest  share ;  an  assertion  which,  it  will 
not  be  disputed,  has  at  first  sight  somewhat  of  the  air  of  a 
paradox ;  and  which,  on  closer  examination,  ¥rill,  I  apprehend, 
be  found  altogether  inconsistent  with  fact  If  indeed  D'Alem- 
bert  had,  in  this  instance,  used  (as  some  writers  have  done) 
the  word  Imagination  as  sjmonymous  with  Invention,  I  should 
not  have  thought  it  worth  while  (at  least  so  far  as  the  geometer 
is  concerned)  to  dispute  his  proposition.  But  that  this  was  not 
the  meaning  annexed  to  it  by  the  author,  appears  from  a  sub- 
sequent clause,  where  he  tells  us,  that  the  most  refined  opera- 
tions of  reason,  consisting  in  the  creation  of  generals  wliich  do 
not  fall  under  the  cognizance  of  our  senses,  naturally  lead  to 
the  exercise  of  Imagination.  His  doctrine,  therefore,  goes  to 
the  identification  of  Imagination  with  Abstraction ;  two  facul- 
ties so  very  different  in  the  direction  which  they  give  to  our 
thoughts,  that  (according  to  his  own  acknowledgment)  the  man 
who  is  habitually  occupied  in  exerting  the  one,  seldom  fails  to 
impair  both  Ids  capacity  and  his  relish  for  the  exercise  of  the 
other. 

This  identification  of  two  faculties,  so  strongly  contrasted  in 
their  characteristical  features,  was  least  of  all  to  be  expected 
from  a  logician,  who  had  previously  limited  the  province  of  Im- 
agination to  the  imitation  of  material  objects ;  a  limitation,  it 
may  be  remarked  in  passing,  which  is  neither  sanctioned  by 
common  use,  nor  by  just  views  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Mind. 
Upon  what  ground  can  it  be  alleged  that  Milton's  portrait  of 


*  This  assertion  must,  however,  be 
nnderstood  with  some  qualifications ; 
for,  althongh  the  poet,  as  well  as  the 
geometer  and  the  metaphysician,  be 
perpetually  called  npon  to  decompose, 
by  means  of  abstraction,  the  complicated 
objects  of  perception,  it  must  not  be 
concluded  that  the  abstractions  of  all 
the  three  are  exactly  of  the  same  kind. 


Those  of  the  poet  amount  to  nothing 
more  than  to  a  separation  into  parts  of  the 
realities  presented  to  his  senses ;  which 
separation  is  only  a  preliminary  step 
to  a  subsequent  recomposition  into  new 
and  ideal  forms  of  the  things  abstract- 
ed ;  whereas  the  abstractions  of  the  me- 
taphysician and  of  the  geometer  form  the 
very  objects  of  their  respective  sciences. 


12 


DISBEKTATIUK. — PKSFAUE. 


Hiitan's  iiitellectQiil  niiil  moral  cliaracter  was  not  tlif  offi*])riiig 
of  the  same  creative  fiiculty  which  gave  birth  to  hie  Giinleii  of 
Edeii  ?  After  such  a  dcfinitiou,  however,  it  is  diiHcult  to  con- 
ceive iiow  80  very  aijute  a  wriltT  should  have  referred  to  Ima- 
^natiou  the  abstractious  of  the  geometei-  and  of  the  metaphy- 
sician ;  and  still  more,  that  he  should  have  attempted  to  juatily 
this  relerence,  by  observing,  that  tliese  abstractions  do  not  i'all 
under  the  cognizance  of  the  senses.  My  own  ojjiniuu  is,  that 
in  the  comiwsition  of  the  wliole  jtassage  he  had  a  view  to  the 
imcxiwcted  parallel  between  Homer  and  Arcliiniedes,  with  wltich 
he  meant,  at  the  close,  to  Biirfirise  his  readers. 

If  the  foregoing  strictures  be  well  founded,  it  seems  to  follow, 
not  only  tliat  the  attempt  of  Bacon  and  of  D'Alenihert  to  clas- 
sify the  sciences  and  arl«  according  to  a  logical  division  of  our 
faculties,  is  altogether  unsatisfactory,  but  that  every  future 
attempt  of  the  same  kind  may  be  expectetl  to  be  liable  to  simi- 
lar objections.  In  studying,  indeed,  the  Theory  of  tlie  Mind,  it 
is  nece^aty  to  push  our  analysis  as  far  as  the  nature  of  the 
subject  admits  of;  and,  wherever  the  thing  is  jiossible,  to  exa- 
mine its  constituent  principles  separately  and  apart  from  each 
other :  but  this  consideration  itself,  when  combined  with  what 
was  before  stated  ou  the  eiulless  varietj'  of  forms  in  which  they 
may  be  blended  together  in  our  various  intellectual  pursuits,  is 
sufficient  to  shew  how  ill  adai^ed  such  an  analysis  must  for 
ever  remain  to  serve  as  the  basis  of  an  Encyclopedical  distri- 
bution.' 

The  circumstance  to  which  this  part  of  Bacon's  philosophy  is 


'  In  jngtioe  to  tlie  itullinra  or  the  Eu- 
cjclopodicalTnw  preSxed  lo  the  Frtiitli 
IHctionary,  It  ougbl  lo  l*  oUerVGrJ,  lliat 
it  in  Bpokm  of  by  U'Alrmlicrt,  in  hii> 
Preliminary  Dine™!™*,  with  the  iilniifflt 
mndenty  nnd  diffi<leD('e ;  ntid  liint  lie  has 
expressed  not  onlj  Ma  own  vimTiclian, 
liiit  that  of  his  collenguc,  of  ihe  inipon- 
sibilily  of  pxrcnting  such  n  tnsk  in  n 
Dianner   likely   lo    Bating  the   pnhlic. 

liilraire  qui  rp^iicra  loiijoiirs  dutiii  uiiu 


paraille  divigion,  ponv  croiro  quo  noire 
syBteme  eoit  I'lmiijuo  ou  le  nicillcur  ; 
il  uoaft  suflira  quo  notre  travail  ne  aoit 
]>rut  eiiti^renient  dvsap|irouve  [tar  Im 
boos  uBpritB."  And,  snnie  pages  after- 
wards— "  Si  le  puhlic  fclaire  donne  «ftii 
approbaltoii  h  cea  cliiuigemenB,  elle  aern 
la  rfoompcnuo  de  notre  docilite  ;  et  ■'it 
ne  \e»  approiivc  paa,  noila  n'en  senmo 
que  plus  coiivtuncTiB  de  I'iaipnuitbilitt' 
tie  former  un  urUre  enryolopi^dique  qui 


ON  d'alembeut's  encyclopedical  tree.  13 

chiefly  indebted  for  its  popularity,  is  the  specious  simplicity  and 
comprehensiveness  of  the  distribution  itself — ^not  the  soundness 
of  the  logical  views  by  which  it  was  suggested.  That  all  our 
intellectual  pursuits  may  be  referred  to  one  or  other  of  these 
three  heads — History,  Pliilosophy,  and  Poetry,  may  undoubtedly 
be  said  with  considerable  plausibility ;  the  word  history  being 
understood  to  comprehend  all  our  knowledge  of  particular  facts 
and  particular  events ;  the  word  philosophy,  all  the  general  con- 
clusions or  laws  inferred  from  these  particulars  by  induction ; 
and  the  word  poetry,  all  the  arts  addressed  to  the  imagination. 
Not  that  the  enumeration,  even  with  the  help  of  this  comment, 
can  be  considered  as  complete,  for  (to  jmss  over  entirely  the 
other  objections  already  stated)  under  which  of  these  three  heads 
shall  we  arrange  the  various  branches  of  pure  mathematics  ? 

Are  we  therefore  to  conclude,  that  the  magnificent  design 
conceived  by  Bacon,  of  enumerating,  defining,  and  classifying 
the  multifarious  objects  of  human  knowledge — (a  design,  on 
the  successful  accomplielmient  of  which  he  himself  believed  that 
the  advancement  of  the  sciences  essentially  depended) — are  we 
to  conclude  that  this  design  was  nothing  more  than  the  abor- 
tive offspring  of  a  warm  imagination,  unsusceptible  of  any 
useful  application  to  enlighten  the  mind,  or  to  accelerate  its 
progress  ?  My  own  idea  is  widely  different.  The  design  was, 
in  every  respect,  worthy  of  the  sublime  genius  by  which  it  was 
formed.  Nor  does  it  follow,  because  the  execution  was  imper- 
fect, that  the  attempt  has  been  attended  with  no  advantage.  At 
the  period  when  Bacon  wrote,  it  was  of  much  more  consequence 
to  exhibit  to  the  learned  a  comprehensive  sketch,  than  an  accu- 
rate survey  of  the  intellectual  world;  such  a  sketch  as,  by 
pointing  out  to  those  whose  views  had  been  hitherto  confined 
within  the  limits  of  particular  regions,  the  relative  }K)8ition8  and 
bearings  of  their  respective  districts,  as  parts  of  one  great  whole, 
might  invite  them  all,  for  the  common  benefit,  to  a  reciprocal 
exchange  of  their  local  riches.  The  societies  or  academies 
which,  soon  after,  sprung  up  in  different  countries  of  Euroj)e, 
for  the  avowed  purpose  of  contributing  to  the  general  mass  of 
information,  by  the  collection  of  insulated  fivts,  conjectures,  and 


14 


DISSERTATION. — PSEFACE. 


iiueries,  afford  Biillicient  proof  that  the  auticipatioiis  of  Biicon  I 
were  not,  in  this  instance,  altogether  chimerical. 

In  cxnniiniiig  the  details  of  Bacon'u  surrey,  it  is  impuseubld  I 
not  to  be  struck  (more  especially  when  wv  reflect  on  the  stata  ] 
of  learning  two  hundred  years  ago)  with  the  miniiteaess  of  his  1 
information,  as  well  as  with  the  extent  of  liis  news ;  or  to  for-  \ 
liear  admiring  his  sagacity  In  pointing  out,  to  futiu-o  adven- 
turers, tlie  unknown  triicts  still  left  to  be  explored  by  human  j 
curioflity.   If  hifi  classifications  l>e  sometimes  artificiiJ  and  arbi- 
trarj',  they  liave  at  least  the  merit  of  including,  under  one  head  i 
or  another,  every  particular  of  importauce ;  and  of  exhibiting   I 
these  particulars  with  a  degree  of  method  and  of  apparent  o 
nexiou,  which,  if  it  does  not  always  satisfy  the  judgment,  never 
fails  to  interest  the  fancy,  and  U)  lay  hold  of  the  memory.     Nor   i 
must  it  be  forgotten,  to  the  gloiy  of  his  genius,  that  what  he  < 
failed  to  accomplish  remains  to  this  day  a  desideratum  in   , 
science, — that  the  intellectual  chart  delineated  by  him  is,  with 
all  its  imperfections,  the  only  one  of  which  modern  pWlosophy   . 
has  yet  to  boast ; — and  tliat  the  united  talents  of  D'Alembert 
and  of  Diderot,  aided  by  all  the  lights  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, have  been  able  to  add  hut  little  to  what  Bacon  performed. 
After  the  foregoing  observations,  it  will  not  be  expected  that 
an  attempt  is  to  l>e  made,  in  the  following  essay,  to  solve  a  pro- 
blem which  has  so  recently  baffled  the  j)owerB  of  these  eminent 
writers ;  and  which  will  probably  long  continue  to  exercise  the 
ingenuity  of  oiu-  successors.     How  much  remauis  to  be  pre- 
viously done  for  the  improvement  of  that  jwrt  of  logic,  whose 
province  it  is  to  fix  the  limits  by  wluch  contiguous  de])artment8 
of  study  are  defined  and  separated  1     And  how  many  nnsus- 
]»ected  affinities  may  be  reasonably  presiuned  to  exist  among 
sciences,  whicli,  to  our  circumscribe<l  views,  appear  at  jiresent 
the  most  aUen  from  each  other  1     The  ahsti-act  geometr>'  of 
ApoUonius  and  Archimedes  was  foimd,  after  an  interval  of  two 
thousand  years,  to  furnish  a  torch  to  the  physical  inquiries  of 
Newton  ;  while,  in  the  farther  prt^jess  of  knowledge,  the  Ety- 
mology of  Languages  has  been  happily  employed  to  fill  up  the 
chasms  of  Ancient  History ;  and  the  conclusions  of  Compura- 


ON  D*AL£MBEBT'8  ENCYCLOPEDICAL  TREE.  15 

tive  Anatomy,  to  illuhtrate  the  Theory  of  the  Eartli.  For  luy 
ovm  part,  even  tf  the  task  were  executed  with  the  most  com- 
plete success,  I  should  be  strongly  inclmed  to  think,  that  its 
appropriate  place  in  an  Encyclopfedia  would  be  as  a  branch  of 
the  article  on  Logic  ; — certainly  not  as  an  exordium  to  the  Pre- 
liminary Discourse ;  the  enlarged  and  refined  views  wliich  it 
necessarily  presupposes  being  peculiarly  imsuitable  to  that  jjart 
of  the  work  which  may  he  expected,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
attract  the  curiosity  of  every  reader.  As,  upon  this  point,  how- 
ever, there  may  be  some  diversity  of  opinion,  I  have  prevailed 
on  the  Editor  to  add  to  these  introductory  Essays  a  translation 
of  lyAlembert's  Discourse,  and  of  Diderot's  ProsjKxitua  No 
Englisli  version  of  either  has,  as  far  as  I  know,  been  hitherto 
published ;  and  the  result  of  their  joint  ingenuity,  exerted  on 
Bacon's  ground-work,  must  for  ever  fix  no  inconsiderable  era  in 
the  history  of  learning. 

Before  concluding  this  preface,  I  shall  subjoin  a  few  sUght 
strictures  on  a  very  concise  and  comprehensive  division  of  the 
objects  of  Human  Knowledge,  proi>osed  by  Mr.  Locke,  as  the 
basis  of  a  new  classification  of  the  sciences.  Although  I  do  not 
know  that  any  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  follow  out  in 
detail  the  general  idea,  yet  the  repeated  approbation  which  has 
been  lately  bestowed  on  a  division  essentially  the  same,  by 
several  writers  of  the  highest  rank,  renders  it  in  some  measure 
necessary,  on  the  present  occasion,  to  consider  how  far  it  is 
founded  on  just  principles ;  more  especially  as  it  is  completely 
at  variance,  not  only  with  the  language  and  arrangement 
adopted  in  these  preliminary  essays,  but  with  the  whole  of  that 
plan  on  wliich  the  original  projectors,  as  well  as  the  continua- 
tors,  of  the  Encydopcedia  Britanmca  appear  to  have  proceeded. 
These  strictures  will,  at  the  same  time,  afford  an  additional 
proof  of  the  difficulty,  or  rather  of  the  impossibility,  in  the 
actual  state  of  logical  science,  of  solving  this  great  problem,  in 
a  manner  calculated  to  unite  the  general  suffrages  of  philo- 
sophers. 

*^  All  that  can  fall,"  says  Mr.  Locke,  "  within  the  coini)a8H  of 
Human  Understanding  being  either,  first,  The  natui^e  of  tilings 


1  ()  DISSERTATION. — PREFACE. 

as  they  are  iii  themselves,  their  relations,  and  their  manner  of 
operation  ;  or,  secondly,  That  which  man  himself  ought  to  do, 
as  a  rational  and  voluntary  agent,  for  the  attainment  of  any 
end,  especially  happiness;  or,  thirdly.  The  ways  and  means 
whereby  the  knowledge  of  both  the  one  and  the  other  of  these 
is  attained  and  communicated :  I  think  science  mav  be  divided 
properly  into  these  three  sorts : — 

"  1.  fvaifcfi^  or  Natural  Philosophy.  The  end  of  this  is  bare 
sj>eculative  truth  ;  and  whatsoever  can  afford  the  mind  of  man 
any  such  falls  under  this  branch,  whether  it  ]>e  God  himself, 
angels,  spirits,  bodies,  or  any  of  their  affections,  as  number  and 
figure,  &c. 

"  2.  IIpa/cTucTi,  The  skill  of  right  appl}dng  our  own  i)owerR 
and  actions  for  the  attainment  of  things  goo(^l  and  useful.  The 
most  considerable  under  this  head  is  Ethics,  which  is  the  seek- 
ing out  those  niles  and  measures  of  human  actions  which  lead 
to  happiness,  and  the  means  to  practise  them.  The  end  of  this 
is  not  Imre  speculation,  but  right,  and  a  conduct  suitable  to  it.^ 

"  3.  SvfJ^uaTiKTf,  or  the  doctrine  of  signs,  the  most  usual 
whereof  being  words,  it  is  aptly  enough  termed  also  Aoyud), 
Logic,  The  business  of  this  is  to  consider  the  nature  of  signs 
the  mind  makes  use  of  for  the  imderstanding  of  things,  or  con- 
veying its  knowledge  to  others. 

"  This  seems  to  me,"  continues  Mr.  Locke,  "  the  first  and  most 
general,  as  well  as  natural,  division  of  the  objects  of  our  under- 
standing ;  for  a  man  can  employ  his  thoughts  about  notliing 
but  either  the  contemplation  of  things  themselves,  for  the  dis- 
covery of  tnith,  or  about  the  things  in  his  own  power,  which 
are  his  own  actions,  for  the  attainment  of  his  own  ends;  or 
the  signs  the  mind  makes  use  of,  both  in  one  and  the  other, 
and  the  right  ordering  of  them  for  its  clearer  information. 
All  which  three,  viz.,  tilings  as  they  are  in  themselves  knowable ; 
actions  as  they  depend  on  us,  in  order  to  happiness ;  and  the 

'  From  this  definition  it  appears,  that  and  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Miwij 

as  Ijocke  included  under  the  title  o^Phy-  so  he  meant  to  refer  to  the  head  of  Prac- 

aicSj  not  only  Natural  Philosophy,  pro-  tics,  not  only  Ethics,  but  all  the  various 

l)erly  so  called,  hnt  Natural  Tfieohgy,  w4r/j»  of  life,  both  mechanical  and  libeml. 


ON  d'alembert's  encyclopedical  tree.  17 

right  use  of  aignSy  in  order  to  knowledge ;  being  toto  ccelo 
different,  they  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  three  great  provinces  of 
the  intellectual  world,  wholly  separate  and  distinct  one  from 
another.'*^ 

From  the  manner  in  which  Mr.  Locke  expresses  himself  in 
the  above  quotation,  he  appears  evidently  to  have  considered 
the  division  proposed  in  it  as  an  original  idea  of  his  own ;  and 
yet  the  truth  is,  that  it  coincides  exactly  with  what  was  gene- 
rally adopted  by  the  philosophers  of  ancient  Greece.  "  The 
ancient  Greek  Philosophy,"  saj's  Mr.  Smith,  "  was  divided  into 
three  great  branches,  Physics,  or  Natural  Philosophy ;  Ethics, 
or  Moral  Philosophy;  and  Logic.  ITiia  general  division," 
he  adds,  ^^aeems  perfectly  agreecMe  to  the  nature  of  things!' 
Mr.  Smith  afterwards  observes,  in  strict  conformity  to  Locke's 
definitions,  (of  which,  however,  he  seems  to  have  had  no  recol- 
lection when  he  wrote  this  passage,)  '^  That,  as  the  human 
mind  and  the  Deity,  in  wliatever  their  essence  may  be  sup]X)sed 
to  consist,  are  parts  of  the  great  system  of  the  universe,  and 
parts,  too,  productive  of  the  most  important  effects,  whatever 
was  taught  in  the  ancient  schools  of  Greece  concerning  their 
nature,  made  a  part  of  the  system  of  physics."  * 

Dr.  Campbell,  in  his  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,  has  borrowed 
from  the  Grecian  schools  the  same  very  extensive  use  of  the 
wotUb  physics  oxid  physiology,  which  he  em})loy8  aa  synonjmous 
terms;  comprehending  under  this  title  "not  merely  Natural 
History,  Astronomy,  Geography,  Mechanics,  Optics,  Hydrostatics, 
Meteorology,  Medicine,  Chemistry,  but  also  Natural  Theology 
and  Psychology,  which,"  he  observes,  "  bive  been,  in  his  opinion, 
most  unnaturally  disjoined  from  Physiology  by  philosophers." 
"Spirit,"  he  adds,  "which  here  comprises  only  the  Supreme 
Being  and  the  human  soul,  is  surely  as  much  included  under  the 
notion  of  natural  object  as  body  is ;  and  is  knowable  to  the  philo- 
sopher purely  in  the  same  way,  by  observation  and  exiKTience."^ 

*  See  the  coiicludinp  chnptcr  of  the  ■  Wealth  of  Nations,  Ikwk  V.  chap.  i. 

JSiMiy  on  the  Human  Underttanding^ 

entitleil,    "  Of    the   Division    of    the  ■  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,    Book   I. 

Sciences."  chap.  v.  Part  iii.  §  1. 

VOL.  I.  B 


18 


DISSERTATION. — PREFACE. 


A  similar  train  of  thinking  led  the  late  celebrated  M.  Tnrgot 
to  comprehend  under  the  name  of  Pliysics,  not  only  Natural 
Philosophy,  (as  that  phrase  is  imderstood  by  the  Newtonians,) 
but  Metaphysics,  Logic,  and  even  History.^ 

Notwithstanding  all  this  weight  of  authority,  it  is  difficult 
to  reconcile  one's  self  to  an  arrangement  which,  while  it  classes 
with  Astronomy,  with  Mechanics,  with  Optics,  and  with  Hydro- 
statics, the  strikingly  contrasted  studies  of  Natural  Theology 
and  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  disunites  from  the 
two  last  the  far  more  congenial  sciences  of  Ethics  and  of  Logic. 
The  human  mind,  it  is  true,  as  well  as  the  material  world 
which  surrounds  it,  forms  a  part  of  the  great  system  of  the 
Universe ;  but  is  it  possible  to  conceive  two  parts  of  the  same 
whole  more  completely  dissimilar,  or  rather  more  diametrically 
opposite,  in  all  their  characteristical  attributes  ?  Is  not  the  one 
the  appropriate  field  and  provuice  of  observation, — a  power 
liabitually  awake  to  all  the  perceptions  and  impressions  of  the 
bodily  organs  ?  and  does  not  the  other  fall  exclusively  under  the 
cognizance  of  re/lection, — ^an  operation  which  inverts  aU  the 
ordinary  habits  of  the  understanding, — ^abstracting  the  thoughts 
from  every  sensilJc  object,  and  even  8tri\ing  to  abstract  them 
from  every  sensible  image  ?  AVliat  abuse  of  language  can  be 
greater  than  to  ai)ply  a  common  name  to  departments  of  know- 
ledge which  invite  the  curiosity  in  directions  precisely  contrary, 
and  which  tend  to  form  intellectual  talents,  which,  if  not  alto- 
gether incompatible,  are  certainly  not  often  found  united  in  the 
same  individual  ?  The  word  Phymcs,  in  particular,  which,  in 
our  language,  long  and  constant  use  has  restricted  to  the  phe- 


*  "  Sous  le  nora  de  sciences  pliy- 
Riques  jc  comprciids  la  lop^quc,  qui  est 
,  la  connoissAiice  dcs  operations  do  notre 
esprit  et  de  la  generation  do  nos  idtes, 
la  metaphysiqw!,  qui  s'occnpe  do  la 
nature  et  de  I'origine  des  etres,  et  enfin 
la  physique,  proprement  dite,  qui  ob- 
serve Taction  mutuel  dcs  corps  les  uns 
Bur  les  autres,  et  les  causes  et  Wwl- 
chainement  des  phcnomones  sensiMes. 
On  pourroit  y  ajotiter    VhitftoireJ^ — 


(Euvrea  de  Turgot,  tome  ii.  pp.  284, 
285. 

In  the  year  1795,  a  quarto  volume 
was  published  at  Bath,  entitled  Intel- 
lectual Phyffics.  It  consists  (jutirely  of 
speculations  concerning  the  human 
mind,  and  is  by  no  means  destitute  of 
merit.  The  publication  was  anony- 
mous ;  but  I  have  reason  to  believe  that 
the  author  was  the  late  well>known 
Governor  Pownall. 


J  .  -  — ...^~^— ) 


ON  DALEMBERTS  ENCYCLOPEDICAL  TREE.  .    19 

nomena  of  Matter,  cannot  fail  to  strike  every  ear  as  anomalomly^ 
and  therefore  illogically,  applied,  when  extended  to  those  of 
Thought  and  of  Consciousness. 

Nor  let  it  be  imagineil  that  these  obsen^ations  assume  >any 
particular  theory  about  the  natiu-e  or  essence  of  Mind.  Whether 
we  adopt,  on  this  point,  the  language  of  the  Materialists,  or 
that  of  their  opj)onents,  it  is  a  i)roposition  equally  certjiin  and 
equally  indisputable,  that  the  phenomena  of  Mind  and  thosi^  of 
Matter,  as  far  as  they  come  under  the  cognizance  of  our  faculties, 
appear  to  Ik?  more  completely  heterogeneous  than  any  other 
classes  of  facts  within  the  circle  of  our  knowlcKlge ;  and  that 
the  sources  of  our  information  concerning  them  are  in  every 
respect  so  radically  different,  that  nothing  is  more  carefully  to 
be  avoide<l,  in  the  study  of  either,  than  an  attempt  to  assimilate 
them,  by  means  of  analogical  or  metaphorical  terms,  apjJied  to 
both  in  common.  In  those  inquiries,  alx)ve  all,  where  we  have 
occasion  to  consider  Matter  and  Mind  as  conspiring  to  j>ro<luce 
the  same  joint  eifects,  (in  the  constitution,  for  example,  of  our 
o^m  comi)ounded  frame,)  it  becomes  more  peculiarly  necessary 
to  keep  constantly  in  view  the  distinct  j)rovince  of  e^ch,  and  to 
remember,  that  the  business  of  philosophy  is  not  to  resolve 
the  phenomena  of  the  one  into  those  of  the  other,  but  merely 
to  ascertain  the  general  laws  which  regulate  their  mutual  con- 
nexion. Matter  and  Mind,  therefore,  it  should  seem,  are  the 
two  most  general  heads  which  ought  to  form  the  ground-work 
of  an  Encyclopedical  classification  of  the  sciencc^s  and  arts.  No 
branch  of  human  knowlc^dge,  no  work  of  human  skill,  can  1x3 
mentioned,  which  does  not  obviously  fall  under  the  fonner 
head  or  the  latter. 

Agreeably  to  this  twofold  classification  of  the  sciences  and 
arts,  it  is  proposed,  in  the  following  introductory  Essays,  to  ex- 
hibit a  rapid  sketch  of  the  progress  made  since  the  revival  of 
letters — First,  in  those  branches  of  knowledge  which  relate  to 
mind ;  and,  secondly,  in  those  which  relate  to  matter.  D'Alem- 
bert,  in  his  Preliminary  Discourse*,  has  boldly  attemptiKl  to 
embrace  both  subjects  in  one  magnificent  design ;  and  never, 
certainly,  was  there  a  single  mind  more  equal  to  such  an  under- 


20    •  DISSERTATION. PREFACE. 

taking.  The  historical  outline  which  he  has  there  traced  forms 
by  far  the  most  valuable  portion  of  that  performance,  and  will 
for  ever  remain  a  proud  monument  to  the  depth,  to  the  com- 
prehensiveness, and  to  the  singular  versatility  of  his  genius.  In 
the  present  state  of  science,  however,  it  has  been  apprehended 
that,  by  dividing  so  great  a  work  among  diiferent  hands,  some- 
thing might  perhaps  be  gained,  if  not  in  point  of  reputation  to 
the  authors,  at  least  in  point  of  instruction  to  their  readers. 
This  division  of  labour  was,  indeed,  in  some  measure  rendered 
necessary  (independently  of  all  other  considerations)  by  the  im- 
portant accessions  which  mathematics  and  physics  have  received 
since  D'Alembert's  time;  by  the  innmnerable  improvements 
which  the  spirit  of  mercantile  speculation,  and  the  rivalship  of 
commercial  nations,  have  introduced  into  the  mechanical  arts ; 
and,  above  all,  by  the  rapid  succession  of  chemical  discoveries 
which  commences  with  the  researches  of  Bhick  and  of  Lavoisier. 
The  part  of  this  task  which  has  fallen  to  my  share  is  certainly, 
upon  the  whole,  the  least  splendid  in  the  results  which  it  has 
to  record ;  but  I  am  not  without  hopes  that  tliis  disadvantage 
may  be  partly  comi)ensated  by  its  closer  connexion  with  (what 
ought  to  be  the  ultimate  end  of  all  our  pursuits)  the  intellectual 
and  moral  improvement  of  the  species. 

I  am,  at  the  same  time,  well  aware  that,  in  proportion  as  this 
last  consideration  increases  the  importance,  it  adds  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  my  undertaking.  It  is  chiefly  in  judging  of  questions 
"  coming  home  to  their  business  and  bosoms,"  that  casual  asso- 
ciations lead  mankind  astray;  and  of  such  associations  how 
incalculable  is  the  number  arising  from  false  systems  of  religion, 
oppressive  forms  of  government,  and  absurd  plans  of  education ! 
The  consequence  is,  that  while  the  physical  and  mathematical 
discoveries  of  former  ages  present  themselves  to  the  hand  of  the 
historian  like  masses  of  pure  and  native  gold,  the  truths  which 
we  are  here  in  quest  of  may  be  compared  to  iron,  which,  although 
at  once  the  most  necessary  and  the  most  widely  diffused  of  all 
the  metals,  commonly  reqiures  a  discriminating  eye  to  detect  its 
existence,  and  a  tedious,  as  well  as  nice  process,  to  extract  it 
from  the  ore. 


ON  d'alembert's  encyclopedical  tree.  .   21 

To  the  same  circumstance  it  is  owing,  that  improvements  in 
moral  and  in  political  science  do  not  strike  the  imagination  vdth 
nearly  so  great  force  as  the  discoveries  of  the  mathematician  or 
of  the  chemist  Wlien  an  inveterate  prejudice  is  destroyecl  by 
extirpating  the  casual  associations  on  which  it  was  grafted,  how 
powerful  is  the  new  impulse  given  to  the  intellectual  faculties 
of  man  I  Yet  how  slow  and  silent  the  process  by  which  the 
effect  is  accomplislied  !  Were  it  not,  indeed,  for  a  certain  class 
of  learned  authors,  who  from  time  to  time  heave  the  log  into 
the  deep,  we  should  hardly  l)clieve  that  the  reason  of  the  species 
is  progressive.  In  this  respect,  the  religious  and  academical 
establisliments  in  some  parts  of  EuroiKj  are  not  without  their 
use  to  the  historian  of  the  human  mind.  Inmiovably  moored 
to  the  same  station  by  the  stR^ngth  of  their  cables  and  the 
weight  of  their  anchors,  they  enable  him  to  measure  the  rapi- 
dity of  the  current  by  which  the  rest  of  the  world  are  borne 
along. 

Thia^  too,  is  remarkable  in  the  history  of  our  jirejudices,  that 
as  soon  as  the  film  falls  from  the  intellectual  eye,  we  are  apt  to 
lose  all  recollection  of  our  former  blindness.  Like  the  fimt^istic 
and  giant  shapes  which,  in  a  thick  fog,  the  imagination  lends  to 
a  block  of  stone  or  to  the  stump  of  a  tree,  they  produce,  wliile 
the  illusion  lasts,  the  same  eflfect  with  truths  and  realities ;  but 
the  moment  the  eye  has  caught  the  exjict  form  and  dimensions 
of  its  object,  the  spell  is  broken  for  ever,  nor  can  any  effort  of 
thought  again  conjure  up  the  spectres  which  have  vanished. 

As  to  the  subdivisions  of  which  the  sciences  of  matter  and  of 
mind  are  susceptible,  I  have  alrt»ady  said  that  this  is  not  the 
proper  place  for  entering  into  any  discussion  concerning  them. 
The  passages  above  quoted  from  D'Alembert,  from  Locke,  and 
from  Smith,  are  sufficient  to  shew  how  little  probability  there 
is,  in  the  actual  state  of  logical  science,  of  uniting  the  opinions 
of  the  learned  in  favour  of  any  one  scheme  of  partition.  To 
prefix,  therefore,  such  a  scheme  to  a  work  which  is  jjrofessedly 
to  ])e  airried  on  by  a  set  of  unconnected  writers,  would  be 
equally  presumptuous  and  useless ;  and,  on  the  most  favourable 
supposition,  could  tend  only  to  fetter,  by  means  of  dubious 


22  DISSERTATION. — PREFACE. 

definitionSj  the  subsequent  freedom  of  thought  and  of  expression. 
The  example  of  the  French  Encydap^ie  cannot  be  here  justly 
alleged  as  a  precedent.  The  preliminary  pages  ])y  which  it  is 
introduced  were  written  by  the  two  persons  who  projected  the 
whole  plan,  and  who  considered  themselves  as  responsible,  not 
only  for  their  own  admirable  articles,  but  for  the  general  conduct 
of  the  execution ;  whereas,  on  the  present  occasion,  a  porch  was 
to  be  adapted  to  an  irregular  edifice,  reared  at  different  periods 
by  different  architects.  It  seemed,  accordingly,  most  advisa- 
ble to  avoid  as  much  as  possible,  in  these  introductory  Essays, 
all  innovations  in  language,  and,  in  describing  the  different  arts 
and  sciences,  to  follow  scrupulously  the  prevaiUng  and  most 
intelligible  phraseology.  The  task  of  defining  them  with  a 
greater  degree  of  precision  properly  devolves  upon  those  to 
whose  province  it  belongs,  in  the  progress  of  the  work,  to  unfold 
in  detail  their  elementary  princii)les. 

The  Sciences  to  which  I  mean  to  confine  my  observations  are 
Metaphysics,  Ethics,  and  Political  Philosophy  ;  understanding, 
by  Metaphysics,  not  the  Ontology  and  Pneumatology  of  the 
schools,  but  the  inductive  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind  ;  and 
limiting  the  phrase  Political  Philosophy  almost  exclusively  to 
the  modem  science  of  Political  Economy ;  or  (to  express  myself 
in  terms  at  once  more  comprehensive  and  more  precise)  to  that 
branch  of  the  theory  of  legislation  which,  according  to  Bacon's 
definition,  aims  to  ascertain  those  "  Leges  legum,  ex  quibus  in- 
formatio  peti  potest  quid  in  singulis  legibus  bene  aut  perperam 
positum  aut  constitutum  sit.*'  The  close  affinity  between  these 
three  departments  of  knowledge,  and  the  easy  transitions  by 
which  the  curiosity  is  invited  from  the  study  of  any  one  of 
them  to  that  of  the  other  two,  will  sufficiently  appear  from  the 
following  Historical  Review. 


DISSERTATION. 


PART  I. 

In  the  following  Historical  and  Critical  SketchcH,  it  has  l)een 
judged  proper  by  the  different  writers,  to  confine  their  views 
entirely  to  the  jxiriod  which  has  elapsed  since  the  revival  of 
letters.  To  have  extended  their  retro8i)ects  to  the  ancient 
world,  would  have  crowded  too  great  a  multiplicity  of  objects 
into  the  limited  canvass  on  which  they  had  to  work.  For  my 
own  part,  I  might  perhaps,  with  still  greater  propriety,  have 
confined  myself  exclusively  to  the  two  last  centuries,  as  the 
Sciences  of  which  I  am  to  treat  present  but  little  matter  for 
useful  remark,  prior  to  the  time  of  Lord  Bacon.  I  shall  make 
no  apology,  however,  for  devoting,  in  the  first  place,  a  few  jmges 
to  some  observations  of  a  more  general  nature ;  and  to  some 
scanty  gleanings  of  literary  detail,  bearing  more  or  less  directly 
on  my  principal  design. 

On  this  occasion,  as  well  as  in  the  sequel  of  my  Discourse,  I 
shall  avoid,  as  far  as  is  consistent  with  distinctness  and  jKTspi- 
cuity,  the  minuteness  of  the  mere  bibliographer ;  and,  instead 
of  attempting  to  amuse  my  readers  with  a  series  of  critical 
epigrams,  or  to  dazzle  them  with  a  ra})id  succession  of  evanes- 
cent portraits,  shall  study  to  fix  their  attention  on  those  great 
lights  of  the  tvorld  by  whom  the  torch  of  science  has  been  sue- 


24  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

cessively  seized  and  transmitted.^  It  is,  in  fact,  such  leading 
characters  alone  which  furnish  matter  for  philosophical  history. 
To  enumerate  the  names  and  the  labours  of  obscure  or  even 
secondary  authors,  (whatever  amusement  it  might  afford  to  men 
of  curious  erudition,)  would  contribute  but  little  to  illustrate 
the  origin  and  filiation  of  consecutive  systems,  or  the  gradual 
development  and  progress  of  the  human  mind. 


*  I  have  ventured  here  to  combine  a  petnallj  transferring  from  hand  to  hand 

scriptural  expression  with   an   allusion  the  concerns  and  duties  of  this  fleeting 

of  Plato*8  to  a  Grecian  gauo;  an  allu-  scene.   TtftSfris  »a<  Ixr^i^avrtf  vaT^mtt 

sion  which,  in  his  writings,  is  finely  and  xc^Mari^  kaft^-aim  rit  fiiav  vm^rnit^ttnt 

pathetically  applied  to  the  rapid  succes-  &kX§if    i|    «fxx«>y.  —  (Plato,    Leg.   lib. 

sion  of  generation^,  through  which  the  vi.) 

continuity  of  human  life  is  maintained         "EtquaalcunoresTltallampadatmdunt- 
firom  age  to  age;   and  which  are  per-  Lucret. 


PHILOHOPHT  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.  25 


CHAPTER  I. 

FROM   THE   REVIVAL  OF   LETTERS   TO   THE   PUBLICATION   OF  BACON^S 

PHIL080FHICAL   WORKS. 

The  long  interval,  commonly  known  by  the  name  of  tho 
middle  ages,  which  immeiliately  preceded  the  revival  of  letters 
in  the  western  part  of  Em-ope,  forms  the  most  melancholy  blank 
which  occurs,  from  the  first  dawn  of  recorded  civilisation,  in 
the  intellectual  and  moral  history  of  the  human  race.  In  one 
point  of  view  alone,  the  recollection  of  it  is  not  altogether  un- 
pleasing,  inasmuch  as,  by  the  proof  it  exhibits  of  the  insepar- 
able connexion  between  ignorance  and  prejudice  on  the  one 
hand,  and  vice,  misery,  and  slavery  on  the  other,  it  aflfords,  in 
conjunction  with  other  causes,  which  will  afterwards  fall  under 
our  review,  some  security  against  any  future  recmrence  of  a 
similar  calamity. 

It  would  furnish  a  very  interesting  and  instructive  subject  of 
speculation,  to  record  and  to  illustrate  (with  the  spirit,  however, 
rather  of  a  philosopher  than  of  an  antiquary)  the  various 
abortive  efforts,  which,  during  this  protracted  and  seemingly 
hopeless  period  of  a  thousand  years,  were  made  by  enlightened 
individuals,  to  impart  to  their  contemi)oraries  the  fruits  of  their 
own  acquirements.  For  in  no  one  age  from  its  commencement  to 
its  close,  does  the  continuity  o/knotvledge  (if  I  may  Iwrrow  an 
expression  of  Mr.  Harris)  seem  to  have  been  entirely  inter- 
rupted :  "  There  was  always  a  faint  twilight,  like  that  au8j)i- 
cious  gleam  which,  in  a  summer's  night,  fills  up  the  interval 
between  the  setting  and  the  rising  sun."*    On  the  present  occa- 

'  Philological  Inquiries^  Part  iii.  chap.  i. 


2G  DISSEKTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

sion,  I  shall  content  myself  with  remarking  the  important  effects 
produced  by  the  nmnerous  monastic  establishments  all  over  the 
Christian  world,  in  preser\dug,  amidst  the  general  wreck,  the 
inestimable  remains  of  Greek  and  Roman  refinement ;  and  in 
keeping  alive,  during  so  many  centuries,  those  scattered  sparks 
of  truth  and  of  science,  wliich  were  afterwards  to  kindle  into  so 
bright  a  flame.  I  mention  this  particularly,  because,  in  our 
zeal  against  the  vices  and  corruptions  of  the  Romish  Church, 
we  are  too  apt  to  forget,  how  deeply  we  are  indebted  to  its 
superstitious  and  apparently  useless  foimdations,  for  the  most 
precious  advantages  that  we  now  enjoy. 

The  study  of  the  Roman  Law,  which,  from  a  variety  of 
causes,  natural  as  well  Jis  accidental,  became,  in  the  course  of 
the  twelfth  century,  an  object  of  general  pursuit,  shot  a  strong 
and  auspicious  ray  of  intellectual  light  across  the  surrounding 
darkness.  No  study  could  then  have  been  presented  to  th(} 
ciu-iosity  of  men,  more  hai)pily  adapted  to  improve  their  taste, 
to  enlarge  their  views,  or  to  invigorate  their  re^isoning  powers  ; 
and  although,  in  the  first  instance,  prosecuted  merely  as  the 
object  of  a  weak  and  undistinguishing  idolatry,  it  nevertheless 
conducted  the  student  to  the  very  confines  of  ethical  as  well  as 
of  political  speculation ;  and  served,  in  the  meantime,  as  a 
substitute  of  no  inconsiderable  value  for  both  these  sciences. 
Accordingly  we  find  that,  wliile  in  its  immediate  effects  it 
powerfully  contributed,  wherever  it  struck  its  roots,  by  ame- 
liorating and  systematizing  the  administration  of  justice,  to 
accelerate  the  progress  of  order  and  of  civilisation,  it  afterwards 
furnished,  in  the  farther  career  of  human  advancement,  the 
parent  stock  on  which  were  grafted  the  first  rudiments  of  pure 
ethics  and  of  liberal  politics  taught  in  modern  times.  I  need 
scarcely  add,  that  I  allude  to  the  systems  of  natural  jurispru- 
dence compiled  by  Grotius  and  his  successors  ;  systems  which, 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  engrossed  all  the  learned  industry 
of  the  most  enlightened  part  of  Europe  ;  and  which,  however 
unpromising  in  their  first  aspect,  were  destined,  in  the  last 
result,  to  prepare  the  way  for  that  never  to  be  forgotten  change 
in  the  literary  taste  of  the  eighteenth  century,  "  which  has 


CHAP.  I. PHILOSOrHY  FROM  THE  IIEVIVAL  TO  BACON.        27 


everywhere  turned  the  spirit  of  philosophical  inquiry  from 
frivolous  or  abstruse  speculations,  to  the  business  and  affairs 
of  men."  * 

The  revival  of  letters  may  be  considered  as  coeval  with  the 
fall  of  the  Eastern  empire,  towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
centur}'.  In  consequence  of  this  event,  a  numl)er  of  learned 
Greeks  took  refuge  in  Italy,  where  the  taste  for  literature 
already  introduceii  by  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio,  together 
with  the  liberal  patronage  of  the  illustrious  House  of  Medicis, 
secured  them  a  welcome  reception.  A  knowledge  of  the  Greek 
tongue  soon  became  fashionable ;  and  the  learned,  encouraged 
by  the  rapid  diffusion  which  the  art  of  printing  now  gave  to 
their  labours,  vied  with  each  other  in  rendering  the  Greek 
authors  accessible,  by  means  of  Latin  tnmslations,  to  a  still 
wider  circle  of  readers. 

•  For  a  long  time,  indeed,  after  the  era  just  mentioned,  the 
progress  of  useful  knowledge  was  extremely  slow.  The  passion 
for  logical  disputation  was  sucweded  by  nn  unbounded  admira- 
tion for  the  wisdom  of  antiquity ;  and  in  ]m)portion  as  the 
pedantr}'  of  the  schools  disappc»ared  in  the  imiversities,  that  of 
erudition  and  jJiilology  occui)ied  its  jJace. 

Meanwliile  an  im]K)rtimt  Jidvantage  was  gained  in  the  im- 
mense stock  of  materials  which  the  ancient  authors  supplied  to 
the  reflections  of  sjK'Culative  men ;  and  which,  although  fre- 
quently accumulated  with  little  discrimination  or  profit,  were 
much  more  favourable  to  the  development  of  taste  and  ot 
genius  than  the  unsubstantial  subtleties  of  ontology  or  of  dia- 
lectics.    By  such  studies  were  fonned  Erasmus,*  LudoWcus 


'  Dr.  Robertson,  from  whom  I  quote 
these  wonls,  has  mentioned  tliis  clian^e 
as  the  plory  of  tlio  prejient  age,  menn- 
injLT,  I  proHume,  the  perio<l  which  has 
elapsed  since  the  time  of  MonteHqiiieu. 
By  what  steps  the  philosophy  to  which 
ho  alludes  took  its  rise  from  the  systems  of 
jurisprudence  previously  in  fashion,  will 
appear  in  the  sequel  of  tliis  Discourse. 

*  The  writings  of  Eiasmus  probably 
contributed   still   more   than    those  of 


Luther  himself  to  the  progress  of  the 
Keformation  anumg  men  of  education 
and  taste ;  but,  without  the  co-operation 
of  lK»Mcr  and  more  decided  characters 
than  his,  little  would  to  this  day  have 
been  eflectod  in  Eurt)pe  among  the 
lower  orders.  "  Era{<mus  imagined," 
as  is  observeil  by  his  biographer,  "  that 
at  length,  by  training  up  youth  in  learn- 
ing and  useful  knowledge,  those  reli- 
gious improvements  would  gradually  be 


28 


DISSERTATION. — PAKT  FIKST. 


ViveSji  Sir  Thomas  More,*  and  many  other  accomplished 
scholars  of  a  similar  character,  who,  if  they  do  not  rank  in  the 
same  line  with  the  daring  reformers  by  whom  the  errors  of  the 
Catholic  Church  were  openly  assailed,  certainly  exhibit  a  very 
striking  contrast  to  the  barbarous  and  unenlightened  writers  of 
the  preceding  age. 

The  Protestant  Keformation,  which  followed  immediately 
after,  was  itself  one  of  the  natural  consequences  of  the  revival 
of  letters,  and  of  the  invention  of  printing.  But  although,  in 
one  point  of  view,  only  an  effect^  it  is  not,  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, less  entitled  to  notice  than  the  causes  by  wliich  it  was 
produced. 

The  renunciation,  in  a  great  part  of  Europe,  of  theological 


brought  about,  which  the  princes,  the 
prelates,  and  the  di\ines  of  his  days 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  admit  or  to 
toleratc."--(Jortin,  p.  279.)  In  yield- 
ing, however,  to  this  pleasing  expecta- 
tion, Erasmus  must  have  flattered  him- 
self with  the  hoi>e,  not  only  of  a  perfect 
freedom  of  literary  discussion,  but  of 
such  reforms  in  the  prevailing  modes  of 
instruction,  as  would  give  complete 
scope  to  the  energies  of  the  human 
mind: — for,  where  books  and  teachers 
are  subjected  to  the  censorship  of  those 
who  are  hostile  to  the  dissemination  of 
truth,  they  become  the  most  powerful 
of  all  auxiliaries  to  the  authority  of 
established  errors. 

It  was  long  a  proverbial  saying  among 
the  ecclesiastics  of  the  Romish  Church, 
that  "  Erasmus  laid  the  gq^^  and 
Luther  hatched  it;*'  and  there  is  more 
truth  in  the  remark,  than  in  most  of 
their  sarcasms  on  the  same  subject. 

*  Ludovicus  Vivcs  was  a  learned 
Spaniard,  intimately  connected  both 
with  Erasmus  and  More  ;  with  the 
former  of  whom  he  lived  for  some  time 
at  Louvain ;  "  where  they  both  pro- 
moted literature  as  much  as  they  could, 
though  not  without  great  opposition  from 
some  of  the  divines." — Jortin,  p.  265. 


**  He  was  invited  into  England  by 
Wolscy  in  1523  :  and  coming  to  Oxford, 
he  read  the  (Jardinal's  lecture  of  Hvr 
manity,  and  also  lectures  of  Civil  Law, 
which  Henry  VIII.  and  his  Queen, 
Catharine,  did  him  the  honour  of  at- 
tending."—(J6irf.  p.  207.)  He  died  at 
Bruges  in  1554. 

In  point  of  good  sense  and  acuteness, 
wherever  he  treats  of  philosophical 
questions,  he  yields  to  none  of  his  con- 
temporaries ;  and  in  some  of  his  antici- 
pations of  the  future  progress  of  science, 
ho  discovers  a  mind  more  comprehen- 
sive and  sagacious  than  any  of  them. 
Erasmus  appears,  from  a  letter  of  his  to 
Budc'eus,  (dated  in  1521,)  to  have  fore- 
seen the  brilliant  career  which  Vives, 
then  a  very  young  man,  was  about  to 
run.  "  Vives  in  stadio  litcrario,  non 
minus  fehciter  quam  gnaviter  decertat, 
et  si  satis  ingenium  hominis  novi,  non 
conquicscet,  donee  omncs  a  tergo  reli- 
querit." — For  this  letter,  (the  whole  of 
which  is  peculiarly  interesting,  as  it 
contains  a  character  of  Sir  Thomas 
More,  and  an  account  of  the  extraordi- 
nary accomplishments  of  his  daughters,) 
see  Jortin 's  Life  of  Erasmus^  vol.  ii. 
p.  366,  et  8eq» 

« See  Note  A. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        29 


opinions  so  long  consecnit-ed  by  time,  and  the  adoption  of  a 
creed  more  pure  in  its  principles,  and  more  lil)eral  in  its  spirit, 
could  not  fail  to  encourage,  on  all  other  subjects,  a  congenial 
freedom  of  in(pli^)^  These  circumstances  operated  still  more 
directly  and  iK)werfully,  by  their  influence  in  undermining  the 
authority  of  Aristotle  ;  an  authority  wliich  for  many  years  was 
scarcely  inferior  in  the  schools  to  that  of  the  Si;ripturcs,  and 
which,  in  some  Universities,  was  supported  by  sfcitutes,  requir- 
ing the  teachers  to  promise  ujx)n  oath,  that,  in  their  public  lec- 
tures, they  would  follow  no  other  guide. 

Luther,^  who  was  jxjrfectly  aware  of  the  corruptions  which 
the  Romish  Church  htul  contrivinl  to  connect  with  their  venera- 
tion for  the  Stagirite,*  not  only  threw  off  the  yoke  himself,  but, 
in  various  parts  of  his  writings,  sj^eaks  of  Aristotle  vdth  most 
unlx*coming  asperity  and  contempt.**  In  one  ver}'  n^mnrkable 
passage,  he  asserts,  that  the  study  of  Aristotle  was  wholly  use- 
less, not  only  in  Theologj',  but  in  Natund  Philosophy.  "  What 
does  it  contribute,"  he  asks,  "  to  the  knowleilge  of  things,  to 
trifle  and  cavil  in  language  conceived  and  prescril)ed  by  Aris- 
totle, concerning  matter,  form,  motion,  and  time  ?"*    The  same 


>  Born  1483,  dkd  1646. 

•  In  one  of  his  letttire  he  writcnthus: 
"  Ego  nimplicitcr  ortulo,  qucMl  imposNi- 
bile  sit  orcleHiain  rcfurniari,  niHi  fundituH 
cauoncs,  decretaleB,  HchuluHtica  tboo- 
logia,  philotMtphin,  higicn,  iit  nunc  1)nlK.'n- 
tar,  eradiceutur,  ot  alia  insiituantur.** — 
Bnickeri  Hist.  Chrii.  Phil.  torn.  iv.  p.  Oi). 

•  For  a  tii>cciinen  of  Luthrr'H  Hcur- 
rility  against  AriBtotle,  sec  Baylc,  Art. 
Luther f  Note  HII. 

In  Lnther's  CtMotjuia  Meiiaalia  wo 
are  told,  that  "  lie  abliornMl  the  school- 
men, and  called  them  Nophistical  Itxrusts, 
caterpillars,  frogs,  and  lice."  From  the 
same  work  "wre  loani,  that  "  he  hated 
Aristotle,  but  highly  esteemed  (.'icero, 
OS  a  wise  and  g«>o<l  man.** — See  Jortin's 
Life  of  Kratthina,  p.  121. 

•  "Nihil  adjumenti  ex  ip.so  halieri 
posse  non  solum  ad  theologiam  seu 
sacros  literas,  verum  ctiam  ad  ipsam 


natnralem  philosophiam.  Quid  enim 
juvet  ad  rerum  cognitionom,  si  de  ma^ 
teria,  fonua,  motu,  tem]xirt^  nngari  et 
cavillari  queas  verbis  ab  Aristotelo  con- 
ceptis  et  prwscriptis?" — Bruck.  Ilitt, 
Phil.  toni.  iv.  p.  101. 

The  following  passage  to  the  same 
purjMme  is  quoted  by  I5*iyle  :  "Non  niihi 
])ersuad(diitiri,  philosophiam  esse  gami- 
litatem  illam  do  materia,  motu,  infinitOf 
loco,  vacuo,  tempore,  qua;  feru  in  Aris- 
totcle  sola  discimus,  talia  quie  nee  in- 
tcllectum,  ncc  aflectum,  nee  communes 
hominum  mores  quidquamju vent ;  tan- 
tuni  conttMitionibus  serendis,  seminan- 
disque  idonea." — Bayle,  Art.  Luther, 
Note  HII. 

1  borniw  from  Bayle  another  short 
extract  from  Luther:  ''Nihil  ita  anlet 
animus,  quam  InHtrioncm  ilium,  (Aris- 
totelem,)  qui  tam  vere  (ir<e<ra  larva 
ei'desiam    lusit,   multis   revelure,  igno- 


30 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


freedom  of  thought  on  topics  not  strictly  theological,  formed  a 
prominent  feature  in  the  cliaracter  of  Calvin.  A  curious 
instance  of  it  occurs  in  one  of  his  letters,  where  he  discusses  an 
ethical  question  of  no  small  moment  in  the  science  of  political 
economy : — "  How  far  it  is  consistent  with  moraUty  to  accept  of 
interest  for  a  pecimiary  loan  ?"  On  this  question,  which,  even 
in  Protestjmt  countries,  continued,  till  a  very  recent  period,  to 
divide  the  opinions  both  of  divines  and  lawyers,  Calvin  treats 
the  authority  of  Aristotle,  and  that  of  the  Church,  with  equal 
disregard.  To  the  former,  he  opposes  a  close  and  logical  argu- 
ment, not  unworthy  of  Mr.  Bentham.  To  the  latter  he  replies, 
by  shewing,  that  the  Mosaic  law  on  this  point  was  not  a  moral 
but  a  municipal  prohibition  ;  a  prohibition  not  to  he  judged  of 
from  any  particular  text  of  Scripture,  but  upon  the  principles 
of  natural  equity.^  The  example  of  these  two  Fathers  of  the 
Reformation,  would  probably  have  been  followed  by  conse- 
quences still  greater  and  more  immediate,  if  Melanchthon  had 
not  unfortunately  given  the  sanction  of  Ids  name  to  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Peripatetic  school  f  but  still,  among  the  Reformers 
in  general,  the  credit  of  these  doctrines  gradually  declined,  and 
a  spirit  of  research  and  of  improvement  prevailed. 

The  invention  of  printing,  wliich  took  place  very  nearly  at 
the  same  time  with  the  fall  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  l>esides  add- 
ing greatly  to  the  efficacy  of  the  causes  above-mentioned,  must 
have  been  attended  with  very  important  eflfects  of  its  own,  on 
the  progress  of  the  human  mind.   For  us  who  have  been  accus- 


miniamqno  ejus  cunctis  ostendere,  si 
otium  esfict.  Habeo  in  manus  commcnt- 
ariolos  in  1.  Pbysiconim,  quibus  fabulam 
Arista?i  denuo  ap^erc  statui  in  meum 
latum  Protea  (Aristotelem).  Pars  crucia 
mem  \e\  maxima  est,  qucni  viderc  cogor 
fratrura  optima  ingenia,  bonis  studiis 
nnta,  in  istis  coenis  vitam  agerc,  et 
operam  perdere." — Ibid. 

That  Luther  was  deeply  skilled  in  the 
scholastic  philosophy  we  learn  from  very 
high  authority,  that  of  Melanchthon ; 
who  tells   us  farther,   that  he   was  a 


strenuous  partisan  of  the  sect  of  Nomin- 
alistftj  or,  as  they  were  then  generally 
called,  TerminUts. — Bruck.  torn.  iv.  pp. 
93,  94,  et  seq. 

*  See  Note  B. 

*  "Et  Melanchthoni  qnidcm  praecipne 
debetur  conscrvatio  pbilosopbiae  Aris- 
totelicas  in  academiis  protestantium. 
Scripsit  is  compendia  pleranimque  dis- 
ciplinanim  philosophiae  Aristotelicie, 
qu8e  in  Academiis  diu  rcgnarnnt." — 
Heineccii,  Elem.  Hist.  Phil.  §  ciii.  See 
also  Bayle'a  Diet.,  Art.  3felanchthon. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  TIIK  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        31 

tomed,  from  our  infancv,  to  the  use  of  bookn,  it  is  not  easy  to 
form  an  adequate  idea  of  the  disadvant^iges  which  those  hiboured 
under,  who  had  to  iiccpiire  the  whole  of  their  kn()wle<l<;e  through 
the  medium  of  universitieH  and  8eh(H>ls ; — hlindlv  devoted  as 
the  generality  of  students  must  then  have  l)een  to  tlie  i)eculiar 
opinions  of  the  teacher,  who  first  unfolded  to  their  curiosity  the 
treasures  of  literatuR*  and  the  wonders  of  science.  Thus  error 
was  per|)etuated  ;  and,  uistead  of  yielding  to  time,  acquired  ad- 
ditional influence  in  each  successive  generation.*  In  modem 
times,  this  influence  of  names  is,  comjKmitively  si)eaking,  at  an 
end.  The  object  of  a  public  teacher  is  no  longer  to  inculcate  a 
particular  system  of  dogmas,  but  to  i)repare  his  pupils  for  exer- 
cising their  own  judgments ;  to  exhibit  to  them  an  outline  of 
the  different  sciences,  and  to  suggc^st  subjects  for  tlieir  future 
examination.  The  few  attempts  to  establish  schools,  an<l  to 
found  sects,  have  all  (after  ])erhaj)8  a  temporary  success)  j>roved 
abortive.  Their  ctFect,  too,  during  their  short  continuance,  has 
Ixien  perfectly  the  reverse  of  that  of  the  schools  of  anticiuity ; 
for  whereas  these  wei'e  instrumental,  on  many  cKrcasions,  in 
establishing  and  diff'using  error  in  the  world,  the  founders  of 
our  modern  sects,  by  mixing  uj)  imix)rtant  truths  with  their 
own  peculiar  tenets,  an<l  by  disguising  them  under  the  garb  of 
a  technical  phraseology,  have  fostered  such  i)rejudices  against 
themselves,  as  have  blinded  the  public  mind  to  all  the  lights 


*  It  wjw  in  conHoquenre  of  this  mode 
of  ronductiiig  education,  hy  nionnH  of 
onil  instruction  ulonc,  that  the  difTcrent 
sects  of  phiioHophy  nroNo  in  nncicnt 
Greece ;  and  it  Rot»m8to  have  been  with 
a  view  of  counteracting  the  obvious  in- 
conveniences rcHulting  from  tlicm,  that 
SocratPH  introduced  his  peculiar  n»elho<l 
of  qucKtionint^,  with  an  air  of  Hccpti«'al 
diflidcnce,  those  whom  he  was  aiixiouH 
to  instruct ;  ho  as  to  allow  tlM-ni,  in 
firming  their  conclusion}*,  the  complete 
an<l  unbiassed  rx«Tcise  of  their  own  rea- 
son. Such,  at  least,  is  the  apolop'y 
offered  for  the  apparent  indecision  of  the 
Academic  scliool,  by  one  of  its  wisest, 


as  well  as  most  eloquent  adherents. 
"  Ah  for  other  sects,"  snys  Ticero,  "who 
are  l>ound  in  fetters,  U'tbre  they  nn'able 
to  form  any  judgment  of  what  is  right 
or  true,  and  who  have  been  le«l  to  yield 
themselves  up,  in  their  tender  years,  to 
the  guidance  of  some  friend,  or  to  the 
captivating  elotpience  of  the  teacher 
whom  thev  have  first  heard,  they  assume 
to  themselves  tlie  right  of  pronouncing 
upon  (juestions  of  which  they  are  com- 
jiletely  ignorant ;  adhering  to  wlniteyer 
creed  the  wind  of  d«M'trine  may  have 
driven  them,  as  if  it  were  the  only  rock 
on  which  their  safety  dci)ende«l." — Cic. 
Lucullu*^  3. 


32  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

they  were  able  to  communicate.  Of  this  remark  a  melancholy 
illustration  occurs  (a«  M.  Turgot  long  ago  predicted)  in  the  case 
of  the  French  economists  ;  and  many  examples  of  a  similar  im- 
port might  be  produced  from  the  history  of  science  in  our 
country ;  more  particularly  from  the  history  of  the  various  me- 
dical and  metaphysical  schools  which  successively  rose  and  fell 
during  the  last  century. 

With  the  circumstances  already  suggested,  as  conspiring  to 
accelerate  the  progress  of  knowledge,  another  has  co-operated 
very  extensively  and  powerfully ;  the  rise  of  the  lower  orders  in 
the  different  countries  of  Europe, — in  consequence  partly  of 
the  enlargement  of  commerce,  and  partly  of  the  efforts  of  the 
Sovereigns  to  reduce  the  overgrown  power  of  the  feudal  aris- 
tocracy. 

Without  this  emancipation  of  the  lower  orders,  and  the 
gradual  diffusion  of  wealth  by  which  it  was  accompanied,  the 
advantages  derived  from  the  invention  of  printing  woidd  have 
been  extremely  limited.  A  certain  degree  of  ease  and  inde- 
pendence is  essentially  requisite  to  inspire  men  with  the  desire 
of  knowledge,  and  to  afford  the  leisure  necessary  for  acquiring  it ; 
and  it  is  only  by  the  encouragement  which  such  a  state  of 
society  presents  to  industry  and  ambition,  that  the  selfish  pas- 
sions of  the  multitude  can  be  interested  in  the  intellectual  im- 
provement of  their  children.  It  is  only,  too,  in  such  a  state  of 
society,  that  education  and  books  are  likely  to  increase  the  sum 
of  human  happiness ;  for  while  these  advantages  are  confined 
to  one  privileged  description  of  indi\dduals,  they  but  furnish 
them  with  an  additional  engine  for  debasing  and  misleading 
the  minds  of  their  inferiors.  To  all  which  it  may  be  added, 
that  it  is  chiefly  by  the  shock  and  collision  of  different  and 
opposite  prejudices,  that  truths  are  gnidually  cleared  from  that 
admixture  of  error  which  they  have  so  strong  a  tendency  to 
acquire,  wherever  the  course  of  public  opinion  is  forcibly  con- 
strained and  guided  \\'ithin  certain  artificial  channels,  marked 
out  by  the  narrow  views  of  human  policy.  The  tliffusion  of 
knowledge,  therefore,  occasioned  by  the  rise  of  the  lower  orders, 
would  necessarily  contribute  to  the  improvement  of  useful 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FKOM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.       33 

science,  not  merely  in  proportion  to  the  arithmetical  number 
of  cultivated  minds  now  combined  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  but 
in  a  proportion  tending  to  accelerate  that  important  eflfect  with 
a  far  greater  rapidity. 

.  Nor  ought  we  here  to  overlook  the  influence  of  the  foregoing 
causes,  in  encouraging  among  authors  the  practice  of  addressing 
the  multitude  in  their  own  vernacular  tonguea  The  zeal  of 
the  Reformers  first  gave  birth  to  this  invaluable  innovation ; 
and  imposed  on  their  adversaries  the  necessity  of  employing, 
in  their  own  defence,  the  same  weapons.*  From  that  moment 
the  prejudice  began  to  vanish  which  had  so  long  confounded 
knowledge  with  erudition ;  and  a  revolution  commenced  in  the 
republic  of  letters,  analogous  to  what  the  invention  of  gun- 
powder produced  in  the  art  of  war.  "  All  the  splendid  distinc- 
tions of  mankind,"  as  the  Champion  and  Flower  of  Chivalry 
indignantly  exclaimed,  "  were  thereby  tlurown  down ;  and  the 
naked  shepherd  levelled  with  the  knight  clad  in  steel." 

To  all  these  considerations  may  hi  added  the  gradual  effects 
of  time  and  experience  in  correcting  the  errors  and  j)rejudice8 
which  had  misled  philosophers  during  so  long  a  succession  of 
age&  To  this  cause,  chiefly,  must  be  ascribed  the  ardour 
with  which  we  find  various  ingenious  men,  soon  after  the 
period  in  question,  employed  in  prosecuting  experimental  in- 
quiries ;  a  species  of  study  to  which  nothing  analogous  occurs 
in  tlie  history  of  ancient  science.^  The  boldest  and  most  suc- 
cessful of  this  new  school  was  the  celebrated  Paracelsus ;  l)om 
in  1493,  and  consequently  only  ten  years  younger  than  Luther. 
"  It  is  impossible  to  doubt,"  says  Le  Clerc,  in  his  Hidory  of 
PhyaiCj  "that  he  |K)ssessed  an  extensive  knowledge  of  what 

*  "  The  sacred  books  were,  in  almost  of  oral  speech,  may  lie  easily  imafpned. 

all  the  kingdoms  and  states  of  Europe,  Tlie  vulgar  translation  of  the  Bible  into 

translated  into  the   language  of  each  English,  is  pronounced  by  Dr.  Ix)wth 

respective  people,  particularly  in  Ger-  to   be   still   the  best    standard  of  our 

many,    Italy,  France,  and  Britain." —  language. 

(Mosheim's    Bccles.   Hist   vol.   iii.   p.  *  "  Hok:   nostra   (ut   sfciie    dixinnis) 

265.)     The  effiK't  of  this  single  circum-  felicitntis   cujusduni  sunt   potiu.s  quaiii 

stance   in   multiplying   the   number  of  facultatis,    et  jxttiua   Utiiporls   jntrtua 

readers  and  of  thinkers,  and  in  giving  qwwi   ingeniiy — Xuv.    Org.   lib.   i    c. 

a  certain  stability  to  the  mutable  forms  xxiii. 

VOL.  I.  0 


34  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

is  called  the  Materia  Medica,  and  that  he  had  employed  much 
time  in  working  on  the  animal,  the  vegetable,  and  the  mineral 
substances  of  which  it  is  composed.  He  seems,  besides,  to  have 
tried  an  immense  number  of  experiments  in  chemistry ;  but  he 
has  this  great  defect,  that  he  studiously  conceals  or  disguises 
the  residts  of  his  long  experience."  The  same  author  quotes 
from  Paracelsus  a  remarkable  expression,  in  which  he  calls  the 
philosophy  of  Aristotle  a  wooden  foundation,  "  He  ought  to 
have  attempted,"  continues  Le  Clerc,  "  to  have  laid  a  better ; 
but  if  he  has  not  done  it,  he  has  at  least,  by  discovering  its 
weakness,  invited  his  successors  to  look  out  for  a  firmer 
basis."^ 

Lord  Bacon  himself,  while  he  censures  the  moral  frailties  of 
Paracelsus,  and  the  blind  empiricism  of  his  followers,  indirectly 
acknowledges  the  extent  of  his  experimental  information :  "  The 
ancient  sophists  may  be  said  to  liave  hid,  but  Paracelsus  extin- 
guished the  light  of  nature.  The  sopliists  were  only  deserters 
of  experience,  but  Paracelsus  has  betrayed  it.  At  the  same 
time,  he  is  so  far  from  understanding  the  right  method  of  con- 
ducting experiments,  or  of  recording  their  results,  that  he  has 
added  to  the  trouble  and  tediousness  of  experimenting.  By 
wandering  through  the  wilds  of  experience,  his  disciples  some- 
times stumble  upon  useful  discoveries,  not  by  reason,  but  by 
accident ;  whence  rashly  proceeding  to  form  theories,  they  carry 
the  smoke  and  tarnish  of  their  art  along  with  them,  and,  like 
childish  operators  at  the  furnace,  attempt  to  raise  a  structure  of 
philosophy  with  a  few  experiments  of  distillation." 

Two  other  circumstances,  of  a  nature  widely  different  from 
those  hitherto  enumerated,  although,  probably,  in  no  small  de- 
gree to  be  accounted  for  on  the  same  principles,  seconded,  with 
an  incalculable  accession  of  power,  the  sudden  inpulse  which 
the  human  mind  had  just  received.  The  same  century  which 
the  invention  of  printing  and  the  rcA^val  of  letters  have  made 
for  ever  memorable,  was  also  illustrated  by  the  discovery  of  the 
New  World  and  of  the  passage  to  India  by  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope ; — events  which  may  be  justly  regarded  as  fixing  a  new 

*  Histoire  de  la  Midecine,  {k  la  Haye,  1729,)  p.  819. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FKOM  THE  IIEVIVAL  TO  BACON.        35 

era  in  the  political  and  moral  history  of  mankind,  and  which 
still  continue  to  exert  a  growing  influence  over  the  general  con- 
dition of  our  species.  '^  It  is  an  era,"  as  Raynal  observes,  "  which 
gave  rise  to  a  revolution,  not  only  in  the  commerce  of  nations, 
but  in  the  manners,  industry,  and  government  of  the  world. 
At  this  period  new  connexions  were  formed  by  the  inhabitants 
of  the  most  distant  regions,  for  the  supply  of  wants  which  they 
had  never  before  experienced.  The  productions  of  climates 
situated  under  the  equator  were  consumed  in  countries  border- 
ing on  the  pole ;  the  industry  of  the  north  wa«  transplanted  to 
the  south,  and  the  inliabitants  of  the  west  were  clothed  with  the 
manufactures  of  the  east ;  a  general  intercourse  of  opinions, 
laws,  and  customs,  diseases  and  remedies,  virtues  and  vices,  was 
established  among  men. 

"  Everytldng,"  continues  the  same  writer,  "  has  changed,  and 
must  yet  change  more.  But  it  is  a  question  whether  the  revo- 
lutions that  are  pest,  or  those  which  must  hereafter  take  place, 
have  been,  or  can  Ix?,  of  any  utility  to  the  human  race.  Will 
they  add  to  the  tranquillity,  to  the  enjoymentH,  and  to  the  hap- 
piness of  mankind  ?  Can  they  im])rove  our  i)re8ent  state,  or 
do  they  only  changt»  it  T 

I  have  introduced  this  quotation,  not  with  the  design  of  at- 
tempting at  present  any  reply  to  the  very  interesting  question 
with  which  it  concludes,  but  merely  to  convey  some  slight  notion 
of  the  political  and  mond  imj)ortance  of  the  events  in  question. 
I  cannot,  however,  forbear  to  remark,  in  addition  to  Raynal's 
eloquent  and  impressive  summary,  the  inestimable  tn^asure 
of  new  facts  which  these  events  liave  furnished  for  illustrating 
the  versatile  nature  of  man  and  the  history  of  civil  society.  In 
this  respect  (as  Bacon  has  well  observed)  they  have  fully  veri- 
fied the  Scripture  pro])hecy,  Mvlti  pertranstbunt,  et  augehitur 
acientia ;  or,  in  the  still  more  emphatic  words  of  our  English 
version,  "Many  shall  go  to  and  fro,  and  knowledge  shall  be 
increase<l."  ^     The  same  preiliction  may  be  applial  to  the  gra- 

»  "  Neque  oraittcnda  est  prophetia  tia:  Manifeste  iniiuens  ct  bigiiificjins, 
Danielis  <le  ultimis  munJi  teinporibuj* ;  esse  in  fatis,  id  est,  in  providentia,  ut 
multi  pertranslbvnif  et  auQebitur  sciea-      pertransitus  muiidi  ((^ui  per  tot  loiigiu- 


36 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


diial  renewal  (in  proportion  as  modern  governments  became 
effectual  in  seeming  order  and  tranquillity)  of  that  intercourse 
between  the  different  states  of  Europe  wliich  had,  in  a  great 
measure,  ceased  during  the  anarchy  and  turbulence  of  the 
middle  ages. 

In  consequence  of  these  combined  causes,  aided  by  some 
others  of  secondary  importance,^  the  Genius  of  the  human  race 


qnas  navigationes  implctur  plane,  aut 
jam  in  opere  esse  yidetur)  et  augmenta 
Bcientiamm  in  candem  aetatcm  inci- 
dant." — Nov.  Org,  lib.  i.  §  xciii. 

*  Sucli  as  the  accidental  inventions 
of  the  telescope  and  of  the  microscope. 
The  powerful  influence  of  these  inven- 
tions may  be  easily  conceived,  not  only 
in  advancing  the  sciences  of  astronomy 
and  of  natural  history,  but  in  banishing 
many  of  the  scholastic  prejudices  then 
universally  prevalent.  The  effects  of 
the  telescope,  in  this  respect,  have  been 
often  remarked,  but  less  attention  has 
been  given  to  those  of  the  microscope — 
which,  however,  it  is  probable,  contri- 
buted not  a  little  to  prepare  the  way  for 
the  modern  revival  of  the  Atomic  or  Cor- 
puscular Philosophy,  by  Bacon,  Gas- 
sendi,  and  Newton.  That,  on  the  mind 
of  Bacon,  the  wonders  disclosed  by  the 
microscope  produced  a  strong  impres- 
sion in  favour  of  the  Epicurean  physics, 
may  be  inferred  from  his  own  words : 
"  Perspicillum  (microscopicum)  si  vidis- 
Bct  Democritus,  exsiluisset  forte ;  ct  mo- 
dum  videndi  Atomum  (quem  ille  invisi- 
bilem  omnino  affirmavit)  inventum  fuisse 
putossef — Nov,  Org.  lib.  ii.  §  39. 

We  are  told  in  the  Life  of  Galileo, 
that  when  the  telescope  was  invented, 
some  individuals  carried  to  so  great  a 
length  their  devotion  to  Aristotle,  that 
they  positively  refused  to  look  through 
that  instrument :  so  averse  were  they  to 
open  their  eyes  to  any  truths  inconsis- 
tent with  their  favourite  creed. — ( Vita 
del  Galileo f  Venezia,  1744.)  It  is  amus- 
ing to  find  some  other  followers  of  the 


Stagirite,  a  very  few  years  afterwards, 
when  they  found  it  impossible  any  longer 
to  call  in  question  the  evidence  of  sense, 
asserting  that  it  was  from  a  passage  in 
Aristotle  (where  he  attempts  to  explain 
why  stars  become  visible  in  the  day- 
time when  viewed  from  the  bottom  of  a 
deep  well)  that  the  invention  of  tho 
telescope  was  borrowed.  The  two  facts, 
when  combined  together,  exhibit  a  truly 
characteristical  portrait  of  one  of  the 
most  fatal  weaknesses  incident  to  huma- 
nity ;  and  form  a  moral  apologue,  daily 
exemplified  on  subjects  of  still  nearer 
and  higher  interest  than  the  phenomena 
of  the  heavens. 

In  ascribing  to  accident  the  inventions 
of  the  telescope  and  of  the  microscope, 
I  have  expressed  myself  in  conformity 
to  common  language ;  but  it  ought  not 
to  be  overlooked,  that  an  invention  may 
be  accidental  with  respect  to  the  parti- 
cular author,  and  yet  may  be  the  natu- 
ral result  of  the  circumstances  of  society 
at  the  period  when  it  took  place.  As  to 
the  instruments  in  question,  the  combi- 
nation of  lenses  employed  in  their  struc- 
ture is  so  simple,  that  it  could  scarcely 
escape  the  notice  of  all  the  experimen- 
ters and  mechanicians  of  that  busy  and 
inquisitive  age.  A  similar  remark  has 
been  made  by  Condorcet  concerning  the 
invention  of  printing.  **  L'invention  de 
rimprimerift  a  sans  doute  avance  le  pro- 
grcs  de  I'espece  humaine;  mais  cette 
invention  etoit  elle-mOme  une  suite  de 
l'u.sage  de  la  lecture  rupandu  dans  un 
grand  nombre  de  pays. "  —  Vie  de 
Turgot. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        37 

seems,  all  at  once,  to  have  awakened  with  renovated  and  giant 
strength  from  his  long  sleep.  In  less  tlian  a  century  from 
the  invention  of  printing  and  the  fall  of  the  Eastern  em- 
pire, Copernicus  discovered  the  true  theory  of  the  planetary 
motions,  and  a  very  few  years  irfterwards,  was  succeeded  by  the 
three  great  precursors  of  Newton — Tycho  Brahe,  Kepler,  and 
Galileo. 

The  step  made  by  Copernicus  may  be  justly  regarded  as  one 
of  the  proudest  triumphs  of  human  reason ; — whether  we  con- 
sider the  sagacity  which  enabled  the  author  to  obviate,  to  his 
own  satisfaction,  the  many  plausible  objections  which  must 
have  presented  themselves  against  his  conclusions,  at  a  period 
when  the  theory  of  motion  was  so  imixjrfectly  imderstood ;  or 
the  bold  spirit  of  inquiry  which  encouraged  him  to  exercise  his 
p^i^'ate  judgment,  in  opposition  to  the  authority  of  Aristotle,— 
to  the  decrees  of  the  Church  of  Rome, — and  to  the  universal 
belief  of  the  learned,  during  a  long  succession  of  ages.  He 
appears,  indeed,  to  liave  well  merited  the  encomiiun  bestowed  on 
him  by  Kepler,  when  he  calls  him  "  a  man  of  vawt  geniuK,  and, 
what  is  of  still  greater  moment  in  these  researches,  a  man  of  a 
free  miniL" 

The  establishment  of  the  Copemican  system,  beside  the  new 
field  of  study  which  it  opened  to  Astronomers,  must  have  had 
great  effects  on  philosophy  in  all  its  branches,  by  ins])iring  those 
sanguine  prospects  of  future  improvement,  wliich  stimulate 
curiosity  and  invigorate  the  inventive  powers.  It  afforded  to 
the  common  sense,  even  of  the  illiterate,  a  i)ulpable  and  incon- 
trovertible proof,  tliat  the  ancients  had  not  exhausted  the  stock 
of  possible  discoveries;  and  that,  in  matters  of  science,  the 
creed  of  the  Romish  Church  was  not  infallible.  In  the  conclu- 
sion of  one  of  Kei)ler's  works,  we  |)erceive  the  influence  of  these 
prospects  on  his  mind.  "  Usee  et  cetera  hujusmodi  latent  in 
pandectis  8evi  sequentis,  non  antea  discenda,  quam  libnmi  hunc 
Deus  arbiter  seculorum  recluserit  mortalibus."^ 

I  liave  liitherto  taken  no  notice  of  the  effects  of  the  revival 

*  JSjfU,  Aiiron.  Copemic. 


38 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


of  letters  on  Metaphysical,  Moral,  or  Political  science.  The 
truth  is,  that  little  deserving  of  our  attention  occurs  in  any 
of  these  departments  prior  to  the  seventeenth  century ;  and 
nothing  which  bears  the  most  remote  analogy  to  the  rapid 
strides  made,  during  the  sixteenth,  in  mathematics,  astro- 
nomy, and  physics.  The  influence,  indeed,  of  the  Eeforma- 
tion  on  the  practical  doctrines  of  ethics  appears  to  have 
been  great  and  immediate.  We  may  judge  of  tins  from  a 
passage  in  Melanchthon,  where  he  combats  the  pernicious  and 
impious  tenets  of  those  theologians  who  maintained,  that  moral 
distinctions  are  created  entirely  by  the  arbitrary  and  revealed 
will  of  God.  In  opposition  to  this  heresy  he  expresses  himself 
in  these  memorable  words : — "  Wherefore  our  decision  is  this ; 
that  those  precepts  which  learned  men  have  committed  to 
writing,  transcribing  them  from  the  common  reason  and  com- 
mon feelings  of  human  nature,  are  to  be  accounted  as  not  less 
divine,  than  those  contained  in  the  tables  given  to  Moses ;  and 
that  it  could  not  be  the  intention  of  our  Maker  to  supersede,  by 
a  law  graven  upon  stone,  that  which  is  written  with  his  own 
finger  on  the  table  of  the  heart." ^ — This  language  was,  un- 
doubtedly, a  most  important  step  towards  a  just  s}"stem  of 
Moral  Philosophy ;  but  still,  like  the  other  steps  of  the  Re- 
formers, it  was  only  a  return  to  common  sense,  and  to  the 
genuine  spirit  of  Christianity,  from  the  dogmas  imposed  on 
the  credulity  of  mankind  by  an  ambitious  priesthood.*    Many 


^  '*  Proinde  sic  statuimus,  nihilo  minus 
divinapracceptaesseea,  quae  a  sensu  com- 
muni  et  naturaB  judicio  mutuati  docti 
homines  gentiles  litcris  mandanmt, 
quam  quae  extant  in  ipsis  saxeis  Mosis 
tabulis.  Neqne  ille  ipse  caelestis  Pater 
pluris  a  nobis  fieri  eas  leges  voluit,  quas 
in  saxo  scripsit,  quam  quas  in  ipsos  ani- 
morum  nostrorum  sensus  impresserat." 

Not  having  it  in  my  power  at  pre- 
sent to  consult  Molanchthon's  works,  I 
have  transcribed  the  foregoing  para- 
graph on  the  authority  of  a  learned 
German    Professor,    Christ.    Mciners. 


See  his  Historia  Doctrino!   de   Vero 
Deo.    Lemgoviae,  1780,  p.  12. 

•  It  is  observed  by  Dr.  Cudworth,  that 
the  doctrine  which  refers  the  origin  of 
moral  distinctions  to  the  arbitrary  ap- 
pointment of  the  Deity,  was  strongly 
reprobated  by  the  ancient  fathers  of  tbo 
Christian  church,  and  that  it  crept  up 
afterward  in  the  scholastic  ages ;  Occam 
being  among  the  first  that  maintained, 
that  there  is  no  act  evil,  but  as  it  is 
prohibited  by  God,  and  which  cannot 
be  made  good,  if  it  be  commanded  by 
him.    In  this  doctrine  he  was  quickly 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.   39 

years  were  yet  to  elapse  before  any  attempts  were  to  be  made 
to  trace,  with  analytical  accuracy,  the  moral  phenomena  of 
hmnan  life  to  their  first  principles  in  the  constitution  and  con- 
dition of  man ;  or  even  to  disentangle  the  plain  and  practical 
lessons  of  ethics  from  the  speculative  and  controverted  articles 
of  theological  systems.^ 


followed  by  Petnu  AUiacus,  Andreas 
de  Novo  Castro,  and  others.  See 
Treatise  oflmmutdble  JUoralihf. 

It  is  pleasing  to  remark,  how  verj 
generally  the  heresy  here  ascribed  to 
Occam  is  now  reprobated  by  good  men 
of  all  persuasions.  The  Catholics  have 
even  begnn  to  recriminate  on  the  Re- 
formers as  the  first  bronchers  of  it ;  and 
it  is  to  be  regretted,  that  in  aome  of  the 
writings  of  the  Utter,  too  near  ap- 
proaches to  it  are  to  be  found.  The 
Uiith  is,  (as  Burnet  long  ago  observed,) 
that  the  effects  of  the  Reformation  have 
not  been  confined  to  the  reformed 
churches ; — to  which  it  may  be  added, 
that  both  Catholics  and  Protestants 
have,  since  that  era,  profited  very  largely 
by  the  general  progress  of  the  sciences 
and  of  human  reason. 

I  quote  the  following  sentence  firom  a 
highly  respectable  Catholic  writer  on 
the  law  of  nature  and  nations : — "  Qui 
rationem  exsulare  jubent  a  moralibus 
praeceptis  qusB  in  sacris  literis  tra- 
duntur,  et  in  absurdam  enormemque 
LuTHRRi  seutentiam  imprudentes  inci- 
dimt  (quam  egregie  et  elegantissime  re> 
futavit  Melchior  Canus  Loc.  Theciog. 
lib.  ix.  and  x.)  et  ea  doccnt,  qusB  si 
sectatores  inveniant  moralia  omnia  sus- 
que  deque  miscere,  et  revelationem 
ipsam  inutilem  omnino  et  inefficaccm 
reddere  posseut." — (Lampredi  Floren- 
tini  Juri*  Naturce  et  Oentium  Theore- 
mata,  torn.  ii.  p.  105.  Pisis,  1782.) 
For  the  continuation  of  the  posHage, 
which  would  do  credit  to  the  most 
liberal  Protestant,  I  must  refer  to  the 
original  work.    The  zeal  of  Luther  for 


the  doctrine  of  the  Nominalists  had 
probably  prepossessed  him,  in  his  early 
years,  in  favour  of  some  of  the  theolo- 
gical tenets  of  Occam ;  and  afterwards 
prevented  him  from  testifying  his  di»* 
approbation  of  them  so  explicitly  and 
decidedly  as  Melanchthon  and  other  re- 
formers have  done. 

'  "  The  theological  system  (says  the 
learned  and  judicious  Mosheim)  that 
now  prevails  in  the  Lutheran  academies, 
is  not  of  the  same  tenor  or  spirit  with 
that  which  was  adopted  in  the  infancy  of 
the  RefonuAtion.  The  glorious  defen- 
ders of  religious  liberty,  to  whom  we 
owe  the  various  blessings  of  the  Refor- 
mation, could  not,  at  once,  behold  tlie 
tnith  in  all  its  lustre,  and  in  all  its  ex- 
tent ;  but,  as  usually  hapi)cns  to  persons 
that  have  been  long  accustomed  to  the 
darkness  of  ignorance,  their  approaches 
towards  knowledge  were  but  slow,  and 
their  views  of  things  but  imperfect," — 
(Maclaine's  TransL  of  Mosfteitn,  Lon- 
don, 2d  ed.  vol.  iv.  p.  19.)  He  afUsr- 
wards  mentions  one  of  Luther's  early 
disciples,  (Amsdorff,)  "  who  was  so  far 
transported  and  infatuated  by  his  ex- 
cessive zeal  for  the  supposed  doctrine  of 
his  master,  as  to  maintain  that  good 
toorkit  are  an  impexlitnent  to  salvation.** 
^Ibid.  p.  39. 

Mosheim,  after  remarking  that  "  there 
are  more*  excellent  rules  of  conduct  in 
the  fi'w  practical  pnnluctions  of  Luther 
and  Melanchthon,  than  are  to  bo  found 
in  the  innumerable  volumes  of  all  the 
ancient  casvists  and  moralizers,^*  can- 
didly acknowledges,  "  that  the  notions 
of  those  great  men  concerning  the  im- 


40 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


A  similar  observation  may  be  applied  to  the  powerful  appeals, 
in  the  early  Protestant  writers,  to  the  moral  judgment  and 
moral  feelings  of  the  human  race,  from  those  casuistical  subtle- 
ties, with  which  the  schoolmen  and  monks  of  the  middle  ages 
had  studied  to  obscure  the  light  of  nature,  and  to  stifle  the  voice 
of  conscience.  These  subtleties  were  precisely  analogous  in 
their  spirit  to  the  pia  et  religiosa  calUditas,  afterwards  adopted 
in  the  casuistry  of  the  Jesuits,  and  so  inimitably  exposed  by 
Pascal  in  the  Provincial  Letters.  The  arguments  against  them 
employed  by  the  Keformers,  cannot,  in  strict  propriety,  be  con- 
sidered as  positive  accessions  to  the  stock  of  human  knowledge ; 
but  what  scientific  discoveries  can  be  compared  to  them  in 
value  !^ 

From  this  period  may  be  dated  the  decline  ^  of  that  worst  of 


portant  science  of  morality  were  far 
from  being  sufficiently  accurate  or  ex- 
tensive. Melanchtbon  himself,  whose 
exquisite  judgment  rendered  him  pe- 
culiarly capable  of  reducing  into  a  com- 
pendious system  the  elements  of  every 
science,  never  seems  to  have  thought  of 
treating  morals  in  this  manner;  but 
has  inserted,  on  the  contrary,  all  his 
practical  rules  and  instnictions,  under 
the  theological  articles  that  relate  to 
the  law^  sin,  free-^ciU,  faiilt,  hope,  and 
charity.** — Mosheim's  JSccles.  Hi$t  vol. 
iv.  pp.  23,  24. 

The  same  author  elsewhere  observes, 
that  "  the  progress  of  morality  among 
the  reformed  was  obstructed  by  the  very 
same  means  that  retarded  its  improve- 
ment among  the  Lutherans;  and  that 
it  was  left  in  a  rude  and  imperfect  state 
by  Calvin  and  his  associates.  It  was 
neglected  amidst  the  tumult  of  contro- 
versy ;  and,  while  every  pen  was  drawn 
to  maintain  certain  systems  of  doctrine, 
few  were  employed  in  cultivating  that 
master  science  which  has  virtue,  Ufe, 
and  manners  for  its  objects." — Ibid.  pp. 
120,  121. 

^  "Et  tamen  ni  doctores,  angdid, 
cJiervbicif    seraphici   non    modo    uni- 


versam  philosophiam  ac  thcologiam 
erroribus  quam  plurimis  inquinarunt ; 
venim  etiam  in  philosophiam  moralem 
invexere  sacerrima  ista  principia  pnh 
hahUismi,  methodi  dirifjendi  intentia- 
nem,  reservationis  mentaih,  peccati  phi- 
losophici,  quibus  Jesvitas  etiamnum 
minfice  delcctantur." — Heinecc.  JSlem. 
HisUyr.  Phil,  g  cii.  See  also  the  re- 
ferences. 

With  respect  to  the  ethics  of  the 
Jesuits,  which  exhibit  a  very  fair  pic- 
ture of  the  general  state  of  that  science, 
prior  to  the  Reformation,  see  the  Pro- 
vincial Letters;  Mosheim*s  Ecdesias- 
iical  History,  vol.  iv.  p.  354 ;  Domford*8 
Translation  of  Putter's  Historical  2>e- 
vdopment  of  the  Present  Political  Con- 
stittUion  of  the  Germanic  Umpire,  vol. 
ii.  p.  6  ;  and  the  Appendix  to  Penrose's 
Bampton  Lectures. 

'  I  have  said,  the  decline  of  iJUs 
heresy,  for  it  was  by  no  means  inune- 
diately  extirpated  even  in  the  reformed 
churches.  "  As  late  as  the  year  159S, 
Daniel  Hofiroan,  Professor  of  Divinity 
in  the  University  of  Helmstadt,  laying 
hold  of  some  particular  opinions  of 
liUther,  extravagantly  maintained,  that 
pliilosophy  was  the  mortal  enemy  of 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        41 

all  herefdes  of  the  Bomish  Church,  wliich,  by  opposing  revelar- 
tion  to  reason,  endeavoured  to  extinguish  the  light  of  both ; 
and  the  absurdity  (so  happily  described  by  Locke)  became  every 
day  more  manifest,  of  attempting  "  to  persuade  men  to  put  out 
their  eyes,  that  they  might  the  better  receive  the  remote  light 
of  an  invisible  star  by  a  telescope." 

In  the  meantime,  a  powerful  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  prac- 
tical morality  and  of  sound  policy,  was  superadded  to  those  pre- 
viously existing  in  Catholic  countries,  by  the  rapid  growth  and 
extensive  influence  of  the  Machiavellian  school.  The  founder 
of  this  new  sect  (or  to  speak  more  correctly,  the  systematizer 
and  apostle  of  its  doctrines)  was  bom  as  early  as  1469,  that  is, 
about  ten  years  before  Luther ;  and,  like  that  reformer,  acquired 
by  the  commanding  8ni)eriority  of  his  genius,  an  astonishing 
ascendant  (though  of  a  very  difierent  nature)  over  the  minds  of 
his  foUowera  No  writer,  certainly,  either  in  ancient  or  in 
modem  times,  has  ever  united,  in  a  more  remarkable  degree,  a 
greater  variety  of  the  most  dissimilar  and  seemingly  the  most 
discordant  gifts  and  attainments; — a  profound  acquaintance 
with  all  those  arts  of  dissimulation  and  intrigue,  which,  in  the 
petty  cabinets  of  Italy,  were  then  universally  confounded  with 
political  wisdom ;  an  imagination  familiarized  to  the  cool  con- 
templation of  whatever  is  perfidious  or  atrocious  in  the  history 
of  conspirators  and  of  tyrants ; — combined  with  a  grapliical 
skill  in  holding  up  to  laughter  the  comparatively  hannless 
follies  of  ordinary  life.  His  dramatic  hmnour  has  been  often 
compared  to  that  of  Moliere ;  but  it  resembles  it  rather  in  comic 
force,  than  in  benevolent  gaiety,  or  in  chastened  moniUty. 
Such  as  it  is,  however,  it  forms  an  extraordinary  contrast  to 
that  strength  of  intellectual  character,  which,  in  one  l>age, 
reminds  us  of  the  deep  sense  of  Tacitus,  and  in  the  next,  of  the 
dark  and  infernal  policy  of  Cajsar  Borgia.  To  all  this  must  be 
superadded  a  purity  of  taste,  which  has  enabled  liira,  as  an  his- 

religion ;  that  truth  was  diviKible  into  what  was  trtie  in  i)liilo80j)hy,  waa 
two  branches,  the  one  phUoaophical^  faUe  in  thiK)logy." — Moshciin,  vol.  iv. 
and  the  other  theoiogieal ;   and  that      p.  18. 


42  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

torian,  to  rival  the  severe  simplicity  of  the  Grecian  masters,  and 
a  sagacity  in  combining  historical  facts,  which  was  aftderwards 
to  afford  lights  to  the  school  of  Montesquieu. — [The  opinion  of 
the  Cardinal  de  Retz  on  the  character  and  talents  of  Machiavel 
is  entitled  to  much  attention.  It  is  expressed  fully  by  himself 
in  the  following  sentences.  "  Un  des  plus  grands  malheurs  que 
Tautorite  Despotique  des  Ministres  du  dernier  siecle  ait  caus^ 
dans  TEtat,  c'est  la  pratique  que  leurs  int^rets  particuliers  mal 
entendus  y  ont  introduite,  de  soutenir  toujours  le  sup^rieur  con- 
tre  rinferieur.  Cette  maxime  est  de  Machiavel,  que  la  plupart 
des  gens  qui  le  lisent  n'entendent  pas,  et  que  les  autres  croient 
avoir  ete  habile,  parce  qu'il  a  toujoiu-s  6t(S  mechant.  H  s'en 
faut  de  beaucoup  qu'il  ne  fut  habile,  et  il  s'est  tres  souvent 
trompe,  mais  en  nul  endroit  a  mon  opinion  plus  qu'en  celui- 
ci." '] 

Eminent,  however,  as  the  talents  of  Macliiavel  unquestionably 
were,  he  cannot  be  numbered  among  the  benefactors  of  man- 
kind. In  none  of  his  writings  does  he  exhibit  any  marks  of 
that  lively  sympathy  with  the  fortunes  of  the  himian  race,  or  of 
that  warm  zeal  for  the  interests  of  truth  and  justice,  without 
the  guidance  of  which,  the  highest  mental  endowments,  when 
applied  to  moral  or  to  political  researches,  are  in  perpetual 
danger  of  mistaking  their  way.  What  is  still  more  remarkable, 
he  seems  to  have  been  altogether  blind  to  the  mighty  changes 
in  human  affairs,  which,  in  consequence  of  the  recent  invention 
of  printing,  were  about  to  result  from  the  progress  of  Beason 
and  the  diflfiision  of  Knowledge.  Through  the  whole  of  his 
Prince  (the  most  noted  as  well  as  one  of  the  latest  of  his  pub- 
lications) he  proceeds  on  the  supposition,  that  the  sovereign  has 
no  other  object  in  governing  but  his  own  advantage  ;  the  very 
circumstance  which,  in  the  judgment  of  Aristotle,  constitutes 
the  essence  of  the  worst  species  of  tyranny.^    He  assumes  also 

*  [Mimoires  du  Cardinal  de  Betz.  when  one  man,  the  worst  and  perhaps 
Liv.  iii.  (1650).]  tho  basest  in  the  country,  governs  a 

*  "  There  is  a  third  kind  of  tyranny,  kingdom,  with  no  other  view  than  the 
which  most  properly  deserves  that  odi-  advantage  of  himself  and  his  family." 
ous  name,  and  which  stands  in  direct  — Aristotle's  Politics^  Book  vi.  chap.  x. 
opposition   to  royalty  ;   it  takes  place  See  Dr.  Gillies's  Translation. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        43 

the  posdbility  of  retaining  mankind  in  perj>etual  bondage  by 
the  old  policy  of  the  double  docbnne ;  or,  in  other  wordn,  by 
enlightening  the  few,  and  hoodwinking  the  many; — a  jwliey 
less  or  more  practised  by  statesmen  in  all  ages  and  countries ; 
but  which  (wherever  the  freedom  of  the  Press  is  respected) 
cannot  fail,  by  the  insult  it  offers  to  the  discernment  of  the 
multitude,  to  increase  the  insecurity  of  those  who  have  the 
weakness  to  employ  it.  It  has  l)een  contended,  indeed,  by  some 
of  Machiavel's  a]>ologists,  that  his  real  object  in  unfolding  and 
systematizing  the  mysteries  of  King-craft,  was  to  point  out  in- 
directly to  the  governed  the  means  by  which  the  encroachments 
of  their  rulers  might  Ixj  most  effectually  resisted ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  to  satirize,  under  the  ironical  mask  of  loj'al  and 
courtly  admonition,  the  characteristical  vices  of  i)rinces.i  But, 
although  this  hypothesis  has  been  sanctioned  by  several  dis- 
tinguished names,  and  derives  some  verisimilitude  from  various 
incidents  in  the  author's  life,  it  will  be  found,  on  examination, 
quite  untenable ;  and  accordingly  it  is  now,  I  believe,  very  gen- 
erally rejected.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  if  such  were  actually 
Machiavel's  \dews,  they  were  much  too  refined  for  the  capacity 
of  his  royal  pupils.  By  many  of  these  his  book  has  been 
adopted  as  a  manual  for  daily  use ;  but  I  have  never  heard  of 
a  single  instance,  in  wliich  it  has  been  regarded  by  tliis  class  of 
students  as  a  disguised  panegyric  ujwn  lilx^rty  and  virtue.  The 
question  concerning  the  motives  of  the  autlior  is  surely  of  little 
moment,  when  exix?rience  has  enabled  us  to  pronounce  so  de- 
cidedly on  the  practical  effects  of  his  precepts. 

"  About  the  period  of  the  Reformation,"  wiys  Condorcet,  "  the 
principles  of  religious  Machiavelism  had  become  the  only  creed 
of  princes,  of  ministers,  and  of  pontiffs ;  and  the  wune  opinions 
had  contributed  to  corrupt  philo80i)hy.  What  code,  indeed,  of 
morals,"  he  adds,  "  was  to  he  expected  from  a  system,  of  which 
one  of  the  principles  is, — that  it  is  necesstiry  to  support  the 
morality  of  the  people  by  false  pretences, — and  that  men  of  en- 
lightened minds  have  a  right  to  retain  others  in  the  chains  from 
which  they  have  themselves  contrived  to  escai>e  !"     The  fact  is 

*  Seo  Note  C. 


44  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

perhaps  stated  in  terms  somewhat  too  miqualified ;  but  there 
are  the  best  reasons  for  believing,  that  the  exceptions  were  few, 
when  compared  with  the  general  proposition. — [The  Christian 
charity  of  John  Calvin,  in  judging  of  the  Boman  Pontiflfs,  does 
not  seem  to  have  exceeded  that  of  Condorcet.  "  Ad  homines 
autem  si  veniamus,  satis  scitur  quales  reperturi  simus  Christi 
vicarios ;  Julius,  scilicet,  et  Leo,  et  Clemens,  et  Paulus  Chris- 
tianaj  fidei  Columnce  erunt,  primique  religionis  interpretes,  qui 
nihil  aliud  de  Christo  tenuerunt  nisi  quod  didicerant  in  schola 
Luciani.  Sed  quid  tres  aut  quatuor  Pontifices  enumero,  quasi 
vero  dubium  sit  qualem  religionis  speciem  professi  sint  jampri- 
dem  Pontifices  cum  toto  Cardinalium  collegio  ?  Primum  enim 
arcanas  iUius  Theologite  quae  inter  eos  regnat,  caput  est; 
nullum  esse  Deum;  cwterum,  quaBcunque  de  Christo  scripta 
sunt  docentur  mendacia  esse  et  imi)osturas."^] 

The  consequences  of  the  prevalence  of  such  a  creed  among 
the  rulers  of  mankind  were  such  as  might  be  expected.  "  In- 
famous crimes,  assassinations,  and  poisonings,  (says  a  French 
historian,)  prevailed  more  than  ever.  They  were  thought  to  be 
the  growth  of  Italy,  where  the  rage  and  weakness  of  the  opjXH 
site  factions  conspired  to  multiply  them.  Morality  gradually 
disappeared,  and  with  it  all  security  in  the  intercourse  of  life. 
The  first  principles  of  duty  were  obliterated  by  the  joint  influ- 
ence of  atheism  and  of  superstition."^ 

And  here,  may  I  be  permitted  to  caution  my  readers  against 
the  common  error  of  confoimding  the  double  doctrine  of  Machi- 
avellian politicians,  with  the  benevolent  reverence  for  established 
opinions,  manifested  in  the  noted  maxim  of  Fontenclle, — "  that 
a  wise  man,  even  when  his  hand  was  full  of  truths,  would  often 
content  himself  with  opening  his  little  finger  ?"  Of  the  advo- 
cates for  the  former,  it  may  be  justly  said,  that  "  they  love 
darkness  rather  than  Ught,  hecavse  their  deeds  are  evil;'*  well 
knowing  (if  I  may  borrow  the  words  of  Bacon)  "  that  the  open 
day-light  doth  not  shew  the  masks  and  mmnmeries,  and 
triumphs  of  the  world,  half  so  stately  as  candle-light."  The 
philosopher,  on  the  other  hand,  w^ho  is  duly  impressed  with  the 

»  [Calvini  In$tU.  lib.  iv.  cap.  7,  §  17.]  *  ^lillot. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  IIEVIVAL  TO  BACON.       45 


latter,  may  be  compared  to  the  oculist,  who,  after  removiug  the 
cataract  of  his  patient,  prepares  the  still  irritable  eye,  by  the 
glimmering  dawn  of  a  darkened  apartment,  for  enjoying  in 
safety  the  light  of  day.^ 

Machiavel  is  well  known  to  have  been,  at  bottom,  no  friend 
to  the  priesthood ;  and  his  character  lias  been  stigmatized  by 
many  of  the  order,  with  the  most  opprobrious  epitliets.  It  is 
nevertheless  certain,  tliat  to  his  maxims  the  royal  defenders  of 
the  Catholic  faith  liave  been  indebted  for  tlie  spirit  of  tliat 
I)olicy  which  tliey  liave  uniformly  opposed  to  the  innovations  of 
the  Reformers.  The  Prince  was  a  favourite  l)ook  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.,  and  was  calle<l  the  Bible  of  Catliarine  of 
Medicis.  At  the  court  of  the  latter,  while  Begent  of  France, 
those  who  approacheil  her  are  said  to  have  professed  openly  its 
most  atrocious  maxims,  jwirticularly  that  which  recommends 
to  sovereigns  not  to  commit  crimes  by  halves.  The  Italian 
cardinals,  who  are  supposed  to  have  l>een  the  secret  instigators 
of  the  massacre  of  St  Bartholomew,  were  bred  in  the  same 
school.* 


^  How  fltrango  is  the  following  min- 
repret»eDUtioD  of  Fontcnellc^s  fine  and 
deep  Miying,  by  the  comparatively  coarHe 
hand  of  the  Banm  de  Grimm  !  "  II 
disoit,  que  8*il  eiit  tonu  la  verite  dans 
8C8  mains  comnio  un  oiHcau,  il  I'aunnt 
etouffi'e,  tant  il  regiinloit  lo  plus  beau 
present  du  ciel  inutile  et  danf::ercux 
pour  le  genre  humain." — (31ihtwiret 
JlUtorupies,  &c.  par  le  Baron  dc  Grimm. 
I»ndre8,  1814.  Tome  i.  p.  340.)  Of 
the  complete  inconsistency  of  this  state- 
ment, not  only  with  the  testimony  of 
his  most  authentic  biographers,  but 
with  the  general  tenor  both  of  his  life 
and  writings,  a  judgment  may  be  fonn- 
ed  from  an  expreimion  of  D'Alembert, 
in  his  very  ingenious  and  philosophical 
parallel  betwccMi  Fontencllo  and  I<a 
Motte.  "  Tons  deux  ont  portc  trop  loin 
leur  rov(»lte  docidce,  quoique  douce  en 
apparcnce,  contro  les  dieux  et  les  lois 
du  PamaMKC ;  mais  la  libcrte  des  o))in- 
ions  de  la  Motte  semble  tenir  plus  inti- 


mement  fi  lintenH  personnel  qu'il  avoit 
de  les  Boutenir ;  et  la  liberte  des  opin- 
ions do  Fontenolle  h  Vint  fret  gfnfral^ 
pent  etre  qnehjuefoit  mul  entcndii,  (/vHl 
yrenoit  nv  proffrH  tie  In  ntison  dtttiM 
tout  les  ffetires."*  What  follows  may  be 
reganled  in  the  light  of  a  comment  on 
the  maxim  alK)ve  quoted  :  "  I^  finesse 
de  la  Motte  est  plus  d('veh)ppt''e,  cclle 
de  Fontenelle  laisse  plus  n  deviner  h  son 
lecteur.  Iai  M<»tte,  sans  jamais  en  trop 
dire,  n'oublie  rien  de  ce  que  son  siy'et 
lui  prvsente,  met  habilement  tout  en 
oeuvre,  et  semble  craindre  pertlre  par 
des  reticences  tn»p  subtiles  quelqu'un  dc 
SOS  avantagcs  ;  Ft»ntenelle,  sans  jamais 
C'tre  oljHcur,  excepte  pour  ceux  qui  no 
meritent  pas  mruie  qu*on  soit  clair,  se 
menjige  a  la  fois  et  le  plaisir  do  kouh- 
entendre,  et  celui  d'espcrer  qu'il  sera 
pleinement  entendu  par  ccux  qui  en 
sent  dignes." — AVrw/e  de  la  Motte. 

•  Voltaire,  Essay  on  Universal  Ifis- 
tortj. 


46  DISSERTATION. — PAUT  FIRST. 

It  is  observed  by  Mr.  Hume,  that  ^^  there  is  scarcely  any 
maxim  in  the  Prince  which  subsequent  experience  has  not 
entirely  refuted"  "  Machiavel,"  says  the  same  writer,  "  was 
certainly  a  great  genius ;  but  liaving  confined  liis  study  to  the 
furious  and  tjTannical  governments  of  ancient  times,  or  to  the 
little  disorderly  principalities  of  Italy,  his  reasonings,  especially 
upon  momirchical  governments,  have  been  found  extremely 
defective.  The  errors  of  this  politician  proceeded,  in  a  great 
measure,  from  his  having  lived  in  too  early  an  age  of  the 
world,  to  be  a  good  judge  of  political  truth."  ^ 

To  these  very  judicious  remarks,  it  may  be  added,  that  the 
bent  of  Machiavel's  mind  seems  to  have  disjiosed  him  much 
more  strongly  to  combine  and  to  generalize  his  historical  reading, 
than  to  remomit  to  the  first  principles  of  political  science,  in 
the  constitution  of  human  nature,  and  in  the  immutable  truths 
of  morality.  His  conclusions,  accordingly,  ingenious  and  re- 
fined as  they  commonly  are,  amount  to  little  more  (with  a  few 
very  splendid  exceptions)  than  enipirictd  results  from  the 
events  of  past  ages.  To  the  student  of  ancient  history  they 
may  be  often  both  interesting  and  instructive ;  but,  to  the 
modern  politician,  the  most  important  lesson  they  afford  is,  the 
danger,  in  the  present  circumstances  of  the  world,  of  trusting 
to  such  results,  as  maxims  of  universal  application,  or  of  per- 
manent utility. 

The  progress  of  political  philosophy,  and  along  with  it  of 
morahty  and  g(K>d  order,  in  every  part  of  Euroix>,  since  the 
period  of  which  I  am  now  speaking,  forms  so  pleasing  a  com- 
ment on  the  profligate  and  short-sighted  policy  of  Macliiavel, 
that  I  cannot  help  pausing  for  a  moment  to  remark  the  fact 
In  stating  it,  I  shall  avail  myself  of  the  words  of  the  same  pro- 
found wTit-er,  whose  strictiu*es  on  Machiavel's  Prince  I  had 
already  occasion  to  quote.  "  Though  all  kinds  of  government," 
says  Mr.  Hmne,  "  be  improved  in  modern  times,  yet  monar- 
chical government  seems  to  liave  made  the  greatest  advances 
towards  perfection.  It  may  now  l)e  affirmed  of  civilized 
monarchies,  what  was  formerly  stiid  of  republics  alone,  that 

*  Essay  on  Civil  Liberty. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOrHY  FttOM  THE  lUfiVIVAL  TO  BACON.        47 

they  are  a  government  of  laws,  not  of  men.  They  are  found 
susceptible  of  order,  method,  and  constancy,  to  a  suri>rising 
degree.  Property  is  there  secure,  industry  encouraged,  the  arts 
flourish,  and  the  Prince  lives  secure  among  his  subjects,  like  a 
father  among  his  cliildren.  There  are,  perhaps,  and  have  Ixjen 
for  two  centiudes,  near  two  hundred  absolute  princes,  great  and 
small,  in  Europe ;  and  allowing  twenty  years  to  each  reign,  wo 
may  suppose  that  there  have  been  in  the  whole  two  thousand 
monarchs  or  tyrants^  as  the  Greeks  would  have  called  them. 
Yet  of  these  tliere  has  not  been  one,  not  even  Pliilip  II.  of 
Spain,  so  bad  as  Tilyerius,  Caligula,  Nero,  or  Domitian,  who 
were  four  in  twelve  among  the  Roman  Emperora"  ^ 

For  this  very  remarkable  fact,  it  seems  difficult  to  assign 
any  cause  equal  to  the  eflfect,  but  the  increased  diffusion  of 
knowledge  (imperfect,  alas!  as  this  diflfusion  still  is)  by 
means  of  the  Press ;  which,  while  it  has  raised,  in  free  states, 
a  growing  bulwark  against  the  oppression  of  nilers,  in  the  light 
and  spirit  of  the  people,  has,  even  under  the  most  absolute 
governments,  had  a  powerful  influence — by  teaching  j)rinces  to 
regard  the  wealtli,  and  prosperity,  and  instniction  of  their  sub- 
jects, as  the  firmest  basis  of  their  grandeur — in  directing  their 
attention  to  objects  of  national  and  permanent  utility.  How 
encouraging  the  j)ro8pect  thus  opened  of  tlie  future  history  of 
the  world !  And  what  a  motive  to  animate  the  ambition  of 
those,  who,  in  the  solitude  of  the  closet,  aspire  to  lx?queath 
their  contributions,  how  slender  soever,  to  the  progressive  mass 
of  human  improvement  and  happiness ! — [The  true  interest  of 
an  absolute  monarch,  (says  Gibbon,)  genendly  coincides  with 
that  of  his  people.  Their  numbers,  their  wealth,  their  order, 
and  their  securitv,  are  the  best  and  only  foundations  of  real 
greatness;  and  were  he  totally  devoid  of  virtue,  prudence 
might  supply  its  place,  and  would  dictate  the  sjime  rule  of 
conduct. — Decline  of  the  Roman  Empire^  c.  v.] 

In  the  bright  constellation  of  scholars,  historians,  artists,  and 
wits,  who  shed  so  strong  a  lustre  on  Italy  during  that  8j)len(lid 
period  of  its  history  which  commences  with  the  revival   of 

*  E$say  on  Civil  Lil)erty» 


48  DISSERTATION. — PAKT  FIRST. 

letters,  it  is  surprising  how  few  names  occur,  which  it  is  possi- 
ble to  connect,  by  any  palpable  link,  with  the  ])liilosophical  or 
political  speculations  of  the  present  times.  As  an  original  and 
profound  thinker,  the  genius  of  Machiavel  comi)letely  eclipses 
that  of  all  Ids  contemporaries.  Not  that  Italy  was  then  desti- 
tute of  writers  who  pretended  to  the  character  of  j)hilosopher8 ; 
but  as  their  attempts  were,  in  general,  limited  to  the  exclusive 
illustration  and  defence  of  some  one  or  other  of  the  ancient 
sj'stems  for  which  they  had  conceived  a  predilection,  they 
added  but  little  of  their  own  to  the  stock  of  useful  knowledge ; 
and  are  now  remembered  chiefly  from  the  occjisional  recurrence 
of  their  names  in  the  catalogues  of  the  curious,  or  in  works  of 
pliilological  erudition.  The  zeal  of  Cardinal  Bessarion,  and  of 
Marsilius  Ficinus,  for  the  revivjj  of  the  Platonic  philosophy, 
was  more  pecidiarly  remarloible ;  and,  at  one  time,  produced  so 
general  an  impression,  as  to  alarm  the  followers  of  Aristotle  for 
the  tottering  authority  of  their  master.  If  we  may  credit 
Launoius,  this  great  revolution  was  on  tlie  point  of  being 
actually  accomplished,  when  Cardinal  Bellarmine  warned  Pope 
Clement  VIII.  of  the  peculiar  danger  of  shewing  any  favour  to 
a  philosopher  whose  opinions  approached  so  nearly  as  those  of 
Plato  to  the  truths  revealed  in  the  Gospel.  In  what  manner 
Bellarmine  connected  his  concluftions  with  his  premis(»8,  we  are 
not  informed.  To  those  who  are  umnitiated  in  the  mysteries 
of  the  conclave,  his  inference  would  certainly  appear  much  less 
logical  than  that  of  the  old  Roman  Pagans,  who  j>etitioned  the 
Senate  to  condemn  the  works  of  Cicero  to  the  flames,  as  tliey 
predisposed  the  minds  of  those  who  read  them  for  embracing 
the  Christian  faith. — [That  the  apprehensions  of  these  Pagans 
were  not  altogether  groundless,  apjxjars  from  the  accoimt  given 
by  St.  Augustine  of  the  progress  of  his  own  religious  opinions. 
(Not  having  the  works  of  this  father  within  my  reach  at  pre- 
sent, I  am  obliged  to  quote  him  at  second  hand.)  "  Augus- 
tinus  profecto  lecto  Ciceronis  Hortensio,  qui  lilx^r  de  laudibus 
erat  Pliilosophite  a  deo  admirari  m  solitum  scribit  nihil  ut 
requireret  hie  amplius,  prseter  Jesu  Christi  nomen.  Hujus 
etiam  libri  lectione  ad  Cliristiante,  hoc  est  vene  Philosophiae 


CHAP.  L — PHILOSOPHY  FBOM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        49 


contemplationem  incensum  se  fuisse  ingenue  confitetur.  (Lib. 
iii.  Confess,  cap.  4,  et  lib.  viiL  cap.  7,  et  principio  Libri  dc 
rUa  J?eato).i] 

By  a  small  band  of  bolder  innovators,  belonging  to  this 
golden  age  of  Italian  literature,  the  Aristotelian  doctrines  were 
more  directly  and  powerfully  assailed.  Laiu'entius  Valla, 
Marius  Nizolius,  and  Franciscus  Patricius,^  have  all  of  them 
transmitted  their  names  to  posterity  as  philosophical  reformers, 
and,  in  particular,  as  revolters  against  the  authority  of  the 
Stagirite.  Of  the  individuals  just  mentioned,  Nizolius  is  the 
only  one  who  seems  entitled  to  maintain  a  permanent  place  in 
the  annals  of  modem  science.  His  principal  work,  entitled 
AnJtibarbarus^  is  not  only  a  bold  invective  against  the  prevail- 
ing ignorance  and  barbarism  of  the  schools,  but  contains  so 
able  an  argument  against  the  then  fashionable  doctrine  of  the 
Bealists  concerning  general  ideas^  that  Leibnitz  thought  it 
worth  while,  a  century  afterwards,  to  republish  it,  with  the  ad- 
dition of  a  long  and  valuable  preface  \mtten  by  himself 

At  the  same  period  with  Franciscus  Patricius,  flourished 


'  [Cicero  a  Calomniis  VindicmtuB, 
Mictore  Andrea  Schotto. — Vide  CieC' 
roms  Opera,  Edit.  Verburgii,  torn.  i. 
p.  69.] 

'  His  DitcuMtones  PtripaUtioB  were 
printed  at  Venice  in  1571.  Another 
work,  entitled  Nova  de  Uhiversis  Phi- 
lo9oph{at  alao  printed  at  Venice,  appear- 
ed in  1593.  I  have  never  happened  to 
meet  with  either :  but  from  the  account 
given  of  the  author  by  Thuanufi,  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  attracted  that 
notice  from  his  contemporaries  to  which 
his  learning  and  talents  entitled  him. 
(Thnan.  Hist.  lib.  cxix.  xvii.)  His 
Diseuuiones  PervpaUtica,  are  mention- 
ed by  Brucker  in  the  following  terms  : 
"  Opu8  egregiunit  doctumf  variumt  lucvr 
lentum^  $ed  invidia  odioque  in  Aritto- 
idem  plenum  satis  superque.^^ — {Hist, 
PkU,  tom.  iv.  p.  425.)  I'he  same  very 
laborious  and  candid  writer  acknow- 
ledges the  assistance  he  had  derived 
from  Pairieius  in  hit  account  of  the 

VOL.  I. 


Peripatetic  philosophy. — "  In  qua  trac- 
tatione  fatemur  egregpam  enitere  Pa- 
tricii  doctrinam,  ingcnii  elcgantiam 
prorsus  admirabilem,  et  quod  prime  loco 
ponendum  est,  insolitam  veteris  philo- 
sophise cognitioncm,  cujus  ope  nos  Peri- 
pateticje  disciplinsB  historiss  multoties 
lucem  attulissc,  grati  suis  locis  professi 
sumus." — Ibid.  p.  426. 

'  AfUibarharus,  sive  de  Veris  Prin- 
cipiis  et  Vera  liatione  Philosophandi 
contra  Pseudo  -philosophos.  ParmsD, 
1553.  "  Jjes  faux  philosophes,"  dit 
Fontenclle,  "  6toicnt  tons  Ics  scholas- 
tiques  pass^'S  et  pr^scns ;  et  Nizolius 
s'eldvo  avcc  la  demiere  hardiesse  contre 
leurs  idees  monstnieuses  et  leur  langage 
barbaro.  La  longue  et  constanto  ad- 
miration qu'on  Avoit  eu  pour  Aristote, 
nc  prouvoit,  disoit-il,  quo  la  multitude 
des  sots  et  la  durt'e  de  la  sottise."  The 
merits  of  this  writer  are  much  too 
lightly  estimated  by  Brucker. — See  Hist. 
PkU,  tom.  iv.    Pars  L  pp.  91,  92. 

n 


50 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


another  learned  Italian,  Albericus  Grentilis,  whose  writings 
seem  to  have  attracted  more  notice  in  England  and  Gennany 
than  in  his  own  country.  His  attachment  to  the  reformed 
faith  having  driven  him  from  Italy,  he  sought  an  asylum  at 
Oxford,  where,  in  1587,  he  was  appointed  professor  of  the 
Civil  Law,  an  office  which  he  held  till  the  period  of  his  death 
in  1611.^  He  was  the  author  of  a  treatise  De  Jure  Belliy  in 
three  books,  which  appeared  successively  in  1588  and  1589,  and 
were  first  published  togetlier  at  Hanau  in  1598.  His  name  has 
already  sunk  into  almost  total  oblivion  ;  and  I  should  certainly 
not  have  mentioned  it  on  the  present  occasion,  were  it  not  for 
his  indisputable  merits  as  the  precursor  of  Grotius,  in  a  depart- 
ment of  study  which,  forty  years  afterwards,  the  celebrated 
treatise  de  Jure  Belli  et  Pacts  was  to  raise  to  so  conspicuous  a 
rank  among  the  branches  of  academical  education.  The  avowed 
aim  of  this  new  science,  when  combined  with  the  anxiety  of 
(Jentilis  to  counteract  the  eflfect  of  Machiavers  Prince^  by  repre- 
senting it  as  a  warning  to  subjects  rather  than  as  a  manual  of  in- 
struction for  their  rulers,  may  be  regarded  as  satisfactory  evidence 
of  the  growing  influence,  even  at  that  era,  of  better  ethical  prin- 
ciples than  those  commonly  imputed  to  the  Florentine  Secretary.* 
The  only  other  Italian  of  whom  I  shall  take  notice  is  Cam- 
panella,^  a  philosopher  now  remcml)ered  chiefly  in  consequence 
of  his  eccentric  character  and  eventful  life,  but  of  whom  Leib- 
nitz has  spoken  in  terms  of  such  high  admiration,  as  to  place 
him  in  the  same  line  with  Bacon.  After  looking  into  several 
of  his  works  with  some  attention,  I  must  confess  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  conceive  upon  what  groimds  the  eulogy  of  Leibnitz  proceeds ; 
but  as  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  the  praise  of  this  great  man 


*  Wood's  AtheruR  Oxomenae^y  vol.  ii. 
col  90.     Dr.  Bliss's  edition. 

*  The  claims  of  Albericus  Gentilis  to 
be  regarded  as  the  father  of  Natural 
Jurisprudence^  are  strongly  assorted  by 
his  countryman  Jjampredi,  in  his  very 
judicious  and  elegant  work,  entitled, 
Juris  Publici  The^yremata,  published  at 
Pisa  in  1782.  "  Hie  primus  jus  aliquod 
Belli  et  esse  et  tradi  posse  excogiiavit, 
et   Belli  et   Pacis    rcgul*i«    explanavit 


primus,  et  fortasse  in  causa  fuit  cur 
Grotius  opus  suum  conscribere  aggre- 
deretur;  dignus  sane  qui  prse  ceteris 
memoretur,  Italiie  enim,  in  qua  ortas 
erat,  et  undo  Juris  Roman!  disciplinam 
hauserat,  gloriam  auxit,  cffecitque  ut 
quio  fuerat  bonarum  artium  omnium 
restitutrix  et  altrix,  cadem  essct  et 
prima  Jurisprudjuitiae  Naturalis  ma- 
pistra." 

»  lk)ni  1568,  died  1639. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.       51 

wBSj  in  any  instance,  the  result  of  mere  caprice,  I  shall  put  it 
in  the  power  of  my  readers  to  judge  for  themselves,  by  subjoin- 
ing a  faithful  translation  of  his  words.  I  do  this  the  more  will- 
ingly, as  the  passage  itself  (whatever  may  be  thought  of  the 
critical  judgments  pronounced  in  it)  contains  some  general 
remarks  on  intellectual  character ^  which  are  in  every  respect 
worthy  of  the  author. 

^^  Some  men,  in  conducting  operations  where  an  attention  to 
minutisB  is  requisite,  discover  a  mind  vigorous,  subtile,  and  ver- 
satile, and  seem  to  be  equal  to  any  undertaking,  how  arduous 
soever.  But  when  they  are  called  upon  to  act  on  a  greater 
scale,  they  hesitate,  and  are  lost  in  their  own  meditations ;  dis- 
trustful of  their  judgment,  and  conscious  of  their  incompetency 
to  the  scene  in  which  they  are  placed ;  men,  in  a  word,  ])osses8ed 
of  a  genius  rather  acute  than  comprehensive.  A  similar  differ- 
ence may  be  traced  among  authors.  What  can  be  more  acute 
than  Descartes  in  Physics,  or  than  Hobbes  in  Morals !  And 
yet,  if  the  one  be  compared  with  Bacon  and  the  other  with 
Campanella,  the  former  writers  seem  to  grovel  upon  the  earth — 
the  latter  to  soar  to  the  heavens,  by  the  vastness  of  their  con- 
ceptions, tlieir  plans,  and  their  enterprises,  and  to  aim  at  objects 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  human  powers.  The  former,  accord- 
ingly, are  best  fitted  for  delivering  the  first  elements  of  know- 
ledge, the  latter  for  establishing  conclusions  of  important  and 
general  application."  * 


*  Leibnit.  Opera,  vol.  vi.  p.  303,  Ed. 
Datens. — It  is  probable  ibat,  in  tbo 
above  pasjuige,  Leibnitz  alloded  more  to 
the  elevated  tone  of  Campanella's  rea- 
8oning  on  moral  and  political  Rubjects, 
when  contrasted  with  that  of  Hobbes, 
than  to  the  intellectnal  superiority  of 
the  former  writer  above  the  latter.  No 
philoflopher,  certainly,  has  spoken  with 
more  reverence  than  Campanella  has 
done,  on  various  occasions,  of  the  dignity 
of  human  nature.  A  remarkable  in- 
stance of  this  occurs  in  his  elotinent 
comparison  of  the  human  hand  with  the 
organs  of  touch  in  other  animaln.  ( Vide 


Campan.  Phytioiotj,  cap.  xx.  art  2.)  Of 
his  PdUical  Ajthorisma^  (which  form 
the  third  part  of  his  treatise  on  Marah,) 
a  sufficient  idea  for  our  pur{>ose  is  con- 
veyed by  the  concluding  eoroUary, — 
"Probitas  custodit  regem  populosque; 
non  autem  indocta  Machiavellistanim 
astutia."  On  the  other  hand,  Campan- 
ella's works  abound  with  inmioralities 
and  extravagancies  far  exceeding  tliono 
of  Hobbes.  In  his  idea  of  a  perfect 
commonwealth,  (to  which  he  gives  the 
name  of  Civiias  Solis,)  the  impurity  of 
his  imagination  and  the  uuHoundncss  of 
his  judgment  are  equally  conspicuous. 


52 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


The  annals  of  France,  during  this  period,  present  very  scanty 
materials  for  the  history  of  Philosophy.  The  name  of  the 
Chancellor  De  THopital,  however,  must  not  be  passed  over  in 
silence.  As  an  author,  he  does  not  rank  high,  nor  does  he  seem 
to  have  at  all  valued  himself  on  the  careless  efiTusions  of  his 
literary  hours ;  but  as  an  upright  and  virtuous  magistrate,  he 
has  left  behind  him  a  reputation  unrivalled  to  this  day.^  His 
wise  and  indulgent  principles  on  the  subject  of  religious  liberty, 
and  the  steadiness  with  which  he  adhered  to  them  under  cir- 
cumstances of  extraordinary  difficulty  and  danger,  exhibit  a 
splendid  contrast  to  the  cruel  intolerance  which,  a  few  years 
before,  had  disgraced  the  character  of  an  illustrious  Chancellor 
of  England.  The  same  philosophical  and  truly  catholic  spirit 
distinguished  his  friend,  the  President  de  Thou,*  and  gives  the 
principal  charm  to  the  justly  admired  preface  prefixed  to  his 
hiatorf .  In  tracing  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  during 
the  sixteenth  century,  such  insulated  and  anomalous  examples 
of  the  triumph  of  rea^n  over  superstition  and  bigotry  deserve 
attention,  not  less  than  what  is  due,  in  a  history  of  the  experi- 
mental arts,  to  Friar  Bacon's  early  anticipation  of  gunpowder 
and  of  the  telescope. 

Contemporary  with  these  great  men  was  Bodin,  (or  Bodinus,)^ 
an  eminent  French  lawyer,  who  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the 
first  that  united  a  philosophical  turn  of  thinking  ^^ith  an  exten- 
sive knowledge  of  jurisprudence  and  of  history.  His  learning 
is  often  iU  digested,  and  his  conclusions  still  oftener  rash  and 
unsound ;  yet  it  is  but  justice  to  him  to  acknowledge  that,  in 
his  views  of  the  philosophy  of  law,  he  lias  approached  very 


He  recommends,  under  cei*tain  regula- 
tions, a  community  of  women  ;  and  in 
everything  connected  with  procreation, 
lays  great  stress  on  the  opinions  of  as- 
trologers. 

*  "  Magistrat  au-dessus  de  tout  elogo ; 
et  d'aprcs  lequcl  on  a  juge  tous  ceux 
qui  ont  ose  s'asseoir  sur  co  meme  tri- 
bunal sans  avoir  son  courage  ni  ses 
lumicres." — Henault,  Ahr6g6  Chrcmo- 
lofjiqne* 


*  "  One  cannot  help  admiring,^  says 
Dr.  Jortin,  "  the  decent  manner  in  which 
the  illustrious  Thuanus  hath  spoken  of 
Calvin :  Acri  vir  ac  vehementi  ingenio, 
ct  admirabili  facundia  prseditns;  turn 
inter  protestantes  magni  nominis  Theo- 
logus." — {Lif^  ofErasmtUj  p.  556.)  The 
same  writer  has  remarked  the  great  de- 
cency  and  moderation  with  which  Thu- 
anus speaks  of  Luther. — Ibid.  p.  113. 

»  Bom  1530,  died  1596. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.       53 


nearly  to  some  leading  ideas  of  Lord  Bacon/  while,  in  his  re- 
fined combinations  of  historical  facts,  he  has  more  than  once 
strock  into  a  train  of  speculation  bearing  a  strong  resemblance 
to  that  afterwards  pursued  by  Montesquieu.*  Of  this  resem- 
blance, so  remarkable  an  instance  occurs  in  his  chapter  on  the 
moral  effects  of  Climate,  and  on  the  attention  due  to  this  cir- 
cumstance by  the  legislator,  that  it  has  repeatedly  subjected  the 
author  of  The  Spirit  of  Laws  (but  in  my  opinion  without  any 
good  reason)  to  the  imputation  of  plagiarism.'  A  resemblance 
to  Montesquieu,  still  more  honourable  to  Bodinus,  may  be  traced 
in  their  common  attachment  to  religious  as  well  as  to  civil 
liberty.  To  have  caught,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  somewhat 
of  the  philosophical  spirit  of  the  eighteenth,  reflects  less  credit 
on  the  force  of  his  mind,  than  to  have  imbibed,  in  the  midst  of 
the  theological  controversies  of  his  age,  those  lessons  of  mutual 
forbearance  and  charity,  which  a  long  and  sad  experience  of  the 
fatal  effects  of  persecution  has  to  this  day  so  imperfectly  taught 
to  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  Europe. 

As  a  specimen  of  the  liberal  and  moderate  views  of  this  philo- 
sophical politician,  I  shall  quote  two  short  passages  from  his 
treatise  De  la  R^pnblique^  which  seem  to  me  objects  of  consi- 
derable curiosity,  when  contrasted  with  the  general  spirit  of  the 
age  in  which  they  were  written.     The  first  relates  to  liberty  of 


*  See,  in  particular,  the  pre&oe  to  his 
hook  entitled  Methodui  ad/aeUem  ffi§- 
tonarum  eoffnUi(mem. 

'  See  the  work  De  la  BipMique, 
poisitn.  In  this  treatise  there  are  two 
chapters  singularly  curious,  considering 
the  time  when  they  were  written — ^the 
second  and  third  chapters  of  the  sixth 
hook.  The  first  is  entitled  Des  Fin- 
ances; the  second,  Le  Moyen  tTempS- 
cher  que  les  Monnoyet  toyent  altSries 
de  Prix  <m  falsifiiee.  The  reasonings 
of  the  author,  on  various  points  there 
treated  of,  will  he  apt  to  excite  a  smile 
among  those  who  have  studied  the  In- 
quiry into  the  WeaUh  of  Nationa ;  hut 
it  reflects  no  small  credit  on  a  lawyer  of 


the  sixteenth  century  to  have  subjected 
such  questions  to  philosophical  exami- 
nation, and  to  have  formed  so  just  a 
conception,  as  Bodin  appears  evidently 
to  have  done,  not  only  of  the  object,  but 
of  the  importance  of  the  modem  science 
of  political  economy. 

Thuanus  speaks  highly  of  Bodin  *s 
dissertations  De  re  Monetaria,  which  I 
have  never  seen.  The  same  historian 
thus  expresses  himself  with  respect  to 
the  work  De  RepuhUca :  "  Opus  in  quo 
ut  omni  scientiarum  genere  non  tincti 
sed  imbuti  ingenii  fidem  fecit,  sic  non- 
nnlHs,  qui  recte  judicant,  non  omnino 
ab  oiteiUationii  innato  genii  tfitio  vacu- 
um se  probavit." — Hist.  lib.  cxvii.  ix. 

•  See  Note  D. 


54 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


conscience,  for  which  he  was  a  strenuous  and  intrepid  advocate, 
not  only  in  his  publications,  but  as  a  member  of  the  Etats  06- 
niravac^  assembled  at  Blois  in  1576.  "  The  mightier  that  a  man 
is,"  says  Bodin,  "  the  more  justly  and  temperately  he  ought  to 
behave  himself  towards  all  men,  but  especially  towards  his  sub- 
jects. Wherefore  the  senate  and  people  of  Basil  did  wisely, 
who,  having  renounced  the  Bishop  of  Rome's  religion,  would 
not,  upon  the  sudden,  thrust  the  monks  and  nuns,  with  the 
other  religious  persons,  out  of  their  abbeys  and  monasteries,  but 
only  took  order  that,  as  they  died,  they  should  die  both  for 
themselves  and  their  successors,  expressly  forbidding  any  new 
to  be  chosen  in  their  places ;  so  that,  by  that  means,  their  col- 
leges might  by  little  and  little,  by  the  death  of  the  fellows,  be 
extinguished.  Whereby  it  came  to  pass,  that  all  the  rest  of  the 
Carthusians,  of  their  own  accord,  forsaking  their  cloisters,  yet 
one  of  them  aU  alone  for  a  long  time  remained  therein,  quietly 
and  without  any  disturbance,  holding  the  right  of  his  convent, 
being  never  enforced  to  change  either  his  place,  or  habit,  or  old 
ceremonies,  or  religion  before  by  him  received.  The  like  order 
was  taken  at  Coire  in  the  diet  of  the  Grisons ;  wherein  it  was 
decreed,  that  the  ministers  of  the  reformed  religion  should  be 
maintained  of  the  profits  and  revenues  of  the  church,  the  reli- 
gious men,  nevertheless,  still  remaining  in  their  cloisters  and 
convents,  to  be  by  their  death  suppressed,  they  being  now  pro- 
hibited to  choose  any  new  instead  of  them  which  died.  By 
which  means,  they  which  professed  the  new  religion,  and  they 
who  professed  the  old,  were  both  provided  for."  ^ 

The  aim  of  the  chapter  from  which  I  have  extracted  the  fore- 
going passage  is  to  shew,  that  "  it  is  a  most  dangerous  thing,  at 


*  Book  iv.  chap.  iii. — The  book  from 
ivhich  this  qootation  is  takon  was  pub- 
lished only  twenty-three  years  after  the 
murder  of  Servetus  at  Geneva,  fon  which 
consult  Gibbon's  Misc.  Works,  vol.  ii. 
p.  214,]  an  event  which  leaves  so  deep  a 
stain  on  the  memory  not  only  of  Calvin, 
but  on  that  of  the  milder  and  more  chari- 
table Melanchthon.  The  epistle  of  the 
latkT  to  Bnllinger,  where  he  applauds  the 


conduct  of  the  judges  who  condemned 
to  the  flumes  this  incorrigible  heretic, 
affords  the  most  decisive  of  all  proofs, 
how  remote  the  sentiments  of  the  most 
enlightened  Fathers  of  the  Reformation 
were  from  those  Christian  and  philoso- 
])hical  principles  of  toleration  to  which 
their  noble  exertions  have  gradually, 
and  now  almost  universally,  led  the 
way. 


CHAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.       55 


one  and  the  same  time,  to  change  the  form,  laws,  and  customs 
of  a  commonwealtli."  The  scope  of  the  author's  reasonings  may 
be  judged  of  from  the  conchiding  paragraph. 

"  We  ought  then,  in  the  government  of  a  well  ordered  estate 
and  commonwealth,  to  imitate  and  follow  the  great  God  of 
Nature,  who  in  all  things  proceedeth  easily,  and  by  little  and 
little ;  who  of  a  little  seed  causeth  to  grow  a  tree,  for  height  and 
greatness  right  admirable,  and  yet  for  all  that  insensibly ;  and 
still  by  means  conjoining  the  extremities  of  nature,  as  by  put- 
ting the  spring  l>etween  winter  and  sunmier,  and  autumn  be- 
twixt summer  and  winter,  moderating  the  extremities  of  the 
terms  and  seasons,  with  the  self-same  wisdom  which  it  useth  in 
all  other  things  also,  and  that  in  such  sort  as  that  no  violent 
force  or  course  therein  aj)peareth." ' 


*  Book  iv.  chap.  iii. — The  substance 
of  the  above  reflection  has  been  com- 
pressed by  Bacon  into  the  following  well- 
known  aphorisms : — 

"  Time  is  the  greatest  innovator ; 
shall  we  then  not  imitate  time? 

"  What  innovator  imitates  time,  which 
innovates  so  silently  as  to  mock  the 
sense  ?** 

The  resemblance  between  the  two  pas- 
sages is  still  more  striking  in  the  liatin 
versions  of  their  respective  authors. 

**  Deum  igitur  prsepotcntem  naturw 
pareutem  imitemur,  qui  omnia  paula* 
tim:  namque  semira  peniuam  exi^ua 
in  arbores  cxcelsas  excresccre  jubet,  id- 
qno  tarn  occultd  at  nemo  sentiat." — 
Bodinus. 

"  Novator  maximus  tempns ;  quidni 
igitur  tempus  imitemur  ? 

"  Quis  novator  tempus  imitatnr,  quod 
novationes  ita  insinuat,  ut  sensus  faU 
lant  ?"— J5a«m. 

The  treatise  of  Bodin,  De  la  Ji^pvb- 
lique,  (by  far  the  most  important  of  his 
works,)  was  first  printed  at  Paris  in 
1676,  and  was  reprinted  seven  times  in 
the  space  of  three  years.  It  was  trans- 
lated into  Latin  by  the  author  himself, 
with  a  view  chiefly  (as  is  said)  to  the 


accommodation  of  the  scholars  of  Eng- 
land, among  whom  it  was  so  highly 
esteemed,  that  lectures  upon  it  were 
given  in  the  University  of  Cambridge  as 
early  as  1580.  In  1579,  Bodin  visited 
London  in  the  suite  of  the  Due  D*Alen- 
9on ;  a  circumstance  which  probably 
contributed  not  a  little  to  recommend 
his  writings,  so  very  soon  after  their 
publication,  to  the  attention  of  our  coun- 
trymen. In  1606,  the  treatise  of  The 
Jiepuhlic  was  (l<me  iiUo  EitglUh  by 
ilichard  Knolles,  who  appears  to  have 
collated  the  French  and  Latin  copies  so 
carefully  and  judiciously,  that  his  ver- 
sion is,  in  some  resi)ect«,  superior  to 
either  of  the  originals.  It  is  from  this 
version,  accordingly,  that  I  have  tran- 
scril)ed  the  passages  above  quoted,  trust- 
ing that  it  will  not  be  unacceptable  to 
my  readers,  while  looking  back  to  the 
intellectual  attainments  of  our  forefa- 
thers, to  have  an  opportunity,  at  the 
same  time,  of  marking  the  progress 
which  had  been  made  in  England,  more 
than  two  centuries  ago,  in  the  arts  of 
writing  and  of  translation. 

For  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  of  Knollos's 
merits  as  an  histuriaii  and  as  an  English 
writer,  see  the  Bttmbler,  No.  123. 


56 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


Notwithstanding  these  wise  and  enUghtened  maxims,  it 
must  be  owned,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Bodin  has  indulged 
himself  in  various  speculations,  which  would  expose  a  writer 
of  the  present  times  to  the  imputation  of  insanity.  One  of  the 
most  extraordinary  of  these,  is  his  elaborate  argument  to  prove, 
that,  in  a  well  constituted  state,  the  father  should  possess  the 
right  of  life  and  death  over  his  children  ; — a  paradox  which 
forms  an  unaccountable  contrast  to  the  general  tone  of  hu- 
manity which  characterizes  his  opinions.  Of  the  extent  of  his 
credulity  on  the  subject  of  witchcraft,  and  of  the  deep  horror 
with  which  he  regarded  those  who  aflfected  to  be  sceptical 
about  the  reality  of  that  crime,  he  has  left  a  lasting  memorial 
in  a  learned  and  curious  volume  entitled  DAnonomanie;^ 
while  the  eccentricity  of  his  religious  tenets  was  such  as  to 
incline  the  candid  mind  of  Grotius  to  suspect  him  of  a  secret 
leaning  to  the  Jewish  faith.^ 

In  contemplating  the  characters  of  the  eminent  persons  who 
appeared  about  this  era,  nothing  is  more  interesting  and  in- 
structive than  to  remark  the  astonishing  combination,  in  the 
same  minds,  of  the  highest  intellectual  endowments,  with  the 
most  deplorable  aberrations  of  the  understanding ;  and  even,  in 
numberless  instances,  with  the  most  childish  superstitions  of 
the  multitude.  Of  this  apparent  inconsistency,  Bodinus  does 
not  furnish  a  solitary  example.  The  same  remark  may  be  ex- 
tended, in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  to  most  of  the  other  cele- 
brated names  hitherto  mentioned.     Melanchthon,  as  appears 


'  De  la  Dimonomanie  des  Soreiers. 
Par  J.  Bodia  Angevin,  k  Paris,  1580. 
This  book,  which  exhibits  so  melan- 
choly a  contrast  to  the  mental  powers 
displayed  in  the  treatise  De  la  Hipub- 
Uque^  was  dedicated  by  the  author  to 
his  friend,  the  President  de  Thon ;  and 
it  is  somewhat  amusing  to  find,  that  it 
exposed  Bodin  himself  to  the  imputation 
of  being  a  magician.  For  this  we  have 
the  testimony  of  the  illustrious  histo- 
rian just  mentioned.  (Thuanus,  lib. 
cxvii.  ix.)  Nor  did  it  recommend  the 
author  to  the  good  opinion  of  the  Ca^ 


tholic  Church,  having  been  formally 
condemned  and  prohibited  by  the  Ro- 
man Inquisition.  The  reflection  of  the 
Jesuit  Martin  del  Kio  on  this  occasion 
is  worth  transcribing :  ''  Adeo  lubri' 
cum  et  periculoivm  de  his  di$$erere, 
nisi  Deum  semper,- et  cathoUcam  fidem^ 
ecdesujeque  Homana  censuram  tanquam 
cynosuram  sequarisJ^ — Disquisitionum 
Magicarwrny  libri  sex.  Auctore  Mar- 
tino  del  Rio,  Societatis  Jesu  Presbytero. 
Venet.  1640,  p.  8. 

*  Epist  ad   Cardesium,  (quoted  by 
Bayle.) 


CHAP.  I.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THE  REVIVAL  TO  BACOX.       57 

from  luB  letters,  was  an  interpreter  of  dreams,  and  a  caster  of 
nativities;^  pSrasmus,  as  Mr.  Gibbon  has  remarked,  '^  who 
could  see  through  much  more  plausible  fables,  believed  firmly 
in  witchcraft ;''']  and  Luther  not  only  sanctioned,  by  his  autho- 
rity, the  popular  fables  about  the  sexual  and  prolific  inter- 
course of  Satan  with  the  human  race,  but  seems  to  have 
seriously  believed  that  he  had  himself  frequently  seen  the 
arch-enemy  face  to  face,  and  held  arguments  with  him  on 
points  of  theology.'  Nor  was  the  study  of  the  severer  sciences, 
on  all  occasions,  an  efiTectual  remedy  against  such  illusions  of 
the  imagination.  The  sagacious  Kepler  was  an  astrologer  and 
a  visionary ;  and  his  friend  Tycho  Brahe,  tJie  Prince  of  Astro- 
nomerSy  kept  an  idiot  in  his  service,  to  whose  prophecies  he 
listened  as  revelations  from  above.^  During  the  long  night  of 
Gothic  barbarism,  the  intellectual  world  had  again  become, 
like  the  primitive  earth,  "  without  form  and  void ; "  the  light 
had  already  appeared ;  ^^  and  God  had  seen  the  light  that  it 
was  good ;"  but  the  time  was  not  yet  come  to  "  divide  it  from 
the  darkness.''  ^ 


*  Jortiii*8  Life  of  Erasmui^  p.  156. 
•[Gibbon's  Mi$eelL  Works,  toI.  ii. 

p.  76. — The  character  of  Erasmas,  both 
inteUectual  and  moral,  is  drawn  in  the 
passage  here  referred  to,  with  an  im- 
partial and  masterly  hand.  The  critical 
reflections  on  his  Ciceronianus  are  en- 
titled to  particular  attention.] 
■  See  Note  E. 

*  See  the  Life  of  T^ho  Brake,  by 
Gkusendi. 

*  I  have  allotted  to  Bodin  a  larger 
space  than  may  seem  due  to  his  literary 
importance ;  but  the  truth  is,  I  know  of  no 
political  writer,  of  the  same  date,  whose 
extensive  and  various  and  discriminat- 
ing reading  appears  to  me  to  have  con- 
tributed more  to  facilitate  and  to  g^ide 
the  researches  of  his  successors;  or 
whose  references  to  ancient  learning 
have  been  more  frequently  transcribed 
without  acknowledgment.  Of  late,  his 
works  have  fallen    into  y9ty  general 


neglect ;  otherwise  it  is  impossible  that 
so  many  gross  mistakes  should  be  cur- 
rent about  the  scope  and  spirit  of  his 
principles.  By  many  he  has  been  men- 
tioned as  a  sealot  for  republican  forms 
of  government,  (probably  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  he  chose  to  call  his 
book  a  Treatise  De  RepubUea :)  where- 
as, in  point  of  fact,  he  is  uniformly  a 
warm  and  able  advocate  for  monarchy  ; 
and,  although  no  friend  to  tyranny,  has, 
on  more  than  one  occasion,  carried  his 
monarchical  principles  to  a  very  blame- 
able  excess.  (See,  in  particular,  chapter 
fourth  and  fifth  of  the  Sixth  Book.)  On 
the  other  hand,  Grouvelle,  a  writer  of 
some  note,  has  classed  Bodin  with 
Aristotle,  as  an  advocate  for  domestic 
slavery.  "  The  reasonings  of  both,"  he 
says,  "  are  refuted  by  Montesquieu." — 
{De  VautoritS  de  Montesquieu  dans  la 
involution  pr^senU.  Paris,  1789.)  Who- 
ever has  the  curiosity  to  compare  Bodin 


58 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


In  tlie  midst  of  the  disorders,  both  political  and  moral,  of 
that  unfortunate  age,  it  is  pleasing  to  observe  the  antici{»ations 
of  brighter  prospects,  in  the  speculations  of  a  few  individuals. 
Bodinus  himself  is  one  of  the  number ;  ^  and  to  his  name  may 
be  added  that  of  his  countryman  and  predecessor  Budeeus.^ 
But,  of  all  the  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Ludovicus 
Vivos  seems  to  have  had  the  liveliest  and  the  most  assured 
foresight  of  the  new  career  on  which  the  human  mind  was 
about  to  enter.  The  following  passage  from  one  of  his  works 
would  have  done  no  discredit  to  the  Novum  Organon :  "  The 
similitude  which  many  have  fancied  between  the  superiority  of 
the  moderns  to  the  ancients,  and  the  elevation  of  a  dwarf  on 
the  back  of  a  giant,  is  altogether  false  and  puerile.  Neither 
were  they  giants,  nor  are  we  dwarfs,  but  all  of  us  men  of  the 
same  standard, — and  we  the  taller  of  the  two,  by  adding  their 
height  to  our  own :  Provided  always,  that  we  do  not  yield  to 
them  in  study,  attention,  vigilance,  and  love  of  truth ;  for,  if 


and  Montesquieu  together,  will  be  eatis- 
fied,  that,  on  this  point,  their  sentiments 
were  exactly  the  same  ;  and  that,  so  far 
from  refuting  Bodin,  Montesquieu  has 
borrowed  from  him  more  than  one  argu- 
ment in  support  of  his  general  conclusion. 

The  merits  of  Bodin  have  been,  on 
the  whole,  very  fairly  estimated  by 
Bayle,  who  pronounces  him  "  one  of 
the  ablest  men  that  appeared  in  France 
during  the  sixteenth  century."  "  Si 
nous  voulons  disputer  ^  Jean  Bodin  la 
qualite  d*ecrivain  exact  et  judicieux, 
laissons  lui  sans  coutroverse,  un  grand 
genie,  un  vaste  savoir,  une  memoire  et 
uno  lecture  prodigieuses." 

*  See,  in  particular,  his  Method  of 
Studying  History,  chap.  vii.  entitled, 
Confutatio  eorum  qui  quatuar  Mo- 
nnrchias  Aureaque  Sectda  statuerunt. 
In  this  chapter,  after  enumerating  some 
of  the  most  important  discoveries  and 
inventions  of  the  moderns,  he  concludes 
with  mentioning  the  art  of  printing,  of 
tho  value  of  which  he  seems  to  have 
formed   a  very  just  estimate.     "  Una 


Typographia  cum  omnibus  veterum  in- 
ventis  certare  facile  potest.  Itaque  non 
minus  peccant,  qui  ^  veteribus  aiunt 
omnia  comprehensa,  quam  qui  illos  de 
veteri  multanun  artium  possessione  de- 
turbant.  Habet  Natura  scientiarum 
thesauros  innumerabiles,  qui  nullis  seta- 
tibus  exhauriri  possunt."  In  the  same 
chapter  Bodinus  expresses  himself  thus : 
"  ^tas  ilia  quam  auream  vocant,  si  ad 
nostram  conferatur,  ferrea  videri  po«- 
sit." 

*  The  works  of  Budsous  were  printed 
at  Basle,  in  four  volumes  folio,  1557. 
My  acquaintance  with  them  is  much 
too  slight  to  enable  me  to  speak  of  them 
from  my  own  judgment.  No  scholar 
certainly  stood  higher  in  the  estimation 
of  his  age.  *'  Quo  viro,"  says  Ludovi- 
cus Vives,  "  Gallia  acutiore  ingenio, 
acriore  judicio,  cxactiore  diligentia, 
niajore  eruditione  nulliuu  unquam  pro- 
duxit  ;  hac  vero  {elate  nee  Italia 
quidem."  The  praise  bestowetl  on  him 
by  other  contemporary  writers  of  the 
highest  eminence  is  equally  lavish. 


CHAP.  I. — PIllLOaorHY  FROM  THE  IIKVIVAL  TO  BACON.       59 


these  qualities  be  wanting,  so  far  from  mounting  on  the  giant's 
shoulders,  we  throw  away  the  advantages  of  our  own  just 
statiure,  by  remaining  prostrate  on  the  groimcL"  ^ 

I  piss  over,  witliout  any  ])articu]ar  notice,  tlie  names  of  some 
French  logicians  who  flourished  about  this  jK'riod,  because, 
however  celebrated  among  their  contemi>oraries,  they  do  not 
seem  to  fonn  essential  links  in  tlie  History  of  Science.  Tlie 
bold  and  persevering  spirit  with  which  Ramus  disputed,  in 
the  University  of  Paris,  the  authority  of  Aristotle,  and  the  per- 
secutions he  incurred  by  this  j)hilosopliical  heresy,  entitle  him 
to  an  honourable  distinction  from  the  rest  of  his  brethren. 
He  was  certainly  a  man  of  uncommon  acuteness  as  well  as 
eloquence,  and  placed  in  a  very  strong  light  some  of  the  most 
vulnerable  j>arts  of  the  Aristotelian  logic ;  without,  however, 
exliibiting  any  marks  of  that  deep  sagacity  wliich  afterwards 
enabled  Bacon,  Descartes,  and  Locke,  to  strike  at  the  very 
r(K)ts  of  tlie  system.  His  cojnous  and  not  inelegJint  style  as  a 
writer,  recommended  his  innovations  to  those  who  were  dis- 
gusted with  the  barbarism  of  the  schools;*  wliile  his  avowed 
partiality  for  the  reformed  faith  (to  which  he  fell  a  martyr  in 


*  Vives  <ie  Cans.  Corrupt.  Ariium^ 
lib.  i.  Similar  ideun  uccur  in  the  works 
of  Roger  Jiacon :  *'  Quanto  juniores 
taiito  perspicaciores,  quia  junioreti  pos- 
toriores  luccesBione  teiii|M)runi  infcre' 
diiintur  lalKires  prionim.'* — (()put  3fa' 
juSt  Edit.  Jebb.  p.  9.)  Nor  wcm  they 
ult<»gethcr  overlooked  by  ancient  writers. 
**  Vcniet  tempuH,  quo  inta  quic  latent 
nunc  in  luccu  dies  cxtrahet,  ct  longioris 
Kvi  diligentia.  Voniet  tempuH,  quo 
pnstori  nostri  tani  aix^rta  nos  i^norasHe 
luirabuntur." — (Seneca,  Qmv«L  Nat. 
lib.  vii.  c.  25.)  This  language  coin- 
cides exactly  with  that  of  the  Chan- 
cellor Bacon ;  but  it  was  reserved  for 
the  latter  to  illustrate  the  connexion 
between  the  progress  of  human  know- 
Udf/e,  and  of  human  hajipineM;  or  (to 
borrow  his  own  phraseology)  the  ctm- 
nexioD  between  the  progress  of  know- 
ledge, and  the   enlargement   of  loan's 


pmner  over  the  destiny  of  his  own 
species.  Among  other  pnHsagos  to  this 
purpose,  see  Nov.  Org,  lib.  i.  cxxix. 

*  To  the  accomplishments  of  Ramus  as 
a  writer,  a  very  flattering  testimony  is 
given  by  an  eminent  English  scholar,  by 
no  means  disposed  to  overrate  liis  merits 
as  a  Ictgician.  "  Pulsa  tandem  barbaric, 
Petrus  Ramus  politioris  literal une  vir, 
ausus  est  Aristotelem  acrius  ubi(|ue  et 
liberius  incesscre,  universamque  Peripa- 
teticam  philosophiam  exagitare.  Ejus 
dialectica  oxiguo  temi>ore  fuit  apud  plu- 
rinios  summo  in  pretio,  maxime  elo- 
quentite  studiosos,  idquc  odio  scholasti- 
corum,  quonim  dictio  et  ttijluM  ingrata 
fuerant  auribus  Ciceronianis." — lAXfiax 
Ariis  Cofiipeiuliiimf  auctore  R.  Sander- 
son, Episc.  Lincoln,  pp.  250,  *251.  Edit. 
Decima.  Oxon.  The  first  edition  wub 
))rinted  in  1018. 


60 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


the  massacre  of  Paris)  procured  many  proselytes  to  his  opmions 
in  all  the  Protestant  countries  of  Europe.  In  England  his  logic 
had  the  honour,  in  an  age  of  comparative  light  and  refinement, 
to  find  an  expounder  and  methodizer  in  the  author  of  Paradise 
Lost ;  and  in  some  of  our  northern  universities,  where  it  was 
very  early  introduced,  it  maintained  its  ground  till  it  was 
supplanted  by  the  logic  of  Locke. 

It  has  been  justly  said  of  Ramus,  that,  ^^  although  he  had 
genius  sufficient  to  shake  the  Aristotelian  fabric,  he  was  unable 
to  substitute  anj^hing  more  solid  in  its  place  f  but  it  ought 
not  to  be  forgotten,  that  even  this  praise,  scanty  as  it  may  now 
appear,  involves  a  large  tribute  to  his  merits  as  a  philosophical 
reformer.  Before  human  reason  was  able  to  advance,  it  was 
necessary  that  it  should  first  be  released  from  the  weight  of  its 
fetters.^ 

It  is  observed,  with  great  truth,  by  Condorcet,  that,  in  the 


^  Dr.  Barrow,  in  one  of  his  mathe- 
matical lectures,  speaks  of  Ramns  in 
terms  fiir  too  contemptuous.    "  Homo, 
ne  quid  gravius   dicam,   arguhdus  et 
dicciculus" — "  Sane    vix    indignationi 
men  tempero,  quin  ilium ^accipiam  pro 
suo  merito,  regeramque  validius  in  ejus 
caput,  quae  contra  veteres  jactat  con- 
vicia."     Had  Barrow  confined  this  cen- 
sure to  the  weak  and  arrogant  attacks 
made  by  Ramus  upon  Euclid,  (particu- 
larly upon  Euclid's  definition  of  Propor- 
tion,) it  would  not  have  been  more  than 
Ramus  deserved ;  but  it  is  evident  he 
meant  to  extend  it  also  to  the   more 
powerful  attacks  of  the  same  reformer 
upon  the  logic  of  Aristotle.     Of  these 
there  are  many  which  may  be  read  with 
profit  even    in  the   present  times.     I 
select  one  passage  as  a  specimen,  re- 
commending it  strongly  to  the  consi- 
deration of   those  logicians  who  have 
lately  stood  forward  as   advocates   for 
Aristotle's  abecedarian  demonstrations 
of  the  syllogistic  rules.    "  In  Aristotelis 
arte,  unius  priccepti  unicum  exemplum 


est,  ac  saepissime  nullum:  Sed  onico 
et  singulari  exemplo  non  potest  artifex 
efiBci ;  pluribus  opus  est  et  dissimilibas. 
Et  quidem,  ut  Aristotelis  exempla  tan- 
tummodo  non  falsa  sint,  qualia  tamen 
sunt?    Omne  6  est  a:  omne  e  est  6: 
ergo  omne  c  est  a.    Exemplum  Aris- 
totelis est  puero  &  grammaticis  et  ora- 
toribuB    venienti,    et    istam    mutorum 
Mathematicorum     linguam    ignorant!, 
novum  et  durum :  et  in  totis  Analyticia 
ist&  non  Attic&,  non  Ionic&,  non  Doricd, 
non  ^olicS,  non  communi,  sed  geome- 
trica  lingu&  usus  est  Aristoteles,  odiosA 
pueris,  ignot&  populo,  &  communi  sensn 
remote  2k  rhetoricae  usu  et  ab  human!- 
tatis  usu  alienissimft." — (P.  Kami  pro 
PhUotophica     Parmensis     AcademitB 
DisciplirM   OraHo,    1550.)     If    these 
strictures  should  be  thought  too  loose 
and  declamatory,  the  reader  may  con- 
sult the  fourth  chapter  {De  Convernoni- 
bus)  of  the  seventh  book  of  Ramus's 
Dialectics^  where  the  same  charge  is 
urged,  in  my  opinion,  with  irresistible 
force  of  argpmient. 


f'HAP.  I. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  THii  REVIVAL  TO  BACON.        61 

tmieH  of  which  we  are  now  Bi)eakmg,  "  the  science  of  {K)litical 
economy  did  not  exist.  Princes  estimateil  not  tlie  number  of 
men,  but  of  soldiers  in  the  state ; — ^finance  was  merely  the  art 
of  plundering  the  people,  without  driving  them  to  the  desj)era- 
tion  that  might  end  in  revolt; — and  governments  jiaid  no 
other  attention  to  commerce  but  that  of  loading  it  with  taxes, 
of  restricting  it  by  privileges,  or  of  disputing  for  its  monopoly." 

The  internal  disorders  then  agitating  the  whole  of  Christen- 
dom were  still  less  fieivourable  to  the  growth  of  this  science, 
considered  as  a  branch  of  speculative  study.  Religious  contro- 
versies everywhere  divided  the  opinions  of  the  multitude ; — 
involving  those  collateral  discussions  concerning  the  liberty  of 
conscience,  and  the  relative  claims  of  sovereigns  and  subject^}, 
which,  by  threatening  to  resolve  society  into  its  first  elements, 
present  to  restless  and  aspiring  spirits  the  most  inviting  of  all 
fields  for  enterjmse  and  ambition.  Amidst  the  shock  of  such 
discussions,  the  calm  inquiries  which  meditate  in  silence  the 
slow  and  gradual  amelioration  of  the  social  order,  were  not 
likely  to  possess  strong  attractions,  even  to  men  of  tlie  most 
sanguine  benevolence ;  and,  accordingly,  the  political  specula- 
tions of  this  i)eriod  turn  almost  entirely  on  the  comparative 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  different  forms  of  govern- 
ment ;  or  on  tlie  still  more  alarming  questions  concerning  the 
limits  of  allegiance  and  the  right  of  resistance. 

The  dialogue  of  our  illustrious  countryman  Buchanan,  De 
Jure  Regni  apud  Scotos,  though  occasionally  disfigured  by  the 
keen  and  indignant  temper  of  the  writer,  and  by  a  predilection 
(])ardonable  in  a  scholar  warm  from  the  schools  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome)  for  forms  of  |)olicy  unsuitable  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  modem  Euro|>e,  bears,  nevertheless,  in  its 
general  spirit,  a  closer  resemblance  to  the  political  philosophy 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  than  any  composition  which  had  jire- 
viously  appeared.  Tlie  ethical  paradoxes  afterwards  inculcated 
by  Hobbes  as  the  ground-work  of  his  slavish  theory  of  govern  - 
ment,  are  aiiticipatcil  and  refuted ;  and  a  i>oworful  nrguinent 
is  urged  against  that  doctrine  of  utility  which  has  attracted  so 
much  notice  in  our  tunes.     The  political  reflections,  too,  inci- 


62 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


dentally  introduced  by  the  same  author  in  his  History  of  Scot- 
land, bear  marks  of  a  mind  worthy  of  a  better  age  than  fell  to 
his  lot.  Of  this  kind  are  the  remarks  with  which  he  closes  his 
narrative  of  the  wanton  cruelties  exercised  in  punishing  the 
murderers  of  James  the  First.  In  reading  them,  one  would 
almost  imagine,  that  one  is  listening  to  the  voice  of  Beccaria 
or  of  Montesquieu.  "  After  this  manner,"  says  the  historian, 
"  was  the  cruel  death  of  James  still  more  cruelly  avenged. 
For  punishments  so  far  exceeding  the  measure  of  humanity, 
have  less  effect  in  deterring  the  multitude  from  crimes,  than  in 
rousing  them  to  greater  efforts,  both  as  actors  and  as  sufferera 
Nor  do  they  tend  so  much  to  intimidate  by  their  severity,  as 
by  their  frequency  to  diminish  the  terrors  of  the  spectators. 
The  evil  is  more  peculiarly  great,  when  the  mind  of  the  cri- 
minal is  hardened  against  the  sense  of  pain ;  for  in  the  judg- 
ment of  the  unthinking  vulgar,  a  stubborn  confidence  generally 
obtains  the  praise  of  heroic  constancy." 

After  the  publication  of  this  great  work,  the  name  of  Scot- 
land, so  early  distinguished  over  Europe  by  the  learning  and 
by  ihe  fervid  genius^  of  her  sons,  disappears  for  more  than  a 
century  and  a  half  from  the  History  of  Letters.  But  from  this 
subject,  so  pregnant  with  melancholy  and  humiliating  recollec- 
tions, our  attention  is  forcibly  drawn  to  a  mighty  and  auspi- 
cious light  which,  in  a  more  fortimate  part  of  the  island,  was 
already  beginning  to  rise  on  the  philosophical  world.^ 


*  Praefervidum  Scotorum  ingenium. 

'  That,  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  Scottish  nation  were  ad- 
vancing not  less  rapidly  than  their 
neighbours,  in  every  species  of  mental 
cultivation,  is  sufficiently  attested  by 
their  literary  remains,  both  in  the  Latin 
language  and  in  their  own  vernacular 
tongue.  A  remarkable  testimony  to  the 
same  purpose  occurs  in  the  dialogue 
above  quoted ;  the  author  of  which  had 
spent  the  best  years  of  his  life  in  the 
most  polished  society  of  the  Continent. 
"  As  often,'*    says  Buchanan,    "  as   I 


turn  my  eyes  to  the  niceness  and  ele- 
gance of  our  own  times,  the  ancient 
manners  of  our  forefathers  appear  sober 
and  venerable,  but  withal  rough  and 
horrid." — "  Quoties  oculos  ad  nostri 
temporis  munditias  et  elegantiam  re- 
fero,  antiquitas  ilia  saiicta  et  sobria,  sed 
horrida  tamen,  et  nondum  satia  expoiUa^ 
fuisso  videtur." — De  Jure  Hegni  apud 
Scotos.  One  would  think,  that  he  con- 
ceived the  taste  of  his  countrymen  to 
have  then  arrived  at  the  ne  plus  uUra 
of  natioual  refinement, 
Aurea  nunc,  olim  sylriMtribiu  horrida  dumfai. 


PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  C3 


CHAPTER   11. 


FROM  THE  PUBUCATION  OF  BACOn's  PHILOSOPHICAL  WORKS,  TILL  THAT 
OF  THE  ESSAY  ON  THE  HUMAN  UNDERSTANDING. 


Sect.  I.— Progress  of  Philosophy  in  England  during  this  Period. 

Bacon.* 

The  state  of  science  towards  tlie  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, presented  a  field  of  observation  singularly  calculated  to 
attract  the  curiosity,  and  to  awaken  the  genius  of  Bacon ;  nor 
was  it  the  least  of  his  personal  advantages,  that,  as  the  son  of 
one  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  ministers,  he  liad  a  ready  access, 
wherever  he  went,  to  the  most  enlightened  society  in  Europe. 
While  yet  only  in  the  seventeenth  year  of  his  age,  he  was  re- 
moved by  his  father  from  Cambridge  to  Paris,  where  it  is  not 
to  be  doubted,  that  the  novelty  of  the  literary  scene  must  have 
largely  contributed  to  cherish  the  natural  liberality  and  inde- 
pendence of  his  mind.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  has  remarked,  in 
one  of  his  Academical  Discourses,  that  "  every  seminary  of 
learning  is  surrounded  with  an  atmosphere  of  floating  know- 
ledge, where  every  mind  may  imbibe  somewhat  congenial  to  its 
own  original  conceptions."*  He  might  have  added,  with  still 
greater  tnith,  that  it  is  an  atmosphere,  of  which  it  is  more 
peculiarly  salutary  for  those  who  have  been  elsewhere  reared  to 
breathe  the  air.  The  remark  is  applicable  to  higher  pursuits 
than  were  in  the  contemplation  of  this  pliilosophical  artist ;  and 

*  Bom  1561,  died  1626.  of  the   Royal    Academy,    January    2, 

*  Discourse  delivered  at  the  opening       1769. 


64  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

it  suggests  a  hint  of  no  inconsiderable  value  for  the  education 
of  youth. 

The  merits  of  Bacon,  as  the  father  of  Experimental  Philo- 
sophy, are  so  universally  acknowledged,  tiiat  it  would  be  super- 
fluous to  touch  upon  them  here.     The  lights  which  he  has 
struck  out  in  various  branches  of  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  have 
been  much  less  attended  to;   although  the  whole  scope  and 
tenor  of  his  speculations  shew,  that  to  this  study  his  genius  was 
far  more  strongly  and  happily  turned,  than  to  that  of  the 
Material  World.     It  was  not,  as  some  seem  to  have  imagined, 
by  sagacious  anticipations  of  particular  discoveries  afterwards 
to  be  made  in  physics,  that  his  writings  have  had  so  powerful 
an  influence  in  accelerating  the  advancement  of  that  science. 
In  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  his  physical  knowledge,  he  was 
far  inferior  to  many  of  his  predecessors ;  but  he  surpassed  them 
all  in  his  knowledge  of  the  laws,  the  resources,  and  the  limits 
of  the  human  understanding.     The  sanguine  expectations  with 
which  he  looked  forward  to  the  future,  were  founded  solely  on 
his  confidence  in  the  untried  capacities  of  the  mind;  and  on  a 
conviction  of  the  possibility  of  invigorating  and  guiding,  by 
means  of  logical  rules,  those  faculties  which,  in  all  our  re- 
searches after  truth,  are   the  organs  or  instruments  to  be 
employed.     "  Such  rules,"  as  he  himself  has  observed,  "  do  in 
some  sort  equal  men's  wits,  and  leave  no  great  advantage  or 
pre-eminence  to  the  perfect  and  excellent  motions  of  the  spirit. 
To  draw  a  straight  line,  or  to  describe  a  circle,  by  aim  of  hand 
only,  there  must  be  a  great  difference  between  an  unsteady  and 
unpractised  hand,  and  a  steady  and  practised ;  but  to  do  it  by 
rule  or  compass  it  is  much  alike." 

Nor  is  it  merely  as  a  logician  that  Bacon  is  entitled  to  notice 
on  the  present  occasion.  It  would  be  diflScult  to  name  another 
writer  prior  to  Locke,  whose  works  are  enriched  with  so  many 
just  observations  on  the  intellectual  phenomena.  Among  these, 
the  most  valuable  relate  to  the  laws  of  Memory  and  of  Imagi- 
nation ;  the  latter  of  which  subjects  he  seems  to  have  studied 
with  peculiar  care.  In  one  short  but  beautiful  paragraph  con- 
cerning Poetry^  (under  which  title  may  be  comprehended  all 


CHAP,  II.  —PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


65 


the  various  creations  of  this  faculty,)  he  has  exhausted  every- 
thing that  philosophy  and  good  sense  have  yet  had  to  offer,  on 
what  has  been  since  called  the  Beau  Ideal;  a  topic,  :ivhich  has 
furnished  occasion  to  so  many  over-refinements  among  the 
French  critics,  and  to  so  much  extravagance  and  mysticism  in 
the  doudr-capt  metaphysics  of  the  new  German  school.^  In 
considering  imagination  as  connected  with  the  nervous  system, 
more  particularly  as  connected  with  that  species  of  symjmthy 
to  which  medical  writers  have  given  the  name  of  imitaJtion^  he 
has  suggested  some  very  imi)ortant  hints,  which  none  of  his 
successors  have  hitherto  prosecuted ;  and  has,  at  the  same  time, 
left  an  example  of  cautious  inquiry,  worthy  to  be  studied  by  all 
who  may  attempt  to  investigate  the  biws  regulating  the  union 
between  Mind  and  Body.*    His  illustration  of  the  different 


'  *'  Cum  mundns  scnsibilis  sit  anima 
rational!  dignitate  inferior,  videtur 
Poetis  luce  humane  natunc  largiri  qun 
hiMtoria  denegot ;  atquo  aninio  unibria 
renim  utcunqne  natiafacvre,  cum  solida 
halieri  non  poK»int.  Si  quia  enim  rem 
acutius  introHpiciat,  firmum  cz  Jh^i 
sumitur  argumentum,  magnitudinom 
rerum  magiH  ilhiHtreni,  ordincm  magin 
perfcctuni,  ct  varietatcm  uiagis  pul- 
chram,  anima)  humaiia)  complaccre, 
quam  in  natura  ipsa,  pent  lapaum,  re- 
periri  ullo  uioilo  poHsit.  Quaproptcr,  cum 
rcB  geatse  et  cvontua,  qui  vera)  liiatorife 
fubjiciuntur,  non  sint  tgus  amplitudinia, 
in  qua  anima  humana  sibi  aatiafaciat, 
pneato  eat  JbrsU^  qu«e  facta  niagia  he- 
roica  confingat.  Cum  hiatoria  vera  auc- 
cesaua  renim,  minime  pro  uieritia  virtu- 
tum  et  Bcelcrum  narrot,  corrigit  cam 
Po^sis,  et  cxitua,  et  fortunaM,  accundum 
merita^  et  ex  lege  Nemcacoa,  exhiliet. 
Cum  biNtoria  vera  obvia  rerum  aatietato 
et  simtlitmh'ne,  aninire  humann  fastidio 
ait,  ruficit  earn  PtM!:*is,  inexpectata,  et 
varia,  et  vici.sHitiidinum  plena  canena. 
AdcQ  ut  Poesit  iata  non  aolum  ad  de- 
lectalioncm,  aed  ad  aninii  magnitudi- 
nem,  et  ad  niorea  conftTat." — l)e  Aug. 
Scient.  lib.  ii.  cap.  xiii. 

VOL.  I. 


•  To  tliia  branch  of  the  phih)8ophy  of 
mind,  Baeon  givea  the  title  of  IkKtritia 
de  fwderty  tire  de  eommvni  vinatlo 
animas  et  corporis. — (De  Aug.  Scient^ 
lib.  iv.  cap.  1.)  I'ndcr  thia  article,  he 
mentiona,  among  other  desiderata^  an 
inquiry  (which  he  rccomiiiendH  to  phyai- 
ciana)  concerning  the  iniluence  of  imagi- 
nation over  the  body.  Ilia  own  wonis 
are  very  remarkable ;  moR*  pirticularly 
the  chiusc  in  which  he'' rc^nuirka  tho 
efTect  of  fixing  and  concentrating  the 
attention,  in  giving  to  ideal  objecta  the 
power  of  realities  over  tho  belief.  "  Ad 
aliud  quii)piam,  quod  hue  pertinet,  parce 
admodum,  nee  pro  rei  aubtilitate,  vel 
utilitate,  inquiaitum  eat ;  quatenua  acili- 
cct  ipsa  imnffinatio  animoi  vel  coffitatto 
perqi/aMjira,  et  veJvtiinJidem  quandam 
exaitata,  valeat  a<l  immutandiun  corpus 
imaginantia.'* — {Ihid.)  lie  auggeata  alao, 
aa  a  curioua  problem,  to  aacertain  how 
far  it  ia  poaaible  to  fortify  and  exalt  the 
imagination ;  and  by  what  meauH  thia 
may  moat  eflectually  W  done.  Tin? 
claaa  of  facta  hertr  alluded  to,  arc  niani- 
featlyof  the  aame  dencript ion  with  tliowo 
to  which  the  attention  of  philoHophfra 
haa  been  lately  called  by  the  pretenaiona 
of  Meanier  and  of  Terkina:    "Atquo 

K 


66  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

classes  of  prejudices  incident  to  human  nature,  is,  in  point  of 
practical  utility,  at  least  equal  to  anything  on  that  head  to  be 
found  in  Locke ;  of  whom  it  is  impossible  to  forbear  remarking, 
as  a  circumstance  not  easily  explicable,  that  he  should  have 
resumed  this  important  discussion,  without  once  mentioning 
the  name  of  his  great  predecessor.  The  chief  improvement 
made  by  Locke,  in  the  farther  prosecution  of  the  argument,  is 
the  application  of  Hobbes's  theory  of  association,  to  explain  in 
what  manner  these  prejudices  are  originally  generated. 

In  Bacon's  scattered  liints  on  topics  connected  with  the 
Philosophy  of  the  Mind,  strictly  so  called,  nothing  is  more 
remarkable  than  the  precise  and  just  ideas  they  display  of  the 
proper  aim  of  this  science.  He  had  manifestly  reflected  much 
and  successfully  on  the  operations  of  his  own  understanding, 
and  had  studied  with  uncommon  sagacity  the  intellectual  char- 
acters of  others.  Of  his  reflections  and  observations  on  both 
subjects,  he  has  recorded  many  important  results ;  and  has  in 
general  stated  them  without  the  slightest  reference  to  any 
physiological  theory  concerning  their  causes,  or  to  any  analo- 
gical explanations  founded  on  the  caprices  of  metaphorical 
language.  If,  on  some  occasions,  he  assumes  the  existence  of 
animal  spirits,  as  the  medium  of  communication  between  Soul 
and  Body,  it  must  be  remembered,  that  this  was  then  the  uni- 
versal belief  of  the  learned ;  and  that  it  was  at  a  much  later 
period  not  less  confidently  avowed  by  Locke.  Nor  ought  it  to  be 
overlooked,  (I  mention  it  to  the  credit  of  both  authors,)  that  in 
such  instances  the  fact  is  commonly  so  stated,  as  to  render  it 
easy  for  the  reader  to  detach  it  from  the  theory.  As  to  the 
scholastic  questions  concerning  the  nature  and  essence  of  mind, 
— whether  it  be  extended  or  unextended  ?  whether  it  have  any 
relation  to  space  or  to  time  ?  or  whether  (as  was  contended 
by  others)  it  exist  in  every  ubi,  but  in  no  place  ? — Bacon  has 

huic  conjuncta  est  disquiaitio,  quomodo  majorcm  fieri   dctur?     Atque  hie  ob- 

imaginatio  intend!  et  fortificari  possit  ?  lique,  nee  minus  periculose  se  insinuat 

Quippe,  si  imaginatio  fortis  tantarum  palliatio  quaedam  et  defenHio  maximse 

sit  virium,  operje  pretium  ftierit  nosse,  partis  Mcujia  Ceremonudis"  &c.  &c.— 

quibus  modis  earn  exaltari,  et  se  ipsa  De  Au4j.  Scient.  lib.  iy.  cap.  iii. 


CHAP.  IL — PHILOSOPHY  FltOM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


67 


uniformly  passed  them  over  with  silent  contempt;  and  has 
probably  contributed  not  less  effectually  to  bring  them  into 
general  discredit,  by  this  indirect  intimation  of  Ids  own  opinion, 
tlian  if  he  had  descended  to  the  ungrateful  task  of  exposing 
their  absurdity.^ 

While  Bacon,  however,  so  cautiously  avoids  these  unprofit- 
able discussions  about  the  nature  of  Mind,  he  decidedly  states 
his  conviction,  tliat  the  faculties  of  Man  differ  not  merely  in 
degree,  but  in  kind,  from  the  instincts  of  the  brutes.  "  I  do 
not^  therefore,"  he  observes  on  one  occasion,  "  approve  of  tliat 
confused  and  promiscuous  method  in  which  philosophers  are 
accustomed  to  treat  of  pneumatology ;  as  if  the  human  Soul 
ranked  above  those  of  brutes,  merely  Hke  the  sun  above  the 
stars,  or  like  gold  above  other  metrtlh." 

Among  the  various  topics  started  by  Bacon  for  the  considera- 
tion of  futimj  logicians,  he  did  not  overlook  (what  may  bo 
justly  regarded,  in  a  practical  view,  as  the  most  interesting  of 
all  logical  j)roblem8)  the  (piestion  concerning  the  mutual  in- 
fluence of  Thought  and  of  Language  on  each  other.  "  Men 
believe,"  says  he,  "  tliat  their  reason  governs  their  words ;  but, 
it  often  lui[)])ens,  that  words  have  i)ower  enough  to  redact  upon 
reason.*'  This  a{)hori8m  may  be  considered  as  the  text  of  by 
far  the  most  valuable  part  of  Locke's  Essay, — tliat  which 
relates  to  the  imperfections  and  abuse  of  words ;  but  it  wius 
not  till  within  the  last  twenty  years,  that  its  depth  and  hn- 


*  Xotwitlistaiulinp:  the  cxtruvngaiico 
of  Spiiioza*8  own  pliilofMipliicnl  rifed, 
he  is  one  of  the  very  few  anHni^  Dacoirs 
Bucccsson),  who  8cein  to  Imve  been  fully 
awnnr  of  the  juHtneKM,  importance,  and 
originality  of  the  method  jMnutod  out  in 
the  Novum  Ortfanon  for  the  study  of 
the  Mind.  "  Ad  ha^c  inti>llig(>nda,  nou 
est  <»pns  naturam  fnentU  eogn(»tni'rc, 
Bed  Buflicit,  mentiH  nive  ])erctptionuin 
historiolam  concinnare  modo  illo  quo 
VEBULAMiUi)  doc'ct." — Spin.  KpUt.  42. 

In  order  to  conipn.'hciid  the  wln»le 
merit  of  this  remark,  it  iu  nejrcRsary  to 
know  that,  according  to  the  Curtebian 


phrawolopj',  which  is  here  adopted  by 
Spinoza,  the  yrnnl  jierfeptwn  in  a  general 
term,  etpially  applicable  to  all  the  intel- 
lectual ojH'rations.  'JTie  wunln  of  Dcs- 
cartcH  hiiuHclf  are  theHC :  "  Onines  modi 
cogitandi,  (|U08  in  nobis  experimur,  ad 
dufw  generales  referri  ])oKHunt :  quorum 
unuH  cHt,  percrj)ttOf  sivc  (jjieratio  intel- 
lectus;  alius  vcro,  voUtlo,  mvo  o]K.>rati(^ 
voluntatiH.  Nam  scntire,  im*itjittari,  et 
pure  inttiligere^  sunt  Uintum  direrai 
modi  percipiendi ;  ut  ctcujKjro,  averHari, 
affinnare,  ncgare,  dubitun*,  sunt  diversi 
nnMli  vob'udi." — Vrinc.  Phil.  Tars  I. 
§32. 


68  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

portance  were  perceived  in  all  their  extent.  I  need  scarcely 
say,  that  I  allude  to  the  excellent  Memoirs  of  M.  Prevost  and 
of  M.  Degerando,  on  "  Signs  considered  in  their  connexion 
with  the  Intellectual  Operations."  The  anticipations  formed 
by  Bacon  of  that  branch  of  modem  logic  which  relates  to 
Universal  Grammar^  do  no  less  honour  to  his  sagacity. 
"  Grammar,"  he  observes,  "  is  of  two  kinds,  the  one  literary, 
the  other  philosophical.  The  former  has  for  its  object  to  trace 
the  analogies  running  through  the  structure  of  a  particular 
tongue,  so  as  to  facilitate  its  acquisition  to  a  foreigner,  or  to 
enable  him  to  speak  it  with  correctness  and  purity.  The  latter 
directs  the  attention,  not  to  the  analogies  which  words  bear  to 
words,  but  to  the  analogies  which  words  bear  to  things;"^  or, 
as  he  afterwards  explains  himself  more  clearly,  "  to  language 
considered  as  the  sensible  portraiture  or  image  of  the  mental 
processes."  In  farther  illustration  of  these  liints,  he  takes 
notice  of  the  lights  which  the  different  genius  of  different 
languages  reflect  on  the  characters  and  habits  of  those  by 
whom  they  were  respectively  spoken.  "  Thus,"  says  he,  "  it  is 
easy  to  perceive,  that  the  Greeks  were  addicted  to  the  culture 
of  the  arts,  the  Romans  engrossed  with  the  conduct  of  affairs ; 
inasmuch  as  the  technical  distinctions  introduced  in  the 
progress  of  refinement  require  the  aid  of  compounded  words ; 
while  the  real  business  of  life  stands  in  no  need  of  so  artificial 
a  phraseology."  2  Ideas  of  this  sort  have,  in  the  course  of  a 
very  few  years,  already  become  common,  and  almost  tritical ; 
but  how  different  was  the  case  two  centuries  ago  ! 

With  these  sound  and  enlarged  \dews  concerning  the  Philo- 
sophy of  the  Mind,  it  will  not  appear  surprising  to  those  who 
have  attended  to  the  slow  and  irregular  advances  of  human 
reason,  that  Bacon  should  occasionally  blend  incidental  remarks, 
savoiu-ing  of  the  habits  of  thinldng  prevalent  in  his  time.  A 
"curious  example  of  this  occurs  in  the  same  chapter  wliich  con- 
tains liis  excellent  definition  or  description  of  universal  grammar. 
"  This  too,"  he  observes,  "  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  ancient 
languages  were  full  of  declensions,  of  cases,  of  conjugations,  of 

*  De  Aug.  Scient.  lib.  vi.  cap.  i.  *  Ibid. 


CHAP.  II.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  69 

tenses,  and  of  other  similar  inflections;  while  the  modern, 
ahuost  entirely  destitute  of  the.se,  indolently  accomplish  the 
same  purpose  by  the  help  of  prepositions,  and  of  auxiliary 
verba  Whence,"  he  continues,  "may  be  inferred,  (liowever 
we  may  flatter  ourselves  with  the  idea  of  our  own  sui)eriority,) 
that  the  human  intellect  was  much  more  acute  and  subtile  in 
ancient,  than  it  now  is  in  modem  timea"^  How  very  unlike 
is  this  last  reflection  to  the  usual  strain  of  Bacon's  writings  I 
It  seems,  indeed,  much  more  congenial  to  the  philosophy  of 
Mr.  Harris  and  of  Lord  Monboddo ;  and  it  has  accordingly 
been  sanctioned  with  the  approbation  of  both  these  learned 
authora  If  my  memory  does  not  deceive  me,  it  is  the  only 
passage  in  Bacon's  works  which  Lord  Monboddo  has  any- 
where condescended  to  quote. 

These  observations  afford  me  a  convenient  opportimity  for 
remarking  the  progress  and  diff'usion  of  the  philosophical  spirit 
since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  short 
passage  just  cited  from  Bacon,  there  are  involved  no  less  than 
two  capital  errors,  which  are  now  almost  univerHiilly  ranke<l,  by 
men  of  education,  among  the  grossest  prejudices  of  the  multi- 
tude. The  one,  that  the  declensions  and  conjugations  of  the 
ancient  languages,  and  the  modem  substitution  in  their  place 
of  prepositions  and  auxiliary  verbs,  are  both  of  them  the  deli- 
berate and  systematical  contrivances  of  si)eculative  gramma- 
rians ;  the  other,  (still  less  analogous  to  Ifecon's  general  style 
of  reasoning,)  that  the  faculties  of  man  have  declined  as  the 
world  has  grown  older.  Ik)th  of  these  errors  may  be  now  said 
to  have  disapixjared  entirely.  The  latter,  more  particularly, 
must  to  the  rising  generation  seem  so  absurd,  that  it  almost 
requires  an  apology  to  have  mentioned  it.  That  the  capacities 
of  the  human  mind  have  been  in  all  ages  the  same,  and  that 
the  diversity  of  phenomena  exhibited  by  our  species  is  the  result 
merely  of  the  different  circumstances  in  which  men  are  jJaced, 
has  been  long  received  as  an  incontrovertible  logical  maxim ; 
or  rather,  such  is  the  influence  of  early  instruction,  that  we  are 
apt  to  regard  it  as  one  of  the  most  obvious  suggestions  of  com- 

^  T>e  Avg.  Scieni  lib.  vi.  cap.  i. 


70  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

mon  sense.  And  yet,  till  about  the  tiine  of  Montesquieu,  it  was 
by  no  means  so  generally  recognised  by  the  learned  as  to  have 
a  sensible  influence  on  the  fashionable  tone  of  thinking  over 
Europe.  The  application  of  this  fundamental  and  leading  idea 
to  the  natural  or  theoretical  history  of  society  in  all  its  various 
aspects ; — to  the  history  of  languages,  of  the  arts,  of  the  sciences, 
of  laws,  of  government,  of  manners,  and  of  reUgion, — is  the 
peculiar  glory  of  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
forms  a  characteristical  feature  in  its  philosophy,  which  even  the 
imagination  of  Bacon  was  unable  to  foresee. 

It  would  be  endless  to  particularize  the  original  suggestions 
thrown  out  by  Bacon  on  topics  connected  with  the  science  of 
Mind.  The  few  passages  of  this  sort  already  quoted  are  pro- 
duced merely  as  a  specimen  of  the  rest.  They  are  by  no  means 
selected  as  the  most  important  in  his  writings ;  but,  as  they 
happened  to  be  those  which  had  left  the  strongest  impression 
on  my  memory,  I  thought  them  as  likely  as  any  other  to  invite 
the  curiosity  of  my  readers  to  a  careful  examination  of  the  rich 
mine  from  which  they  are  extracted. 

The  Ethical  disquisitions  of  Bacon  are  almost  entirely  of  a 
practical  nature.  Of  the  two  theoretical  questions  so  much 
agitated,  in  both  parts  of  this  island,  during  the  eighteenth 
century,  concerning  the  ptnnciple  and  the  object  of  moral  ap- 
probation, he  has  said  nothing ;  but  he  has  opened  some  new 
and  interesting  views  with  respect  to  the  influence  of  custom 
and  the  formation  of  habits — a  most  important  article  of  moral 
philosophy,  on  which  he  has  enlarged  more  ably  and  more  use- 
fully than  any  writer  since  Aristotle.^  Under  the  same  head  of 
Ethics  may  be  mentioned  the  small  volume  to  which  he  has 
given  the  title  of  Essays,  the  best  known  and  the  most  popular 
of  all  his  works.  It  is  also  one  of  those  where  the  superiority 
of  his  genius  appears  to  the  greatest  advantage,  the  novelty  and 
depth  of  his  reflections  often  receiving  a  strong  relief  from  the 
triteness  of  his  subject.  It  may  be  read  from  beginning  to  end 
in  a  few  hours ;  and  yet,  after  the  twentieth  perusal,  one  seldom 
fails  to  remark  in  it  something  overlooked  before.   This,  indeed, 

*  De  Aug,  Scient.  lib.  vii.  cap.  iii. 


CHAP,  II, — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE,  71 

is  a  characteristic  of  all  Bacon's  writings,  and  is  only  to  be 
accounted  for  by  the  inexliaustiblc  aliment  they  furnish  to  oiur 
own  thoughts,  and  tlie  S3nnpatlietic  activity  tliey  iiu^wrt  to  our 
tor{)id  faculties. 

The  suggestions  of  Bacon  for  the  improvement  of  Political 
Philosoi)hy,  exliibit  as  strong  a  contrast  to  tlie  narrow  systems 
of  contemporary  statesmen  as  the  Inductive  Logic  to  that  of 
the  Schools.  How  profound  and  comprehensive  are  the  views 
opened  in  the  following  fiassages,  when  comj  wired  with  the  sco{>e 
of  the  celebrated  treatise  De  Jure  Bdli  et  Pads;  a  work  which 
was  first  published  about  a  year  before  Bacon's  death,  and  which 
continued,  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards,  to  be  re- 
garded, in  all  the  Protesttmt  universities  of  Km*oix),  as  an 
inexhaustible  treasure  of  moral  and  jurisprudential  wisdom  I 

"  The  ultimate  object  which  legislators  ought  to  have  in 
view,  and  to  which  all  their  enactments  and  stuictions  ought  to 
be  subservient,  is,  that  the  citizens  may  live  hajypily.  For  this 
purpose,  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  receive  a  religious  and 
pious  education ;  that  they  should  be  trained  to  good  nionils ; 
that  they  should  be  secured  from  foreign  enemies  by  jiroiwr 
military  arrangements;  that  they  should  l)e  guarded  l)y  an 
effectual  jwlice  against  setlitions  and  jjrivate  injuries ;  that  they 
should  be  loyal  to  government,  and  ol)edient  to  magistrates ; 
and  finally,  tliat  they  should  abound  in  wealth,  and  in  other 
national  resources."  ^ — "  The  science  of  such  nuitters  certainly 
belongs  more  jwirticularly  to  the  jjrovince  of  men  who,  by 
habits  of  public  business,  Imve  lx?en  led  to  take  a  comprehen- 
sive survey  of  the  social  order ;  of  tlie  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity at  large ;  of  the  rules  of  natund  ecpiity ;  of  \\\i^  manners 
of  nations ;  of  the  different  fonns  of  govenmient ;  and  who  arc 

'  Exemplum  Trndatus  de  Fontihut  arcmint  of  tlic  pencrnl  priruiploii  of  law 

JuriSy  Aphor.  fy.     T\nn  cnuincrntidii  of  and  pivornriicnt,  hikI  of  tlu;  tlin^'rcnt  n;- 

the  different  objects  of  law  nj)))roacbcB  voliitionB  tlioy  have  iinderf^onf  in   tlio 

▼cry  nearly  to  Mr.  Smith-s  ideas  on  the  different  a^vn  and  jH-rijHlH  of  imk  iety  ; 

same  subject,  as  expressed  by  biniftclf  not  only  in  what  con(M*rn.M  just !<-<',  but 

in  the  concludinj^  sentence  <if  bis  77tfc/ry  in  \^ bat  ronceriiH  jHjlire,   n-veniie,  and 

of  Moral  Sentiments.      "In   another  aniiH,  and  vthatcver  elfac  is  the  object  of 

Discourse,  I  bhall  endeavour  to  give  an  law." 


72 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


thus  prepared  to  reason  concerning  the  wisdom  of  laws,  both 
from  considerations  of  justice  and  of  policy.  The  great  desi- 
deratum, accordingly,  is,  by  investigating  the  principles  of 
natural  justice^  and  those  of  political  expediency  ^  to  exhibit  a 
theoretical  model  of  legislation,  which,  wliile  it  serves  as  a 
standard  for  estimating  the  comparative  excellence  of  municipal 
codes,  may  suggest  hints  for  their  correction  and  improvement, 
to  such  as  have  at  heurt  the  welfare  of  mankind."  ^ 

How  precise  the  notion  was  that  Bacon  had  formed  of  a 
philosophical  system  of  jurisprudence,  (with  which  as  a  stan- 
dard the  municipal  laws  of  different  nations  might  be  com- 
pared,) appears  from  a  remarkable  expression,  in  wliich  he 
mentions  it  as  the  proper  business  of  those  who  might  attempt 
to  carry  his  plan  into  execution,  to  investigate  those  "  leges 
LEGUM,  ex  qiiibus  informatio  peti  possit,  quid  in  singuUs  legibus 
bene  aut  perperam  positum  aut  constitutum  sit/*  ^  I  do  not 
know  if,  in  Bacon's  prophetic  anticipations  of  the  future  pro- 
gress of  physics,  there  be  anything  more  characteristical,  both 


*  De  Avg.  Scient.  lib.  viii.  cap.  iii. 

*  De  Fontihua  Juris,  Aplior.  6. 
From  the  preface  to  a  small  tract  of 

Bacon's,  entitled  The  Elements  of  the 
Common   Laws  of  England^   (written 
■while  he  was  Solicitor-General  to  Queen 
Elizabeth,)  we  learn,  that  the  phrase 
legum  lefjes  had  been  previously  used  by 
some  "  great  Civilian."     To  what  civi- 
lian Bacon  here  alludes,  I  know  not ; 
but,  whoever  he  was,  I  doubt  much  if 
he  annexed  to  it  the  comprehensive  and 
philosophical  meaninfr,  so  precisely  ex- 
plained in  the  above  definition.     Bacon 
himself,  when  he  wrote  his  Tract  on  the 
Common  Laws,  does  not  seem  to  have 
yet  risen  to  this  vantagc-grround  of  Uni- 
versal Jurisprudence.     His  great  object 
(he  tells  us)  was  "  to  collect  the  rules 
and  grounds  dispersed  throughout  the 
body  of  the  same  laws,  in  order  to  see 
more  profoundly  into  the  reason  of  such 
judgments  and  ruled  cases,  and  thereby 


to  make  more  use  of  them  for  the  deci- 
sion of  other  cases  more  doubtful ;  so 
that  the  uncertainty  of  law,  which  is 
the  principal  and  most  just  challenge 
that  is  made  to  the  laws  of  our  nation  at 
this  time,  will,  by  this  new  strength 
laid  to  the  foundation,  be  somewhat  the 
more  settled  and  corrected."  In  this 
passage,  no  reference  whatever  is  made 
to  the  Universal  Justice  spoken  of  in 
the  aphorisms  de  Fontilms  JtirU;  but 
merely  to  the  leading  and  governing 
niles  which  give  to  a  municipal  system 
whatever  it  possesses  of  analogy  and 
consistency.  To  these  rules  Bacon  gives 
the  title  of  leges  legum;  but  the  mean- 
ing of  the  phrase,  on  this  occasion, 
differs  from  that  in  which  he  afterwards 
employed  it,  not  less  widely  than  the 
rules  of  Latin  or  of  Greek  syntax  differ 
from  the  principles  of  universal  gram- 
mar.— [The  phrase  "  Legiim  leges" 
occurs  also  in  Cicero ;  vide  lib.  ii  De 
JjfgibuSf  cap.  vii.] 


CHAP.  II.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  73 

of  the  grandeur  and  of  the  justneBs  of  hia  conceptionfi,  tlmn 
tliis  short  definition ;  more  pirticidarly,  when  we  consider  how 
widely  Grotius,  in  a  work  professeilly  devoted  to  this  very  in- 
quiry, was  soon  after  to  wander  from  the  right  jwitli,  in  con- 
sequence of  Ids  vague  and  wavering  idea  of  the  aim  of  his 
researches. 

The  sagacity,  however,  difqJayetl  in  these,  and  various  otlier 
passages  of  a  similar  import,  can  by  no  means  be  duly  appre- 
ciated, without  attending,  at  the  same  time,  to  the  cautious  and 
temperate  maxims  so  frerpiently  inculcated  by  the  author,  on 
the  subject  of  jwlitical  innovation.  "  A  stubborn  retention  of 
customs  is  a  turbulent  thing,  not  less  than  the  introduction  of 
new." — "  Time  is  the  greatest  innovator ;  shall  we  then  not 
imitate  time,  which  innovates  so  silently  as  to  mock  the  sense  ?" 
Nearly  connected  with  these  aphorisms,  are  the  prc»found  re- 
flections in  the  first  book  De  Augmentia  Scientiarum,  on  the 
necessity  of  accommtKlating  every  new  institution  to  the 
character  and  circumstances  of  the  iKJOjJe  for  whom  it  is 
intended ;  and  on  the  peculiar  danger  which  liteniry  men  nm 
of  overlooking  tliis  consideration,  from  the  familiar  acquaint- 
ance they  acquire,  in  the  course  of  their  early  studies,  with  the 
ideas  and  sentiments  of  the  ancient  classics. 

The  remark  of  Bacon  on  the  systematical  ix)licy  of  Henry 
VIL,  wtis  immifestly  suggested  by  the  same  train  of  thinking. 
"  His  laws  (whoso  marks  them  well)  were  deep  and  not 
vulgar ;  not  made  on  the  spur  of  a  {Mirticular  occtusion  for  the 
present,  but  out  of  providence  for  the  future;  to  make  the 
estate  of  his  people  still  more  and  more  luippy,  after  the  mim- 
ner  of  the  legislators  in  ancient  and  heroic  times."  How  far 
this  noble  eulogy  was  merited,  either  by  the  legislators  of 
antiquity,  or  by  the  modem  prince  on  whom  Bjicon  has  be- 
stowed it,  is  a  (question  of  little  moment.  I  (juote  it  merely  on 
account  of  the  iinj)ortimt  philosophical  distinction  which  it  in- 
dirc^ctly  marks,  Iwtween  "  deep  and  vulgar  laws ;''  the  former 
invariably  aiming  to  accomplish  their  end,  not  by  giving  any 
sudden  shock  to  the  feelings  and  interests  of  the  existing 
generation,  but  by  allowing  to  natunil  causes  time  and  oppor- 


74  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST, 

tunity  to  operate;  and  by  removing  those  artificial  obstacles 
which  check  the  progressive  tendencies  of  society.  It  is  pro- 
bable, that,  on  this  occasion,  Bacon  had  an  eye  more  parti- 
cularly to  the  memorable  statute  of  alienation  ;  to  the  effects  of 
which,  (whatever  were  the  motives  of  its  author,)  the  above 
description  certainly  applies  in  an  eminent  degree. 

After  all,  however,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  rather 
in  his  general  views  and  maxims,  than  in  the  details  of  his 
political  theories,  that  Bacon's  sagacity  appears  to  advantage. 
His  notions  with  respect  to  commercial  policy  seem  to  have 
been  more  peculiarly  erroneous,  originating  in  an  overweening 
opinion  of  the  efficacy  of  law,  in  matters  where  natural  causes 
ought  to  be  allowed  a  free  operation.  It  is  observed  by  Mr. 
Hiune,  that  the  statutes  of  Henry  VII.  relating  to  the  pohce  of 
his  kingdom,  are  generally  contrived  with  more  judgment  than 
his  commercial  regulations.  The  same  writer  adds,  that  "  the 
more  simple  ideas  of  order  and  equity  are  sufficient  to  guide  a 
legislator  in  everji;hing  that  regards  the  internal  administration 
of  justice ;  but  that  the  principles  of  commerce  are  much  more 
complicated,  and  require  long  experience  and  deep  reflection  to 
be  well  understood  in  any  state.  The  real  consequence  is  there 
often  contrary  to  first  appearances.  No  wonder  that,  during 
the  reign  of  Henry  VII.,  these  matters  were  frequently  mis- 
taken ;  and  it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that,  even  in  the  age  of 
Lord  Bacon,  very  imperfect  and  erroneous  ideas  were  formed  on 
that  subject." 

The  instances  mentioned  by  Hume  in  confirmation  of  these 
general  remarks,  are  peculiarly  gratifying  to  those  who  have  a 
pleasure  in  tracing  the  slow  but  certain  progress  of  reason  and 
liberality.  "  During  the  reign,"  says  he,  "  of  Henry  VII.  it  was 
prohibited  to  export  horses,  as  if  that  exportation  did  not  en- 
courage the  breed,  and  make  them  more  plentiful  in  the  king- 
dom. Prices  were  also  affixed  to  woollen  cloths,  to  caps  and 
hats,  and  the  wages  of  labourers  were  regulated  by  law.  It  is 
EVIDENT  that  these  matters  ought  always  to  be  left  free^  and  he 
entrusted  to  the  common  course  of  business  and  commerced — 
"  For  a  like  reason,"  the  historian  continues,  "  the  law  enacted- 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACOK  TO  LOCKE.  75 

against  enclosures  and  for  the  keeping  up  of  farm-houses, 
scarcely  deserves  the  praises  bestowed  on  it  by  Lord  Bacon.  If 
husbandmen  understand  agriculture,  and  have  a  ready  vent  for 
their  commodities,  we  need  not  dread  a  diminution  of  the  ixjoplo 
employed  in  the  country.  During  a  centiuy  and  a  lialf  after 
this  period,  there  was  a  frequent  renewal  of  laws  and  edicts 
against  depopulation ;  whence  we  may  infer  that  none  of  them 
were  ever  executed  The  natural  course  of  improvement  at 
last  provided  a  remedy," 

These  acute  and  decisive  strictures  on  the  impolicy  of  some 
laws  highly  applauded  by  Bacon,  while  they  strongly  ilhiKtrato 
the  narrow  and  mistaken  views  in  political  economy  entertained 
by  the  wisest  statesmen  and  philosophers  two  centuries  ago, 
afford,  at  the  same  time,  a  proof  of  the  general  difliiKion  which 
has  since  taken  place,  among  the  i)eople  of  Great  Britain,  of 
juster  and  more  enlightened  opinions  on  tliis  importimt  branch 
of  legislation.  Wherever  such  doctrines  find  their  way  into  the 
page  of  history,  it  may  be  safely  inferred  tliiit  the  public  mind 
is  not  indisix)Hed  to  give  them  a  welcome  reception. 

The  ideas  of  Bacon  concerning  tlie  education  of  youth  were 
such  as  might  be  expected  from  a  philonopliical  statcKman.  On 
the  conduct  of  eductition  in  general,  with  a  view  to  the  develoi)- 
ment  and  improvement  of  the  intellectual  character,  he  lias 
suggested  various  useful  hints  in  different  jwirts  of  his  works ; 
but  what  I  wish  cliiefly  to  remark  at  jiresent  is,  the  jMirumount 
importance  which  he  has  attached  to  the  eilucation  of  the 
people,  comi)aring  (as  he  has  rei)eateilly  done)  the  effects  of 
early  culture  on  the  understanding  and  the  heart  to  the  abun- 
dant harvest  which  rewards  the  diligi*nt  husbandman  for  the 
toils  of  the  8})ring.  To  this  analogy  he  seems  to  luive  been  jmr- 
ticularly  anxious  to  attract  the  attention  of  his  readers,  by 
bestowing  on  wlucation  the  title  of  tJie  Georgica  of  the  Mind  ; 
identifying,  by  a  happy  and  impressive  metaphor,  the  two 
proudest  functions  entrusttKi  to  the  legislator — the  encomage- 
ment  of  agricultural  industry  and  the  care  of  national  instruc- 
tion. In  lH)th  instances,  the  legislator  exerts  a  power  which  is 
^\J^xf}^\Y productive  or  creative;  com|)elliug,  in  the  one  case, 


76  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

the  unprofitable  desert  to  pour  forth  its  latent  riches ;  and  in 
the  other,  vivifying  the  dormant  seeds  of  genius  and  virtue,  and 
redeeming,  from  the  neglected  wastes  of  human  intellect,  a  new 
and  unexpected  accession  to  the  common  inheritance  of  man- 
kind. 

When  from  such  speculations  as  these  we  descend  to  the 
treatise  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis^  the  contrast  is  mortifying 
indeed.  And  yet,  so  much  better  suited  were  the  talents  and 
accomplishments  of  Grotius  to  the  taste,  not  only  of  his  con- 
temporaries, but  of  their  remote  descendants,  that  while  the 
merits  of  Bacon  failed,  for  a  century  and  a  half,  to  command 
the  general  admiration  of  Europe,^  Grotius  continued,  even  in 
our  British  universities,  the  acknowledged  Oracle  of  Jurispru- 
dence and  of  Ethics,  till  long  after  the  death  of  Montesquieu. 
Nor  was  Bacon  himself  unapprized  of  the  slow  growth  of  his 
posthumous  fame.  No  writer  seems  ever  to  liave  felt  more 
deeply  that  he  properly  belonged  to  a  later  and  more  enlight- 
ened age — a  sentiment  which  he  has  patlietically  expressed  in 
that  clause  of  his  testament,  where  he  "  bequeaths  his  name  to 
posterity,  after  some  generations  shall  be  past."  ^ 

Unbounded,  however,  as  the  reputation  of  Grotius  was  on 
the  Continent,  even  before  his  own  death,  it  was  not  till  many 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  treatise  De  Jure  Belli  et 
PaciSj  that  the  science  of  natural  jurisprudence  became,  in  this 
island,  an  object  of  much  attention,  even  to  the  learned.  In 
order,  therefore,  to  give  to  the  sequel  of  this  section  some  de- 
gree of  continuity,  I  shall  reserve  my  observations  on  Grotius 
and  his  successors,  till  I  shall  have  finished  all  that  I  think  it 
necessary  to  mention  further,  with  respect  to  the  Hterature  of 
our  own  country,  prior  to  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Locke's  Essay. 


*  "  La  celcbritc  en  Prance  des  ecrita  the  most  insignificant  characters,  and  to 

du  Chancelicr  Bacon  n'a  guere  pour  date  whom  Le  Clerc  has  very  justly  ascribed 

que  cclle  de  I'Encyclopedie." — {Histoire  the  merit  of  une  exactitude  itonnante 

des  Mathimatiq^tes  par  MorUucla,  Pre-  dam  des  choses  de  n^ant,  should  have 

face,  p.  ix.)     It  is  an  extraordinary  cir-  devoted  to  Bacon  only  twelve  lines  of 

curastance  that  Bayle,  who  has  so  often  bis  Dictionary, 
wasted  his  erudition  and  acuteness  on  *  See  Note  F. 


CHAP.  IL — PHILOSOrUY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  77 

The  rapid  advancement  of  intellectual  cultivation  in  Eng- 
land, between  the  years  IMS  and  1640,  (a  jx^riod  of  alniubl; 
uninterrupted  |)eace,)  has  been  reim\rkeil  by  Mr.  Fox.  "  The 
general  improvement,"  he  ob8er^'es,  "  in  all  arts  of  civil  life, 
and  above  all,  the  astonishing  progress  of  literature,  arc  the 
most  striking  among  the  general  fwitures  of  that  jx^rioil ;  and 
are  in  themselves  causes  sufficient  to  produce  effects  of  the 
utmost  imjK)rtance.  A  country  whose  language  was  enriched 
by  the  works  of  Hooker,  Raleigh,  and  Ricon,  could  not  but 
experience  a  sensible  change  in  its  manners,  and  in  its  style  of 
thinking;  and  even  to  »\M^ak  the  same  language  in  which 
Spencer  and  ShakesjK^are  had  written,  set^med  a  sufficient  plea 
to  rescue  the  Commons  of  England  from  the  appellation  of 
Brutes,  with  which  Henry  the  Eighth  liad  mldressetl  them." — 
The  remark  is  equally  just  and  reiined.  It  is  by  the  mediation 
of  an  iinpronng  language,  that  the  progress  of  the  mind  is 
chiefly  continuetl  from  one  generation  to  another ;  and  that  the 
acquirements  of  the  enlightened  few  are  insiMisibly  inqMirted 
to  the  many.  Whatever  tends  to  diminish  the  ambiguities 
of  sixjech,  or  to  fix,  with  more  logical  precision,  the  imi)ort 
of  general  terms ; — above  all,  whatever  tends  to  emlMxly,  in 
popular  forms  of  exi>ression,  the  ideas  and  feelings  of  the  wise 
and  good,  augments  the  natural  powers  of  the  human  under- 
standing, and  enables  the  succeeding  race  to  stiirt  from  a 
higher  ground  than  was  occuj)ied  by  their  fathers.  The 
remark  a]:)plies  with  peculiar  force  to  the  study  of  the  Mind 
itself;  a  study,  where  the  chief  source  of  error  is  the  inii)erfi»c- 
tion  of  wonls ;  and  where  every  improvement  on  this  gR'at 
instniment  of  thought  nuiy  1x5  justly  regarded  in  the  light  of  a 
discovery.^ 

*  Tt  is  n(»t  Ro  fort'ign  m  may  at  firnt  known,  that  the  troatises  on  huHbandry 

be  supposed  to  the  ohji^ct  of  this  Dim-  an<l  aj^riniltun*,  whiili  wore  published 

conr»c,  to  take  notice  here  of  the  «.*xtra-  during;  thi*  rripi  of  Kin^  JanieH,  htv.  ko 

ordinary  dt^niand  for  l>ookH  on  AffricuJ-  nnnion>UH,  that  it  can  warccly  )>e  inm- 

ture  nntier  the  jjovonnncnt  of  James  T.  gined  hy  whom  they  were  written,  or 

The  f;iot  is  thus  very  utronj^ly  stated  by  to  whom  they  ymxv  hoM."     Nnthinj?  can 

Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  introiluction  to  the  ilhistrate  more  stron^'ly  the  cffccis  of  a 

liark'ian  Miscellany.     "  It  deserves  to  pacific  system  of  p<»licy,  in  encoura«:iiig 

be  remarked,  because  it  is  not  generally  a  general  taste  for  reading,  as  well  as 


78 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


In  the  foregoing  list  of  illustrious  names,  Mr.  Tox  has,  with 
much  propriety,  connected  those  of  Bacon  and  Raleigh ;  two 
men,  who,  notwithstanding  the  diversity  of  their  professional 
pursuits,  and  the  strong  contrast  of  their  characters,  exhibit^ 
nevertheless,  in  their  capacity  of  authors,  some  striking  features 
of  resemblance.  Both  of  them  owed  to  the  force  of  their  own 
minds,  their  emancipation  from  the  fetters  of  the  schools ;  both 
were  eminently  distinguished  above  tlieir  contemporaries,  by 
the  originality  and  enlargement  of  their  pliilosophical  views ; 
and  both  dinde,  with  the  venerable  Hooker,  the  glory  of 
exemi)lifying  to  their  yet  unpolished  countrymen,  the  richness, 
variety,  and  grace,  which  might  be  lent  to  the  EngUsh  idiom 
by  the  liand  of  a  master.^ 

It  is  not  improbable  that  Mr.  Fox  might  have  included  the 
name  of  Hobbes  in  the  same  enumeration,  had  he  not  been 
prevented  by  an  aversion  to  his  slavish  principles  of  govern- 
ment, and  by  his  own  disrcUsh  for  metaphysical  theories.  As 
a  writer,  Hobbes  unquestionably  ranks  high  among  the  older 
English  classics;  and  is  so  peculiarly  distinguished  by  the 
simpUcity  and  ease  of  his  manner,  that  one  would  naturally 
have  expected  from  Mr.  Fox's  characteristical  taste,  that  he 
would  have  relished  his  style  still  more  than  that  of  Bacon  ^  or 


an  active  spirit  of  national  improvement. 
At  all  times,  and  in  every  country,  the 
extensive  sale  of  hooks  on  afjricuJture 
may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
pleasing  symptoms  of  mental  cultivation 
in  the  great  body  of  a  people. 

^  To  prevent  being  misunderstood,  it 
is  necessary  for  me  to  add,  that  I  do  not 
speak  of  the  general  style  of  these  old 
authors  ;  but  only  of  detached  passages, 
which  may  be  selected  from  all  of  them, 
as  earnests  or  first-fnnts  of  a  new  and 
brighter  era  in  EngliHh  literature.  It 
may  be  safely  affirmed,  that  in  their 
works,  and  in  the  prose  compositions  of 
Milton,  are  to  be  found  some  of  the 
finest  sentences  of  which  our  language 
has  yet  to  boast.  To  propose  them  now 
as  models  for  imitation,  would  be  quite 


absurd.  Dr.  Ijowth  certainly  went  much 
too  far  when  he  said,  "  That  in  correct- 
nesSf  propriety,  and  purity  of  English 
style,  Hooker  hath  hardly  been  sur- 
passed, or  even  equalled,  by  any  of  his 
successors." — Preface  to  Loioth^s  Eng- 
lish Grammar. 

*  According  to  Dr.  Burnet,  (no  con- 
temptible judge  of  style,)  Bacon*  was 
"  the  first  that  tor  it  our  language  cor- 
rectly." The  same  learned  prelate  pro- 
nounces Bacon  to  be  "  still  our  best 
author ;"  and  this  at  a  time  when  the 
works  of  Sprat,  and  many  of  the  prose 
compositions  of  Cowley  and  of  Dryden, 
were  already  in  the  hands  of  the  public. 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  on  what 
grounds  Burnet  proceeded,  in  hazard- 
ing BO  extraordinary  an  opinion.     See 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOrUY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


79 


of  Kaleigh. — It  is  with  the  jyhilosojjJncal  merits,  however,  of 
Hobl)e8,  that  we  arc  alone  concerned  at  present ;  and,  in  tliis 
point  of  view,  what  a  sjiace  is  filled  in  the  substniuent  history 
of  our  domestic  literature,  by  his  own  works,  and  by  those  of 
Ids  innumerable  oi>i)onents !  Little  else,  indeed,  but  the  sys- 
tems which  he  publisluMl,  and  the  controversies  which  they 
provoked,  occurs,  during  the  inttTval  between  Bacon  and 
Locke,  to  mark  the  ])rogress  of  English  PhilosojJiy,  either  in 
the  studv  of  the  mind,  or  in  the  kindreil  researches  of  Ethical 
and  Political  Science. 

Of  the  few  and  comjmratively  trifling  exceirtions  to  this  re- 
mark, furnished  by  the  metaphysical  tnicts  of  Glanvill,  of 
Heiu-y  More,  and  of  John  Smith,  I  nnist  delay  taking  notice, 
till  some  account  shall  Ik?  given  of  the  Cartesian  philosr)phy ; 
to  which  their  most  interesting  discussions  have  a  const^mt 
reference,  either  in  the  wav  of  comment  or  refutation. 

ITOBBES.1 


"The  philosopher  of  Malmesbury,"  says  Dr.  Warburton, 
"  was  the  terror  of  the  last  age,  as  Tindall  and  Collins  are  of 
this.  The  press  sweat  with  controviTsy ;  and  every  young 
churchman  militant,  would  try  his  arms  in  tliundering  on 
HoblK»s's  stwl  cap/'*  Xor  was  the  opiKwition  to  IIoIiIk's  con- 
fine<l  to  the  clerical  order,  or  to  the  controversialists  of  his  own 


the  Pn.>rac'c  to  UiimrtV  traiiNlution  of 

It  is  Htill  iinrtt*  (liffinilt,  on  tlio  othor 
hand,  to  acnmnt  fur  the  ftillowiii^  Vfry 
boUl  tlcciHinn  of  Mr.  Iliinu*.  J  tran- 
wrilM*  it  fn>m  an  i'h«*ay  firHt  piilillKhfil 
in  1742  ;  hut  th(^  Kanic  {kihmi<;(>  ih  to  l>c 
found  ill  the  laHt  edition  of  hiH  workH, 
com.'t:tf<l  l»y  ]iiinsr1f.  *'  The  first  jH»lit« 
pro«i*  Wf  havt'  was  trrlt  l»y  a  man  (Dr. 
Swift)  who  is  Htill  aliw.  Ah  to  Sprat, 
IxM'ko,  and  vwu  T«-iiipK",  tlu-y  kin'w  t«K) 
littlo  of  tho  rulrs  of  art  to  Vm  cHtfcniod 
cli'pint  writ<-rB.  Tin;  proso  (»f  Uactm, 
Harrington,  and  Milton,  is  nltogt^ther 


Rtiir  and  {M^dantic ;  though  thi'ir  Ri'niio 
Im«  rxcrllcnt.'* 

IIow  iiiHipiifirant  rpp  the  jwtty  ^raiii- 
nintical  inipn)Vcni<-nt.>«  pn>}>osrd  by  ^wift, 
wh«fn  roni|iart'd  with  the  in«>xliauNtihle 
ri(-h«>H  ini|>artcd  to  tht^  Kn^iiNh  tonpic 
by  the  writern  of  tin*  HcvciitiH-nth  cen- 
tury ;  and  how  inferior,  in  all  the 
higher  (pialitirM  and  graee.s  of  Ntyle, 
an*  his  proHi>  eonipositions,  to  thime  of 
hi.s  iniliiediate  pn'deeessont,  I)r}'dell, 
PoiM.*,  anti  Addison ! 

*  Horn  ir>SM,  diiul  lC7y. 

•  J>trui(f  TA'tjatiim,  l*n'far«'  to  vol.  ii. 
p.  0. 


80  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

times.  The  most  eminent  moralists  and  politicians  of  the 
eighteenth  centmy  may  be  ranked  in  the  number  of  his  anta- 
gonists, and  even  at  the  present  moment,  scarcely  does  there 
appear  a  new  publication  on  Ethics  or  Jurisprudence,  where  a 
refutation  of  Hobbism  is  not  to  be  found. 

The  period  when  Hobbes  began  his  literary  career,  as  well  as 
the  principal  incidents  of  his  life,  were,  in  a  singular  degree, 
favourable  to  a  mind  like  his ;  impatient  of  the  yoke  of  autho- 
rity, and  ambitious  to  attract  attention,  if  not  by  solid  and  use- 
ful discoveries,  at  least  by  an  ingenious  defence  of  paradoxical 
tenets.  After  a  residence  of  five  years  at  Oxford,  and  a  very 
extensive  tour  tlu-ough  France  and  Italy,  he  had  the  good 
fortune,  upon  his  return  to  England,  to  be  admitted  into  the 
intimacy  and  confidence  of  Lord  Bacon ;  a  circumstjince  which, 
we  may  j)resumc,  contributed  not  a  little  to  encourage  that  bold 
spirit  of  inquiry,  and  that  aversion  to  scholastic  learning,  wliich 
characterize  liis  \\Titing8.  Happy,  if  he  had,  at  the  same  time, 
imbibed  some  portion  of  that  love  of  truth  and  zeal  for  the 
advancement  of  knowledge,  which  seem  to  have  been  Bacon's 
ruling  passions  I  But  such  was  the  obstinacy  of  his  temper, 
and  his  overweening  self-conceit,  that,  instead  of  co-oj^rating 
with  Bacon  in  the  execution  of  his  magnificent  design,  he  re- 
solved to  rear,  on  a  foundation  exclusively  his  own,  a  complete 
stnicture  both  of  Moral  and  Physical  Science ;  disdaining  to 
avail  himself  even  of  the  materials  collected  by  his  predecessors, 
and  treating  the  experimentarian  pliilosophers  as  objects  only 
of  contempt  and  ridicule  1^ 

In  the  political  writings  of  Hobbes,  we  may  i)erceive  the 
influence  also  of  other  motives.  From  his  earliest  years  he 
seems  to  have  been  decidedly  hostile  to  all  the  forms  of  popular 
government;  and  it  is  said  to  have  l)een  with  the  design  of 
impressing  his  countrymen  with  a  just  sense  of  the  disorders 
incident  to  democratical  establishments,  that  he  published,  in 
1618,  an  English  translation  of  Thucydides.  In  these  oi^inions 
he  was  more  and  more  confirmed  by  the  events  he  afterwards 
witnessed  in  England ;  the  fatal  consequences  of  wliich  he  early 

>  See  Not©  G. 


CHAP.  II. — ^PHILOHOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  8l 

foresaw  with  ho  much  alarm,  that,  in  KvK),  he  witlulrew  fniiu 
the  approacliing  Btorm,  to  enjoy  the  society  of  his  philosophic4il 
friends  at  Paris.  It  was  here  he  wrote  his  Ijook  De  Cive,  a  few 
copies  of  which  were  printed,  and  i)rivately  circulated  in  1642. 
The  same  work  was  afterwards  given  to  the  public,  with 
material  corrections  and  improvements,  in  1G47,  wlien  the 
author's  attiichment  to  the  royal  cause  l)eing  strengthened  hy 
his  personal  connexion  with  the  exiled  King,  he  thought  it  in- 
cumbent on  him  to  stand  fortli  avowedly  an  an  mlvocate  for 
those  principles  which  he  had  long  professed-  The  great  object 
of  this  performance  was  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  sovcreign-s 
agamst  the  rising  spirit  of  democracy,  by  arming  them  with 
the  weapons  of  a  new  pliilosophy. 

The  fundamental  doctrines  inculcated  in  the  ])olitical  works 
of  Hobbes,  are  contained  in  the  following  projK>sitions.  1  re- 
capitulate them  here,  not  on  their  o\vn  account,  but  to  prepare 
the  way  for  some  remarks  which  I  mean  afterwards  to  offer  on 
the  coincidence  lx?tween  the  principles  of  HoblKJs  and  tlM)se  of 
Locke.  In  their  practical  conclusions,  indeed,  with  respect  to 
the  rights  and  duties  of  citizens,  the  two  writers  differ  widely ; 
but  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  very  nearly  they  set  out  from 
the  same  hj'pothetical  assimiptions. 

All  men  are  by  nature  ecjual ;  and,  prior  to  government, 
they  had  all  an  equal  right  to  enjoy  the  good  things  of  this 
world.  Man,  too,  is  (according  to  Hublx^s)  by  nature  a  soli- 
tary and  purely  selfish  animal ;  the  social  union  Iwing  entirely 
an  interested  league,  suggested  by  pnidential  views  of  i)erson<d 
advantage.  The  necessary  consequence  is,  that  a  state  of 
nature  must  be  a  state  of  peqietual  warfare,  in  which  no  indi- 
vidual has  any  other  means  of  safety  than  his  own  strength  or 
ingenuity ;  and  in  which  there  is  no  room  for  regular  industry, 
because  no  seciure  enjoyment  of  its  fruita  In  confirmation  of 
this  view  of  the  origin  of  society,  Hobbes  apjXMils  to  facts  fall- 
ing daily  within  the  circle  of  our  own  exjx»rience,  ^'  Does  not 
a  man  (he  asks)  when  taking  a  journey,  arin  himself,  and  seek 
to  go  well  accomimnied  ?  Wlien  going  to  sleep,  (Ux?s  he  not 
lock  his  doors  ?     Nay,  even  in  his  own  house,  does  he  not  l(X*k 

vou  I.  F 


82  I)18HEUTAT10N. — PART  FIRST. 

his  chests  ?     Does  he  not  there  as  much  accuse  inankiiid  by  his 
actions,  as  I  do  by  my  words  ?"^     An  additional  argument  to 
the  same  piu*po8e  may,  according  to  some  later  Hobbists,  be 
derived  from  the  instinctive  aversion  of  infants  for  strangers ; 
and  from  the  apprehension  which  (it  is  alleged)  every  person 
feels,  when  he  hears  the  tread  of  an  unknown  foot  in  the  dark. 
For  the  sake  of  j)eace  and  secm-ity,  it  is  necessary  that  each 
individual  should  surrender  a  part  of  his  natural  right,  and  be 
contented  with  such  a  share  of  liberty  as  he  is  willing  to  allow 
to  others ;  or,  to  use  Hobbes's  own  language,  "  every  man  must 
divest  himself  of  the  right  he  has  to  all  things  by  natiu^e ;  the 
right  of  all  men  to  all  things  being  in  effect  no  better  than  if 
no  man  had  a  right  to  any  thing."  ^    In  consequence  of  this 
transference  of  natural  rights  to  an  individual,  or  to  a  body  of 
individuals,  the  multitude  become  one  person,  under  the  name 
of  a  State  or  Republic,  by  which  person  the  common  will  and 
power  are  exercised  for  the  common   defence.     The  ruling 
power  cannot  be  withdrawn  from  those  to  whom  it  has  been 
committed;    nor  can  they  be  punished  for  misgovemment 
The  interpretation  of  the  laws  is  to  be  sought,  not  from  the 
comments  of  philosophers,  but  from  the  authority  of  the  ruler ; 
otherwise  society  would  every  moment  be  in  danger  of  resolving 
itself  into  the  discordant  elements  of  which  it  was  at  first  com- 
jx)sed.     The  will  of  the  magistrate,  therefore,  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  ultimate  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  and  his  voice  to 
be  listened  to  by  every  citizen  as  the  voice  of  conscience. 

Not  many  years  afterwards,^  Hobbes  pushed  the  argument 
for  the  absolute  power  of  princes  still  further,  in  a  work  to 
which  he  gave  the  name  of  Leviathan.  Under  this  appellation 
he  means  the  body  politic ;  insinuating,  that  man  is  an  un- 
tameable  beast  of  prey,  and  that  government  is  the  strong 
chain  by  which  he  is  kept  from  mischief  The  fundamental 
principles  here  maintjiined  are  the  sjime  as  in  the  book  Be 
Give;  but  as  it  inveighs  more  pai-ticularly  against  eccledastical 
tyranny,  with  the  view  of  subjecting  the  consciences  of  men  to 

*  Of  Man,  Part  I.  cliap.  xiii.  «  jj^,  Corpore  Politico,  Part  1  chap.  i. 

*  In  1651.  ^  10. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.      83 

the  civil  authority,  it  lost  the  author  the  favour  of  some  power- 
ful protectors  he  had  hitherto  enjoyed  among  the  English 
divines  who  attended  Charles  II.  in  France ;  and  he  even  found 
it  convenient  to  quit  that  kingdom,  and  to  return  to  England, 
where  Cromwell  (to  whose  government  his  political  tenets  were 
now  as  favourable  as  they  were  meant  to  be  to  the  royal  claims) 
suffered  him  to  remain  imulDlestcd.  The  same  circumstances 
operated  to  his  disadvantage  after  the  Bestoration,  and  obliged 
the  King,  who  always  retained  for  him  a  very  strong  attach- 
ment, to  confer  his  marks  of  favour  on  him  with  the  utmost 
reserve  and  circumspection.* 

The  details  which  I  have  entered  into,  with  respect  to  the 
history  of  Hobbes's  political  writings,  will  be  found,  by  those 
who  may  peruse  them,  to  throw  much  light  on  the  author's 
reasonings.  Indeed,  it  is  only  by  thus  considering  them  in 
their  connexion  with  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  and  the 
fortunes  of  the  writer,  that  a  just  notion  can  be  formed  of  their 
spirit  and  tendency. 

The  ethical  principles  of  Hobbes  are  so  completely  inter- 
woven with  his  political  system,  that  all  which  has  been  said  of 
the  one  may  be  applied  to  the  other.  It  is  very  remarkable, 
that  Descartes  should  have  thought  so  highly  of  the  former,  as 
to  pronounce  Hobbes  to  be  "  a  much  greater  master  of  mora- 
lity than  of  metaphysics ; "  a  judgment  which  is  of  itself  suffi- 
cient to  mark  the  very  low  state  of  ethical  science  in  France 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century. — [It  must  l)e 
observed,  however,  to  the  honour  of  Descartes,  that  he  qualifies 
this  eulogy  by  adding  in  the  next  sentence :  "  I  can  by  no 
means  approve  of  his  principles  or  maxims,  which  are  verj-  bad 
and  very  dangerous,  because  they  suppose  all  men  to  be  wicked, 
or  give  them  occasion  to  be  so.  His  whole  design  is  to  write 
in  favour  of  monarchy,  which  might  l>e  done  to  more  advantage 
than  he  has  done,  upon  maxims  more  virtuous  and  solid.^] 
Mr.  Addison,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  a  decided  preference 
(among  all  the  books  written  by  Hobbes)  to  his  Treatise  on 

*  See  Note  H.  Moral    and    Political    Works.      Ix)nd. 

*[Llfe  of  Hobbes;  prefixed   to  hif       1760.    Fol.) 


M 


DIB8EBTATION. — PART  FIX8T. 


Human  Nature;  aiwl  to  his  opinion  on  this  jioint  I  niust  iiupl 
citly  sui)Kcribe  ;  incliuUng,  however,  in  th?  same  commendatii 
Rome  ot'  his  otiier  iiliilosiiphical  essays  on  similar  topics.  Th( 
are  the  only  pnrt  of  his  works  wliich  it  is  possible  now 
with  any  interest ;  and  they  everywhere  evince  in  their  author, 
even  when  he  thinks  most  unsoimdly  himself,  that  power  of 
setting  his  reader  a-thinking,  which  is  one  of  the  most  un- 
equivocal marks  of  original  genius.  Tlioy  have  plainly  Iteen 
studied  with  the  utmost  care  both  l)y  Locke  and  Hume.  To 
the  former  they  liave  HUggested  some  of  his  mowt  importa,nt 
observations  on  the  Aswxriatiou  of  Ideas,  as  well  as  miich  of 
the  sophistry  displaye*!  in  the  first  book  of  his  Essay,  on  the 
Origin  of  onr  Knowledge,  and  on  the  factitious  nature  of  our 
moral  principles ;  to  the  latter,  (among  a  variety  of  hints 
less  consequence,)  his  theory  concerning  the  nature  of  th( 
estahlished  connexions  among  physical  events,  which  it  is 
business  of  the  natural  philosopher  to  nscertain,^  and  the  si 
stance  of  his  argument  ngainst  the  scholastic  doctrine 
general  conceptions.  It  is  from  the  works  of  Hobbes,  too,  tl 
our  lattfr  Necessitarians  have  borrowed  the  most  formidable  of 
those  weapons  with  which  they  have  combated  the  doctrine  of 
moral  hberty ;  and  from  the  same  source  has  been  derived 
leading  idea  which  runs  through  the  pliilologic-al  matei 
of  Mr.  Home  Tooke,  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  this 
author  bon'owed  it,  at  second  hand,  from  a  hint  in  Loci 


our 


'  llio  name  doctrine,  concfming  Iho 
proptr  olyect  of  naturttl  pliIKunjiliy, 
(Gommonlj  aocnbcd  In  Mr.  Hume,  both 
by  his  foUowira  itnd  by  his  oppnneuta,) 
IB  to  be  finiiid  in  VHrioug  wrilerB  koii- 
teiapamj  with  Hnbbet.  It  in  Etatpd, 
with  unwmnion  prpdHon  and  clonrneRs, 
in  ft  b(»k  DntitlcJ  Smii$U  Scienlifica, 
or  ConreHwd  I^iiTRlice  Iho  wny  to 
Scionco;  hy  Joscpli  GlniiTill,  (prinleil 
In  1B65.J  The  whulu  imrli  is  gtmiiKlj- 
marked  with  tlie  ftaturcn  or  un  acute, 
MI  oripina!,  and  (in  matters  of  rwiencp) 
n  BOmettlmt  sceptival  gvuiiiii ;  onit,  when 


cmft,  hj  tlio  sBniP  niilhor,  mil*  ai 
pmnf  t'l  (hnse  nh^Bily  luentioneJ,  of  t| 
piimibia  unioD  of  the  lughcst  int«!lei> 
tual  gifts  nilh  the  must  dcgradiDg  in- 
tt'llccnial  wooktieBBcs. 

With  rcHpott  to  the  iSiejww  Sefeit' 
tificn,  it  dmoTTea  to  bp  noHced,  that  the 
doctrine  niniiitikincd  in  it  concerning 
pliyaiad  cmiRPs  and  eflccls  does  not 
occur  in  the  funn  of  a  detacliinl  ub- 
MrvBtinn,  of  the  value  of  which  the 
aiitiior  might  not  have  tieon  fully  aware, 
but  ia  the  vcrj'  LnBiB  oC  the  genera] 
arguiDimt  ruiming  through  all  his  diir 


CHAP.  U. — ^PUILOaOPHY  FROM  BAL\»(  TO  UKTKE.  85 

Easay;  but  it  is  repeatedlj  stated  by  Hobbes,  in  the  most 
explicit  and  confident  terms.  Of  this  idea,  (than  which,  in 
point  of  fact^  nothing  can  be  imagined  more  {Hierile  and  un« 
soimd,)  Mr.  Tooke's  etymologies,  when  he  applies  them  to  the 
solution  of  metaphysical  questions,  are  little  more  tlum  an  in- 
genious exjiansion,  adapted  and  levelled  to  tlie  comprelieiision 
of  the  multitude. 

The  speculations  of  Hobbes,  however,  concerning  the  theory 
of  the  understanding,  do  not  seem  to  have  been  nearly  so  much 
attendeii  to  during  his  own  life,  as  some  of  his  other  doetrines^ 
which,  having  a  more  immediate  reference  to  human  affairs, 
were  better  adapted  to  the  imsettled  and  revolutionary  spirit  of 
the  timea  It  is  by  these  doctrines,  chiefly,  that  his  name  has 
since  become  so  memorable  in  the  annals  of  nuxleni  literature ; 
and  although  they  now  derive  their  whole  interest  from  the  ex- 
traordinary combination  they  exhibit  of  acuteness  and  subtlety 
with  a  dead-palsy  in  the  powers  of  taste  and  of  moral  sensibility, 
yet  they  will  be  found,  on  an  attentive  examination,  to  have 
had  a  far  more  extensive  influence  on  the  sul)8tHpient  historj'  both 
of  political  and  of  etliical  science,  Hum  any  other  publication  of 
the  same  period. 

Antagonists  of  IIobbes. 

Cudworth^  was  one  of  the  first  who  succt^ssfully  coml>ated 
this  new  philosophy.  As  Hobbes,  in  the  frenzy  of  his  {X)litical 
zeal,  had  been  led  to  sacrifice  wantonly  all  the  princi])les  of 
religion  and  morality  to  the  estiiblishment  of  his  conclusions, 
his  works  not  only  gave  oilence  to  the  friends  of  liberty,  but 
excited  a  general  alarm  among  all  sound  moralists.  His 
doctrine,  in  particular,  that  there  is  no  natural  distinction 
between  Right  and  Wrong,  and  that  these  are  deiKjndent  on 
the  arlritniry  will  of  the  civil  magiHlrate,  wtus  so  obviously 
subversive  of  all  the  commonly  received  ideas  concerning  the 
moi-al  constitution  of  human  nature,  tlwit  it  became  iudiHiKJU- 
sably  nccessarj',  either  to  exiH)8e  the  sophistry  of  tlie  attempt,. 

*  IV>ni  Irtl?,  «liV«l  UWH. 


86  rlHREBTATION.— PART  PIUBT. 

or  to  admit,  with'  Hobbes,  tbat  man  is  a  beast  of  prey,  iijcajiabl 
of  being  governed  by  any  motives  but  fear,  and  the  desire  ( 
self-preservation. 

Between  some  of  these  tenets  of  the  courtly  HobbistB,  : 
those  inculcated  by  the  Cromwellian  Antinomiana,  there  waH  a> 
very  extraordinary  and  unfortimaf*  coincidence ;  the  latter 
insisting,  that,  in  expectation  of  Christ's  second  coming,  '■  the 
obligations  of  morality  and  natural  law  were  suspended ;  and 
that  the  elect,  guided  by  an  internal  princijile,  more  perfect 
and  divine,  wei*  suj^rior  to  the  beggarly  elementa  of  justice, 
and  humanity."'  It  was  the  object  of  Cudwortli  to  vindicatey^ 
against  tlie  assaults  of  both  jiarties,  tlie  immutability  of  mora 
distinctions. 

In  the  prosecution  of  his  veri'  able  argument  on  this  sub- 
ject, Cudworth  displays  a  rich  store  of  enlightened  and  choice 
erudition,  penetrated  throughout  with  a  peculiar  vein  of  sobt 
and  subdued  Platomsm,  from  whence  some  German  Bysteni 
which  have  attracted  no  small  notice  in  our  own  times,  will  \ 
found,  wlien  stripjied  of  their  deep  neological  dis^ise,  to  h 
borrowed  their  most  valuable  mot^rialH,' 


'  Hume. Fiir  ■  more    imrtitnlar 

•c<Miunt  of  ibe  Englinli  AnlinomianB, 
we  Moaheim,  vol.  if.  p.  Q34,  tt  teq. 

'  The  mind  (aceonling  (o  CuJworlh) 
perceivei.  by  otcarion  of  uutward  ub- 
jecM,  as  much  mure  than  is  n-prcavulcd 

ihe  best  written  bnok,  timn  an  llhtenitc 
pcrion  or  brute.  "To  tho  oyes  uf  bolli 
the  Mmio  chamclerB  will  appear ,  but 
the  learned  Binn,  inthoae  characten,  viU 
tea  heaven,  t^Biih.  nun,  and  atArs  ,  read 
profound  theorcma  of  philoanphy  or 
geometry ;  leani  a  grent  denl  of  new 
knowledge  from  them,  and  admire  the 
wisdom  of  the  coupoaer^  while,  to  tlie 
other,  nothing  appeare  but  bluck  Btrokei 
drawn  on  white  paper.  The  reason  of 
which  ia,  that  the  uind  of  the  one  is 
liiniisbed  with  certiun  previoae  inward 
anlii;i|>n1ione,    ideaa.    ni        ' 


stice, 
ca%JLJ 

sub-  ' 

_  .loice 

ysteiai^^^H 

wtUi^^H 

to  haT^^^^I 

Ihe  room  '^^^ 


Hint  the  other  wauu."— "  In  the  n 
of  this  bonk  of  human  compodtinn,  let 
UH  now  aubatitulo  the  book  of  Nature, 
written  all  over  with  the  characlera 
and  impresaiung  of  divine  wiadom  and 
guodiicBS,  but  legible  only  to  an  intel- 
Ipctual  ejo.  To  the  sense  both  of  man 
Kod  brute,  there  appears  nothing  eln 
in  it,  but,  as  in  llie  other,  ao  laanj 
mky  aemniB ;  that  is,  nothing  bnt 
figures  and  colours.  Hut  the  mind, 
v-  hich  bath  a  participnlion  of  the  diHoe 
wisdom  thnt  niade  it,  upon  occadon  of 
those  sensible  deHncaliona,  exerting  Iti 
own  inwnrd  aclivitj-,  will  have  not  only 
a  wonderful  scene,  and  large  prospects 
of  other  thonghlii  laid  open  before  it, 
and  varielj  of  knowledge,  logical,  m«- 
themntical,  and  mnrol  displayed;  but 
also  clearly  read  the  ditino  wisdom  and  _ 
yoodnflss   in   every   page   o 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


87 


Another  coincidence  between  the  Hobbists  and  the  Antino- 
miang,  may  be  remarked  in  their  conmion  zeal  for  the  scheme 
of  necessity  ;  which  both  of  them  stated  in  such  a  way  as  to  be 
equally  inconsistent  with  the  moral  agency  of  man,  and  with  the 
moral  attributes  of  Qod.^  The  strongest  of  all  presumptions 
against  this  scheme  is  afforded  by  the  other  tenets  with  wtiich 
it  is  almost  universally  combined ;  and  accordingly,  it  was  very 
shrewdly  observed  by  Cudworth,  that  the  licentious  system 
which  flourished  in  his  time,  (under  which  title,  I  presume,  he 
comprehended  the  immoral  tenets  of  the  fanatics,  as  well  as  of 
the  Hobbist44,)  "  grew  up  from  the  doctrine  of  the  fatal  neces- 


volnme,  as  it  were  written  in  large  and 
legible  characters." 

I  do  not  pretend  to  be  an  adept  in 
the  philosophy  of  Kant ;  but  I  certainly 
think  I  pay  it  a  very  high  coniplinient, 
when  I  suppose,  tliat,  in  the  Critic  of 
pure  Reason^  the  leading  iilea  is  some- 
what analogous  to  what  is  so  much 
better  expressed  in  the  foregoing  pas- 
sage. To  Kant  it  was  probably  sug- 
gested by  the  following  very  acute  and 
decisive  remark  of  Leibnitz  on  Locke's 
Essay  :  *'  Nemjx*,  nihil  est  in  intelloctu, 
quod  non  fuerit  in  wnsu,  nvii  ipne  inn 
UlUetusy 

In  justi<re  to  Aristotle,  it  may  be  here 
observed,  that,  although  the  general 
strain  of  his  language  is  strictly  con- 
formable to  the  scholastic  maxim  just 
quoted,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  altiK- 
gether  overlotjked  the  important  excej)- 
tion  to  it  pointed  out  by  lioibnitz.  In- 
deed, this  exception  or  limitation  is 
very  nearly  a  trauslaticm  of  Aristotle's 
words.  Km,)  Mvrif  ))  99Vf  >«sr«f  Imv, 
£99%^  rk  99fir».  lift  filv  yitf  rwv  &ftv 
5Xnt,  T»  avri  lert  ri  90»ut  »«2  ri  ffv- 
ftt90t.  "  And  the  mind  itself  is  an  ob- 
ject of  knowledge,  as  well  as  other 
things  which  an*  intelligible.  For,  in 
immaterial  beings,  that  which  nnder- 
standa  is  the  same  with  that  which  is 
iin<lorHto(>d." — (J)e  Anima,  lib.  iii.  cap. 
V.)     I  quote  thiH  very  curious,  and,  1 


Nuspect,  very  little  known  sentence,  in 
order  to  vindicate  Aristotle  against  the 
misrepresentations  of  some  of  his  pre- 
sent idolaters,  who,  in  their  anxiety  to 
secure  to  him  all  the  credit  of  Lockers 
doctrine  concerning  the  Origin  of  our 
Ideas,  have  overlooked  the  occasional 
traces  which  occur  in  his  works,  of  that 
higher  and  sounder  philosophy  in  which 
h(;  had  been  educatexl. 

*  '*The  doctrines  of  fate  or  destinv 
were  deemed  by  the  Independents  es- 
sential to  all  religion.  In  these  rigid 
opinions,  the  trhole  sectaries,  amidst  all 
their  other  differences,  unanimously  con- 
curred."— Hume's  History,  chap.  Ivii. — 
f  A  Rc'rmon  of  Dr.  Cudworth's,  *'  preach- 
ed before  the  Honourable  the  House  of 
(/ommons,  on  March  31,  1647,  being 
a  day  of  public  humiliation,"  has  been 
lately  reprinted  (1812)  by  the  Philan- 
thropic  .Society.  It  is  levelled  fn>m 
beginning  to  end  against  the  IVedesti- 
narians  and  Antinoniians of  those  days; 
and,  consiilering  the  audience  to  which 
it  was  addressed,  (including  among 
others  Oliver  Cromwell  himself,)  dis- 
rovers  no  common  intrt*pi(iity  in  the 
preacher.  In  the  advert iKcnicnt  pre- 
fixed to  this  publication,  we  are  told, 
"  that  the  sennon  is  called  in  the  votes 
•>f  the  House,  a  iHtinsUikinfj  and  lieart- 
aenrchimj  sermon  ;  and  that  the  preacluM* 
ha<l  the  sum  of  £20  voted  to  him."] 


88  DI8SEKTATI0N. — PART  FIRST. 

nity  of  all  actions  and  events,  as  from  its  proper  root."  Tlie 
unsettled,  and,  at  the  same  time,  disputatious  period  during 
which  Cudworth  lived,  afforded  him  peculiarly  favourable 
opj)ortimities  of  judging  from  experience,  of  the  practical 
tendency  of  this  metaphysical  dogma ;  and  the  result  of  his 
observations  deserves  the  serious  attention  of  those  who  may 
be  di8j>osed  to  regard  it  in  the  light  of  a  fair  and  harmless 
theme  for  the  display  of  controversial  subtilty.  To  argue,  in 
this  manner,  against  a  speculative  principle  from  its  palpable 
effects,  is  not  always  so  illogical  as  some  authors  have  sup- 
poseil.  "  You  repeat  to  me  incessantly,"  says  Bousseau  to  one 
of  his  corre8j)ondents,  "  that  trutli  can  never  be  injurious  to 
the  world.  I  myself  believe  so  as  firmly  as  you  do ;  and  it  is 
for  this  very  reason  I  am  satisfied  that  your  proposition  is 
false."^ 

But  the  principal  importance  of  Cudworth,  as  an  ethical 
writer,  arises  from  the  influence  of  his  argument  concerning 
the  immutability  of  right  and  wTong  on  the  various  theories  of 
morals  which  appeared  in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  centmy. 
To  this  argument  may,  more  particularly,  be  traced  the  origin 
of  the  celebrated  question.  Whether  the  principle  of  moral 
approbation  is  to  be  ultimately  resolved  into  Eeason,  or  into 
Sentiment  ? — a  question  which  has  furnished  the  chief  ground 
of  difference  between  the  systems  of  Cudworth  and  of  Clarke, 
on  the  one  hand ;  and  those  of  Shaftesbury,  Hutcheson,  Hume, 
and  Smith,  on  the  other.  The  remarks  which  I  have  to  offer 
on  this  controversy  must  evidently  l)e  delayed,  till  the  \vriting8 
of  these  more  modern  authors  shall  faU  under  review. 

The  Intellectual  System  of  Cudworth  embrac*es  a  field  much 
wider  than  his  treatise  of  Immutable  Morality.  The  latter  is 
pailicularly  diiected  against  the  ethical  doctrines  of  Hobbes, 
and  of  the  Antinomians ;  but  the  former  {ispues  to  tear  up  by 
the  roots  all  the  principles,  both  physical  and  metaphysical,  of 
the  Epicurean  philosophy.     It  is  a  work,  certainly,  which  re- 

*  "  Voufi  ropetez  wins  ccBse   quo  la       la  prenve  que  cc  que  vous  dites  n'tHt 
\vnte  TIC  jK'ut  janiaiH  faiiv  do  mal  aux       pax  la  vcntc." 
Ii(»mims ;  .j«?  le  crois,  c*t  c'cst  p<)ur  nini 


CHAF.  II. — rHlLOSOPHY  FKOM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  89 

flectn  much  honour  on  the  talents  of  the  author,  and  still  more 
on  the  boundless  extent  of  his  learning ;  but  it  is  so  ill  suited 
to  the  taste  of  the  present  age,  that,  since  the  time  of  Mr. 
Harris  and  Dr.  Price,  I  scarcely  recollect  the  slightest  refer- 
ence to  it  in  the  ¥rriting8  of  our  British  metaphysicians.  Of  its 
faults,  (beside  the  general  disposition  of  the  author  to  discuss 
questions  placed  altogether  beyond  the  reach  of  our  faculties,) 
the  most  prominent  is  the  wild  hypothesis  of  a  plastic  nature  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  "  of  a  vital  and  spiritual,  but  unintelligent 
and  necessary  agent,  created  by  the  Deity  for  the  execution  of 
his  purposea"  Notwithstanding,  however,  these,  and  many 
other  abatements  of  its  merits,  the  Intellectual  System  will  for 
ever  remain  a  precious  mine  of  information  to  those  whose 
curiosity  may  lead  them  to  study  the  spirit  of  the  ancient 
theories;  and  to  it  we  may  justly  apply  what  Leibnitz  has 
somewhere  said,  witli  far  less  reason,  of  the  works  of  the  school- 
men, "  Scholasticos  agnosco  abundare  ineptiis ;  sed  aurum  est 
in  illo  coeno."  ^ 

Before  dismissing  the  doctrine  of  Hobl)es,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  remark,  that  all  his  leading  principles  are  traced  by 
C/udworth  to  the  remains  of  the  ancient  sceptics,  by  some  of 
whom,  as  well  as  by  Hobbes,  they  seem  to  have  been  adopted 
from  a  wish  to  flatter  the  uncontrolled  passions  of  sovereigns. 
Not  that  I  am  di8iK)sed  to  call  in  question  the  originality  of 
Hobbes ;  for  it  appears,  from  the  testimony  of  all  his  friends, 
that  he  had  much  less  pleasure  in  reading  than  in  thinking. 
"  If  I  had  read,"  he  was  accustomed  to  say,  "  a«  much  as  some 
others,  I  should  have  been  as  ignorant  as  they  are." — [If,  how- 
ever, the  reading  of  Hobbes  was  not  extensive,  it  is  probable 
that  his  favourite  authors  were  perused  with  a  proix)rtionably 
greater  degree  of  care.  He  was  certainly  well-informed  on 
some  subjects  veiy  foreign  to  his  j)hilo80i)hical  pursuits.  The 
following  testimony  to  liis  knowledge  of  the  Common  Law  of 
England,  is  borne  by  a  very  competent  judge : — "  It  apiHjars  by 

'  The  IiUelhctual  System  woh  pub-       <li(l  not  api>car  till  a  couHiilorublo  niiiu- 
lishcd  in  1078.     The   Treatise  concern-       Iht  of  vears  after  the  author's  dcnth. 
inff    Hternal  and  Immutable  Morality 


!Kl  DIBSSDTATIOX. FJUtT  7UWT. 

Holibea'fl  Dialogue  between  a  Lawyer  and  a  Pliilosojiher,  tliat 
thiH  very  acute  writer  had  coneidered  most  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  English  Law,  and  liad  read  Sir  Edward  (Joke's 
Institutes  with  great  care  and  attention,"']  But  similar  poli- 
tical circumstancea  invariably  reproduce  similar  philosophical 
theories ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  numerous  disadvantages  attend- 
ing an  inventive  mind,  not  pn>i)erly  furnished  with  acquired 
information,  to  be  continually  hable  to  a  waste  of  its  [wwers  on 
subjects  previously  exhausted. 


The  sudden  tide  of  licentiounness,  Ixith  in  principles  and  in 
practice,  which  burst  into  this  island  at  the  moment  of  the 
Kestoration,  conspired  with  the  jHiradoxes  of  Hctbiies,  and  with 
the  no  less  dangerous  errors  recently  proimgated  among  the 
[leople  hy  their  religious  instructors,  to  turn  the  thoughts  of 
sober  and  sjieculative  men  towards  ethical  disquisitions.  The 
established  clergy  assimied  a  higher  toue  than  before  in  their 
sermons ;  sometiines  en:iploying  theiu  in  combating  that  Epi- 
curean and  Machiavellian  philosophy  which  was  then  fashion- 
able at  court,  and  which  may  be  always  suspected  to  form  the  I 
secret  creed  of  the  enemies  of  civil  and  religious  liberty ;  on 
other  occasions,  to  overwhelm,  with  the  united  force  of  argu- 
ment and  learning,  the  extravagancies  hy  which  the  ignorant 
enthusiasts  of  the  preceding  jreriod  had  exposed  Chi-istianity 
itself  to  the  scoffs  of  their  libertine  opponents.  Among  the 
divines  who  ap]x?ared  at  tliis  era,  it  is  impossible  to  jmiss  over 
in  silence  the  muiie  of  Barrow,  whose  theological  works  (adorned 
throughout  by  classical  erudition,  and  by  a  vigorous,  though 
unpolished  eloquence)  exhibit,  in  every  page,  marks  of  the  same 
inventive  genius  which,  in  mathematics,  has  secured  to  him  a 
rank  second  alone  to  that  of  Newton.  Aa  a  writer,  he  is  equally 
distinguished  by  the  redundancy  of  his  matter,  and  by  the 
pR'gnant  breiity  of  his  expression  ;  but  what  more  peculiarly 
characterizes  his  manner,  is  a  certain  air  of  jK)werful  and  of 
conscious  facility  in  the  execution  of  whatever  he  undertakes.  | 
Whi'ther  the  subject  l)e  mathematical,  metflphysicjil.  or  theolo- 


CHAP.  II.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


91 


gical,  he  seems  always  to  bring  to  it  a  mind  which  feels  itself 
superior  to  the  occasion ;  and  which,  in  contending  with  the 
greatest  difficulties,  ^^  puts  forth  but  half  its  strength/^  He  has 
somewhere  spoken  of  his  Lectionea  MaJthematicce  (which  it  may, 
in  passing,  be  remarked,  display  metaphysical  talents  of  the 
highest  order)  as  extemporaneous  effusions  of  his  pen ;  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  the  same  epithet  is  still  more  literaUy  applicable 
to  his  pulpit  discourses.  It  is,  indeed,  only  thus  we  can  account 
for  the  variety  and  extent  of  his  voluminous  remains,  when  we 
recollect  that  the  author  died  at  the  age  of  forty-six.* 

To  the  extreme  rapidity  with  which  Barrow  committed  his 
thoughts  to  writing,  I  am  inclined  to  ascribe  the  hasty  and  not 
altogether  consistent  opinions  which  he  has  hazarded  on  some 
important  topics.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  a  single  example, 
which  I  select  in  preference  to  others,  as  it  bears  directly  on  the 
most  interesting  of  all  questions  connected  with  the  theory  of 
morals.  "  If  we  scan,"  says  he,  "  the  particular  nature,  and 
search  into  the  original  causes  of  the  several  kinds  of  naughty 
dispositions  in  our  souls,  and  of  miscarriages  in  our  lives,  we 
8hall  find  inordinate  self-love  to  be  a  main  ingredient  and  a 
common  source  of  them  all ;  so  that  a  di\ane  of  great  name  had 
some  reason  to  affirm,  that  original  sin  (or  that  innate  distem- 
per from  wliich  men  generally  become  so  very  prone  to  evil  and 
averse  to  good)  doth  consist  in  self-love,  disposing  us  to  aU 
kinds  of  irregularity  and  excess."  In  another  passage,  the  same 
author  expresses  himself  thus :  "  Eeason  dictateth  and  pre- 
scribeth  to  us,  that  we  should  have  a  sober  regard  to  our  true 
good  and  welfare ;  to  our  l)est  interests  and  solid  content ;  to 


*  In  a  note  annexed  to  an  KngliBh 
translation  of  the  Cardinal  Maury's 
Prinripfes  of  Elotpience,  it  is  stated, 
upon  the  authority  of  a  nmnuscript  of 
Dr.  Doddridge,  that  most  of  Barrow's 
sermons  were  tninscribed  three  times, 
and  some  much  oftoner.  They  seem  to 
me  to  contain  verj'  strong  intrinsic  evi- 
dence of  the  incorrectness  of  this  anec- 
dote. Mr.  Abraham  Hill  (in  his  Account 


of  the  Life  ofBarroic,  adtlressed  to  Dr. 
Tillotson)  contents  himself  with  saying, 
that  "  Some  of  his  sermons  were  written 
four  or  five  times  over;"  mentioning,  at 
the  same  time,  a  circumstance  which 
may  account  for  this  fact,  in  jK'rfi'ct 
consistency  with  what  1  have  stated 
al)ove,  that  "  Harrow  was  \Qry  n'ady 
to  lend  his  sennons  as  often  as  de- 
sired." 


92 


P1S8BRTATION. — PART  FIBBT. 


that  which  (nil  tilings  being  rightly  stati^d,  coufudexoil,  ami 
troraimted)  will,  iu  the  final  event,  prove  most  beneficial  and 
satisfactory  to  us :  a  self-love  working  in  prosecution  of  such 
thing")  common  sense  cannot  but  allow  and  approve." 

Of  these  two  opi>osite  and  irreconcilable  opinions,  the  latter 
is  incompai-ably  the  least  wide  of  the  truth  ;  and  accordingly 
Mr.  Locke  and  his  innumenible  followero,  both  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent,  have  maintained  that  virtue  and  an  enlight^ 
ened  self-love  are  one  and  the  same,  I  shall  afterwards  find  a 
more  convenient  opportunity  for  stating  some  objections  to  the 
latter  doctrine,  as  well  as  to  the  former.  I  have  quoted  the  two 
pasBages  here  merely  to  shew  the  very  httle  attention  that  had 
been  paid,  at  the  era  in  ijuestion,  to  etliicaJ  science,  by  one  of 
the  most  learned  and  profoimd  divines  of  his  age.  Tliis  is  the 
more  remarkable,  as  his  works  evernvhere  inculcate  the  purest 
lesBons  of  practical  morality,  and  evince  a  siugular  acutcncss 
and  juHtuees  of  eye  in  the  observation  of  hiunan  character. 
Whoever  comjiares  tlie  views  of  Barrow,  when  he  touches  on 
the  theory  of  niontls,  with  those  opened  about  fifty  years  after- 
wards by  Dr.  Butler,  in  bis  Discourses  on  Human  Nature,  will 
be  abundantly  satisfied  that  in  this  science,  as  well  aa  in  others, 
the  progress  of  tlic  pliilosophical  spirit  during  the  intervening 
jieriod  was  not  inconsiderable. —  [I  am  at  a  loss  to  comprehend 
the  import  of  the  following  judgment  on  fJie  works  of  Dr. 
Barrow,  pronounced  hy  Mr.  Gibbon ;  "  Barrow  wiia  as  much 
of  a  philosopher  as  a  divine  coidd  well  he." — Note,  p.  76.'] 

The  name  of  Wilkins  (although  he  too  wrote  with  eome  re- 
jjutation  against  the  Epicureans  of  his  daj')  is  now  remembered 
chiefly  in  consequence  of  his  treatises  concerning  o  •universal 
(angvage  and  a  real  duiracter.  Of  these  treatises  I  shall  here- 
after have  occasion  to  take  some  notice,  under  a  different  article. 
With  all  the  ingenuity  diRplayed  in  them,  they  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  accessions  of  much  value  to  science ;  and  the  long 
jieriod  since  elapsed,  during  which  no  attempt  lias  l>een  made  to 
turn  Ibem  to  any  practical  use,  affords  of  itself  no  slight  pre- 
sumption against  the  solidity  tif  the  project. 


CHAP.  II.—VHILOHOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


U3 


A  few  years  before  the  death  of  Hobbep,  Dr.  CumberlaiHl 
(afterwards  Bishop  of  Peterborough)  publislicd  a  book,  entitled, 
De  LegibuB  Naturce,  Diaquisitio  Philosophica ;  the  principal 
aim  of  which  was  to  confirm  and  illustrate,  in  opjKwition  to 
Hobbes,  the  conclusions  of  Grotius,  concerning  Natural  Law. 
The  work  is  executetl  with  ability,  and  discovers  juster  views 
of  the  object  of  moral  science,  than  any  modem  system  that 
had  yet  api)eared ;  the  author  resting  the  strength  of  his  argu- 
ment, not,  as  Grotius  had  done,  on  an  accumulation  of  autho- 
rities, but  on  the  principles  of  the  human  frame,  and  the  mutual 
relations  of  the  hmnan  race.  The  circumstance,  however,  which 
chiefly  entitles  this  {niblication  to  our  notice  is,  that  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  earliest  on  the  subject  which  altracteil,  in  any 
considerable  degree,  the  attention  of  Englisli  scholars.  From 
this  time,  the  wTitings  of  Grotius  and  of  Puftendorff  l)egan  to 
be  generally  studied,  and  soon  after  made  their  way  into  the 
Universities.  In  Scotland,  the  impression  i)roduced  by  them 
was  more  peculiarly  remarkable.  They  were  everywhere 
adopted  as  the  best  manuals  of  ethical  and  of  politietd  in- 
stniction  that  could  be  put  into  the  hands  of  students ;  and 
gradually  contributed  to  form  that  memorable  school,  from 
whence  so  many  Philosophers  and  PIdlosophical  Historians 
were  afterwards  to  proceed. 

From  the  writings  of  Hobbes  to  those  of  Locke,  the  transi- 
tion is  easy  and  obvious;  but,  Iwfore  prosecuting  fsrther  the 
history  of  philosojJiy  in  England,  it  will  be  iiro^wr  to  turn  our 
attention  to  its  progress  abroad,  since  the  jwriod  at  which  this 
section  commences.^     In  the  first  place,  however,  I  shall  add  a 


'  Tlirouph  the  wholo  of  this  Pifwjourno, 
I  hftve  nvoidcil  toiu-liinf^  on  tlio  dificitfl- 
mcmfl  which,  on  varioun  orcnMoiiB,  have 
arisen  with  rofjnnl  to  the  tlicory  (f 
government,  and  the  c()niparjitive  ad- 
vantageH  or  dinadvantugim  of  different 
political  fomiH.  Of  tlui  sropo  and  Hpirit 
of  these  diwnnsionH  it  wonhl  l)e  Hcldoin 
poHHiblo  to  conrey  a  jnHt  idea,  without 
entering  into  detailn  of  a  local  or  leni- 


pornry  nature,  inconftiHtent  with  my 
general  design.  In  the  present  ( innm- 
NtanceH  (»f  the  world,  l.esides,  the 
theory  i)f  gf)Vcrnnient  (although,  in  one 
]M)int  of  view,  the  most  important  of  all 
studies)  He<>nis  to  posHcss  a  ver^'  suli- 
ortlinatc  interi'st  to  inquincs  connecte<l 
with  ])o1itical  economy,  and  with  X\\t 
fundamental  principh'S  of  legislation. 
What  is  it,   indeed,  that    n-ndcrs  one 


UltBKRTATION. — rA&T  F1B8T. 

few  iniHoellaiieoiis  remarkB  oa  some  iuiitortaiit  tveiitH  whicli 
occiUTed  in  tluB  country  during  the  lifetime  of  Hobbes,  and  of   i 
which  liiB  extraordinary  longeWty  prevented  me  sooner  from 
taking  notice. 

Among  theflc  events,  that  whicli  in  most  inmiediately  con- 
nected with  our  present  subject,  is  the  establishment  of  the 
KoViil  Society  of  London  in  1602,  whicli  was  followed  a  few 
years  afterwards  by  that  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  at 
Paris.  The  professed  object  of  both  institutions  was  the  im- 
provement of  Experimental  Knowledge,  and  of  the  auxiliary 
science  of  Mathematics;  but  their  influence  ou  tlie  general 
progress  of  human  reason  has  I>een  tar  greater  than  could 
possibly  have  been  foreseen  at  the  moment  of  their  fonndatioti. 
On  the  Iiappy  effects  resulting  from  them  in  ihis  respect,  La 
Place  has  introduced  some  just  refleetioua  in  liis  System  of  the 
World,  which,  as  they  discover  more  originality  of  thought 
than  he  commonly  dispkys,  when  lie  ventures  to  step  beyond 
the  circumference  of  his  own  magic  circle,  I  shall  quote,  in  a 
literal  translation  of  Iiis  words. 

"  The  chief  advantage  of  learned  societies,  is  the  philosophical 


fana  of  goTenimDtit  moro  Otvourablc 
than  Hnolber  to  himiBii  happiuoH,  but 
the  mporior  Bwuritj  it  provides  fur  tho 
BniWtnientnfiTige  \kv»,  anit  for  their  im- 
pnrtis]  and  rigorous  execution?  Thcw 
coDsidenitioae  will  Hnfficienlly  Bacount 
for  my  pauing  over  in  ailence,  not  on); 
the  luunvB  of  Needhom,  of  Sidney,  and 
nf  Milton,  but  that  of  Hurington,  whoM 
Oeeiina  is  jnally  regAnJci]  as  one  of  the 
boaatx  or  KngliHti  litcratiirp,  ntui  ig  pro- 
nounced hy  Hiune  b>  be  "  the  oidy 
VBluabiB  model  of  a  comtnonwcullli  Ihiit 
has  yet  been  olFered  lo  the  public." — 
A'mujw   and    Tnntiia,    rol,   i.    Essay 

A  reuiark  whicli  Hume  ban  elsewhere 
nutde  on  the  Omoihi,  appears  to  me  no 
strikiiig  anil  so  iagtructive,  that  I  Bhall 
pro  it  H  place  in  this  note.  "  Harring- 
Inn,"  he  iibstn'es,  "'  thmipht  hiniKelf  so 


sure  uf  liit  gpiieral  principle,— (Aa(  Ike 
b'-'lanet  of  povxr  depends  on  Ihiit  of 
pmperlt/,  that  he  ventured  to  pmnouncti 
it  impossihle  over  to  re-estahlish  mo- 
naruhy  in  Eugbind  :  But  this  UiuIe  wtu 
scarcely  piihh'sbed  when  the  King  was 
restored;  snd  we  see  that  monarchy 
has  ever  wnce  subsisted  on  tlie  saouj 
footing  as  before.  Su  dangerous  is  it 
for  a  politician  to  venture  to  forelell  tbe 
siluatiou  of  pnUic  affairs  a  few  years 
hence." — Ibid.  Knmy  rii. 

How  much  nearer  the  tniib  (even  in 
tho  science  of  jH^twi)  is  Bsriin's  car- 
dinal principle,  that  Imoaltdgeiii  power! 
— n  principle,  which  applies  U>  Man  not 
less  in  his  corporate  than  in  liis  indi- 
vidual capacity;  and  which  may  bo 
safely  trusted  to  as  tlie  most  solid  iif  all 
fonniialions  for  our  reasonings  concern- 
ing Ihc  future  hialory  of  the  world. 


CHAr.  II. — PHIUMJUPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  95 

apirit  to  which  tliey  may  be  expected  to  give  birth,  and  wliich 
they  caunot  fail  to  diiiuHe  over  all  the  variouH  pursuits  of  the 
nations  among  whom  they  are  established.  Tlie  insulated 
scholar  may  without  dretul  abandon  Imnself  to  the  spirit  of 
svstem;  lie  hears  the  voice  of  contradiction  onlv  from  afiir. 
But  in  a  learned  society,  the  collision  of  systematic  opinions 
soon  terminates  in  their  common  destruction ;  while  the  desire 
of  mutual  conviction  creates  among  the  members  a  tacit 
compact^  to  admit  nothing  but  the  results  of  observation,  or 
the  conclusions  of  mathematical  reasoning.  Accordingly,  ex- 
perience has  shown,  how  much  these  establishments  have  con- 
tributed, since  their  origin,  to  the  spread  of  true  philosophy. 
By  setting  the  example  of  submitting  everjthing  to  the  exami- 
nation of*  a  severe  logic,  they  have  dissi})ated  the  prejudices 
which  had  too  long  reigned  in  the  sciences;  and  which  the 
strongest  minds  of  the  preceding  centuries  had  not  been  able 
to  resist.  They  have  constantly  oj)iM)8ed  to  empiricism  a  mass 
of  knowledge,  against  which  the  errors  adopteil  by  the  vulgar, 
with  an  enthusiasm  which,  in  former  times,  would  have  jh-T- 
petuated  their  empire,  have  siKMit  their  force  in  vain.  In  a 
word,  it  has  lK*en  in  their  bosoms  that  those  gnind  theories 
have  been  conceivwl,  which,  although  far  exalted  by  their 
generality  al)ove  the  reach  of  the  multitude,  are  for  this  vety 
reason  entitle<l  to  sjxxjial  encouragement,  from  their  innumer- 
able ap])lications  to  the  phenomena  of  natiux?,  and  to  the 
practice  of  the  arts."' 

In  confirmation  of  these  judicious  remarks,  it  may  l)e  farther 
obser\'ed,  that  nothing  could  have  l>een  more  happily  imagined 
than  the  est^iblishment  of  learned  corponitions  for  correcting 
those  prejudices  which  (under  the  significant  title  of  Idola 
Specus)  Bacon  has  descrilKMl  as  incident  to  the  retirtnl  student. 

•  Thf  l^lyaI  S<KU'ty  of  f/nulon,  tiunigli  ]>ur)Hmt>  «)t*  plii'IoHopIiicul  iliHouHHioii. 
not  iiuMirimrattMl  liy  chartor  till  166*2,  Even  tiu'Hc  iiieeting»  wrrc  but  a  con- 
may  1m»  conHulenMl  an  virtually  exiRtin^,  tinuation  (»f  thono  pn'viouBly  held  l»y 
at  lea«t  &h  far  ba<rk  aH  16^W,  when  some  the  Banie  indiviilualH,  at  th«»  apart- 
of  the  nioBt  eminent  of  the  original  ment^  of  I)r.  Wilkins  in  Oxfnnl.  Sec 
nieml»ers  In^pan  first  to  hoM  refifular  Sprat's  Iligiory  of  the  liotjal  iSo- 
nioctin^s  at  (ireKham  College,  for  the  cicty. 


96  DiaSERTATION. — PART  FinST. 

While  these  idols  of  the  den  maintain  their  authority,  the  culti- 
vation of  the  philosopliical  spirit  is  impossible ;  or  rather,  it  is 
in  a  renimciation  of  this  idolatry  that  the  philosophical  spirit 
essentially  consists.  It  was  accordingly  in  tliis  great  school  of 
the  learned  world,  that  the  characters  of  Bacon,  Descartes, 
Leibnitz,  and  Locke  were  formed;  the  four  individuals  who 
have  contributed  the  most  to  diffuse  the  philosophical  spirit 
over  Europe.  The  remark  applies  more  peculiarly  to  Bacon, 
who  first  pointed  out  the  inconveniences  to  be  apprehended 
from  a  minute  and  mechanical  subdivision  of  literary  labour ; 
and  anticipated  the  advantages  to  be  exi)ected  from  the  institu- 
tion of  learned  academies,  in  enlarging  the  field  of  scientific 
curiosity,  and  the  correspondent  grasp  of  the  emancipated 
mind.  For  accomplishing  this  object,  what  means  so  effectual 
as  habits  of  daily  intercourse  with  men  whose  piu^suits  are 
different  from  our  own;  and  that  expanded  knowledge,  both 
of  man  and  of  nature,  of  which  such  an  intercourse  must 
necessarily  be  productive  1 

Another  event  which  operated  still  more  forcibly  and  univer- 
sally on  the  intellectual  character  of  our  coimtrymen,  was  the 
civil  war  which  began  in  1640,  and  which  ultimately  termi- 
nated in  the  usurpation  of  Cromwell.  It  is  observed  by  Mr. 
Hume,  that  "  the  prevalence  of  democratical  principles,  imder 
the  Commonwealth,  engaged  the  country  gentlemen  to  bind 
their  sons  apprentices  to  merchants;  and  tliat  commerce  has 
ever  since  been  more  honourable  in  England,  than  in  any  other 
European  Kingdom."^  "The  higher  and  the  lower  ranks  (as 
a  later  writer  has  remarked)  were  thus  brought  closer  together, 
and  all  of  them  inspired  with  an  activity  and  vigour  that,  in 
former  ages,  had  no  example."  ^ 

To  this  combination  of  the  pursuits  of  trade,  with  the  ad- 
vantages of  a  liberal  education,  may  be  ascribed  the  great  multi- 
tude of  ingenious  and  enlightened  speculations  on  commerce, 
and  on  the  other  branches  of  national  industry,  wliich  issued 
from  the  press,  in  the  short  interval  between  the  Restoration 

^  History  of  England,  chap.  Ixii, 

*  rhalmcra'B  Political  Kstimntf,  &c.  (liondon,  1804,)  p.  44. 


CHAP.  II. — ^PUILDHUPHY  FKOM  BACuN  TO  U)CKK  i»7 

and  the  Revolution ;  an  intervid  iliiring  whiuli  the  HUiUlen  and 
immense  extension  of  the  trade  of  EngLind,  and  the  cor- 
responding rise  of  the  commercial  interest,  must  have  presentetl 
a  spectacle  peculiarly  calculated  to  awaken  the  ciu-iosity  of 
inquisitive  observers.  It  is  a  very  remarkable  circuinHtiince 
with  respect  to  these  economicid  researches,  which  now  engage 
80  much  of  the  attention  both  of  statesmen  and  of  philosophers, 
that  they  are  altogetlier  of  modern  origiiL  "  There  is  scarcely," 
says  Mr.  Hmne,  "  any  ancient  writer  on  i>olitics  who  lias  made 
mention  of  trade ;  nor  was  it  ever  considereil  as  an  affair  of 
state  till  the  seventeenth  century."  — Tlic  work  of  the  celebrated 
John  do  Witt,  cntitleil, ''  The  true  interest  and  ix>liticid  maxims 
of  the  Republic  of  Holhmd  and  Went  Friesland,"  is  the  eju-liest 
jmblication  of  any  note  in  which  commerce  is  treated  of  as  an 
object  of  natiofial  and  political  concern,  in  oj)i)OKition  to  thi^ 
partial  interests  of  coqwrations  and  of  mon()|K)lists. 

Of  the  English  publications  to  which  I  have  just  alluded,  the 
greater  part  consists  of  anonymous  pami)hlets,  now  only  to  be 
met  with  in  the  collections  of  the  curious.  A  few  liear  the 
names  of  eminent  English  merchants.  I  sluiU  have  ocwxsion 
to  refer  to  them  more  iwirticularly  aftenvartls,  when  I  come  to 
speak  of  the  writings  of  Smith,  Quesnay,  and  Turgot.  At 
I)resent,  I  shall  only  observe,  that,  in  these  fugitive  and  now 
neglected  tracts,  are  to  be  fuuixl  the  first  rudiments  of  tliat 
science  of  Political  Economy  which  is  justly  considered  as  the 
boast  of  the  present  age;  and  which,  although  the  aid  of 
learning  and  philosophy  was  necessary  to  rear  it  to  maturity, 
may  be  justly  said  to  luive  liad  its  cradle  in  the  Koyal 
Excliange  of  London. 

Mr.  Locke  was  one  of  the  first  retired  theorists  (and  this 
singular  feature  in  his  history  has  not  been  sufficiently  attended 
to  by  his  biographers)  who  condescen(le<l  to  treat  of  trade  as  an 
object  of  lil)eral  study.  Notwithst^inding  the  manifold  errors 
into  which  he  fell  in  the  course  of  his  reasonings  concerning  it, 
it  may  be  fairly  questioned,  if  he  has  anywhere  else  given 
greater  proofs,  either  of  the  vigonr  or  of  the  originality  of  his 

^  fCxxni/  of  f^ln'f  LU.crt}f. 
VOL.   I.  <i 


D18aKRTATI0H.— PART  FIRST. 


genius.    But  the  uame  of  Locke  reminds  me,  that  It  ia  now  timsl 
to  intemipt  tliese  uatioiial  details ;  and  to  turn  our  uttentionfl 
to  the  progreBB  of  ecienco  on  the  Continent,  since  the  times  o 
BodinuB  and  of  Campanella. 


SECT.  11. — PROGRESS  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  FRANCE  DUKIKQ  THE 
SEYENTEEKTH  CENTURY. 

MoNTAKlNE — ('UARROS — La  RocHEFOUCAULD. 

At  the  head  of  the  French  writors  who  contributed,  in 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  ceutury,  to  tiim  the  thoughts 
their  countrymen  to  8ul>ject8  connected  -with  the  Philosopliy  of 
Mind,  Montiugne  may,  I  ai)pn;hend,  he  justly  placed.  Pro- 
perly 8]ieaking,  lie  belongs  (o  a  period  Boniewhat  earlier ;  but 
Hb  tone  of  thinking  and  of  writing  classes  lum  much  more 
naturally  with  hia  euccessors,  than  with  any  French  author  vrha4 
had  appeared  I>efore  liim,'  j 

In  assigning  to  Montaigne  so  distinguished  a  mnk  in  thfl 
history  of  modem  philosophy,  I  need  scarcely  soy,  that  I  leave 
entirely  out  of  the  account  what  constitutes  (and  justly  consti- 
tutes) to  the  generahty  of  readers  the  principal  charm  of  his 
Essays ;  the  good  nature,  humanity,  and  unafi'ected  sensibility, 
which  so  irresistibly  attach  us  to  hia  character, — lending,  it 
must  be  owned,  but  too  often,  a  fascination  to  his  (a/ft,  when  he 
cannot  be  recommended  as  the  safest  of  companions.  Nor  do  I 
lay  much  stresa  on  the  inviting  trankneas  and  \-ivacity  with 
which  he  unbosoms  himself  about  all  Ids  domestic  habits  and 
concerns ;  nnd  which  render  hia  book  bo  expressive  a  portrait, 
not  only  of  the  author,  but  of  the  Gascon  country-gentleman, 
two  hundred  years  ago.  I  have  in  view  chiefly  the  mijmteneBs 
and  good  faith  of  Ids  details  concerning  liis  own  personal 
qualities,  Ixith  iLtcUectual  and  moral.  The  only  study  which 
seems  ever  to  have  engaged  his  attention  was  that  of  man ; 
and  for  this  he  was  singularly  fitted,  by  a  rare  combination  of 
that  talent  for  observation  which  belongs  to  men  of  the  world, 
'  MontHigne  kkk  Um  in  IS.l.'i..  !m<l  <\\iA  in  I0!t2, 


n 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOOKR.  i)9 

with  those  habits  of  abstracted  reflection,  which  men  of  the 
world  have  commonly  so  little  disposition  to  cultivate.  ^'I 
study  myself,"  says  he,  "  more  than  any  other  subject  This 
is  my  metaphysic ;  this  my  natural  philosophy.''^  He  has  ac- 
cordingly produced  a  work,  uniqfie  in  its  kind ;  valuable,  in  an 
eminent  d^ree,  as  an  authentic  record  of  many  interesting  facts 
relative  to  human  nature ;  but  more  valuable  by  far,  as  holding 
up  a  mirror  in  which  every  individual,  if  he  does  not  see  his 
own  image,  will  at  least  occasionally  perceive  bo  many  traits  of 
resemblance  to  it,  as  can  scarcely  fail  to  invite  his  curiosity  to 
a  more  careful  review  of  himself.  In  this  respect,  Montaigne's 
writings  may  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  wliat  painters  call 
Btudits;  in  other  words,  of  those  slight  sketches  wliich  were 
originally  designed  for  the  improvement  or  amusement  of  the 
artist ;  but  which,  on  that  account,  are  the  more  likely  to  be 
useful  in  developing  the  germs  of  similar  endowments  in 
others. 

Without  a  union  of  these  two  powers,  (reflection  and  obser- 
vation,) the  study  of  Man  can  never  be  successfully  prosecuted. 
It  is  only  by  retiring  within  ourselves  that  we  can  obtain  a  key 
to  the  characters  of  others ;  and  it  is  only  by  observing  and 
comparing  the  characters  of  others  tliat  we  can  thoroughly  im- 
derstand  and  appreciate  our  own. 

After  all,  however,  it  may  be  fairly  questioned,  notwithstand- 
ing the  scrupulous  fidelity  with  which  Montaigne  has  endea- 
voured to  delineate  his  own  portrait,  if  he  has  been  always  suf- 
ficiently aware  of  the  secret  folds  and  reduplications  of  the 
human  heart  That  he  was  by  no  means  exempted  from  the 
common  delusions  of  self-love  and  self-deceit,  has  been  fully 
evinced  in  a  very  acute,  though  somewhat  uncharitable,  section 
of  the  Port'IioycU  logic;  but  this  consideration,  so  far  from 
diminishing  the  value  of  his  Essays,  is  one  of  the  most  instruc- 
tive lessons  they  afford  to  those  who,  after  the  example  of  the 
author,  may  undertake  the  salutary  but  humiliating  task  of 
self-examination. 

As  Montaigne's  scientific  knowledge  was,  according  to  his 

'  E$iay$^  Bof»k  iii.  cbap.  xiii. 


lUO 


IliaSBRTATION. — PART  FIRW. 


own  account,  "  very  vague  and  imperfect," '   and   hia  boob 
learning  rather  seutentioUB  and  goBsiping  than  coiuprelieiirdw 
and  syatematical,  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  exi»ect,  in  1 
philofM>pliical  argiunents,  much  either  of  depth  or  of  BolidityiS 
Tlie  wnfinient«  he  hazards  are  to  be  regarded  but  as  the  i 
prcsMionB  of  the  moment ;  consiating  chiefly  of  the  more  obviow 
(Inulitfl  and  difficulties  which,  on  all  metaphyBical  and  mora 
questionn,  are  apt  to  presetit  themselves  to  a  speculative  mind, 
wlion  it  &¥t  HtU,'m]jts  to  dig  below  the   surface  of  common 
opinions.     In   reading   Montaigne,   accordingly,   what   chiefly 
strikes  us,  is  not  the  uoveltj-  or  the  refinement  of  Ids  ideas,  but 
the  liveliness  and  felicity  with  which  we  see  embodied  in  words 
the  previous  wanderings  of  our  own  imaginations.    It  is  probably 
owing  to  this  circumstance,  mtber  than  to  any  direct  plagiai-g 
ism,  tliat  hia  Essays  appear  to  contain  the  germs  of  so  many  o 
the  paradoxical  theories  which,  in  later  times,  Helvetins  t 
others  have  laboured  to  Rystcmatize  and  to  support  with  ( 


■  Bouk  L  chaji  xfv. 

'  Monlaipie'B  tdncnliiiii,  howprfr, 
hail  not  been  nrr^ilRcled  b;'  liio  fiitlicr. 
On  tile  coutmr}',  lio  U'IIh  nH  Limmlf, 
tli&t  "  CIsnrgD  BncbaDiin.  Ihe  great 
jmct  of  Scotlitnd,  anil  Mareua  An- 
trniiuH  Muretiu,  the  brat  orator  of  Iiia 
lime,  wete  among  tbe  niunbcr  of  hia 
domralic  preeeptiirti,"--"  BuDlianan,''  lie 
wliln,  "  wben  1  aaw  him  oflorwardH  in 
lliD  reliniio  of  the  Inte  &Iiu«bc:1ui1  ite 
Briaaac,  toM  me,  llmt  he  wna  about  to 
wrilo  a  In'ntise  on  tlie  education  of 
eliildron,  and  lliat  bo  wiinld  take  tlic 
model  of  it  from  mine." — Book  i.  chnp. 
Kxv,— [TmceE  of  Buohaoon'a  tuition 
ma;  be  pciveived  in  varnina  npiniona 
ndopted  hj  Hontaigtie,  Mrongly  at  vari- 
ance villi  tbe  political  ideaa  tlien  eom- 
monlf  received.  "  All  (aayn  Muiitaignc) 
thai  exceeds  a  ai^ple  deatb  niipcars  to 
me  mere  cruelly ;  neither  tun  our  juadco 
expeet,  tbnt  he  wboiu  the  fear  of  death, 
bj  being  belieaiied  or  hntif-cd,  will  not 
rtatrain,  alionld  Ih'  nny  mon.'  niri-il  by 


llo  irnnginntiiiti  of  a  slow  fire,  1 
liinrprB,   nr  llio  wheel    And,  ! 
ni't,  in  tbe  meantime,  whetlier  v 
not  drive  them  to  despair,  &o.'' — BnokH 
chap,  xxvii.    Cotniiare  thin  with  the  pi 
BB^e  quoted  from  Bncbanan,  p.  0!. 

Tlie  retnark  of  Honlnifpie  ott  if  ' 
tulioHt  or  Entails,  aarours  nhw  of  I) 
cliiuian'B  principles.  "In  gonaral,  I] 
moHt  judicions  distribulion  of  oar  catata 
when  wo  come  tn  die,  is,  in  my  uiHuioi 
to  leave  them  to  be  disposed  o( 
ing  to  tbe  cuntom  of  Che  country, 
are  too  fond  of  tnaieuHne  auba  ' 
and  ridii^loiisl;  think  i 
naniea  iberuby  hut  to  etcmity."- 
ii.  ehap.  viii.  The  fulUiiring  ia  Btichu 
no's  reflDirtion  on  the  Tanitj  and  tiaH 
rigbtudneaii  of  tbiMB  princes  who  b 
laboured  to  esUbtish  a  perp^uitg  a 
Ikcir  row  nnd  n/init.     "  AdverBUs  I 

iiiaiinie  fluinm  ct  fn^len 

canmmi  momenlis  obnoiiimi,  Rtemitateffl 

I'  babcnt  nee  bnlitre 

lonteiidunt  '■] 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOC'KK.  101 

parade  of  metaphysical  discussioiL  In  the  mind  of  Montaigne, 
the  same  paradoxes  may  be  easily  traced  to  those  deceitfiil 
appearances  which,  in  order  to  stimulate  our  faculties  to  their 
best  exertions,  nature  seems  purjwsely  to  have  tliro^n  in  our 
way,  as  stumbling-blocks  in  the  pursuit  of  tnitli ;  and  it  is  only 
to  be  regretted  on  such  occasions,  for  the  sake  of  his  own  hn})i)i- 
ness,  that  his  genius  and  temper  qualified  and  di8])08ed  him 
more  to  start  the  problem  than  to  investigate  the  solution. 

When  Montaigne  touches  on  religion,  he  is,  in  general,  less 
pleasing  than  on  other  subjects.  His  constitutional  temi)er,  it 
is  probable,  predisposed  him  to  scepticism ;  but  this  original 
bias  could  not  fail  to  be  mightily  strengthened  by  the  disputes, 
both  religious  and  jiolitical,  which  during  his  lifetime  convulsed 
Eim)pe,  and  more  jmrticularly  his  own  countrj'.  On  a  mind 
like  his,  it  may  be  safely  presumed  tluit  the  writings  of  the 
Reformers  and  the  instructions  of  Buchanan  were  not  altogether 
without  effect;  and  hence,  in  all  probability,  the  per})etual 
struggle,  which  he  is  at  no  pains  to  conceal,  iR^twecn  the  creed 
of  his  infancy  and  the  lights  of  his  mature  understanding.  He 
speaks,  indeed,  of  "  reposing  tranquilly  on  the  jnllow  ofdovhtf* 
but  this  language  is  neither  reconcilable  \iith  the  general  com- 
plexion of  Ids  works,  nor  with  the  most  authentic  accounts  we 
have  received  of  his  dying  moments.  It  is  a  maxim  of  his  own, 
that  "  in  forming  a  judgment  of  a  man's  life,  particular  regard 
shoidd  be  paid  to  his  behaviour  at  the  end  of  it ;"  to  which  he 
jmthetically  adds,  "  that  the  chief  study  of  his  own  life  was, 
that  his  latter  end  might  l)e  decent,  calm,  and  silent."  The  fact 
is,  (if  we  may  credit  the  tewtimony  of  Iuh  biograj)hers,)  that,  in 
his  declining  years,  he  exchanged  his  boasted  piUmv  of  doubt 
for  the  more  powerful  opiates  prescril)ed  by  the  infallible  church, 
and  that  he  expired  in  })erfonning  what  his  old  i)receptor 
Buchanan  would  not  have  scnipled  to  descrilxj  as  an  act  of 
idolatr)'." 

*  "  SontAiit  sa  fin  iipprochcr,  il  fit  K^va  dans  ce  moment  nirnio,  le  15  S^.p- 

dirt;  la  rao88e  dans  RA  chambrc.  A  I'cle-  tombre   1592,   A   GO  ans."  —  Xouveau 

vatiun  de  rhostie,  il  rc  leva  snr  son  lit  7>iW.  IfUtnr.,  Ti  Lyon,  1804.— Art.  Mon 

potir  I'adorer;  mais  unc  foibloeec  Ten-  taigne. 


Tlif  HCci)ticiEiu  of  Montaigne  aeems  to  have  l)eeu  ul'  a  veiyl 
[lecuUar  cast,  and  to  have  had  little  in  common  with  that  either 
of  Bayle  or  of  Hume.  The  great  aim  of  the  two  latter  writers 
evidently  was,  hy  exposing  the  uncertainty  of  our  reasonings 
whenever  we  jhihb  the  limit  of  sensible  objectSj  to  inspire  their 
readers  witli  a  complete  distrust  of  the  human  faculties  on  all 
moral  aitd  metaphysical  topics.  Montaigne,  on  the  other  hand, 
never  thinks  of  forming  a  sect ;  but,  yielding  passively  to  t 
current  of  his  reflections  and  feelings,  argues  at  tlifferent  timeBj  I 
according  to  the  varying  state  of  his  impressions  and  temper,  c 
opjjosite  sides  of  the  same  question.  On  all  occasions  he  pre- 
serves an  air  of  the  most  perfect  sincerity ;  and  it  was  to  this, 
1  presume,  much  more  than  to  the  superiority  of  his  reasoning  , 
powers,  that  Montesquieu  alluded,  when  he  said,  "  In  the  greata  4 
jiart  of  authors  I  see  the  writer  ;  in  Montaigne  I  see  nothingl 
but  the  thinker."  The  radical  fault  of  his  understajiding  coD" 
sisted  in  an  incapacity  of  forming,  on  disputable  points,  tho8 
decided  and  fixed  opinions  which  can  alone  impart  either  fore 
or  consistency  to  intellectual  character.  For  remedying  this  ' 
weakness,  the  religious  controversies,  and  the  civil  ware  recently 
engendered  by  Uie  Reformation,  were  but  ill  calculated.  The 
minds  of  the  most  serious  men,  all  over  Clunatendom,  must  have 
been  then  unsettled  in  an  extraonlinary  degree ;  and  where  any 
predisposition  to  scepticism  e-Kisted,  every  external  circum- 
stance must  have  contq)ired  to  cherish  and  confirm  it.  Of  the 
extent  to  which  it  was  carried,  alwut  the  same  period,  in  Eng- 
land, some  judgment  may  be  formed  from  the  following  de- 
scription of  a  Sceptio  by  a  writer  not  many  years  posterior  to  I 
Montaigne : —  m 

"  A  sceptic  in  religion  is  one  that  hangs  in  the  balance  wiflf  * 
all  sorts  of  opinions ;  whereof  not  one  but  stirs  him,  and  none 
Hwaye  him.  A  man  guiltier  of  credulity  than  he  is  taken  to  be ; 
for  it  is  out  of  his  belief  of  everytliing  that  he  believes  nothing. 
Each  religion  scares  him  fi'om  its  contrary,  none  persuades  him 
to  itself.  He  would  be  wholly  a  Christian,  but  that  he  is  some- 
thing of  an  Atheist ;  and  wholly  an  Atheist,  hi 
pnrtlv  II  Christian ;  nnd  a  iierfcct  Heretic,  but  tha 


land,  .  1 

'  tha^^H 
imeSf^^^l 

pre-  ' 

this, 

ining  ^^^ 

eatet^^H 

JiioS^^H 

coiH^^^^I 

thOB^^H 

foixso^^l 

tliw  ^^* 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOeOFHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


103 


many  to  distract  him.  He  finds  reason  in  all  opinions,  truth 
in  none ;  indeed,  the  least  reason  perplexes  him,  and  the  best 
will  not  satisfy  him.  He  finds  doubts  and  scruples  better  than 
resolves  them,  and  is  always  too  hard  for  himsel/"^  If  this 
portrait  had  been  presented  to  Montaigne,  I  have  little  doubt 
that  he  would  have  had  the  candour  to  acknowledge  that  he 
recognised  in  it  some  of  the  most  prominent  and  characteris- 
tical  features  of  his  own  mind.' 

The  most  elaborate,  and  seemingly  the  most  serious,  of  all 
Montaigne's  essays,  is  his  long  and  somewhat  tedious  Apology 
for  Raimond  de  Sebonde,  contained  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of 
his  second  book.  This  author  appears,  from  Montaigne's 
account,  to  have  been  a  Spaniard,  who  professed  physic  at 
Toulouse,  towards  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century ;  and  who 
published  a  treatise,  entitled  Theologia  NaturaliSj  which  was 
put  into  the  hands  of  Montaigne's  father  by  a  friend,  as  a  useful 
antidote  against  the  innovations  with  which  Luther  was  then 
beginning  to  disturb  the  ancient  faith.  That,  in  this  particular 
instance,  the  book  answered  the  intended  purpose,  may  be  pre- 
sumed from  the  request  of  old  Montaigne  to  his  son,  a  few  days 
before  his  death,  to  translate  it  into  French  from  the  Spanish 
original.  His  request  was  accordingly  complied  with,  and  the 
translation  is  referred  to  by  Montaigne  in  the  first  edition  of  his 
EssaySy  printed  at  Bourdeaux  in  1580 ;  but  the  execution  of 
this  filial  duty  seems  to  have  produced  on  Montaigne's  own 
mind  very  difierent  effects  from  wliat  his  father  had  antici- 
pated.' 


^  Miera-coimoffraphyf  or  a  Piece  of 
the  World  Discovered,  in  Essays  and 
Characters.  For  a  short  notice  of  the 
author  of  this  very  curious  hook,  (Bishop 
Earle,)  see  the  edition  published  at 
Jjondon  in  1811.  The  chapter  con- 
taining the  above  passage  is  entitled 
A  Sceptic  in  Beligion ;  and  it  has  plain- 
ly suggested  to  Lord  Clarendon  some  of 
the  ideas,  and  even  expressions,  which 
occur  in  his  account  of  Chilling^'orth. 

■  "  The  writings  of  the  l)C8t  autliors 


among  the  ancients,'*  Montaigne  tells 
us  on  one  occasion,  "  being  full  and 
solid,  tempt  and  carry  me  which  way 
almost  they  will.  He  that  I  am  read- 
ing seems  always  to  have  the  most 
force  ;  and  I  find  that  every  one  in  turn 
has  reason,  though  they  contradict  one 
another." — Book  ii.  chap.  xii. 

■  The  very  few  particulars  known  with 
respect  to  Sebonde  have  been  collected 
by  Baylc.  See  his  Dictionary, — Art. 
.Sebonde. 


104 


DISBBttTATIOK. — PAST  FIBST. 


T!ie  princi]Mil  aim  of  Sebonde'i)  book,  acconlmg  tw  Mon- 
tjiignc,  IB  to  shew  timt  "  Christians  are  in  the  wrong  to  ruaka. 
hionan  reasoning  the  basin  of  their  helief,  since  the  olyeot  of  it 
ie  ouly  conceived  by  faith,  and  hy  a  special  inspiration  of  tlift. 
divine  {ijraee."  To  tliis  doctrine  Montaipne  jirofesfics  to  yield 
an  imiilicit  assent ;  and,  under  the  tdielter  of  it,  contrives  to 
give  free  vent  to  all  the  extravagances  of  scepticism.  The 
essential  distinction  between  the  reason  of  man  and  the  in- 
stincts of  the  lower  animals,  is  at  great  length,  and  with  no  in- 
considerable ingenuity,  disputed ;  the  jwwera  of  the  human 
understanding,  in  all  inquiries,  whether  physical  or  moral,  are 
held  lip  tti  ridicule ;  a  luiiversal  Pyrrhonism  is  recommended; 
and  we  im;  again  and  again  reminded,  that  "  ike  senses  are  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  all  our  inowledge."  "Wltoever  has 
the  patience  to  penise  this  chapter  with  attention,  will  be  mir- 
prised  to  find  in  it  the  rudiments  of  a  great  part  of  tlic  licen- 
ticiis  philoHo])hy  of  tlie  eigliteenth  century ;  nor  can  he  fail  to 
remark  the  address  with  which  the  autlior  avails  himself  of  the 
language  afterwijrds  adopted  by  Bayle,  Helvetius,  and  Hume : 
— "  That,  to  lie  a  philosophical  sceptic,  is  the  first  step  toward^j 
becoming  a  sound  believing  Christian,"'  It  is  a  melancholy 
fact  in  ecclesiastical  history,  that  this  insidious  maxun  should 
liave  been  sanctioned,  in  our  times,  by  some  theologians  of  no 
conmion  pretensions  to  orthodoxy;  who,  in  direct  contradic-. 
tion  to  the  words  of  Scripture,  have  ventured  to  assert,  tliafi 
"he  who  crimes  to  God  must  first  believe  that  He  is  not."., 
Is  it  necessary  to  remind  those  grave  retailers  of  Bayle's 
sly  and  ironical  sopluetry,  that  every  argument  for  Chris- 
tianity, drawn  from  its  internal  evidence,  tiicitly  recognises  the 
authority  of  hmnan  rea.ioa ;  and  assumes,  ns  the  ultimate 
criteria  of  tnith  and  of  falsehood,  of  right  and  of  wrongs) 
certain  fnndnmentnl  articles  of  belief,  discoverable  by  the' 
light  of  Nature  ?^ 


I 


upm     ly    Bnyle 

III    till- 

!a«arat«m 

vpm  the  Seeplie 

Aiuio:! 

1  to  lii.  Vie. 

frequontlj-  mppfilefl  liy  the  twn  nlher 

(i..nnry. 

CHAP.  II.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKK. 


ia5 


Charron  is  well  known  as  the  chosen  friend  of  Montaigne's 
latter  years,  and  as  the  confidential  depositary  of  liis  pliiloso- 
phical  sentimenta  Endoweil  with  talents  far  inferior  in  force 
and  originality  to  those  of  his  master,  he  possessed,  nevertheless, 
a  much  soimder  and  more  regulated  judgment ;  and  as  his  re- 
putation, notwithstanding  the  liberality  of  some  of  liis  })eculiar 
tenets,  was  high  among  the  most  respectable  and  conscientious 
divines  of  his  own  church,  it  is  far  from  improbable,  that  Mon- 
taigne conMnitted  to  him  the  guardianship  of  his  posthumous 
fame,  from  motives  similar  to  those  wliich  influenced  Pope,  in 
selecting  Warburton  as  his  literary  executor.  The  discharge  of 
this  trust,  however,  seems  to  have  done  less  good  to  Montaigne 
than  harm  to  Charron ;  for,  while  the  imlimited  scepticism,  and 
the  indecent  levities  of  the  former,  were  viewed  by  the  zealots 
of  those  days  with  a  smile  of  tenderness  and  indiUgence,  the 
slighter  heresies  of  the  latter  were  marked  with  a  severity  the 
more  rigorous  and  unrelenting,  that,  in  ix)iuts  of  essentitd  im- 
j)ortance,  they  deviated  so  very  little  from  the  stiindard  of  the 
Catholic  faith.  It  is  not  easy  to  guess  the  motives  of  this  in- 
consistency ;  but  such  we  find  from  the  fact  to  liave  been  the 


Bays  Montftipne,  "what  he  thought  of 
Scbonde's  trcatiHc?  The  answer  lio 
inadc  to  me  was,  That  lie  believed  it  to 
1k»  Borae  extract  from  Thornat  Aqvinas, 
for  that  none  but  a  genius  like  his  was 
capable  of  such  ideaH." 

I  must  not,  liowever,  onut  to  mention, 
tliat  a  verj'  learned  IVotestant,  Htujo 
Grotius,  has  expressed  himself  to  his 
fnend  liUpum  not  unfavourably  of  Se- 
Inrnde's  intentions,  although  tlio  terms 
in  which  he  speaks  of  him  are  somewhat 
e<|uivocal,  an<l  imply  but  little  satisfac- 
ti<m  with  the  execution  of  his  design. 
"  Non  igiioras  quantum  excoluerint  is- 
tum  materiam  (nrffvinentiim  ftcil.  jyro 
Beliqione  Cfiristinnn)  philotfophira  gult- 
tilitate  Raimundus  Sebundus,  dialogo- 
rum  varietate  Ludovicus  Vives,  maxima 
auteni  tum  eruditione  turn  facundia 
vi'Htras  PhilippuH  Monueus."     Tlie  au- 


thors of  the  Nouveau  THctwnnaire 
Jliatorifiue  (Lyons,  1804)  have  entered 
much  more  completely  into  the  spirit 
and  drift  of  Sebonde*s  n»asoning,  when 
they  observe,  'To  livre  offre  de§  sin- 
gidaritrs  hanlies,  qui  ))lurent  dans  lo 
temps  aux  philosophes  de  ce  siocle,  ct 
qui  ne  lyphtirnient  pas  h  ceux  da 
noire. ^^ 

It  is  proper  to  add,  that  I  am  ac- 
quainted with  Sel)onde  only  through  the 
medium  of  Montaigne's  version,  which 
does  not  lay  claim  to  the  merit  of  strict 
fidelity ;  the  translator  hiins<df  having 
acknowledged,  that  he  had  given  to  tho 
Spanish  philoHOpher  "  mi  m'coutn'nu'ut 
h  la  Franv<»iHe,  vi  tpi'il  Tatlrvrtu  dr  son 
l>ort  farouche  et  maintien  barbarcs(|ue, 
de  mnnii-re  qu'il  a  mcs-hui  assez  de 
favon  iM)ur  se  prcHcnter  en  tuutc  lx>nno 
compagnie." 


106  DU8ERIATI0N. — FAHT  FIKBT. 

temper  of  religious  bigotry,  or,  to  spcnk  more  correctly,  of  poli- 
tical religiomBm,  in  all  ages  of  the  world,' 

Ab  an  example  of  Charron's  solicitude  to  provide  an  antidote 
againirt  the  more  pernicious  errors  of  his  friend,  I  shall  only 
mention  his  ingenious  and  pliiiosojiliical  attempt  to  reconcile, 
with  the  moral  constitution  ol'  human  nature,  tlie  apparent  dis- 
cordancj'  in  the  judgments  of  different  nations  concerning  right 
and  wrong.  His  argument  on  this  jjoint  is  in  substance  the 
very  same  with  that  so  well  urged  by  Beattie,  in  opposition  to 
Locke's  reasonings  against  the  existence  of  innate  practical 
principles.  It  is  difficult  to  say,  whether,  in  tills  instance,  the 
coincidence  between  Montaigne  and  Locke,  or  that  between 
Cliarron  and  Beattie,  be  the  more  remarkable." 

Although  Charron  has  afl'ccted  to  give  to  his  work  a  systema- 
tical form,  by  dividing  and  siilidividing  it  into  books  and 
chapters,  it  is  in  reality  little  more  than  an  unconnected  series 
of  essays  on  various  topics,  more  or  less  distantly  related  to  the 
Bcionce  of  Ethics.  On  the  powers  of  the  understanding  he  haa 
touched  but  slightly  ;  nor  has  he  imitated  Montaigne,  in 
anatomizing,  for  the  edification  of  the  world,  the  peculiarities 
of  his  own  moral  clmnicter.  It  has  probahly  been  owing  to  the 
desultory  and  popular  style  of  comjKwition  common  to  both, 
that  so  little  attention  has  been  paid  to  either  hy  those  who 
have  treated  of  the  history  of  French  philosophy.  To  Mon- 
taigne's merits,  indeed,  as  a  lively  and  amusing  essayist,  ample 
justice  has  been  done;  hut  his  influence  on  the  subsequent 
habits  of  thinking  among  his  countrymen  remains  atiU  to  be 
illustrated.    He  has  done  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  author, 


n 


Dog  faavnrds  fourr^B  do  I'tole. 
Mnifi  qiiBnd  son  elfvo  CluiiTOn, 
Plus  rcli^nii,  plus  mftiiudiqiir, 
Th  engowe  donna  le^on, 
mpunemBiit,  II  fut  prea  de  porir,  dit  on, 

•H  librement  Pur  la  haine  ttifologiqae, 

—Voltaire,  EjAire  an  PrUidtnt  E€nauU. 
'  See  Bestlie'a  Etiay  on  Fabk  and      reasnuinft"  of  CliMTon  with  n  McBKnr 
Romanee;  snd  Charron  (fe  la  Sairtsne,       the  PhU.  Tmri*.  for  1773,  (by  Bir  Va^/bt   I 
liv.  ii.c.  fl.     It  msy  amnnf  llie  pHrinufl      Cdrlin,)    contnitiing    time   partinlar*   } 
ifiuler  nhn  In  r^miuirf-  llic  ihciTtlicn]        irilli  rerpCft  lo  the  munlrii  of  Labmdor. 


Montaigne,  cet  nntenr  tharraant, 
Tour  &-lour  profond  tt  frivole, 
Dnns  aoa  chateau  paiaililenipnt, 
Luin  de  toot  froadeur  malevule 
Doutmt  de  toi 
Et  M  moqaoil 


CHAP.  IL — FH1L060PHY  FHOM  BACON  TO  LOCKK. 


107 


(I  am  inclined  to  think  with  the  most  honest  intentions,)  to  in- 
troduce into  men's  hauaea  (if  I  may  borrow  an  expression  of 
Cicero)  what  is  now  called  the  new  philosqj^iyj — a  philosophy 
certainly  very  different  from  that  of  Socrates.  In  the  fashion- 
able world,  he  has,  for  more  than  two  centuries,  maintained  his 
place  as  the  first  of  moralists ;  a  circumstance  easily  accounted 
for,  when  we  attend  to  the  singular  combination,  exhibited  in 
bis  writings,  of  a  semblance  of  erudition,  with  wliat  Malebranche 
happily  calls  his  air  du  monde,  and  air  cavalier,^  As  for  the 
graver  and  less  attractive  Charron,  his  name  would  probably 
before  now  have  sunk  into  oblivion,  had  it  not  been  so  closely 
associated,  by  the  accidental  events  of  his  life,  witli  the  more 
celebrated  name  of  Montaigne.' 

The  preceding  remarks  lead  me,  by  a  natural  connexion  of 
ideas^  (to  wliich  I  am  here  much  more  inclined  to  attend  than 
to  the  order  of  dates,)  to  another  writer  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, whose  influence  over  the  literary  and  philo60])hical  taste 
of  France  has  been  far  greater  than  seeniK  to  l)e  commonly 
imagined.  I  allude  to  the  Duke  of  La  Bochefoucauld,  author 
of  the  Maxima  and  Moral  Beflectiona, 

Voltaire  was,  I  believe,  the  first  who  ventured  to  assign  to 
Jja  Rochefoucauld  the  pre-eminent  rank  which  belongs  to  him 
among  the  French  clasHics.  "One  of  the  works,"  says  he, 
"  which  contributed  most  to  form  the  taste  of  the  nation  to  a 


^  "  Ah  TainiAblc  hommc,  qu*U.  est  de 
hofmt  compoffnU!  C'est  mon  ancien 
ami ;  mAis,  k  force  dV'tre  ancien,  il 
m*C8t  nouveau." — Madainc  dc  Scvigne. 

'  Mrmtaifoic  himself  seems,  fnim  tho 
general  strain  of  his  writings,  to  have 
had  but  little  expectation  of  the  pos- 
thumous fame  which  ho  has  ho  long 
continued  to  enjoy.  One  of  his  reflec- 
tions on  this  head  is  so  characteristical 
of  the  author  as  a  man;  ond,  at  tho 
Hame  time,  affords  so  fine  a  specimen  of 
the  graphical  powers  of  his  now  anti- 
quattnl  Htyle,  that  I  am  tempted  to  tran- 
Hcribc  it  in  his  own  words: — "J'ecriR 
mon   livre   A   pen  dliommcs  et  \  peu 


d'annees ;  sMI  cVut  Hh  une  matiere  de 
durOe,  il  I'cut  fallu  commettre  h.  un  Ian- 
gage  plus  fcnno.  8elon  la  variation  con- 
tinuelle  qui  a  suivi  le  notrc  jus<pril  cette 
heure,  qui  pent  esperer  que  sa  forme 
prescntu  soit  en  usage  dlci  &  cinquante 
ans?  il  £coulo  tous  les  jours  de  nos 
mains,  et  depuis  que  je  vis,  s'est  altero 
do  moitie.  Nous  disons  qu*il  est  &  cetto 
heure  parfait:  Autant  en  dit  du  sieu 
chaquo  siccle.  Oeet  aux  bans  et  vtiUs 
icrits  de  le  clover  h  eiix,  et  ira  tafvrtune 
$ehn  le  credit  de  notre  ftat." 

How  completely  have  both  tho  pre- 
dictions in  the  last  sentence  been  veri- 
fied by  the  subbeqnent  history  of  the 
French  language ! 


K>8 


DI88EBTAT10H. — PAIIT  FIRST. 


jiiHtnc'HS  and  precision  of  thought  and  expression,  waa  the  small 
willcction  of  maxiniB  hy  Francis  Duke  of  La  Rochefoucauld. 
Although  there  be  little  more  than  one  idea  in  the  book,  that 
sel/4ove  is  Ute  spring  of  aU  our  odious,  yet  tliis  idea  is  jire- 
sente*l  in  so  great  a  variety  of  forms,  m  to  be  always  amusing. 
When  it  first  api>eared,  it  was  read  with  avidity ;  and  it  contri- 
huttnl,  more  than  any  other  performance  since  the  revival  of  J 
letters,  to  improve  tlie  vivacity,  correctnessj  and  delicacy  of  j 
French  conii>osition." 

Another  very  eminent  judge  of  literary  merit  (the  late  Dr. 
Johnson)  was  accustomed  to  sty  of  La  Rochefoucauld's  Maxims, 
that  it  was  almost  the  only  book  written  by  a  man  of  fashion, 
of  whicli  iirofeBse<l  authors  liad  reason  to  1«3  jealous.     Nor  ia 
this  wonderful,  wlien  we  consider  the  unwearied  industry  of  the 
very  accomplished  writer,  in  giving  to  every  part  of  it  the  high- 
est and  most  finished  polish  which  his  oxijuisito  taste  could 
bestow.     When  he  had  committed  a  maxim  to  pajwr,  he  waa   i 
accustomed  to  circulate  it  among  his  friends,  that  lie  might   I 
avail  himself  of  their  critical  animadveraions ;  and,  if  we  may 
credit  Segrairt,  altered  some  of  them  no  less  than  thirty  times,   , 
before  venturing  to  submit  them  to  the  public  eye. 

That  the  tendency  of  these  maxims  is,  upon  the  whole,  u 
favourable  to  morality,  and  that  they  always  leave  a  disagree- 
able impression  on  the  mind,  must,  I  think,  be  granted.    At  tlie   I 
same  time,  it  may  be  fairly  questioned,  if  the  motives  of  the  j 
author  have  in  general  been  well   undeffrtood,  either   by  his 
admu'ers  or  hia  opponents.     In  affirming  that  self-love  ia  the 
spring  of  all  our  actions,  there  is  no  good  reason  for  supjiosing 
that  he  meant  to  deny  the  reality  of  moral  distinctions  as  a 
philosopMcal  truth ; — a  supposition  quite  inconsistent  with  his 
own  fine  and  deep  remark,  that  hypoa-isy  is  itself  a  fiomar/e 
which  vice  renders  to  virtue.    He  states  it  merely  as  a  position, 
which,  in  the  course  of  his  experience  as  a  man  of  the  world,  he 
hud  found  very  generalbj  verified  in  the  higher  classes  of  society ; 
and  which  he  was  induced  to  announce  without  any  qualifica-   I 
tion  or  restriction,  in  order  to  give  more  force  and  poignancy  to   , 
bis  satire.     In  adnjiliug  this  mMe  nf  witing,  he  has  uiiconsci- 


CHAP.  11. — PHILOaoPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  lAXKK.  UW 

ously  conformed  himnelf,  like  nmny  other  French  authors,  who 
have  Bince  followed  his  exiimple,  to  a  sujii^^tHtion  which  Aristotle 
has  stated  with  admimhle  depth  and  acnteneHS  in  his  Rhetoric*. 
"Sentences  or  apophthep^ns  lend  much  aid  to  el<H|uence.  One 
reason  of  this  is,  that  they  tlatttT  i\\L'  j)ride  of  the  hwirers,  who 
are  delighted  when  the  8i)eakr»r,  making  use  of  general  language, 
touches  ui)on  opinions  which  they  had  Ix^fore  known  to  lie  true 
in  (lart  Thus,  a  (lerKon  who  hml  the  misfortime  to  livc^  in  a 
bad  neighlK>urluKxl,  or  to  Iuiv(»  worthlcKS  childri^n,  would  easily 
assent  to  the  s^teaker  who  should  atHnu,  that  nothimj  is  more 
vexatious  than  to  have  any  neighlMuu-s ;  nothhuj  moR»  irrational 
than  t*)  bring  children  into  the  world."?  This  observation  of 
Aristotle,  while  it  goes  far  to  account  for  the  un]M)King  and 
dazzling  effect  of  these  rhetoriad  exaggerations,  ought  to  guard 
us  against  the  conmion  and  ])opuIar  error  of  mistiiking  them 
for  the  serious  and  profound  genendizations  of  science.  As  for 
Ija  Rochefoucauld,  we  know,  from  the  Ust  authorities,  that,  in 
private  life,  he  was  a  cons]acuous  example  <»f  all  thoM?  moral 
qualities  of  which  he  seemed  to  deny  the  exist enw ;  and  that 
he  exliibited,  in  this  resjKH^t,  a  striking  contrast  to  the  Cardinal 
de  Retz,  who  has  presumed  to  (n-nsure  him  tor  his  want  of  faith 
in  the  realitv  of  virtue. 

In  reading  La  Rochefoucauld,  it  shoidd  never  be  forgotten, 
that  it  was  within  the  vortex  of  a  (Maui;  he  enjoved  his  chief 
opportunities  of  studying  the  world;  and  that  the  narrow  and 
exclusive  circle  in  which  he  movtnl  wa^  not  likely  to  alford  him 
the  most  favourable  sj»ecimens  of  human  nature  in  general. 
Of  the  Court  of  licwis  XIV.  in  i)articular,  we  are  told  by  a 
very  nice  and  retlwting  observer,  (Madame  de  la  Fayette,)  that 
"  ambition  and  gallantrj'  were  the  soul,  actuating  alike  both 

fisniumt  fiiymXtif,  fAittf  fiit  }j|  iim,  (p$^Ti*i-  $rt  «bi3if  yur»f'tm,t  ;^«Xir«^ri^«>*  n,  i'rt  $u}it 

Tnrtk  rUf  «x^«cr«>*  ^m,l^9vri  y»^,  •«»  vit  nkifiMTi^tf  Tt*f»it§ttas. — A  list,  lihtt.  Iil». 

MmfiX$v    Xiy^f,    Wiry^n   rZt    ^c^mv,    at  ii.  c.  \\i. 

isf7f«i  umrm  ^i(«f  1;^9vri*' — *H  fiitt  yei0  TUr  wlmli*  rliapt'T  is  iiitrrrNtinj;  un<I 

yt^/Ati,  iJrvt^  Uftirai,  ttrnfoXsu  itvi^tttwU  iiistnii'tivc,  and  hIicws  Iiow  protnuiidly 

Irri*    ;^c/^9i/ri    Vi    ttatiXtv   yty$f*if9u,    S  Anstotl<>  had  iiicditatcil  tin*  priiiciph-s 

ji«r«  /«i(«r  v^gvvXtififiawrif  rvy^mf^v-  of  tin*  rllrtnrirfll  art. 
r<».   OJff.  UTif  ytir§ft  Tv^»t  xi^^nfAifs  n 


no 


DIBSBRTATION, — PART  FIMT. 


men  aiid  women.  So  many  contending  interests,  so  many  dif- 
ferent ctibalB  were  constantly  at  work,  and  in  all  of  these 
women  Itore  so  Important  a  part,  that  love  was  always  mingled 
mth  linnineBB,  and  busbess  with  love.  Nobody  was  tnmqnil 
or  indifferent.  Every  one  studied  to  advance  himself  by  pleas- 
ing, serving,  or  nuidng  others.  Idleness  and  languor  were 
unknown,  and  nothing  was  thought  of  bnt  intrigues  or  plea- 
sures." 

In  the  passage  already  quoted  from  Voltaire,  he  takes  notice 
of  the  effect  of  La  I-tochefoucauld's  maxims,  in  improving  the 
style  fif  French  comixwition.  We  may  add  to  this  remark, 
that  their  effect  has  not  been  less  Bensible  in  vitiating  the  tone  ' 
and  character  of  French  pbiloRO]iby,  by  bringing  into  vogue 
those  false  and  degrading  represcntationa  of  human  nature  and 
of  Imman  life,  wliich  have  prevailed  in  that  ct>mitry,  more  or 
less,  for  a  centiuy  past^  Mr.  Addison,  in  one  of  the  papers  of 
the  Taller,  expresses  his  indignation  at  this  general  bias  among 
the  French  wTiters  of  bis  age.  "  It  is  imposmble,"  he  observes, 
"  to  read  a  passage  in  Plato  or  TuUy,  and  a  thousand  other 
ancient  moralists,  without  being  a  greater  and  better  man  for 
it  On  tbe  contrary,  I  could  never  read  any  of  our  modish 
French  authors,  or  those  of  our  own  country,  who  are  the  imi- 
tators and  admirers  of  that  nation,  without  being,  for  some 
time,  out  of  humour  with  myself,  and  at  everj-thing  about  me. 
Their  business  is  to  depreciate  human  nature,  and  to  coo^der 
it  under  tbe  worst  ap]>earanees ;  they  give  mean  inferpreta- 
tions,  and  base  motives  to  the  worthiest  actions.  In  short, 
they  endeavour  to  make  no  distinction  between  man  and  man, 
or  between  the  species  of  man  and  that  of  the  brutes." ' 

It  is  very  remarkable,  that  the  censure  here  bestowed  by 
Addison  on  the  fasliionable  French  wits  of  bis  time,  should  be 
so  strictly  applicable  to  Helvetius,  and  to  many  other  of  the 
most  admu'ed  authors  whom  France  has  produced  in  our  own 
day.     It  is  still  more  remarkable  to  find  tbe  same  depressing 

w  unileratom!  an  refemrg  lo  the  modith 
..no  of  Fronoli  plill,w>i.liy,  prior  1"  llie 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FBOM  BACON  TO  LOC'KK.  1 1 1 

spirit  shedding  its  malignant  influence  on  French  literature,  as 
early  as  the  time  of  La  Rochefoucauld,  and  even  of  Montaigne ; 
and  to  observe  how  very  little  has  been  done  by  the  successors 
of  these  old  writers,  but  to  expand  into  grave  philosophical 
systems  their  loose  and  lively  i)anuloxeH ; — disguising  and  for- 
tifying them  by  the  aid  of  those  logical  princi])les,  to  which  the 
name  and  authority  of  Locke  have  given  so  wide  a  circulation 
in  Europe. 

In  tracing  the  origin  of  that  false  philosophy  on  wliich  the 
excesses  of  the  French  Revolutionists  have  entailed  such 
merited  disgrace,  it  is  usual  to  remount  no  higher  than  to  the 
profligate  period  of  the  Regency ;  but  the  seeds  of  its  most 
exceptionable  doctrines  had  been  sown  in  that  country  nt  an 
earlier  era,  and  were  indebted  for  the  luxuriancy  of  their  har- 
vest, much  more  to  the  political  and  religious  soil  where  they 
struck  their  roots,  than  to  the  skill  or  foresight  of  the  indivi- 
duals by  whose  hands  they  were  scattered. 

I  have  united  the  names  of  Montaigne  and  of  La  Rochefou- 
cauld, because  I  consider  their  writings  as  rather  addressed  to 
the  world  at  large,  than  to  the  small  and  select  class  of  specu- 
lative students.  Neither  of  them  can  be  said  to  have  enriched 
the  stock  of  human  knowledge  by  the  addition  of  any  one 
important  general  conclusion ;  but  the  maxims  of  both  have 
operated  very  extensively  and  powerfully  on  the  taste  and  prin- 
ciples of  the  higher  orders  all  over  EuroiK?,  and  predisposed 
them  to  give  a  welcome  reception  to  the  same  ideas,  when 
afterwards  reproduced  with  the  imposing  appendages  of  logical 
method,  and  of  a  technical  phraseology.  The  foregoing  reflec- 
tions, therefore,  are  not  so  foreign  as  might  at  first  l)e  appre- 
hended, to  the  subsequent  hiHtory  of  ethical  and  of  metaphysical 
speculation.  It  is  time,  however,  now  to  turn  our  attt»ntion  to 
a  subject  far  more  intimately  connected  with  the  geuenil  pnv 
gress  of  huimm  reason — the  i)liilosophy  of  Descartc^s. 


112  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRKT. 


Descartes — Gassendi — ^Malebranche. 

According  to  a  late  writer,^  whose  literary  decisions  (except- 
ing where  he  touches  on  religion  or  politics)  are  justly  entitled 
to  the  highest  deference,  Descartes  has  a  better  claim  than  any 
other  individual  to  be  regarded  as  the  father  of  that  spirit  of 
free  inquiry  which,  in  modern  Europe,  has  so  remarkably  dis- 
played itself  in  all  the  various  departments  of  knowledge.  Of 
Bacon  he  observes,  "  that  though  he  possessed,  in  a  most  emi- 
nent degree,  the  genius  of  philosophy,  he  did  not  unite  ^th  it 
the  genius  of  the  sciences ;  and  that  the  methods  proposed  by 
him  for  the  investigation  of  truth,  consisting  entirely  of  precepts 
which  he  was  unable  to  exemplify,  had  little  or  no  effect  in 
accelerating  the  rate  of  discovery."  As  for  Gralileo,  he  remarks, 
on  the  other  hand,  "  that  his  exclusive  taste  for  mathematical 
and  physical  researches  disqualified  him  for  communicating  to 
the  general  mind  that  impulse  of  wliich  it  stood  in  need." 

"  This  honour,"  he  adds,  "  was  reserved  for  Descartes,  who 
combined  in  himself  the  characteristical  endowments  of  both 
his  predecessors.  If,  in  the  i)hy8ical  sciences,  his  march  be  less 
sure  than  that  of  Galileo — if  his  logic  be  less  cautious  than  that 
of  Bacon, — ^yet  the  very  temerity  of  his  errors  was  instrumental 
to  the  progress  of  the  human  race.  He  gave  activity  to  minds 
which  the  circumspection  of  liis  rivals  could  not  awake  from 
their  lethargy.  He  called  upon  men  to  tlirow  off  the  yoke  of 
authority,  acknowledging  no  influence  but  what  reason  shoidd 
avow:  And  his  call  was  obeyed  by  a  multitude  of  followers, 
encouraged  by  the  boldness  and  fascinated  by  the  enthusiiism  of 
their  leader." 

In  these  observations,  the  ingenious  author  has  rashly  gene- 
ralized a  conclusion  deduced  from  the  literary  history  of  liis  own 
country.  That  the  works  of  Bacon  were  but  little  read  there 
tiU  after  the  publication  of  D'Alembert's  Prdiminary  Discourse 
is,  I  believe,  an  unquestionable  fact;^  not  that  it  necessarily 

*  Coiulorcet.  out  by  D'Alembcrt : — "  II  n'y  a  que  les 

■  One  reason  for  tliis  is  well  jK>int<^d       chofs  dc  sectc  on  tout  genre,  dont  les 


CHAP.  IL — PHILOSOPHY  FllOM  BACON  TO  LOCKR.  1  13 

follows  from  this,  that,  even  in  France,  no  previuuH  effect  hnd 
been  produced  by  the  labours  of  Boyle,  of  Newton,  and  of  the 
other  English  eicperimcntalists  trained  in  Bacon's  school.  With 
respect  to  England,  it  is  a  fact  not  less  certain,  that  at  no 
period  did  the  philosophy  of  Descartes  produce  such  an  impres- 
sion on  public  opinion,  either  in  Physics  or  in  Ethics,  as  to  give 
the  subtest  colour  to  the  supposition  that  it  contributed,  in  the 
most  distant  degree,  to  the  sul)8e<iuent  advances  made  by  our 
countrymen  in  these  sciences.  In  Logic  and  Metaphysics,  indeed, 
the  case  was  different.  Here  the  writings  of  Descartes  did 
much ;  and  if  they  had  been  studied  with  ])roiK>r  attention,  they 
might  have  done  much  more.  But  of  tin's  |mrt  of  their  merits 
Condorcet  seems  to  have  Iiad  no  idea  His  eulog}',  therefore, 
is  rather  misplaced  tlian  excessive.  He  has  extoUetl  DeseartcH 
as  the  father  of  Experimental  Physics:  he  would  have  \k*v\\ 
nearer  the  truth,  if  he  liad  {lointeil  liim  out  as  the  father  of  the 
Experimental  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind. 

In  bestowing  this  title  on  Descartes,  I  am  far  from  In-ing 
inclined  to  compare  him,  in  the  numlK?r  or  imi)ortance  of  the 
facts  which  he  has  remarked  concerning  our  intelk»ctual  jjowers, 
to  various  other  writers  of  an  earlier  (latc».  I  allude  merely  to 
his  clear  and  precise  conception  of  that  operation  of  the  under- 
standing (distinguished  after^'ards  in  Locke's  Essay  by  the 
name  o{  Reflection)  through  the  medium  of  which  all  our  know- 
ledge of  Mind  is  exclusively  to  Ix?  obtainiHl.  Of  the  (essential 
subserviencv  of  thin  ix»wer  to  even*  sitiKfactory  conehision  that 

w  I  •  » 

can  be  fomieil  with  resiKJct  to  the  mental  phenomena,  and  of 
the  futility  of  ever}-  theory  which  would  attempt  to  exjilain  them 
by  metaphors  l)orrowtHl  from  the  material  world,  no  other  philo- 
sopher prior  to  Locke  stx.*mH  to  have  In^en  fully  aware ;  and  from 
the  moment  that  these  truths  were  recognised  as  logical  prin- 
ciples in  the  study  of  wi/wrf,  a  new  cm  commences  in  the  history 
of  that  branch  of  science.  It  will  Ik?  ne<'essarj',  therefore,  to 
allot  to  the  illustration  of  this  ]>art  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy 
a  larger  sjwce  thim  the  limits  of  my  undertaking  will  i)erniit 

mivrapes  puisscnt  avoir  nn  rortAin  vclat ;       wi  iiliiloMophio  s'y  opiK»«oit :  fll»^  ''toit  tmp 
Bacon  n*apa8vt«dunoinl>re,  et  l/ifomn?  •!<;       sigf  ixnin't(>nnrrii«.TH<^»nnc.'* — I>\$r.PrfK 

VOL.  I.  H 


114  DISSEitTATlON. — PART  FIRST. 

me  to  afford  to  the  researches  of  some  succeeding  inquirers, 
who  may,  at  first  sight,  appear  more  worthy  of  attention  in  the 
present  times. 

It  has  been  repeatedly  asserted  by  the  Materialists  of  the  last 
century,  that  Descartes  was  the  first  Metaphysician  by  whom 
the  pure  immateriality  of  the  human  soul  was  taught ;  and 
that  the  ancient  philosophers,  as  well  as  the  schoolmen,  went 
no  farther  than  to  consider  mind  as  the  result  of  a  material 
organization,  in  which  the  constituent  elements  approached  to 
evanescence,  in  point  of  subtlety.  Both  of  these  propositions  I 
conceive  to  be  totally  unfounded.  That  many  of  the  schoolmen, 
and  that  the  wisest  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  when  they  de- 
scribed the  mind  as  a  &pirit  or  as  a  spark  of  celestial  Jtre^ 
employed  these  expressions,  not  with  any  intention  to  mate- 
riaUze  its  essence,  but  merely  from  want  of  more  unexception- 
able language,  might  be  shewn  with  demonstrative  evidence,  if 
this  were  the  proper  place  for  entering  into  the  discussion. 
But  what  is  of  more  importance  to  be  attended  to,  on  the  pre- 
sent occasion,  is  the  effect  of  Descartes'  writings  in  disentan- 
gling the  logical  principle  above  mentioned,  from  the  scholastic 
question  about  the  natiu^  of  mind,  as  contradistinguished  from 
matter.  It  were  indeed  to  be  wished,  that  he  had  perceived 
still  more  clearly  and  steadily  the  essential  importance  of  keep- 
ing this  distinction  constantly  in  view ;  but  he  had  at  least  the 
merit  of  illustrating,  by  his  own  example,  in  a  far  greater  de- 
gree than  any  of  his  predecessors,  the  possibility  of  studying 
the  mental  phenomena,  without  reference  to  any  facts  but  those 
which  rest  on  the  evidence  of  consciousness.  The  metaphysical 
question  about  the  nature  of  mind  he  seems  to  have  considered 
as  a  problem,  the  solution  of  which  was  an  easy  coroUary  from 
these /ac^5,  if  distinctly  apprehended ;  but  still  as  a  problem, 
whereof  it  was  possible  that  different  views  might  be  taken  by 
those  who  agreed  in  opinion,  as  far  as  facts  alone  were  con- 
cerned. Of  this  a  very  remarkable  example  has  since  occurred 
in  the  case  of  Mr.  Locke,  who,  although  he  has  been  at  great 
pains  to  shew,  that  the  power  of  reflection  bears  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  study  of  the  mental  phenomena,  which  the  power  of 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.     1 15 

obBervaiion  bears  to  the  study  of  the  material  world,  appearH, 
nerertlieless^  to  have  been  far  less  decided  than  Descartes  with 
respect  to  the  essential  distinction  between  Mind  and  Matter ; 
and  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  hazard  the  unguarded  proposi- 
tion,  that  there  is  no  absurdity  in  sup])osing  the  Deity  to  have 
superadded  to  the  other  qualities  of  matter  (he  power  of  think- 
ing. His  scepticism,  however,  on  this  point,  did  not  prevent 
his  good  sense  from  perceiving,  with  the  most  complete  con- 
viction, the  indispensable  necessity  of  almtracting  from  the 
analogy  of  matter,  in  studying  the  laws  of  our  intellectual 
frama 

The  question  alx)ut  the  nature  or  essence  of  the  soul,  hm 
been,  in  all  ages,  a  favourite  subject  of  discuKsion  ainon^  Met-a- 
physicians,  from  its  supi)osed  connexion  with  the  argument  in 
proof  of  its  immortality.  In  tliis  light  it  ban  plainly  Ikhmi 
considered  by  lx>th  parties  in  tbe  dispute ;  the  one  ct»n(HMvin«r, 
that  if  Mind  could  Ik;  shewn  to  have  no  (juality  in  common 
with  Matter,  its  dissolution  was  phywcally  im|H)8sil)le ;  the 
other,  that  if  this  aHSiunption  could  Ik^  disproved,  it  wonI<l 
necessarily  follow,  that  the  whole  man  must  {)eriBh  at  death. 
For  the  last  of  these  o])inions  Dr.  PrioHtley  and  many  other 
speculative  theologians  have  of  late  verj'  zealou»ly  contended  ; 
flattering  themselveR,  no  doubt,  with  the  idea,  that  they  wen* 
thus  preiiaring  a  triumph  for  their  o>\ti  i>eculiar  RoIieiiK^H  of 
Christianity.  Neglecting,  accordingly,  all  the  presumptionH  for 
a  future  stiite,  afforde<l  by  a  comparison  of  the  counw*  of  human 
affairs  with  the  moral  judgments  and  moral  fwlings  of  tlic 
human  heart;  and  overl(M)king,  with  tlie  wnne  diselain,  the* 
presumptions  arising  from  the  narrow  sphere  of  human  know- 
ledge, when  compared  with  the  indefinite  improvement  of 
which  our  intellectual  powers  seem  to  Ik?  susceptible  ;  this  neuU» 
but  suiK*rficial  >\Titer  attached  himself  exclusivoly  to  the  old 
and  hackneyed  pneumatological  argiunont ;  t4i(*itly  «ssuniin<jj  as 
a  principle,  that  the  futun*  prosjKK'ts  of  man  de|KM!(l  entirely  on 
the  dett»rmination  of  a  physiccJ  i)roblem,  analo^jfoiis  to  thnt 
which  was  then  dividing  chemists  nlwait  the  existence  or  non- 
existence of  Phlogiston.     In  the  nctual  staU»  «)f  scMence.  these 


116  DISSERTATION.— PART  FIRST. 

speculations  might  well  have  been  spared.  Where  is  the  sober 
metaphysician  to  be  fomid,  who  now  speaks  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  as  a  logical  consequence  of  its  immateriality ;  in- 
stead of  considering  it  as  depending  on  the  will  of  that  Being 
by  whom  it  was  at  first  called  into  existence  ?  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  it  not  universally  admitted  by  the  best  philoso- 
phers, that  whatever  hopes  the  light  of  nature  encourages 
beyond  the  present  scene,  rest  solely  (like  all  our  other  antici- 
pations of  future  events)  on  the  general  tenor  and  analogy  of 
the  laws  by  which  we  perceive  the  universe  to  be  governed  ? 
The  proper  use  of  the  argument  concerning  the  immateriality 
ofmind^  is  not  to  establish  any  positive  conclusion  as  to  its 
destiny  hereafter  ;  but  to  repel  the  reasonings  alleged  by  mate- 
rialists, as  proofs  that  its  anniliilation  must  be  the  obvious  and 
necessary  effect  of  the  dissolution  of  the  body.^ 

I  thought  it  proper  to  state  this  consideration  pretty  fully, 
lest  it  should  be  supposed  that  the  logical  method  recommended 
by  Descartes  for  studying  the  phenomena  of  mind,  has  any 
necessary  dependence  on  his  metaphysical  opinion  concerning 
its  being  and  properties,  as  a  separate  substance.^    Between 

*  "  We  shall  here  be  content,"  says  cartes  n'ait  point  parl6  de  rimmortahto 

the  learned  John  Smith  of  Cambridge,  ^e  T&me.     Mais  il  nous  apprend  lui- 

"  with  that  sober  thesis  of  Plato,  in  his  meme  par  une  do  ses  lettres,  qu'ayant 

Timants,  who  attributes  the  perpetuation  etabli  clairement,  dans  cet  ouvrago,  la 

of  all  substances  to  the  benignity  and  distinction  do  Tame  et  de  la  maticire,  il 

liberality  of   the  Creator ;    whom    he  suivoit  necessairement  de  cette  distinc- 

therefore  brings  in  thus  speaking,  i/uTt  tion,  que  I'ame  par  sa  nature  ne  pouvoit 

•U  irri  «/«»ar«4  «v}i  aXvr»i,  &c.     You  P^rir  avec  le  corps."— -^fogwj  de  Dett- 

are  not  of  yourselves  immortal  nor  in-  cartes.    Note  21. — [On  this  point  Leib- 

dissclnUe,  hut  would  relapse  and  slide  nitz  agreed  with  Descartes.     "  Je  ne 

back  from  that  being  which  I  have  given  demeure  point  d'accord,   que  I'lmmor- 

yov,  should  I  withdraw  the  influence  of  talite  est  seulement  probable  par    la 

my  own  power  from  you ;  but  yet  you  lumiere  naturelle ;  car  je  crois  qu'il  est 

shall  hold  your  immortality  by  a  patent  certain  que  I'&me  ne  peut  etre  ^teinte 

frommysdf— (Select Discourses.Cam-  que  par  miracle."  —  Leibnitii    Opera, 

bridge,  1660.)     I  quote  this  passage  tom.  vi.  p.  274.] 

from  one  of  the  oldest  partisans  of  Des-  *  I  employ  the  scholastic  word  sub- 

cartes  among  the  English  philosophers.  stance,  in  conformity  to  the  phraseology 

Descartes   himself  is   said  to  have  of  Descartes,  but  I  am  fully  aware  of 

been  of  a  different  opinion.      "  On   a  the  strong  objections   to  which  it  is 

^te  ^tonn6,"  says  Thomas,  "  que  dans  liable,  not  only  as  a  wide  deviation  from 

ses  Meditations  MHaphysiques,  Des-  popular  use,  which  has  appropriated  it 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  1 17 

theso  two  jiarts  of  his  system,  however,  there  is,  if  not  a  demon- 
strative connexion,  at  least  a  natural  and  manifest  afiinity ;  in- 
asmuch as  a  steady  adherence  to  his  logical  method,  (or,  in 
other  words,  the  habitual  exercise  of  {mtient  reflection^  by 
accustoming  us  to  break  asunder  the  obstinate  associations  to 
which  materialism  is  indebted  for  the  early  hold  it  is  apt  to 
take  of  the  fancy,  gradually  and  insensibly  predisposes  us  in 
favour  of  his  metaphysical  conclusion.  It  is  to  be  regretted, 
that,  in  stating  this  conclusion.  Ids  commentators  should  so 
frequently  make  use  of  the  word  apirituality ;  for  which  I  do 
not  recollect  that  his  own  works  afford  any  authority.  Tlie 
proper  expression  is  immaterialUy^  conveying  merely  a  negative 
idea ;  and,  of  consequence,  implying  nothing  more  thtm  a  re- 
jection of  that  hypothesis  concerning  the  nature  of  Mind,  which 
the  scheme  of  materialism  so  gnitiutously,  yet  so  dognKitictUly 
assumes.' 

The  power  of  Reflection,  it  is  well  known,  is  the  List  of  our 
intellectual  faculties  that  unfolds  itself;  and,  in  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  individuals,  it  never  unfolds  itself  in  any  con- 
siderable degree.  It  is  a  fact  ef|ually  certain,  that,  long  before 
the  period  of  life  when  this  jwwer  begins  to  exercise  its  appro- 
priate functions,  the  understaiKling  is  already  preoccupied  with 
a  chaos  of  o{)inions,  notions,  impressions,  and  associations,  bear- 
ing on  the  most  im}>ort2mt  objects  of  himian  inquiry ;  not  to 
mention  the  innmnerable  sources  of  illusion  imd  error  connected 
witli  the  use  of  a  vernacular  language,  leametl  in  infancy  by 
rote,  and  identified  with  the  first  processes  of  thought  and  per- 
cei)tion.  The  consequence  is,  that  when  Man  l)egins  to  reflect, 
he  finds  himself  (if  I  may  borrow  an  allusion  of  M.  Turgot's) 
lost  in  a  labyrinth,  into  which  he  had  been  led  blindfolded.' 
To  the  same  purpose,  it  was  long  ago  complained  of  by  Bacon, 
"  that  no  one  has  yet  Ikkiu  foimd  of  so  constant  and  severe  a 

U\  things  material  and  tangible,  but  as  *  Sec  Note  K. 

implying  a  greater  degnro  of  poHitivo  ■  "  Quand  Thommo  a  vouln  8c  roplicr 

kn(»wledg(t   concerning  the   naturo    of  wir  lui-memo  il  B*e8t  tnnive  dans  uu 

miW,  than  our  faculties  are  fitted  to  lab}Tinthe  ou  il   etoit  cntre   les  ycux 

attain. — For  some  farther  remarks  on  l»an<leB." — (Euvret  de  Turgot,  torn.  ii. 

this  point,  »ee  Note  I.  p.  261. 


118 


IH88EKTATI0N. — PART  KIRBT. 


itiiiid,  us  tm  littve  deteniiined  and  taeked  himsi-ll'  utterly  to  i 
abolii^h  theoriea  and  comniou  notions,  and  to  apply  bis  inteUect, 
altogether  smoothed  and  even,  to  particulars  anew.     Accord- 
ingly, that  human  reason  which  we  have,  is  a  kind  of  medley   | 
and  unsorted  collection,  from  much  truirt  and  much  accident,   i 
and  the  childish  notions  which  we  first  di'aiik  in.     Whereas,  if  ] 
one  of  ripe  age  and  sound  senses,  and  a  mind  thoroughly  cleared, 
should  apply  himself  freshly  to  ex])eriment  and  particulais,  of  I 
him  were  better  tilings  to  be  hoped." 

What  Bacon  has  here  recommended,  Descartes  attempted  to 
execute ;  and  so  exact  is  the  coincidence  of  his  views  on  this 
fundamental  point  with  those  of  his  predecessor,  that  it  is  with 
difficulty  I  can  persuade  myself  that  he  had  never  read  Bacon's 
works.'     In  the  prosecution  of  tliis  undertaking,  the  first  st«pB   i 
of  Descartes  are  peculiarly  interesting  and  instructive ;  and  it  iB  J 
Iheae  tilone  which  merit  our  attention  ut  present.     As  for  the 
details  of  liis  system,  they  are  now  curious  only  as  exhibiting 
(in  amusing  contrast  to  the  extreme  rigour  of  the  principle  from 
whence  the  author  eeta  out ;  a  contrast  bo  very  striking,  aa  tully 
(o  justify  the  epigrammatic  saying  of  D'Alemhert,  tliat  "  Des-  i 
cartes  began  with  doubting  of  everything,  and  ended  in  believ-  I 
ing  that  he  had  left  nothing  unexplained." 

Among  the  various  articles  of  common  belief  which  Deecai'ten  ] 
proposed  to  subject  to  a  severe  scrutiny,  he  enumerates  jwur- 
ticularly,  the  conclusiveness  of  mathematical  demonstration ;  the  I 
existence  of  God ;  the  esistfince  of  the  material  world ;  and  even   ' 
the  existence  of  his  own  body.    The  only  thing  that  appeared  to   ' 
him  certain  and  incontrovertible,  was  Ids  own  csistenoe ;   by 
which  he  repeatedly  reminds  us,  we  are  to  understand  merely 
the  CAxistonce  of  hia  mind,  abstracted  from  all  conwderation  of 
the  material  organs  connected  with  it    About  every  other  pro- 
position, he  conceived,  that  doubts  might  reasonably  be  enter- 
tained ;  but  to  suppose  the  non-existence  of  tliat  wliich  thinks, 
ut  the  very  moment  it  is  conscious  of  thinking,  appeared  to  him   , 
a  contradiction  in  terms.     From  this  amglo  iKwtulatum,  accord-   j 
mgly,  he  took  his  departm-e ;  resolved  to  admit  nothing  as  a  j 
»  Bee  Note  L. 


CHAP.  11. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACOK  TO  LOCKE. 


119 


philosophical  truth,  which  could  not  be  deduced  from  it  by  a 
chain  of  logical  reasoning.^ 

Having  first  satisfied  himself  of  his  own  existence,  his  next 
step  was  to  inquire,  how  far  his  perceptive  and  intellectual 
faculties  were  entitled  to  credit  For  this  purpose,  he  begins 
with  offering  a  proof  of  the  existence  and  attributes  of  God ; — 
truths  which  he  conceived  to  be  necessarily  involved  in  tlie  idea 
he  was  able  to  form  of  a  perfect,  self-existent,  and  eternal 
Being.  His  reasonings  on  tliis  point  it  would  be  useless  to 
state.  It  is  sufficient  to  observe,  that  they  led  him  to  conclude, 
that  Qod  cannot  possibly  be  suitposed  to  deceive  His  creatures ; 
and  therefore,  that  the  intimations  of  our  senses,  and  the  deci- 
sions of  our  reason,  are  to  be  trusted  to  with  entire  confidence, 
wherever  they  afford  us  dear  and  distinct  ideas  of  their  respec- 
tive objects.* 

'  "Sic  autem  rpjieientcB  iHa  omnia, 
de  quibns  aliquo  inodu  possumiu  dubi- 
tare,  ac  etlam  falsa  esse  fingcntes,  facile 
quidem  Bupptminius  nullum  chhc  Deum, 
nullum  ccelum,  nulla  corpora;  nofique 
etiam  ipsos,  non  habere  monuR,  nee 
pcdeii,  ncc  dcniqne  ullum  corpus;  non 
autem  ideo  nos  qui  talia  cogitaniuB  nihil 
esse:  repngnat  enim,  ut  putcmus  id 
quod  cogitaty  eo  ipoo  tempore  quo  cogi- 
tat,  non  existerc.  Ac  proindo  hsec  cog- 
nitio,  effo  eoffito,  ergo  sum,  est  omnium 
prima  et  certiwima,  qiuc  cuilil)et  ordine 
philosophanti  occurrat." — Princip.  Phir 
loi.  Pars  i.  g  7. 

•  The  substance  of  Dcsscartca'  argu- 
ment on  these  fundimental  points,  is 
thus  briefly  recapitulated  by  himself  in 
the  conclusion  of  his  thinl  Mctditation : 
— •*  l")um  in  meipsum  mentis  ocicm  con- 
verto,  non  modo  intcUigo  me  esse  rem 
incompI<.>tam,  ct  ab  alio  dcpendentem, 
r(>mque  ad  mfyora  ct  nieliora  indefinite 
nHpirantem,  sed  siniul  etiiim  intelligo 
ilium,  A  quo  {lenden,  majora  iMa  omnia 
non  indefinite  vi  pottMitia  tantum,  se<l 
n'ipsa  infinite  in  se  haltore,  atque  ita 
Pcimi  osHe;  totaque  vis  argumenti  in 
I'o  (>st.  quod  agnoMcam  fieri  non  p<tsHe 


ut  existem  talis  naturw  ({ualis  sum, 
nenipe  ideani  Dei  in  me  habens,  nisi 
rcvera  Dews  etiam  existeret,  lX*us,  in- 
qnam,  ille  idem  civjiis  idea  in  mo  est, 
hoc  est  habens  omnes  illos  perfectionos 
quas  ego  non  compreliendere  sed  quocun- 
qno  mo<lo  attingere  cogitationo  possum, 
et  nullis  plane  defectibus  obnoxius.  Ex 
his  satis  patet,  ilium  follacem  esse  non 
posse :  onmem  enim  fraudem  et  decep- 
tionem  ft  defectu  aliquo  pendero  lumine 
naturali  manifestum  CHt." 

The  above  argument  for  the  existence 
of  God,  (ver}'  impn)perly  called  by  some 
fon'igners  an  argimient  a  pricri,)  was 
long  considered  by  the  most  eniifiont 
men  in  Europe  as  quite  demonstrative. 
For  my  own  part,  although  I  do  not 
think  that  it  is  by  any  means  so  level 
to  the  apprehension  of  common  inquir- 
ers, as  the  argument  fn)m  the  marks  of 
dcsiijn  everywhere  manifested  in  the 
Ufiiverst*,  1  am  still  less  inclined  to  re- 
ji'ct  it  as  alt<»gi'ther  unw()rtliy  of  atten- 
tion. It  is  far  from  being  ho  nietaphy- 
HJcally  ulwtnise  as  the  reasoninp*  of  New- 
ton and  (Marke,  founded  on  our  concep- 
tions {)f  apace  and  of  time;  nor  would  it 
a]>pear,  jx'rhaps,  less  logical  and  conclu- 


120 


DISSERTATION. — ^PABT  FIRST. 


As  Descartes  conceived  the  existence  of  God  (next  to  the 
existence  of  his  own  mind)  to  be  the  most  indisputable  of  all 
truths,  and  rested  his  confidence  in  the  conclusions  of  human 
reason  entirely  on  his  faith  in  the  divine  veracity,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  he  should  have  rejected  the  argument  from  jinol 
causes  as  superfluous  and  unsatisfactory.  To  have  availed  him- 
self of  its  assistance,  would  not  only  have  betrayed  a  want  of 
confidence  in  what  he  professed  to  regard  as  much  more  certain 
than  any  mathematical  theorem;  but  would  obviously  have 
exposed  him  to  the  charge  of  first  appealing  to  the  divine  attri- 
butes in  proof  of  the  authority  of  his  faculties,  and  afterwards, 
of  appealing  to  these  faculties  in  proof  of  the  existence  of  GkxJ. 

It  is  wonderful  that  it  should  have  escaped  the  penetration 
of  this  most  acute  thinker,  that  a  vidotis  circle  of  the  same 
description  is  involved  in  every  appeal  to  the  intellectual  powers, 
in  proof  of  their  own  credibility ;  and  that  unless  this  credibility 
be  assumed  as  unquestionable,  the  farther  exercise  of  human 
reason  is  altogether  nugatory.  The  evidence  for  the  existence 
of  Qod  seems  to  have  appeared  to  Descartes  too  irresistible  and 
overwhelming  to  be  subjected  to  those  logical  canons  which 
apply  to  all  the  other  conclusions  of  the  understanding.^ 

Extravagant  and  hopeless  as  these  preliminary  steps  must 
now  appear,  they  had  nevertheless  an  obvious  tendency  to  direct 
the  attention  of  the  author,  in  a  singular  degree,  to  the  pheno- 


dva  than  that  celebrated  demonstratioii, 
if  it  were  properly  unfolded,  and  stated 
in  more  simple  and  popular  terms.  The 
two  arguments,  however,  are,  in  no  ro- 
spect,^  exclusive  of  each  other;  and  I 
have  always  thought,  that,  by  combin- 
ing them  together,  a  proof  of  the  point 
in  question  might  be  formed,  more  im- 
pressive and  luminous  than  is  to  be  ob- 
tained from  either,  when  stated  apart. 

^  How  painful  is  it  to  recollect,  that 
the  philosopher  who  had  represented  his 
faith  in  the  veracity  of  God  as  the  sole 
foundation  of  his  confidence  in  the  de- 
monstrations of  mathematics,  was  ac- 
cused and  persecuted  by  his  contempo- 


raries as  an  atheist,  and  thatf  too,  in  the 
same  coimtry  (Holland)  where,  for  more 
than  half  a  century  after  his  death,  his 
doctrines  were  to  be  taught  in  all  the 
universities  with  a  blind  idolatry!  A 
zeal  without  knowledge,  and  the  influ- 
ence of  those  earthly  passions  from 
which  even  Protestant  divines  are  not 
always  exempted,  may,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
go  far  to  accoimt  for  this  inconsistency 
and  injustice,  without  adopting  the  un- 
charitable insinuation  of  D'Alembert: 
"  Malgre  toute  la  sagacity  qu'il  avoit  em- 
ployee pour  prouver  1 'existence  de  Dieu, 
il  frit  accuse  de  la  nier  par  des  nUnistres, 
qui peut-etre  ne  la  croyoientpas.^' 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOfiOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  121 

niena  of  thought ;  and  to  train  him  to  thoee  habits  of  abstrac- 
tion from  external  objects  which,  to  the  bulk  of  mankind, 
are  next  to  impossible.  In  this  way  he  was  led  to  perceive, 
with  the  evidence  of  consciousness,  that  the  attributes  of  Mind 
were  still  more  clearly  and  distinctly  knowable  than  those  of 
Matter ;  and  that,  in  studying  the  former,  so  far  from  attempt- 
ing to  exi)lain  them  by  analogies  borrowed  from  the  latter,  our 
chief  aim  ought  to  be,  to  banish  as  much  as  possible  from  the 
&ncy  every  analogy,  and  even  every  analogical  expression, 
which,  by  inviting  tlie  attention  abroad,  might  divert  it  from  its 
proper  business  at  home.  In  one  word,  tliat  the  only  right 
method  of  philosophizing  on  this  suDjcct  was  comprised  in  the 
old  stoical  precept,  (imderstood  in  a  sense  somewhat  different 
from  that  originally  annexed  to  it,)  nee  te  quceaiveris  extru.  A 
just  conception  of  this  rule,  and  a  sternly  adherence  to  its  spirit, 
constitutes  the  groundwork  of  what  is  {)roperly  allied  the  Ex- 
perimental Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind.  It  is  thus  that  all 
our  facts  relating  to  Mind  must  be  ascertained ;  and  it  is  only 
upon  facts  thus  attested  by  our  o\vii  consciousness,  that  any 
just  theory  of  Mind  can  be  reared. 

Agreeably  to  these  views,  Descartes  was,  I  think,  the  first 
who  clearly  saw  that  our  idea  of  Mind  is  not  tlirect  but  rela- 
tive ; — relative  to  the  various  oi)erations  of  which  we  are  con- 
scious. Wlmt  am  I  ?  he  asks,  in  his  second  Meditation :  A 
thinking  being ;  that  is,  a  being  doubting,  knowing,  affirming, 
denying,  consenting,  refusing,  susceptible  of  pleasure  and  of 
pain.^  Of  all  these  things  I  might  have  had  complete  expe- 
rience, witliout  any  previous  acquaintance  with  the  qualities  and 
laws  of  matter ;  and  therefore  it  is  imiwssible  that  the  study 
of  matter  can  avail  me  aught  in  the  study  of  myself.  This, 
accordingly,  Descartes  laid  down  as  a  first  principle, — that 
nothing  comprehensible  by  tlie  imagiiwiion  can  be  cut  all  sub- 
servient  to  the  knowledge  of  Mind ;   and  tliat  the  sensible 

^  '*  Non  snni  coniimges  ilia  niciiibro-  iion  vapor,  noii  halitus  .  .  .  Quid  ip'tur 

nun,  quae  corpus  humanum  appdlatur ;  siun  ?  res  cogitnns ;  quid  cHt  line  ?  ncm- 

non  smn  etiam  tenuiii  aliquis  ai'r  iHtiH  po  diibitans,  intclIigonR,  affimianB,  ne- 

mcmbriB  infusus ;  non  vcntUR,  non  ignin,  gau»>  volcnH,  nolcnSi*'  &c. — Med.  Sec. 


122 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


images  involved  in  all  our  common  forms  of  speaking  concern- 
ing its  operations,  are  to  be  guarded  against  with  the  most 
anxious  care,  as  tending  to  confoimd,  in  our  apprehensions,  two 
classes  of  phenomena  which  it  is  of  the  last  importance  to  dis- 
tinguish accurately  from  each  other.* 

To  those  who  are  familiarly  acquainted  with  the  writings  of 
Locke,  and  of  the  very  few  among  his  successors  who  have 
thoroughly  entered  into  the  spirit  of  his  philosophy,  the  fore- 
going observations  may  not  appear  to  possess  much  either  of 
originality  or  of  importance ;  but  when  first  given  to  the  world, 
they  formed  the  greatest  step  ever  made  in  the  science  of  Mind 
by  a  single  individual.  What  a  contrast  do  they  exhibit,  not 
only  to  the  discussions  of  the  schoolmen,  but  to  the  analogical 


^  "  Itaque  cognosco,  nihil  eoniin  quie 
possum  Imaginadone  comprehendere, 
ad  banc  quom  de  me  habeo  notitiam 
pertinere ;  mentemque  ab  illis  diligon- 
tissime  esso  avocandam,  ut  suam  ipsa 
nataram  qudm  distinctissime  pcrcipiat." 
— Tbid.  A  few  sentences  before,  Des- 
cartes expluus  with  precision  in  wbat 
sense  Imagincttion  is  here  to  be  under- 
stood :  "  Nihil  aliud  est  imaginari  quam 
rei  corporcffi  figuram  sen  imaginem  con- 
templari." 

The  following  extracts  fix)m  a  book 
published  at  Cambridge  in  1660,  (pre- 
dsely  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Des- 
cartes,) while  they  furnish  a  usefid 
conmient  on  some  of  the  above  remarks, 
may  serve  to  shew  how  completely  the 
spirit  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy  of 
Blind  had  been  seized,  even  then^  by 
some  of  the  members  of  that  university. 

"  The  souls  of  men  exercising  them- 
selves first  of  all  unnru  ir^§fimri»fj  as 
the  Greek  philosopher  exprcsseth  him- 
self, merely  by  a  progressive  kind  of 
motion,  spending  themselves  about  bo- 
dily and  material  acts,  and  conversing 
only  with  sensible  things ;  they  are  apt 
to  acquire  such  deep  stamps  of  material 
phantasms  to  themselves,  that  they  can- 
not imagine  their  own  Being  to  be  any 


other  than  material  and  divisible,  though 
of  a  fine  ethereal  nature.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible for  us  well  to  know  what  our  sotds 
are,  but  only  by  their  mvn^ut  Mtt»XiMmi, 
their  circular  or  reflex  motions,  and 
converse  with  themselves,  which  can 
only  steal  from  them  their  own  secrets." 
— Smith's  Sdect  Discourses,  pp.  65, 66. 
"  If  we  reflect  but  upon  our  own  souls, 
how  manifestly  do  the  notions  of  reason, 
freedom,  perception,  and  the  like,  offer 
themselves  to  us,  whereby  we  may  know 
a  thousand  times  more  distinctly  what 
our  souls  are  than  what  our  bodies  arc. 
For  the  former,  we  know  by  an  imme- 
diate converse  with  ourselves,  and  a  dis- 
tinct sense  of  their  operations ;  whereas 
all  our  knowledge  of  the  body  is  little 
better  than  merely  historical,  which  we 
gather  up  by  scraps  and  piecemeal,  from 
more  doubtful  and  uncertain  experi- 
ments which  we  make  of  them ;  but  the 
notions  which  we  have  of  a  mind,  %.e., 
something  within  us  that  thinks,  appre- 
hends, reasons,  and  discourses,  are  so 
clear  and  distinct  from  all  those  notions 
which  we  can  fasten  upon  a  body,  that 
we  can  easily  conceive  tliat  if  all  body- 
being  in  the  world  were  destroyed,  yet 
we  might  then  as  well  subsist  as  now 
we  do."— /Wrf.  p.  08. 


CHAP.  II. — PUILOeOPHY  FBOM  BACON  Tl>  LOCKE. 


123 


theories  of  Hobbes  at  the  very  Bame  period  I  and  how  often  have 
they  been  since  lost  sight  of^  notwithstanding  the  clearest  specu- 
lative conviction  of  their  truth  and  imiiortance,  by  Locke  him- 
self, and  by  the  greatest  part  of  his  professed  followers  I  Had 
they  been  duly  studied  and  understood  by  Mr.  Home  Tooke, 
they  would  have  fumislied  him  with  a  key  for  solving  those 
etymological  riddles^  which,  although  mistaken  by  many  of  his 
contemporaries  for  profound  philosopliieal  discoveries,  derive, 
in  fact,  the  whole  of  their  mystery,  from  the  strong  bias  of 
shallow  reasoners  to  relapae  into  the  same  scholastic  errors, 
from  which  Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley,  Hume,  and  Beid,  have 
so  successfully  laboua^d  to  emanci]>ate  the  mind. 

If  anything  can  add  to  our  adiuiration  of  a  tniin  of  tliought 
manifesting  in  its  author  so  unexampled  a  triumph  over  the 
strongest  prejudices  of  sense,  it  is  the  extniordinary  circum- 
stance of  its  having  first  occurred  to  a  young  man,  who  had 
spent  the  years  commonly  devc)te<l  to  academical  study,  amid 
the  dissipation  and  tunnilt  of  eanips.^  Nothing  could  make 
this  conceivable,  but  the  very  liberal  educiitiou  which  he  liad 
previously  received  under  the  Jesuits,  at  the  college  of  La 
FUche  ;  *  where,  we  are  told,  that  while  yet  a  boy,  he  was  so 
distinguished  by  habits  of  deep  meditation,  that  he  went  among 
his  companions  by  the  name  of  iht  Philosopher.  Indt^eil,  it  is 
only  at  that  early  age  that  such  habits  are  to  be  cultivated  with 
complete  success. 


'  "  Descartes  portii  les  annos,  d'alxinl 
en  IloIIande,  sous  le  celebru  Maurice 
do  Nassau;  dc-Ul  en  Alloiunguo,  sous 
Maximilien  do  Baviere,  au  cunimonce- 
mcnt  do  la  gnerrc  du  t rente  ans.  II 
pnssa  ensintc  au  senrico  do  TEmpereur 
Ferdinand  II.  pour  T(»ir  de  pluH  prvs 
les  troubles  de  la  Hongrie.  On  croit 
auKsi,  qu'au  siege  de  la  Uuchelle,  il 
c«iml>Httit,  comme  volontain*,  duns  une 
Itataille  contre  la  Hotto  Angloise/* — 
Thomaa,  Elotfe  de  DescnrteSj  Note  8. 

When  DeHciirtes  quitted  the  pn)- 
fehrion  of  armn,  h«»  had  arrived  at  the 
ago  of  twenty-fiv**. 


'  It  is  a  curious  coincidence,  thiit  it 
was  in  t\w  snnie  village  of  La  FJ^che 
that  Mr.  Iliune  flxe<l  his  residence, 
while  composing  his  Treatise  of  Human 
Nature.  Is  it  not  pnibnble,  that  he  was 
partly  attracted  to  it  by  associations 
Mimilar  to  thoso  which  presented  them- 
selves to  the  fancy  of  ('iccn>,  when  he 
visittMl  the  walks  of  the  Academy  ? 

In  the  beginning  of  Drscartes*  diHser- 
tation  u{Min  Method^  h<*  has  given  a  very 
interesting  acc<»unt  (»f  tli(t  pursuits  which 
occupied  his  youth  ;  and  of  the  considera- 
tiouR  which  suggested  to  him  the  bold 
imdertaking  of  rcformiug  philosophy. 


124 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


The  glory,  however,  of  having  pointed  out  to  Ids  successors 
the  true  method  of  studying  the  theory  of  Mindy  is  almost  all 
that  can  be  claimed  by  Descartes  in  logical  and  metaphysical 
science.  Many  important  hints,  indeed,  may  be  gleaned  from 
his  works ;  but,  on  the  whole,  he  has  added  very  little  to  om* 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  Nor  will  this  appear  surprising, 
when  it  is  recollected,  that  he  aspired  to  accomplish  a  similar 
revolution  in  all  the  various  departments  of  physical  know- 
ledge;— ^not  to  mention  the  time  and  thought  he  must  have 
employed  in  those  mathematical  researches,  which,  however 
lightly  esteemed  by  himself,  have  been  long  regarded  as  the 
most  solid  basis  of  his  fame.^ 

Among  the  principal  articles  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy, 
which  are  now  incorporated  with  our  prevailing  and  most 
accredited  doctrines,  the  following  seem  to  me  to  be  chiefly 
entitled  to  notice : — 

1.  His  luminous  exposition  of  the  common  logical  error  of 
attempting  to  define  words  which  express  notions  too  simple  to 
admit  of  analysis.  Mr.  Locke  claims  this  improvement  as 
entirely  his  own ;  but  the  merit  of  it  imquestionably  belongs  to 
Descartes,  although  it  must  be  owned  that  he  has  not  always 
sufficiently  attended  to  it  in  his  own  researchea* 

2.  His  observations  on  the  different  classes  of  our  prejudices — 


'  Such  too  is  the  judgment  pro- 
nounced hy  D'Alembert.  "  Les  mathS- 
matlques  dont  DescarteB  semhle  ayou- 
fait  assez  peu  de  cas,  font  n^anmoins 
aiyourd*hui  la  partie  la  plus  solide  et 
la  moins  contcsteo  de  sa  gloire."  To 
this  he  adds  a  ycry  ingenious  reflection 
on  the  comparatiye  merits  of  Descartes, 
considered  as  a  geometer  and  as  a  phi- 
losopher. "Comme  philosophe,  il  a 
peut-etre  etS  aussi  grand,  mais  il  n'a 
pas  ^t6  si  heureuz.  La  Geometrie,  qui 
par  la  nature  de  son  ohjet  doit  toujours 
gagner  sans  perdre,  ne  pouvoit  man- 
quer,  ^tant  maniee  par  un  aussi  grand 
genie,  de  fairo  des  progr^s  tr^s-scnsibles 
ct  apparens  pour  tout  le  monde.     La 


philosophic  se  trouyoit  dans  un  6tat 
bien  different,  tout  y  6toit  &  commcncer ; 
et  que  ne  content  point  lea  premiera  paa 
en  tout  genre!  le  mirite  de  Us  faire 
diapense  de  cdvi  d'en  fcdre  de  grands.'* 
-^IHae.  Pr€l. 

'  **  The  names  of  simple  ideas  are 
not  capable  of  any  definitions ;  the  names 
of  all  complex  ideas'  are.  It  has  not, 
that  I  know,  been  yet  obseryed  by  any- 
body, what  words  are,  and  what  are  not 
capable  of  being  defined." — (Lookers 
Easay^  Book  iii.  chap.  iy.  §  4.)  Com- 
pare this  with  the  Prindpia  of  Des- 
cartes, I.  10;  and  with  Lord  Stair's 
Phyaiologia  Nova  ExperimeniaUs^  pp.  9 
and  79,  printed  at  licyden  in  1686. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  PROM  BACON  TO  LO(.'KE.  125 

X>articularly  on  the  errors  to  which  we  arc  liable  in  consequence 
of  a  careless  use  of  language  as  the  instrument  of  thought.  The 
greater  part  of  these  observations,  if  not  the  whole,  hiul  licen 
previously  hinted  at  by  Bacon ;  but  they  are  expressed  by  Des- 
cartes with  greater  precision  and  simplicity,  and  in  a  style  l)etter 
adapted  to  the  taste  of  the  present  age. 

3.  The  paramoimt  and  indisputable  authority  which,  in  all 
our  reasonings  concerning  the  human  mind,  he  ascribes  to  the 
evidence  of  consciousness.  Of  this  logical  princi])le  he  has 
availed  himself,  with  irresistible  force,  in  refuting  the  scholastic 
sophisms  against  the  lil)erty  of  human  actions,  drawn  fnnn  the 
prescience  of  the  Deity,  and  other  considerations  of  a  theological 
nature. 

4.  The  most  important,  however,  of  all  his  improvements  in 
metaphysics,  is  the  distinction  which  he  has  so  clearly  and  so 
strongly  drawn  Iwtwecn  the  primary  and  the  secondary  qiiali- 
ties  of  matter.  This  distinction  was  not  unknown  t<>  some  of 
the  ancient  schools  of  philosojJiy  in  Grt^t'ce ;  but  it  was  aftei*- 
wanis  rejected  by  Aristotle,  and  by  the  schoolmen ;  ond  it  wiu* 
reserved  for  Descartes  to  i)lace  it  in  such  a  light,  as  (with  the 
exception  of  a  very  few  sc(^)ticid,  or  rather  {mnuloxicid  theo- 
rists) to  unite  the  opinions  of  all  succeeding  incpiirers.  For 
this  step,  so  appirently  easy,  but  so  momentous  in  its  conse- 
quences, Descartes  was  not  indebtinl  to  any  long  or  difficult 
processes  of  reasoning,  but  to  thow*  habits  of  accunite  and 
patient  attention  to  the  ojwnitions  of  his  own  mind,  which,  from 
his  early  years,  it  was  the  great  business  of  his  life  to  cultivate. 
It  may  be  projRT  to  a<ld,  that  the  epithets  jyrimary  and  second- 
ary, now  nniverwdly  employed  to  mark  the  distinction  in  ques- 
tion, were  first  intrcKluced  by  Locke, — a  circumstance  which 
may  liavc  contributtnl  to  throw  into  the  shatle  the  merits  of 
those  inquirers  who  had  previously  struck  into  the  siune  j)ath. 

As  this  last  article  of  the  Cartesian  system  has  a  close  con- 
nexion with  several  of  the  most  refined  conclusions  yet  formed 
concerning  the  intellectual  phenomena,  I  feel  it  due  to  the  me- 
mory of  the  author  to  pause  for  a  few  moments,  m  order  to 


126 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


vindicate  his  claim  to  some  leading  ideas  commonly  supposed 
by  the  present  race  of  metaphysicians  to  be  of  much  later 
origin.  In  doing  so,  I  shall  have  an  opportunity,  at  the  same 
time,  of  introducing  one  or  two  remarks  which,  I  trust,  will  be 
useful  in  clearing  up  the  obscurity  which  is  allowed,  by  some  of 
the  ablest  followers  of  Descartes  and  Locke,  still  to  hang  over 
this  curious  discussion. 

I  have  elsewhere  observed,  that  Descartes  has  been  very 
generally  charged,  by  the  writers  of  the  last  century,  with  a 
sophistical  play  upon  words  in  his  doctrine  concerning  the  non- 
existence of  secondary  qualities ;  while,  in  fact,  he  was  the  first 
person  by  whom  the  fallacy  of  this  scholastic  paralogism  was 
exposed  to  the  world.^  In  proof  of  this,  it  inight  be  sufficient 
to  refer  to  his  own  statement  in  the  first  part  of  the  Principia;^ 
but,  for  a  reason  which  will  immediately  appear,  I  think  it 
more  advisable,  on  this  occasion,  to  borrow  the  words  of  one  of 
his  earliest  and  ablest  commentators.  "  It  is  only  (says  Father 
Malebranche)  since  the  time  of  Descartes,  that  to  tliose  con- 


*  "  Descartes,  Malcbranclie,  and  Locke 
revived  the  distinction  between  primary 
and  secondary  qualities.  But  tbey 
made  the  secondary  qualities  mere  sen- 
sations, and  the  primary  ones  resem- 
blances of  our  sensations.  They  main- 
tained that  colour,  sound,  and  heat,  are 
not  anything  in  bodies,  but  sensations  of 
the  mind.  .  .  .  The  paradoxes  of  these 
philosophers  were  only  an  abuse  of 
words.  For  when  they  maintain,  cu  an 
important  modem  discovery^  that  there 
IS  no  heat  in  the  fire,  they  mean  no 
more  than  that  the  fire  does  not  feel 
heat,  which  every  one  knew  before." — 
Reid's  Inquiry,  chap.  v.  sect.  viii. 

*  See  sections  Ixix.  Ixx.  Ixxi  The 
whole  of  these  three  paragraphs  i.s  highly 
interesting,  but  I  shall  only  quote  two 
sentences,  which  are  fully  sufficient  to 
shew  that,  in  the  aljove  observations,  I 
have  done  Descartes  no  more  than  strict 
justice. 

*'  Patot  itaqne  in  re  idem  esse,  cum 


dicimus  nos  percipere  colores  in  objec- 
tis,  ac  si  diceremus  nos  percipere  aliquid 
in  objectis,  quod  quidem  quid  sit  igno- 
ramus, sed  a  quo  efficitur  in  nobis  ipsis 
sensns  quidam  valde  manifestus  et  per- 
spicuus,  qui  vocatur  sensus  colorum. 
.  .  .  Cum  vero  putamus  nos  percipere 
colores  in  objectis,  etsi  revera  nesciamus 
quidnam  sit  quod  tunc  nomine  coloris 
appellamus,  nee  ullam  similitudinein 
jntelligere  possimus,  inter  colorem  quem 
supponimus  esse  in  objectis,  et  ilium 
quem  experimiir  esse  in  sensu,  quia 
tamen  hoc  tpsum  non  advertimus,  et 
multa  alia  sunt,  ut  magnitude,  figura, 
numerus,  &c.  qu«e  clare  percipimus  non 
aliter  a  nobis  sentiri  vel  intelligi,  quam 
ut  sunt,  aut  saltem  esse  possunt  in  objec- 
tis, facile,  in  eum  errorem  delabimur,  ut 
judicemus  id,  quod  in  objectis  vocamus 
coHorem^  esse  quid  omnino  simile  colori 
quem  sentimus,  atque  ita  ut  id  quod 
nullo  mode  percipimus,  a  nobis  clare 
p<^rcipi  arbitraremnr." 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


127 


fused  and  iudeterminate  questions,  whether  fire  is  hot,  grass 
green,  and  sugar  sweet,  philosophers  are  in  use  to  re])Iy,  hy  dis- 
tinguishing the  equivocal  meaning  of  the  wonls  expressing  sen- 
sible qaalitiea  If  by  heat,  cold,  and  savour,  you  understand 
such  and  such  a  disposition  of  parts,  or  some  unknown  motion 
of  sensible  qualities,  then  fire  is  hot,  grass  green,  and  sugar 
sweet  But  if  by  heat  and  other  qualities  you  underHtaiid  what 
I  feel  by  fire,  what  I  see  in  grass,  &c.,  fire  is  not  hot,  nor  gniss 
green ;  for  the  heat  I  feel,  and  the  colours  I  see,  are  only  in  the 
souL"^  It  is  sur])rising  how  this,  and  other  jmssages  to  the 
same  purpose  in  Malebranche,  should  have  escnpcKl  the  noti(*e 
of  Dr.  Reid ;  for  nothing  more  precise  on  the  ambiguity  in  the 
names  of  secondary  qualities  is  to  be  ftnuid  in  his  o\mi  works. 
It  is  still  more  surprising  that  Buffier,  who  might  l>e  ex])eoteiI 
to  have  studied  with  care  the  sixjculations  of  his  illustrious 
countrjrmen,  shoidd  have  directly  charged,  not  only  Descartes, 
but  Malel)ranche,  with  imiiut^iining  a  jwradox,  which  they 
were  at  so  much  pains  to  Iwinish  from  the  schools  of  jihilo- 
sophy.* 

The  imjwrtant  observations  of  DescartvK  ujMm  this  subject, 
made  their  way  into  England  very  WH)n  after  his  death.  They 
are  illustnited  at  considerable  length,  and  with  gi'eat  Ingemiity, 
by  Glanvill,  in  hiHtSvejms  ScivJiti/iciu  publishiHl  alnait  thirtei'n 
years  Iwfore  Malebranche's  Search  after  Truth.  So  slow,  how- 
ever, is  the  })rogress  of  goml  sense*,  when  it  lias  to  strugglr 
against  the  pRvjudices  of  the  learned,  that,  as  lately  as  1713, 
the  paradox  so  clearly  ex])laiued  and  refuted   by  Descartes, 


*  Bechtrche  de  la  Verity,  livrc  vi. 
chap.  ii. 

'  "  J*ai  Aflmire  uonvent  que  (PauKHi 
pundn  honiiiiOR  quo  Drscarti'B  oi  Malo- 
branclic,  avoc  Inira  Ri'ctat«'iirH,  (iHrn-nt 
vali>ir,  commu  uiu*  ran*  iln'ouvcrtp  ilc 
K'lir  i)hilo»M)i»lik»,  quo  Ui  rhnltur  ftoit 
tlnns  ftmis-mr.mei  if  nvUnncnl  dans  le 
feu;  an  liou  quo  lo  coinmuiHloH  lioiiiuioR 
trouvoiont  quo  hi  chaleur  Holt  dahs  h 
fe.n  aunn  hitn  que  dam*  rums.  •  .  Miiis 
oil  CO  fanioux  «lobat,  do  quoi  h'npit  il  ? 


T'niquomont  do  riniiK'rfortion  du  laii- 
pago,  qui  raiiHoit  uno  idoc  coiifufM*  |»ar 
Ic  mot  do  chaUiir^  en  nutt  oxpnnuint 
opali'inout  ilcux  oIkws,  qui  Ti  la  vdrito 
(lilt  (|Ur1(|Uo  rapiMirt  ou  analopio,  ot 
Ix)UitaTit  qui  Sdiit  tivH  diir«Toiitos  ; 
Havoir,  1.  l(t  Hoiitiniciit  <lo  clialour  quo 
U01I8  ('{irouvDUA  on  uous ;  2.  la  iliKpo^i- 
ti<in  (|ui  ost  dans  lo  fi-u  a  jmnluiro  on 
IHUIH  CO  Hcntiuicut  do  olialcur.'' — (\mr» 
d*"  Sciatn'8,  par  lo  IVro  Huftior,  p.  HIO. 
A  PariH,  17:i2. 


128  DISSERTATION. — ^PART  FIRST. 

appears  to  have  kept  some  footing  in  the  English  Universities.* 
In  a  paper  of  the  Ouardian^  giving  an  account  of  a  visit  paid 
by  Jack  Lizard  to  his  mother  and  sisters,  after  a  year  and  a 
half's  residence  at  Oxford,  the  following  prScis  is  given  of  his 
logical  attainmenta  "  For  the  first  week  (it  is  said)  Jack 
dealt  wholly  in  paradoxea  It  was  a  common  jest  with  him  to 
pinch  one  of  his  sister's  lap-dogs,  and  afterwards  prove  he  could 
not  feel  it.  When  the  girls  were  sorting  a  set  of  knots,  he 
would  demonstrate  to  them  that  all  the  ribbons  were  of  the 
same  colour ;  or  rather,  says  Jack,  of  no  colour  at  all.  My 
Lady  Lizard  herself,  though  she  was  not  a  little  pleased  with 
her  son  s  improvements,  was  one  day  almost  angry  with  him  ; 
for,  having  accidentally  burnt  her  fingers  as  she  was  lighting 
the  lamp  for  her  tea-pot,  in  the  midst  of  her  anguisli,  Jack  laid 
hold  of  the  opportunity  to  instruct  her,  that  there  was  no  such 
thing  afi  heat  in  the  fire." 

This  miserable  quibble  about  the  non-existence  of  secondary 
qualities,  never  could  have  attracted  the  notice  of  so  many  pro- 
found thinkers,  had  it  not  been  for  a  peculiar  difficulty  con- 
nected with  oiu"  notions  of  colour ^  of  which  I  do  not  know  an^ 
one  English  philosopher  who  seems  to  have  been  sufficiently 
aware.  That  this  quality  belongs  to  the  same  class  with 
sounds,  smells,  tastes,  heat  and  cold,  is  equally  admitted  by  the 
partisans  of  Descartes  and  of  Locke ;  and  must,  indeed,  appear 
an  indisputable  fact  to  all  who  are  capable  of  reflecting  ac- 
curately on  the  subject.  But  still,  between  colour  and  the 
other  qualities  now  mentioned,  a  very  important  distinction 
must  be  allowed  to  exist.  In  the  case  of  smells,  tastes,  sounds, 
heat  and  cold,  every  person  must  immediately  perceive,  that  his 
senses  give  him  only  a  relative  idea  of  the  external  quality ;  in 
other  words,  that  they  only  convey  to  him  the  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  certain  proi)erties  or  powers  in  external  objects, 
which  fit  them  to  produce  certain  sensations  in  his  mind ;  and 
accordingly,  nobody  ever  hesitated  a  moment  about  the  truth 

*  Mr.  Stewart  substitutes  "  the  Eng-  Mr.  I/)cke  had  Wen  expelled ; "  as,  in 

li«h   Universities"   for   what  stood  in  point  of  fact,  I/>cke  was  not  expelled 

the    first    edition —  "  that    University  from  Oxford  but  from  Christ  Church — 

from  which,  about  thirty  years  before,  Editor. 


CHAP.  II. — PUIL080PHY  FROM  BACON  TO  UX'KK.  I2d 

of  tluH  part  of  the  Ctirteman  philosophy,  in  ho  fur  uh  these 
qualities  alone  are  concerned.  But,  in  the  application  of  the 
name  doctrine  to  colour,  I  have  converwMl  with  many,  with 
whom  I  found  it  quite  in  vain  to  argue ;  and  tliisy  not  fritni  any 
defect  in  their  reasoning  jiowcrei,  but  from  thoir  inaqiacity  to 
reflect  steadily  on  the  subjects  of  their  coiiHciouHuess  ;  or  rather, 
perhaps,  from  their  inca|Nicity  to  seixirate,  as  objects  of  the 
understanding,  two  things  indissolubly  combined  by  early  and 
constant  habit,  as  objects  of  the  imagination.  The  silence  of 
modem  metaphysicians  on  this  head  is  the  mori*  surprising, 
that  I/Alembert  long  ago  invited  their  attention  to  it  as  one  of 
the  most  wonderful  phenomena  in  the  history  of  the  human 
mind.  "  The  bias  we  ac<iuire/*  1  quote  his  own  words,  "  in 
consequence  of  habits  contracte<l  in  infancy,  to  refer  to  a  huIh 
stance  material  and  divisible,  wluit  really  l)el()ngs  to  a  substimcv 
spiritual  and  simple,  is  a  thing  well  worthy  of  the  attention  of 
metaphysicians.  Nothing,"  he  adds,  "  is  {MThaps  more  extra- 
onlinary,  in  the  oi)enitions  of  the  mind,  than  to  see  it  transjKirt 
its  sensations  out  of  itself,  and  to  spread  them,  as  it  were,  over 
a  sul)stance  to  which  they  cannot  jK)ssibly  l)elong.*'  It  would 
be  difKcult  to  state  the  fact  in  question  in  t«.»rms  moR*  brief, 
precise,  and  jHfrspicuous. 

That  the  iUusion,  so  well  descTilied  in  the  above  ([notation, 
was  not  overlooked  by  Descartes  and  Malebrancbe,  ap|)ears  un- 
questionable, from  their  extreme  solicitude  to  nntonc^ile  it  with 
tliat  implicit  faith,  which,  from  religious  considerations,  they 
conceived  to  be  due  to  the  ti'stimony  of  thost^  fiuMilties  vnih 
which  our  Maker  has  endowed  us.  Malebranche,  in  particular, 
is  at  pains  to  distinguish  lK»tween  the  senstition,  and  the  judg- 
ment combiniMl  with  it.  "  The  senwition  nt^ver  deceives  us ;  it 
differs  in  no  resiK»et  from  what  we  conctave  it  to  1k».  The 
Judgment,  t(H),  is  natural,  or  rather  (sjiys  Malebrani'lie)  it  Is 
only  a  sort  of  compounded  sensation  ;*  but  tliis  judgment  leads 
us  into  no  error  with  re8j)ect  to  i)hilosophieal  truth.      The 

'  He  would  Imw   rxpn-swd  hiniHolf      the  Hj-nHution  ;  l«nt  liis  nipjininp  in  su(H- 
luorc  accunitely,  if  ho  ha* I  Haid,  that  the       ciently  obvious, 
judgment  18  iiuh'KHoluhly  coinhin<*(l  with 

VOL.  I.  I 


130  DISSERTATION.— PART  FIRST, 

moment  we  exercise  our  reason,  we  see  the  fact  in  its  true  light, 
and  can  account  completely  for  that  illusive  appearance  which 
it  presents  to  the  imagination." 

Not  satisfied,  however,  with  this  solution  of  the  difficulty,  or 
rather  perhaps  apprehensive  that  it  might  not  appear  quite 
satisfactory  to  some  others,  he  has  called  in  to  his  assistance  the 
doctrine  of  original  sin;  asserting,  that  all  the  mistaken  judg- 
ments which  our  constitution  leads  us  to  form  concerning  ex- 
ternal objects  and  their  qualities,  are  the  consequences  of  the 
fall  of  our  first  parents ;  since  which  adventure  (as  it  is  some- 
what irreverently  called  by  Dr.  Beattie)  it  requires  the  constant 
vigilance  of  reason  to  guard  against  the  numberless  tricks  and 
impostures  practised  upon  us  by  our  external  senses.^  In 
another  passage,  Malebranche  observes  very  beautifully,  (though 
not  very  consistently  with  his  theological  argument  on  the  same 
point,)  that  our  senses  being  given  us  for  the  preservation  of 
our  bodies,  it  waa  requisite  for  our  wellbeing,  that  we  should 
judge  as  we  do  of  sensible  qualities.  "  In  the  case  of  the  sensa- 
tions of  pain  and  of  heat,  it  was  much  more  advantageous  that 
we  should  seera  to  feel  them  in  those  parts  of  the  body  which  are 
immediately  affected  by  them,  than  that  we  should  associate 
them  with  the  external  objects  by  which  they  are  occasioned  ; 
because  pain  and  heat,  having  the  power  to  injure  our  members, 
it  was  necessary  that  we  should  be  warned  in  what  place  to 
apply  the  remedy  ;  whereas  colours  not  being  likely,  in  ordinary 
cases,  to  hurt  the  eye,  it  would  have  been  superfluous  for  us  to 
know  that  they  are  painted  on  the  retina.  On  the  contrary,  as 
they  are  only  useful  to  us,  from  the  information  they  convey 
with  respect  to  things  external,  it  was  essential  that  we  should 
be  so  formed  as  to  attach  them  to  the  corresponding  objects  on 
which  they  depend."  * 

*  **  We  are  informed  by  Father  Male*  they  are  now  continually  l>Tng  in  wait 

branche,  that  the  senses  were  at  first  as  to  deceive  us." — Essay  on  IVuili,  p.  241, 

honest  faculties  as  one  could  desire  to  second  edition. 

be  endued  with,  till  after  they  were  dc-  •  Recherche  de  la  V€rit€^  liv.  i.  chaj). 
bauched  by  original  sin ;  an  adventure  xiii.  §  5.  In  Dr.  Reid's  strictures  on 
from  which  they  contracted  such  an  in-  Descartes  and  Locke  there  are  two  re- 
vincible  propensity  to  cheating,   that  marks  which  I  am  at  a  loss  how  to  re.- 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BAC^ON  TO  lAK'KE. 


131 


The  two  following  n^imirks,  wliich  I  shall  ntiite  with  all  {lOth 
sible  brevity,  appear  to  me  to  go  far  to\^-anl8  a  solution  of  the 
problem  proposed  by  D'Aleml)ert. 

1.  According  to  the  new  theory  of  \-iHion,  commonly  (hut,  as 
I  shaU  afterwards  shew,  not  altogether  Justly)  ascrilKKl  to  Dr. 
Berkeley,  lineal  distance  from  the  eye  is  not  an  original  percei)- 
tion  of  sight  In  the  meantime,  from  the  first  moment  tliat 
the  eye  opens,  the  most  intinuite  connexion  must  necessarily  be 
established  between  the  notion  of  ro/oMr  and  those  of  visible  ex- 
tension and  figure.  At  first,  it  is  not  improlNibIc  tliat  all  of 
them  may  lie  conceive<l  to  Iw  merely  viodificaiionH  of  the  mind ; 
but,  however  this  may  lie,  the  manifcHt  conw^tpience  is,  that 
when  a  comjiariKon  betwei*n  the  R(»nse»  of  Si«^ht  an<l  of  Touch 
has  taught  us  to  refer  to  a  distance  the  objw*ts  of  the  one,  the 
indissolubly  associated  sensations  of  the  other  must  of  course 
accompany  them,  how  far  soc^ver  that  distance  may  extend.' 

2.  It  is  well  known  to  Ix?  a  g(»nend  law  of  our  constitution, 
when  one  thing  is  destined,  either  by  nature  or  by  convention,  to 
be  the  sign  of  another,  that  the  mind  has  a  di8jH)sition  t4)  pass 
on,  as  rapidly  as  ixwsible,  to  the  thing  signified,  without  dwell- 
ing on  the  sign  as  an  obj<»ct  worthy  of  its  attention.     The  most 


mncile.  "Colour,"  savH  ho,  'SliffiTH 
from  other  secoiidur}'  (|ualitu>8  in  thiK, 
that  whcn-as  the  nuinc  of  tho  quality  irt 
iiometimen  pivfii  to  tlu'  poiiHatiiin  whirli 
indioAtoH  it,  and  in  occasiomM!  hv  it.  wo 
ncvor,  nil  far  ofl  I  can  jiulps  f^vo  thn 
namo  of  ctihmr  t<i  tho  KciiNation,  hut  to 
tho  (piality  only."  A  frw  HontcnccH 
lioforp,  ho  had  ohwn-rd,  "That  when 
wo  think  or  Kixnk  of  any  (mrticnlar 
colour,  howcvor  niinplo  tho  mition  nmy 
Hooin  to  l»e  which  w  pn'tM'ntcd  to  tho 
iniapnation,  it  ih  n-ally  in  runno  Kurt 
componndod.  it  involvoH  an  unknown 
rnnao,  ami  a  known  offoct.  Th<»  nanio 
of  colour  Ixdonpi  indoo<l  to  the  ohuko 
<mly,  and  not  to  tho  ofTrrt.  Hut  an  tho 
oauBC  18  unknown,  wo  can  form  no  din- 
tinct  conception  of  it,  but  hy  itn  relation 
to  the  known  effect.     And,  therefore, 


l)oth  p:o  tof^thor  in  the  iniapnation, 
and  ar<>  ho  closely  united,  that  tlioy  an* 
niiHtaken  for  ono  Hiniple  ohjrct  of 
thought." — Iiiift'irif,  chap.  vi.  §  4. 

Thew*  two  pjiNHap'H  m-eui  ipiit*'  incon- 
NiMli'nt  with  each  <ithrr.  If  in  tin?  jH-r- 
ccption  of  rolour,  the  Mi*nsatiou  and  the 
iiualitv  "  he  NO  rIoKol V  unitt>d  un  to  Ih*  niifi- 
taken  for  one  Hinjrli*  <»lijiTt  of  thoufrht," 
does  it  not  ohviounly  follow,  that  it  in  to 
thiH  coiuitounded  notion  the  name  of 
ntlotir  mu«t,  in  p-neral,  U*  pv^n  ?  On 
th<>  other  hand,  when  it  it  naid  that  thr 
name  of  a il our  in  uerer  girvH  to  thi'.  sr.n- 
sation^  hut  to  thr  quality  only,  do4>8  not 
thin  imply,  that  every  tim«  the  word  is 
pninoum^ed  tho  (piality  in  wparati'd 
from  the  ncnHaiion,  even  in  the  iinagina* 
tionn  of  the  rulfiar? 

»  Sec  Note  M . 


132 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


remarkable  of  all  examples  of  this  occurs  in  the  acquired  per- 
ceptions of  sight,  where  our  estimates  of  distance  are  frequently 
the  result  of  an  intellectual  process,  comparing  a  variety  of  dif- 
ferent signs  together,  without  a  possibility  on  our  part,  the 
moment  afterwards,  of  recalling  one  single  step  of  the  process 
to  our  recollection.  Our  inattention  to  the  sensations  of  colour, 
considered  as  affections  of  the  Mind,  or  as  modifications  of  our 
own  being,  appears  to  me  to  be  a  fact  of  precisely  the  same 
description ;  for  all  these  sensations  were  plainly  intended  by 
nature  to  perform  the  office  of  signs,  indicating  to  us  the  figures 
and  distances  of  things  external.  Of  their  essential  importance 
in  this  point  of  view,  an  idea  may  be  formed,  by  supposing  for 
a  moment  the  whole  face  of  nature  to  exhibit  only  one  uniform 
colour,  without  the  slightest  variety  even  of  light  and  shade. 
Is  it  not  self-evident  that,  on  this  supposition,  the  organ  of 
sight  would  be  entirely  useless,  inasmuch  as  it  is  by  the 
varieties  of  colour  alone  that  the  outlines  or  visible  figures  of 
bodies  are  so  defined,  as  to  be  distinguishable  one  from  another  ? 
Nor  could  the  eye,  in  this  case,  give  us  any  information  con- 
cerning diversities  of  distance  ;  for  all  the  various  signs  of  it, 
enumerated  by  optical  writers,  presuppose  the  antecedent  recog- 
nition of  the  bodies  around  us,  as  separate  objects  of  perception. 
It  is  not  therefore  surprising,  tliat  signs  so  indispensably  sub- 
servient to  the  exercise  of  our  noblest  sense,  should  cease,  in 
early  infancy,  to  attract  notice  as  the  subjects  of  our  conscious- 
ness; and  that  afterwards  they  should  present  themselves  to 
the  imagination  rather  as  qualities  of  Matter,  than  as  attributes 
of  Mind.^ 


*  In  Dr.  Reid's  Inquiry,  he  has  in- 
troduced a  discussion  concerning  the 
perception  of  visible  fig^tre,  Tvhich  has 
puzzled  me  since  the  first  time  (more 
than  forty  years  ago)  that  I  road  his 
work.  The  discussion  relates  to  this 
question,  Whether  "  there  bo  any  sen- 
sation proper  to  visible  figure,  by  which 
it  is  suggested  in  vision  ?**  The  result 
of  the  argument  is,  that  "  our  eye  might 
have  been  so  framed  as  to  8iigg<efit  the 


figure  of  the  object,  without  suggesting 
colour,  or  any  other  quality;  and,  of 
consequence,  that  there  seems  to  he  no 
sensation  appropriated  to  visible  figure  ; 
this  quality  being  suggested  imme- 
dicttely  by  the  material  impression  upon 
the  organ,  of  which  impression  we  are 
not  conscious." — {Inquiry^  &c.  chap.  vi. 
§  S.)  To  my  apprehension,  nothing  can 
appear  more  manifest  than  this,  that,  if 
there  had  been  no  variety  in  our  sensa- 


CHAP.  U. — PHILOSOPHT  FROM  BACdN  TO  LiH'KK 


13:) 


To  this  reference  of  the  HeiiBatioii  of  oiloiir  to  ilu*  i'Ntornul 
object,  I  can  think  of  nothing:  w>  uiuiIopniH  ns  tlio  fi*i'liiip<  wc 
exjjerience  in  surveying  a  library  of  biNtkH.  Wo  HiM'iik  of  thv 
volumes  piled  up  on  its  shelvcM,  as  treasures  or  fmyazincs  of 


tions  of  ooloor,  and  still  morp,  if  we  had 
had  no  teniatioii  of  ciilfiiir  whatauever, 
the  oTKan  uf  tight  could  have  ^wii  u« 
DO  infunnation,  cither  with  mnpect  to 
figwrtM  or  to  dittanees;  and,  f>f  coiino- 
quence,  would  hare  bei'D  aa  tiflclfM  tu 
UH,  as  if  we  had  been  afflii'tiMlf  fruni  the 
moment  of  oar  birth,  with  a  tftitta 
aertna. 

[The  following,  which  whn  fnund 
amongst  Mr.  Stewart's  nmiiiiiH*ri|itN, 
neems  the  scruU  of  a  letter  to  Kciil  him- 
self, in  which  Stewart  statcH  "  what 
puzzled  him  in  the  disfunhiuu,  mt>ru 
than  flirty  years  ngij." — Kth'tor. 

"  Sib, — I  h»d  tin-  Imnour  of  ymir  letter 
some  time  ai;o,  nml  wtnild  H«Ktnt'r  Iiavit 
returned  vou  niv  thanlcH  for  it,  if  1  had 
nut  accident;illy  lent  your  Impury  tu  a 
girntleuian  whi»  Ii%'i>it  at  a  miiHi'Ii'niliN' 
distance  fxtrni  nie,  and  did  ni>t  fiitxiNe  to 
trouble  yiiu  again,  till  I  Khuiild  havi*  nn 
opportunity  of  reviewing  the  <iIinitv:i 
tions  which  von  have  then-  niadr  dh  tlic 
KubjiKrt  of  our  cnnfHj>ond»'me. 

"The  illiiHtratiiin  wliich  \\m  Hi'nt  iiir 
of  the  notion  whicli  ytm  aunt  x  tu  the 
woni  a^fjffeat^  haH  not  only  HiitiKficd  me 
with  respect  to  tin*  jintpriity  of  tlir  iihi' 
which  you  have  made  of  it  in  tlir  jdim- 
Niige  to  which  1  n'fiTP'il,  l»nt  liaK  ^iviMi 
me  a  clean.T  notion  of  vonr  M-nlinicntN 

» 

ctmceming  the  manm-r  in  ulnVIi  ))<  r- 
ct>ption  is  carried  on  than  I  rvi-r  hml 
before.  I  waH  led  tf»  olijci-t  to  your  um- 
of  the  word  in  thin  iiiNlanci',  tnuu  ol»- 
Merving  the  w-nw  in  wlnVli  von  p-ntT- 
ally  use  it  thmngii  tln'  wiinlt*  of  your 
l)ook.  As  far  an  I  am  ;iM«-  to  rccoHn-t, 
the  {wftMige  which  I  <|not«d  in  tlh*  only 
one  in  the  Inquiry  in  wliirh  vou  liavf 
nseil  the  word  nvf/ffi'ift  to  expn'KM  tin- 
ronmiunication    of    khowlcdp-    to    thr 


mind  by  meaiiN  of  sonn'thing  of  wliit  h 
wc  an*  not  conN4.i«>us.  In  p>n«Tal  vou 
enipli>y  it  ti»  exprcHK  tin*  t'unvi-\ani-i>  of 
knowlcf]gi>  to  th«'  mi  ml  by  nifans  of  na 
tural  or  of  artitii-ial  higUN.  TImn  li-d  uh* 
to  HUNjN'ct,  tliut  tin*  u.M>  wliii-ji  \uu  lia\e 
made  of  it  in  tliiM  purtii-nlar  i-a.»>'  hail 

jiriH- Ii'd  from  inntlvrrtmn',     'I  In-  i)l) 

sen'atiouH  with  wliii  li  ^  on  have  fa\i>unil 
iiii*  IiHvr  convinced  nic  of  iii\  nii*itaki', 
and  ut  the  »iam«>  tiiiii'  lia\i'  |Nii]itr<I  nut 
tome  thr  reanon  i»f  ynur  rmitining  tin* 
n^4(•  of  it  in  gi-ni*ra1  in  tlii;  ni.inuiT  MJiirli 
von  liavi*  d'lnr. 

"  .\n  til  till-  otliiT  }iii||it.  I  :im  iii't  ^-i 
fully  Hali<«(iiMl.  I  mn  liMppy  !••  tiuii,  in 
drrd,  liiat  our  Miiliuii  nfs  u|Hiri  tlu'  <u\*- 
Jci-t  arr  ni>t  so  ililV>-ri  nt  ;is  I  at  first 
a|)pn-iicnili->I,  but  1  il<i  nut  iiiiau'iiii-  that 
tlii-v  vil  i-iilin  Iv  i"itii  iili-.  V«iu  M-rni 
t4»  ark]io\\li'iIp>  tliat  iIm-  iuikIi-  in  iiliiili 
w<'  4il»t:iiii  till-  |M  rri-]itiM|i  III'  \  iojlilf  lit^urc 
\n  pn-i  i-'-l\  ^-iiiiil.ir  tn  tli«'  ni<"li-  in  Mliii  h 
w*  obtain  tin-  |ii  n-i  ptinu  nf  t:inL''il'ii' 
li;:nrr.  So  tiir  I  ]»■  rtii  iK  Ji^riii-  with 
yi'U.  A  rill  1  a|']>ii  lii-nd  ,\<iu  ^^ill  liki-- 
wi"!*  j»rkn'i\v|i'<Ip  ilif  ri-ii*i(>niiii:s  \\bii  h 
y<Mi  iwivi'  .'iiixiiuii'il  ujHin  tlii-  |i«ri'<-iitii>n 
of  visilili*  tiL^tU'c  an*  a|i|iliriil>li-  to  nur 
|)i'rri-|)tinn  of  rxti-nsinn  botb  li>  siL'hl 
and  touili.  'I'liis  olisi-i  \;iti>in  liail  i>i  iiir- 
H'd  to  nil*  iM'tiiri"  iIh- tirsl  tirm*  I  ^\l■otl'  to 
vou.  l>ut  as  yon  liavi'  taken  no  nntici' 
of  it  in  your  //«////<>//,  ;in«i  as,  in  anotlirr 
pari  of  ynur  Inink,  (ji.  :;(h;  of  tin-  ;;,!  Kili- 
ti<in,)  you  have  s]Hikin  of  our  |ifrre|itiiin 
of  visil»l«*  fi^^uri'.  aM  an  iMijitinn  fri»m 
all  our  |M-rrij»tii»nH.  1  was  li-il  to  cdn- 
rluilr  tliat  you  had  (-oiiirivrii  -tiun-  |h  ru 
liaritv  alN>ut  it  whirb  I  did  not  fulK 
t-oniprrhfiid.  It  waN  tliis  wliii'h  first 
tunird  my  alti-ntion  |iartii-ul.-irl^  to  tli<' 
subject,    und    gMVf    Hki-    to    the    ojiscr 


134 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


the  knowledge  of  past  ages ;  and  contemplate  them  with  grati- 
tude and  reverence,  as  inexhaustible  sources  of  instruction  and 
delight  to  the  mind.  Even  in  looking  at  a  page  of  print  or  of 
manuscript,  we  are  apt  to  say,  that  the  ideas  we  acquire  are 
received  by  the  sense  of  sight ;  and  we  are  scarcely  conscious 
of  a  metaphor,  when  we  employ  this  language.  On  such  occa- 
sions we  seldom  recollect,  that  nothing  is  perceived  by  the  eye 
but  a  multitude  of  black  strokes  drawn  upon  white  paper ^  and 
that  it  is  our  own  acquired  habits  which  communicate  to  these 
strokes  the  whole  of  that  significancy  whereby  they  are  dis- 
tinguished from  the  unmeaning  scrawling  of  an  infant  or  a 
changeling.  The  knowledge  which  we  conceive  to  be  pre- 
served in  books,  like  the  fragrance  of  a  rose,  or  the  gilding  of 
the  clouds,  depends,  for  its  existence,  on  the  relation  between 
the  object  and  the  percipient  mind;  and  the  only  difference 
between  the  two  cases  is,  that  in  the  one,  this  relation  is  the 
local  and  temporary  effect  of  conventional  habits ;  in  the  other. 


vationB  which  I  sent  you  in  my  last 
letter. 

"  Although,  however,  I  flatter  myself 
we  agreed  in  this  general  point,  that 
our  perception  of  visible  figure  is  ob- 
tained in  a  way  similar  to  that  in 
which  we  obtain  the  perception  of  tangi- 
ble figure,  I  cannot  help  being  of  opinion 
that  the  perception  in  neither  case  is 
obtained  without  the  intervention  of  a 
sensation.  You  have  said,  indeed,  that 
you  allow  it  to  be  impossible  for  us  in 
our  present  state,  to  perceive  figure 
without  colour,  and  consequently,  with- 
out the  sensation  of  colour ;  but  I  am 
inclined  to  suspect  that  you  imagine 
the  impossibility  in  the  case  to  arise, 
not  from  any  connexion  or  dependence 
between  these  perceptions  established 
by  nature,  but  merely  from  their  hap- 
])ening  to  be  received  by  the  same  organ 
of  sense,  so  that  they  always  enter  the 
mind  in  company.  To  this  opinion  I 
eannot  subscribe  ;  because  it  appears  to 
me  to  bo  evident,  that  our  perceptions 


of  colour  and  figure  are  not  only  re- 
ceived by  the  same  organ  of  sense,  but 
that  the  varieties  in  our  perceptions  of 
colour  are  the  means  of  our  perception 
of  visible  figure. 

"I  formerly  observed,  that  our  per- 
ception of  visible  figure  appears  to  me 
to  be  a  necessary  consequence  of  that 
law  of  our  nature,  that  every  visible 
point  is  seen  in  the  direction  of  a  straight 
line  passing  from  the  picture  of  that 
point  on  the  retina  through  the  centre 
of  the  eye.  If  a  blind  man  was  made 
acquainted  with  this  law  of  our  nature, 
he  could  of  himself  infer  the  neces- 
sity of  our  perceiving  visible  figure.  If 
it  is  allowed,  then,  that  our  percep- 
tion of  the  visible  figure  of  an  object 
is  the  result  of  our  perceiving  the  posi- 
tion of  all  the  different  points  of  its 
boundary,  it  is  evident,  that  if  visible 
figure  can  be  perceived  without  any 
other  quality,  then  position  may  like- 
wise be  perceived  without  any  other 
quality.] 


CHAP.  II. — ^PHILOHOPHT  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  135 

it  is  the  universal  and  the  unchangeable  work  of  nature.  The  art 
of  printing,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  in  future  render  the  former 
relation,  as  well  as  the  latter,  coeval  with  our  species ;  but,  in 
the  past  history  of  mankind,  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  often 
it  may  have  been  dissolved.  What  vestiges  can  now  be  traced 
of  those  scientific  attainments  which,  in  early  times,  drew  to 
Egyptj  from  every  \mii  of  the  civilized  world,  all  those  who 
were  anxious  to  be  initiated  in  the  mysteries  of  philosophy  ? 
The  symbols  whic]i  still  remain  in  that  celebrated  country, 
inscribed  on  eternal  mommients,  have  long  lost  the  correspon- 
dent minds  which  reflected  u}H)n  them  their  own  intellectual 
attributes.  To  us  they  are  useless  and  silent,  and  serve  only 
to  attest  the  existence  of  arts,  of  wldch  it  is  impossible  to 
unriddle  the  nature  and  the  objects. 

Vftriis  mine  Hciilptn  figiiris 


Marmora,  trunca  tanien  viKuntur  mutm|ue  nobiii ; 
Signa  n'pcrtoruin  tuimur,  C4;cid<'ru  n']>erta. 

What  has  now  been  remarked  with  resiKXJt  to  toritten  char- 
acters^  may  be  extended  very  iieurly  to  oral  language.  When 
we  listen  to  the  discourse  of  a  public  speaker,  eloquence  and 
persuasion  seem  to  issue  from  his  lips ;  and  we  are  little  aware, 
that  we  ourselves  infuse  the  soul  into  evury  word  that  he  utters. 
The  case  is  exactly  the  same  when  we  enjoy  the  conversation  of 
a  friend.  We  aseril)e  the  charm  entirely  to  his  voice  and 
accents;  but  without  our  co-operation,  its  iK)tency  would  vanish. 
How  very  small  the  comparative  proportion  is,  which,  in  such 
cases,  the  words  Bix>ken  contribute  to  the  intellectual  and  moral 
effect,  I  have  elsewhere  endeavoured  to  show. 

I  have  enlarged  on  this  ])iirt  of  the  Cartesian  system,  not 
certainly  on  account  of  its  intrinsic  value,  as  connected  with 
the  theory  of  our  external  i)erceptioii8,  (although  even  in  thia 
respect  of  the  deepest  interest  to  every  philosophical  inquirer,) 
but  because  it  affords  the  most  jialpable  and  striking  example 
I  know  of,  to  illustrate  the  indissoluble  associations  established 
during  the  period  of  infancy,  l)etween  the  intellectual  and  the 
material  worlds.  It  was  plainly  the  intention  of  nature,  that 
om-  thoughts  should  be  liabitually  directed  to  things  external ; 


136  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

and  accordingly,  the  bulk  of  mankind  are  not  only  indisposed 
to  study  the  intellectual  phenomena,  but  are  incapable  of  that 
degree  of  reflection  which  is  necessary  for  their  examination. 
Hence  it  is,  that  when  we  begin  to  analyze  our  own  internal 
constitution,  we  find  the  facts  it  presents  to  us  so  very  inti- 
mately combined  in  our  conceptions  with  the  qualities  of 
matter,  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  draw  distinctly  and 
steadily  the  line  between  them;  and  that,  when  Mind  and 
Matter  are  concerned  in  the  same  result,  the  former  is  either 
entirely  overlooked,  or  is  regarded  only  as  an  accessory  prin- 
ciple, dependent  for  its  existence  on  the  latter.  To  the  same 
cause  it  is  owing,  that  we  find  it  so  difficult  (if  it  be  at  all 
practicable)  to  form  an  idea  of  any  of  our  intellectual  opera- 
tions, abstracted  from  the  images  suggested  by  their  meta- 
phorical names.  It  was  objected  to  Descartes  by  some  of  his 
contemporaries,  that  the  impossibility  of  accomplishing  the 
abstractions  which  he  recommended,  furnished  of  itself  a  strong 
argument  against  the  soundness  of  his  doctrines.^  The  proper 
answer  to  this  objection  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
him ;  nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  any  of  his  successors ; — that 
the  abstractions  of  the  understanding  are  totally  different  from 
the  abstractions  of  the  imagination;  and  that  we  may  reason 
with  most  logical  correctness  about  tilings  considered  apart, 
which  it  is  impossible,  even  in  thought,  to  conceive  as  sepa- 
rated from  each  other.  His  own  speculations  concerning  the 
indissolubility  of  the  union  established  in  the  mind  between 
the  sensations  of  colour  and  the  primary  qualities  of  extension 
and  figure,  might  have  furnished  liim,  on  this  occasion,  with  a 
triumphant  reply  to  his  adversaries ;  not  to  mention  that  the 
variety  of  metaphors,  equally  fitted  to  denote  the  same  intel- 
lectual powers  and  operations,  might  have  been  urged  as  a 
demonstrative  proof,  that  none  of  these  metaphors  have  any 
connexion  with  the  general  laws  to  which  it  is  the  business  of 
the  philosopher  to  trace  the  mental  phenomena.  ^ 

When  Descartes  established  it  as  a  general  principle,  that 
nothing  conceivahle  by  the  power  of  imagination  could  throtu 

*  8eo,  in  partijiilar,  Gassendi  Opern^  torn.  iii.  pp.  300,  301.     Lugduni,  1663. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


137 


any  light  <m  the  operationa  of  thought,  (a  principle  which  I 
consider  as  exclusively  his  own,)  he  laid  the  foundation-stone 
of  the  Experimental  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind.  Tliat 
the  same  truth  had  been  previously  })erceived  more  or  less 
distinctly,  by  Bacon  and  others,  appears  probable  from  the 
general  complexion  of  their  s})eculations ;  but  which  of  them 
has  expressed  it  with  equal  ])recision,  or  laid  it  down  as  a 
fundamental  maxim  in  their  logic  ?  It  is  for  this  reason,  that 
I  am  disposed  to  date  the  origin  of  the  tnie  Philosophy  of  Mind 
from  the  Principia  of  Descartes  rather  than  from  the  Organon 
of  Bacon,  or  the  Esaay  of  Locke ;  without,  however,  ineaiiing  to 
c*ompare  the  French  author  with  our  two  eomitrj'men,  either  as 
a  contributor  to  our  stock  oi  facta  relating  to  the  intellectual 
phenomena,  or  as  the  author  of  any  important  coucluRiou  con- 
cerning the  general  laws  to  which  they  may  Ik?  referred.  It  is 
mortifying  to  reflect  on  the  inconceivably  smull  number  of 
subsequent  inquirers  by  whom  the  H])irit  of  this  cardinal 
maxim  has  l)een  fully  seized ;  and  tliat,  even  in  our  own  times, 
the  old  and  inveterate  pixyudice  to  which  it  is  op]K)8ed,  shoidd 
not  only  have  been  revived  with  sucrcHK,  but  should  have  Ikxju 
very  generally  regiirdetl  as  i\\\  originnl  and  profound  discovery 
in  metaphysical  sc^ience.  These*  circumstances  must  plead  my 
apology  for  the  sjmce  1  have  assigned  to  the  Cartesian  Meta- 
physics in  the  crowdwl  historical  ])icturc  which  I  am  at  present 
attempting  to  sketch.  The  fulness  of  illustration  whicli  1  have 
bestowed  on  the  works  of  the  master,  will  enable  me  to  j»ass 
over  those  of  his  disciples,  and  even  of  his  antagonists,  with  a 
correspondent  brevity.* 


*  The  Cartesian  drnrtrino  conrornin^ 
the  secondary  qnaliticR  of  matter,  is 
susceptihie  of  vuriouH  oth<'r  important 
HppIicAtionH.  Might  it  not  W  cniploycd, 
at  leant  ah  an  nnjinnentum  atl  hnminein 
tif^nHi  Mr.  Hume  and  othont,  who, 
admitting  this  ]Mirt  <»('  the  ('artcRi.in 
KVHtem,  weni  nevortheh'HH  to  havf  a 
secret  leaning  ti»  the  Hi|)rnn'  of  niu- 
torialiHm?    Mr.  Hum''  \u\i>  sunirwhfre 


fipoken  of  thai  little  a(jitati(m  of  the 
brain  we  coil  thonffht.  If  it  U^  iinphi- 
luHDphical  to  confound  our  senaatioiu  of 
cohair,  of  hi*ut,  and  <»f  cold,  with  HUch 
quallticH  iiH  exteuHion,  ligiir<>,  nnd  noII- 
dity,  iH  it  not,  if  [Hmsildr,  Ntill  mon* 
HO,  to  confound  with  tln'w  (lualiticM  the 
piicnitmcna  of  thought,  i>f  voHtion,  an<l 
of  moral  emotion? 


138 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


After  having  said  so  much  of  the  singular  merits  of  Descartes 
as  the  father  of  genuine  metaphysics,  it  is  incumbent  on  me  to 
add,  that  his  errors  in  this  science  were  on  a  scale  of  propor- 
tionate magnitude.  Of  these  the  most  prominent  (for  I  must 
content  myself  with  barely  mentioning  a  few  of  essential  im- 
portance) were  his  obstinate  rejection  of  all  speculations  about 
final  causes;^  his  hypothesis  concerning  the  lower  animals, 
which  he  considered  as  mere  machines  ;2  his  doctrine  of  innate 
ideas,  as  understood  and  expounded  by  himself;^  his  noted 
paradox  of  placing  the  essence  of  mind  in  thinking,  and  of 
matter  in  extension ;  *  and  his  new  modification  of  the  ideal 
theory  of  perception,  adopted  afterwards,  with  some  very  slight 
changes,  by  Malebranche,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume.^    To 

^  It  is  not  unworthy  of  notice,  that,  *  To  this  paradox  may  be  traced  many 

in  spite  of  his  own  logical  rules,  Des-      of  the  conclusions  of  the  author,  both  on 


cartes  sometimes  seems  insensibly  to 
adopt,  on  this  subject,  the  common 
ideas  and  feelings  of  mankind.  Several 
instances  of  this  occur  in  his  Treatise  on 
the  Passions,  where  he  offers  various 
coigectures  concerning  the  uses  to  which 
they  are  subservient.  The  following 
sentence  is  more  peculiarly  remarkable : 
**  Mihi  persuadcre  nequeo,  naturam  in- 
dedisse  hominibus  uUimi  affectum  qui 
semper  vitiosus  sit,  nullumque  usum 
bonum  et  laudabilo  habeat." — Art. 
clxxv. 

•  This  hypothesis  never  gained  much 
ground  in  England;  and  yet  a  late 
writer  of  distinguished  eminence  in 
some  branches  of  science,  has  plainly 
intimated  that,  in  his  opinion,  the 
balance  of  probabilities  inclined  in  its 
favour.  "  I  omit  mentioning  other 
animals  here,''  says  Mr.  Kirwan  in  his 
Metaphysical  Essays^  "as  it  is  at  least 
doubtfuL  fjohether  they  are  not  mere  auto- 
matons."— Met.  Essays,  p.  41.  Loud. 
1809. 

*  I  have  added  the  clause  in  Italics, 
because  in  Descartes'  reasonings  on  this 
question,  there  is  no  inconsiderable  por- 
tion of  most  important  truth  debased 
by  a  large  and  manifest  alloy  of  error. 


physical  and  on  metaphysical  subjects. 
One  of  the  most  characteristical  features, 
indeed,  of  his  genius,  is  the  mathe- 
matical concatenation  of  his  opinions, 
even  on  questions  which,  at  first  sight, 
seem  the  most  remote  from  each  other ; 
a  circumstance  which,  when  combined 
with  the  extraordinary  perspicuity  of 
his  style,  completely  accounts  for  the 
strong  hold  his  philosophy  took  of  every 
mind,  thoroughly  initiated,  at  an  early 
period  of  life,  in  its  principles  and  doc- 
trines. In  consequence  of  conceiving 
the  essence  of  matter  to  consist  in  ex- 
tension, he  was  necessarily  obliged  to 
maintain  the  doctrine  of  a  universal 
plenum;  upon  w^hich  doctrine  the 
theory  of  the  vortices  came  to  be 
grafted  by  a  very  short  and  easy  pro- 
cess. The  same  idea  forced  him,  at 
the  very  outset  of  his  Metaphysical 
Meditations,  to  assert,  much  more  dog- 
matically than  his  premises  seem  to 
warrant,  the  non-extension  of  Mind; 
and  led  him  on  many  occasions  to  blend, 
veiy  illogically,  this  comparatively  dis- 
putable dogma,  with  the  facts  he  has 
to  state  concerning  the  mental  phe- 
nomena. 
«  See  Note  N. 


CHAP.  II. — ^PHILCNSOPUY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  139 

fioiiie  of  theae  errors  I  shall  have  occasiou  to  refer  in  the 
sequel  of  this  Discourse.  The  foregoing  slight  enumeration 
is  sufficient  for  my  present  purpose. 

In  what  I  have  hitherto  said  of  Descartes,  I  have  taken  no 
notice  of  his  metaphysico-physiological  theories  relative  to  the 
connexion  between  soul  and  body.  Of  these  theories,  however, 
groundless  and  puerile  as  they  are,  it  is  necessary  for  mo,  before 
I  proceed  farther,  to  say  a  few  words,  on  account  of  their 
extensive  and  lasting  influence  on  tlie  subsequent  history  of 
the  science  of  Mind,  not  only  upon  the  Continent,  but  in  our 
own  Island. 

The  hypothesis  of  Descartes,  which  assigns  to  the  soul  for 
its  principal  scat  the  pineal  gland  or  conarion,  is  known  to 
every  one  who  lias  perused  tlie  Alma  of  Prior.  It  is  not, 
perhaps,  equally  known,  tlmt  the  circumstance  which  deter- 
mined liim  to  fix  on  this  particular  si)ot,  was  the  very  plausible 
consideration,  tlmt,  among  the  difTereut  ])arts  of  the  brain,  this 
was  the  only  one  he  could  tind,  which,  being  single  and  central, 
was  fitted  for  the  liabitation  of  a  being,  of  which  he  conceived 
unity  and  indivisibility  to  be  essential  and  obvious  attributes.* 
In  what  manner  the  animal  spirits^  by  their  motions  forwards 
and  backwards  in  the  nervous  tubes,  keep  up  the  communica- 
tion between  this  gland  and  the  different  {uirts  of  the  body,  so 
as  to  produce  the  phenomena  of  jwrception,  memory,  imtigina- 
tion,  and  muscuhu:  motion,  he  luis  attemi)ted  particularly  to 
explain ;  describing  the  processes  by  which  these  various  effects 
are  accomplished,  with  as  decisive  a  tone  of  authority,  as  if  he 
liad  been  demonstrating  ex})erimentally  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  How  curious  to  meet  with  such  siKKJulations  in  the 
works  of  tlie  same  philosopher,  who  had  so  clearly  jK»rceived 
the  necessity,  in  studying  the  laws  of  Mind,  of  abstracting 
entirely  from  the  analogies  of  Matter ;  and  who,  at  the  outset 
of  his  incjuiries,  had  carried  his  scepticism  so  far,  as  to  n»quii*e 
a  proof  even  of  the  existence  (»f  his  own  body !  To  those, 
however,  who  reflect  witli  attention  on  the  meihod  adopte<l  by 
Descartes,  this  inconsistency  will  not  apj)ear  so  inexplicable  as 

*  Si«e  in  pHrticiiIur,  th(r  Treatise  dt  Pftssionibuff  Art.  31,  82. — Sco  oIko  Note  (>. 


140 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


at  first  sight  may  be  imagined  ;  inasmuch  as  the  same  scepticism 
which  led  him  to  suspend  his  faith  in  his  intellectual  faculties 
tiU  he  had  once  proved  to  his  satisfaction,  from  the  necessary 
veracity  of  Grod,  that  these  faculties  were  to  be  regarded  as  the 
divine  oracles,  prepared  him,  in  all  the  subsequent  steps  of  his 
progress,  to  listen  to  the  suggestions  of  his  own  fallible  judgment, 
with  more  than  common  credulity  and  confidence. 

The  ideas  of  Descartes,  respecting  the  communication  between 
soul  and  body,  are  now  so  universally  rejected,  that  I  should  not 
have  alluded  to  them  here,  had  it  not  been  for  their  manifest 
influence  in  producing,  at  the  distance  of  a  century,  the  rival 
hypothesis  of  Dr.  Hartley.  The  first  traces  of  this  hypothesis 
occur  in  some  queries  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  which  he  was 
probably  induced  to  propose,  less  from  the  conviction  of  his 
own  mind,  than  from  a  wish  to  turn  the  attention  of  philo- 
sophesB  to  an  examination  of  the  correspondent  part  of  the 
Cartesian  system.  Not  that  I  would  be  imderstood  to  deny  that 
this  great  man  seems,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  to  have  been 
so  far  misled  by  the  example  of  his  predecessor,  as  to  indulge 
himself  in  speculating  on  questions  altogether  unsusceptible  of 
solution.  In  the  present  instance,  however,  there  cannot,  I 
apprehend,  be  a  doubt,  that  it  was  the  application  made  by 
Descartes  of  the  old  theory  of  animal  spirits,  to  explain  the 
mental  phenomena,  which  led  Newton  into  tliat  train  of 
thinking  which  served  as  the  groundwork  of  Hartley's  Theory 
of  Vibrations,^ 


*  The  physiological  theory  of  Des- 
cartes, concerning  the  connexion  be- 
tween soul  and  body,  was  adopted, 
together  with  some  of  his  sounder 
opinions,  by  a  contemporary  English 
philosopher,  Mr.  Smith  of  Cambridge, 
whom  I  had  occasion  to  mention  in  a 
former  note;  and  that,  for  some  time 
after  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  it  continued  to  aflford  one  of  the 
chief  8ubject«  of  controversy  between 
the  two  English  universities,  the  Alma 
of  Prior  affords  incontestable  evidence. 
From  the  same  poem  it  appears,  how 


much  the  reveries  of  Descartes  about 
the  seat  of  the  soul.,  contributed  to  wean 
the  wits  of  Cambridge  from  their  former 
attachment  to  the  still  more  incompre- 
hensible pneumatology  of  the  school- 


men. 


Here  Matthew  said. 


Alma  in  rene,  in  proee  the  mind 

By  Aristotle's  pen  defln'd. 

Throughout  Uie  hody,  squat  or  tall, 

1%  bonajtde,  all  in  alL 

And  yet,  slap-dash,  is  all  again 

In  every  sinew,  nenre,  and  vein ; 

Buna  here  and  there  like  Hamlet's  Ghost. 

While  everywhere  she  rules  the  roa.n. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


HI 


It  would  be  useless  to  dwell  longer  on  the  reveries  of  a 
philosopher,  much  better  known  to  the  learned  of  the  jiresent 
age  by  the  boldness  of  his  exploded  ern)r8,  than  by  the  pro- 
found and  important  truths  contained  in  his  works.  At  the 
period  when  he  appeared,  it  may  perhajis  Ik3  questioned, 
Whether  the  truths  wliich  he  taught,  or  the  errors  into  which 
he  fell,  were  most  instructive  to  the  world  ?  Tlie  controversies 
provoked  by  the  latter  liad  certainly  a  more  immediate  nnd 
palpable  effect  in  awakening  a  general  spirit  of  free  inquiry. 
To  this  consideration  may  be  added  an  ingenious  and  not 
altogether  imsound  remark  of  l)'Aleml)ert,  tlmt  "  when  absurd 
opinions  ore  become  inveterate,  it  is  sometimes  necessary  to 
replace  them  by  other  errors,  if  nothing  lK»tter  can  Ik?  done. 
Such  (he  continues)  are  the  uncertainty  and  tlie  vanity  of  the 
hiunan  mind,  that  it  has  always  neeil  of  an  opinion  on  which 
it  may  lean ;  it  is  a  child  to  whom  a  phiy-thing  must  occa- 
sionally be  presented  in  order  to  get  out  of  its  liamls  a  mis- 
chievous weapon:  the  play-thing  will  whui  Ik?  abandoned, 
when  the  light  of  reason  l^egins  to  dawn."^ 

Among  the  opponent*  of  Descartes,  (lassendi  was  one  of  the 
earliest,  and  by  far  the  most  fonnitlable.  No  two  philosophers 
were  ever  more  strongly  contrasted,  lK)th  in  j>oint  of  talents  and 
of  temiKT ;  the  former  as  far  supiTior  to  the  latter  in  originality 
of  genius — in  jyowers  of  concentrated  attention  to  the  pheno- 
mena of  the  internal  world — in  classical  taste — in  moral  sensi- 


Tbis  tipXem,  Richard,  wo  are  told, 
Tlie  men  of  Oxford  flrmly  hold; 
The  Cambridge  witfl.  you  know,  deny 
With  ipie  dixit  to  comply. 
They  Bay  (for  in  good  truth  they  ipeak 
With  email  refpect  of  that  old  (}reek) 
That^  putting  all  bb  words  tof^etber. 
Til  three  blue  beanii  in  one  blue  bladder. 

Alma,  they  lirenuotuly  maintain, 
mta  c«>ck-borM  on  her  throne  the  brain, 
And  firom  that  i>eat  of  tboiiKht  dbpcnueii 
Her  loTereign  pleanure  to  the  Mnsea,  kc  Ic 

The  whole  poem,  from  beginning  to 
end,  18  one  continned  piece  of  ridicule 


upon  the  %'nri(>U8  liypotheHes  of  phy- 
HioIogiBts  concemiug  the  nature  of  the 
communication  In'twocn  soul  and  b<xlv. 
'Die  amuHing  contrast  between  the 
solemn  abKunlity  of  these  dinputes,  and 
the  hglit  pU'asantr^'  of  the  excurNinns 
to  whicli  they  lead  the  fancy  of  the  poet, 
constitutes  the  principal  chann  of  this 
perfonuance ;  by  far  the  most  original  and 
charact^rriHtical  of  all  iVior's  Works. 

*  S««o  Noto  P. — [For  Dr.  Barrow's 
opinion  of  the  philosophical  merits  of 
Descartes,  see  his  OptiKtila,  p.  156. J 


142  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

bility,  and  in  all  the  rarer  gifts  of  the  mind,  as  he  fell  short  of 
him  in"erudition — ^in  industry  as  a  book-maker — ^in  the  justness 
of  his  logical  views,  so  far  as  the  phenomena  of  the  material 
universe  are  concerned— and,  in  general,  in  those  literary 
qualities  and  attainments,  of  which  the  bulk  of  mankind  either 
are,  or  think  themselves  best  qualified  to  form  an  estimate. 
The  reputation  of  Gassendi,  accordingly,  seems  to  have  been  at 
its  height  in  his  own  lifetime;  that  of  Descartes  made  but 
little  progress,  till  a  considerable  time  after  his  death. 

The  comparative  justness  of  Gassendi's  views  in  natural 
philosophy,  may  be  partly,  perhaps  chiefly,  ascribed  to  his  dili- 
gent study  of  Bacon's  works,  wliich  Descartes  (if  he  ever  read 
them)  has  nowhere  alluded  to  in  his  writings.  This  extra- 
ordinary circumstance  in  the  character  of  Descartes,  is  the  more 
unaccountable,  that  not  only  Grassendi,  but  some  of  his  other 
correspondents,  repeatedly  speak  of  Bacon  in  terms  which  one 
should  think  could  scarcely  have  failed  to  induce  him  to  satisfy 
hia  own  mind  whether  their  encomiums  were  well  or  ill 
founded.  One  of  these,  while  he  contents  himself,  from  very 
obvious  feelings  of  delicacy,  with  mentioning  the  Chancellor  of 
England,  as  the  person  who,  be/ore  the  time  of  Descartes,  had 
entertained  the  justest  notions  about  the  method  of  prosecuting 
physical  inquiries,  takes  occasion,  in  the  same  letter,  to  present 
him,  in  the  form  of  a  friendly  admonition  from  himself,  with 
the  following  admirable  summary  of  the  insfauratio  magna. 
"  To  all  this  it  must  be  added,  that  no  architect,  however 
skilful,  can  raise  an  edifice,  unless  he  be  provided  with  proper 
materials.  In  like  manner,  your  method,  supposing  it  to  be 
perfect,  can  never  advance  you  a  single  step  in  the  explanation 
of  natural  causes,  unless  you  are  in  possession  of  the  facts 
necessary  for  determining  their  efiects.  They  who,  without 
stirring  from  their  libraries,  attempt  to  discourse  concerning 
the  works  of  nature,  may  indeed  tell  us  what  sort  of  world  they 
would  have  made,  if  Grod  had  committed  that  task  to  their  in- 
genuity ;  but,  without  a  wisdom  truly  divine,  it  is  impossible 
for  them  to  form  an  idea  of  the  universe,  at  all  approaching  to 
that  in  the  mind  of  its  Creator.     And,  although  your  method 


CHAP.  U. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  UK'KK.  143 

promises  everything  that  can  be  ex]K*ckHl  from  human  geniuB, 
it  does  not,  therefore,  lay  any  claim  to  the  art  of  divination  ; 
but  only  boasts  of  deducing  from  the  assumed  dcUa^  all  the 
truths  which  follow  from  them  as  legitimate  consequences ; 
which  daia  can,  in  physics,  be  nothing  else  but  principles 
previously  established  by  experiment"^  In  Gassendi's  con- 
troversies with  Descartes,  the  name  of  Bacon  seems  to  be 
studiously  introduced  on  vnrious  occasions,  in  a  manner  still 
better  calculated  to  excite  the  curiosity  of  his  antagonint ;  and 
in  his  historical  review  of  logical  syfltems,  the  heroical  attempt 
which  gave  birth  to  the  Novum  Organon  is  miule  the  Hulgect  of 
a  separate  chapter,  immediately  j)rt>ceding  that  which  Relates  to 
the  Metaphysical  Meditations  of  Descarten. 

The  partiality  of  GiiHsendi  for  the  Epicurean  physics,  if  not 
originally  imbil)ed  from  Bacon,  must  have  l>een  jx)werfully 
encouraged  by  the  favourable  terms  in  which  he  always  men- 
tions the  Atomic  or  CorpuHCular  theory.  In  its  conformity  to 
that  luminous  simplicity  which  everywhere  characterizcH  the 
operations  of  nature,  this  theory  (certainly  i)osseHKes  a  decidiHi 
superiority  over  all  the  other  conjectures  of  tbe  ancient  j)hilo8(>- 
phers  concerning  the  material  universt* ;  juid  it  rc^Hects  no  small 
honour  on  the  sagacity  lK)th  of  Bacon  and  of  (jratwendi,  to  have 
perceived  so  clearly  tlie  strong  analogical  prcKumi)tion  which 
this  conformity  afforded  in  its  favour,  j)rior  to  the  un(»xi)ected 
lustre  thrown  ujx)n  it  by  the  re»earche8  of  the  Newtonian  school. 
With  all  his  admiration,  however,  of  the  Ej)i(;uroan  j)hysics. 
Bacon  nowhere  shews  the  slightest  leaning  towards  the  meta- 
physical or  ethical  doctrines  of  the  same  stn^t;  but,  on  tlie 
contrary,  considere<l  (and,  1  api)rchen(l,  rightly  considered)  the 
atomic  theory  as  incomparably  more  hostile  to  atheism,  than 
the  hypothesis  of  four  mut-able  elements,  and  of  one  inunutable 
fifth  essence.  In  this  last  oi)inion,  there  is  every  re4is<Mi  to 
Ixjlieve  that  GasseniH  fully  concurred ;  more  espet^ially,  as  he 
was  a  zealous  advocate  for  the  investigation  of  Jinal  causes,  even 
in  inquiries  strictly  i)hysiad.     At  the  same  time,  it  ciuuiot  Ik» 

*  Sec  the  first  Epistle  to  DrflcartoM,  profixe<!  to  liis    TrentUe  on  the  Pn»$ion9. 
Amstel.  1064. 


144  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

(leDied^  tliat,  ou  many  questions,  both  of  Metaphysics  and  of 
Etiiics,  this  very  learned  theologian  (one  of  the  most  orthodox, 
professedly y  of  whom  the  Catholic  Church  has  to  boast)  carried 
his  veneration  for  the  authority  of  Epicurus  to  a  degree  border- 
ing on  weakness  and  servility ;  and  although,  on  such  occasions, 
he  is  at  the  utmost  pains  to  guard  his  readers  against  the  dan- 
gerous conclusions  commonly  ascribed  to  liis  master,  he  has 
nevertheless  retained  more  than  enough  of  his  system  to  give  a 
plausible  colour  to  a  very  general  suspicion,  that  he  secretly 
adopted  more  of  it  than  he  chose  to  avow. 

As  Grassendi's  attachment  to  the  physical  doctrines  of  Epi- 
curus predisposed  him  to  give  an  easier  reception  than  he  might 
otherwise  have  done  to  his  opinions  in  Metaphysics  and  in 
Ethics,  so  his  unqualified  contempt  for  the  hypothesis  of  the 
Vortices  seems  to  liave  created  in  his  mind  an  undue  prejudice 
against  the  speculations  of  Descartes  on  all  other  subjects.  His 
objections  to  the  argument  by  which  Descartes  lias  so  triumph- 
antly established  the  distinction  between  Mind  and  Matter,  as 
separate  and  heterogeneous  objects  of  human  knowledge,  must 
now  appear,  to  every  person  capable  of  forming  a  judgment 
upon  the  question,  altogether  frivolous  and  puerile ;  amounting 
to  nothing  more  than  this,  that  all  our  knowledge  is  received 
by  the  channel  of  the  external  senses — insomuch,  that  there  is 
not  a  single  object  of  the  understanding  which  may  not  be  ulti- 
mately analyzed  iuto  sensible  images  ;*  and  of  consequence,  that 
when  Descartes  proposed  to  abstract  from  these  images  in 
studying  the  mind,  he  rejected  the  only  materials  out  of  which 
it  is  possible  for  our  faculties  to  rear  any  superstructure.  The 
sum  of  the  whole  matter  is,  (to  use  his  own  language,)  that 
"  there  is  no  real  distinction  between  imagination  and  inteUec-- 
Hon  ;"  meaning,  by  the  former  of  these  words,  the  power  which 
the  mind  possesses  of  representing  to  itself  the  material  objects 

*  ["Deinde  omnia  nostra  notitia  vi-  loquuntur,  fiat;  perficiatnr  tamen  ana- 

detur  plane  ducere  originem  h  scnsibus ;  logia,  corapositione,  divisionei  amplia- 

vi  quamvis   tu  negcs  quicquid  est  in  tionc,  extenuationc,   aliisque  similibus 

intcllectu  prseesse  debere  in  sensu,  vi-  mmlis,  quos  commemorare  nihil  est  ne- 

detur  et  esse  nihilominus  venim,  cnm  cesse.** — Objediones  in  Meditationeni 

nisi  sola  inciirsionc,  »mra  Ttfivratwif,  ut  Secundam.] 


CHAP.  11. — PHILO0UFUY  ¥HOU   BACON  TO  LOCKK.     145 

aud  qimlities  it  Iiaa  previoiiHly  perceived.  It  is  evident  tlmt 
tills  concluBion  coincides  exactly  with  the  tenets  inculcateil  in 
England  at  the  same  |)eriod  by  his  friend  Ilobbes,^  as  well  as 
with  those  revived  at  a  later  jxiriod  by  Diderot,  Home  Tooko, 
and  many  other  writers,  both  French  and  English,  who,  while 
tliey  were  only  re{x»ting  the  exploded  dogmas  of  Epicurus,  fan- 
cied they  were  pursuing,  with  miraculous  suc^cess,  the  new  path 
struck  out  by  the  genius  of  Locke. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  argument  employeil  by  (ias- 
sendi  against  Descartes  is  copieil  almost  verbaiim  from  his  own 
version  of  the  account  given  by  Diogeiies  Laertius  of  the  sourci's 
of  our  knowledge,  according  to  the  principles  of  the  Epicuri»«n 
philosophy  ;* — so  very  little  is  there  of  novelty  in  the  coiiHetpiences 
deduced  by  modern  materialists  from  the  scholastic  pro|K)sitioM, 
Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  fait  priua  in  sensu.  The  same 
doctrine  is  very  concisely  and  explicitly  stated  in  a  ninxim  for- 
merly quote<l  from  Montaigne,  that  "  the  senses  arc  the  hctjinniyvj 
and  end  of  all  our  knowle<lge; — a  maxim  which  Mont4ngnt» 
learned  from  his  oracle  Ra}'moiul  de  Si^l)on(le  ; — which,  by  the 
present  race  of  French  philosophers,  is  almost  universjilly  sup- 
posed to  be  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  liCK'ke  ; — inid  which, 
if  true,  would  at  once  cut  up  by  the  roots,  not  only  all  meta- 
physics, but  all  ethics,  and  all  religion,  lK)th  natural  and  re- 
vealed. It  is,  accordingly,  with  this  very  maxim  that  Madame 
du  Defftmd  (in  a  letter  which  rivals  anything  that  the  faniT  of 
Moliere  has  conceived  in  his  Femme^  SavantcH)  assails  Volbiire 
for  his  iml)ecility  in  attempting  a  rt»ply  to  an  atheistical  l>ook 
then  recently  ])ublishe<l.  In  justice  to  tliis  celebrateil  Imly, 
I  shall  transcrilxj  part  of  it  in  her  own  words,  as  a  j)re- 
cious  and    authentic    dcKMiment    of    the    philosophical    tone 

*    The    affection    of    CiasRondi     for  ut  opinor,  medulUi  scatet!'^ — (S«»rl>oni 

Hobl)C8,  and  hiB  «'Htcem   f«»r  liiH  writ-  J*Tff.)  CinHwrndi'M  admiration (•flloblK'H'M 

ingH,  are  mentioned  in  verj'  stronj^  t4^nnfl  treatise  J)t  five,  was  equally  warm,  as 

hy  Sorbiore  :    "  Hiomaa  Ilobbiim  f  Iimj-  wo  learn  from  a  l4;tt«r  of  his  to  Sorbien*, 

aendo   chanHHimiiN,  cnjim  h'lielhim  J)e  prt^fixed  to  that  work. 
Corpore  paucia  ante  obitum  menHibun 

mcdpieus,  oficnlatufl  cat  HubjungenH,  nutle  ■  Compare  fia9*endi  Opera,  torn.  iii. 

quidem parvtisettinU  lifter,  reriim  M»*,  pp.  30<»,  .101  ;  and  toni.  v.  p.  VI. 

VOL.  I.  K 


146 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


affected  by  the  higher  orders  in  France  during  the  reign  of 
Louis  XV. 

"  J'entends  parler  d'une  refutation  d'un  certain  livre,  (Sys- 
tSme  de  la  Nature,)  Je  voudrois  Tavoir.  Je  m'en  tiens  a  con- 
noltre  ce  livre  par  vous.  Toutes  refutations  de  systeme  doiveiit 
fitre  bonnes,  surtout  quand  c'est  vous  qui  les  faites.  Mais,  mon 
cher  Voltaire,  ne  vous  ennuyez-vous  pas  de  tons  les  raisonne- 
mens  metaphysiques  sur  les  matiSres  inintelligibles.  Peut-on 
donner  des  idSes,  ou  peut-on  en  admeitre  diautrts  que  celles  que 
nous  regevons par  nos  sens?'' — If  the  Senses  be  the  beginning 
and  end  of  all  our  knowledge,  the  inference  here  pointed  at  is 
quite  irresistible.^ 

A  learned  and  profound  writer  has  lately  complained  of  the 
injustice  done  by  the  present  age  to  Gassendi ;  in  whose  works, 
he  asserts,  may  be  found  the  whole  of  the  doctrine  commonly 
ascribed  to  Locke  concerning  the  origin  of  our  knowledge.^  The 
remark  is  certainly  just,  if  restricted  to  Locke's  doctrine  as  in- 
terpreted by  the  greater  part  of  philosophers  on  the  Continent ; 
but  it  is  very  wide  of  the  truth,  if  applied  to  it  as  now  explained 
and  modified  by  the  most  intelligent  of  his  disciples  in  this 


*  Notwithstanding  the  evidence  (ac- 
cording to  my  judgment)  of  this  con- 
clusion, I  trust  it  will  not  be  supposed 
that  I  impute  the  slightest  bias  in  its 
faTonr  to  the  generality  of  those  who 
have  adopted  the  premises.  K  an  author 
is  to  be  held  chargeable  with  all  the 
consequences  logically  deducible  from 
his  opinions,  who  can  hope  to  escape 
censure  ?  And,  in  the  present  instance, 
how  few  are  there  among  Montaigne's 
disciples,  who  have  ever  reflected  for  a 
moment  on  the  real  meaning  and  import 
of  the  proverbial  maxim  in  question  ! 

'  '*  Gassendi  fut  le  premier  auteur  de 
la  nouvelle  philosophie  de  I'esprit  hu- 
main ;  car  il  est  tems  de  lui  rendre,  k 
cet  egard,  une  justice  qu'il  n'a  presque 
jamais  obtenue  de  ses  propres  compa- 
triotcs.    II  est  tr^s  singnlier  en  eifet, 


qu*en  parlant  de  la  nouvelle  philosophic 
de  I'esprit  humain,  nous  disions  toujours, 
la  philosqphie  de  Locke.  D'Alembert 
et  Condillac  ont  autoris6  cette  expres- 
sion, en  rapportant  Tun  et  Tautre  4 
Locke  exclusivement,  la  gloire  de  cette 
invention,**  &c.  &c. — De  Gerando,  MUt 
Comp.  des  Systemes,  tome  i.  p.  301. — 
[The  blind  and  idolatrous  admiration  of 
the  French  philosophers  for  Locke  can 
be  accounted  for  only  by  their  very  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  his  writings. 
If  Voltaire  had  ever  read  the  Essay  on 
Human  Understanding^  his  estimate  of 
the  merits  of  that  excellent  work  would 
probably  have  been  somewhat  more  dis- 
criminating. "  Locke  seul  a  d6velopp^ 
Ventendement  humain  dans  un  livre  oti 
il  n*y  a  que  des  verites ;  et  ce  qui  rend 
l*ouvrage  parfait,  toutes  ces  v^rit^s  sent 
claires."— (5/?c/e  de  Louis  XJV.)] 


CHAP.  II.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  147 

i^untry.  The  main  scope,  indeed,  of  Uii«8eiidi  s  arguineiit 
against  Descartes,  is  to  materialize  that  class  of  our  ideas  whicli 
the  Lockists  as  well  as  the  Cartesians  consider  as  the  exclusive 
objects  of  the  power  of  reflection  ;  and  to  shew  that  these  ideas 
are  all  ultimately  resolvable  into  images  or  conceptionH  lK)rrowed 
from  things  external.  It  is  not,  therefore,  what  is  sound  and 
valuable  in  this  part  of  Bocke's  system,  but  the  errors  graft^nl 
on  it  in  the  comments  of  some  of  his  followers,  that  can  justly 
be  said  to  have  been  I)orrowed  from  Gasscndi.  Nor  has  Gas- 
Hendi  the  merit  of  originnlity,  even  in  these  errors ;  for  scarcely 
a  remark  on  the  subject  0(;curH  in  his  workH,  but  what  in 
copied  from  the  accountR  tr«nHmitt<Hl  to  uk  of  the  Epicun^n 
metaphysics. 

Unfortunately  for  Descartes,  while  he  so  clearly  iKjrceivetl 
that  the  origin  of  those  ideas  which  are  the  inoRt  intercRtiug  to 
human  happiness,  could  not  be  tractnl  to  our  external  sonneH, 
he  had  the  wcaknesR,  iuKtead  of  Ktating  thiH  fundamental  pro- 
position in  plain  and  prcciHc  terniH,  to  attempt  an  explanation 
of  it  by  the  extravagant  hyjK)theHis  of  innate  ideas.  This 
hypothesis  gave  Gasflcndi  great  advantagi»H  over  him,  in  the 
management  of  their  controverHy  ;  while  the  substHpumt  juloj*- 
tion  of  G^issendi's  reasonings  against  it  by  liocke,  has  led  to  a 
very  general  but  ill-foundiMl  l)elief,  that  the  latter,  an  well  an 
the  former,  rejectwl,  along  with  tlie  doctrine  of  umate  ideaSj 
the  varioug  important  an<l  well-a8ct»rtaini»<l  truths  coml)ine<l 
with  it  in  the  Cartesian  syRtein.* 

The  hypotlietical  language  aften^'anls  intro<luced  by  Leilv 
nitz  concerning  the  human  soul,  (which  he  Kometimes  calls  a 
living  mirror  of  the  universe,  and  sometimes  supposes  to  con- 
tain i^Hlthin  itself  tJie  seeds  of  that  knowledge  which  is  gradually 
unfolded  in  the  progressive  exercise  of  its  faculties,)  is  another 
impotent  attempt  to  explain  a  mystery  unfathoTna])le  by  human 
reason.  The  same  renwirk  may  1k»  extended  to  some  of  Plato  s 
reveries  on  this  question,  more  particularly  to  his  Bupix>8ition, 
that  those  ideas  which  cannot  l)e  traccnl  to  any  of  our  external 
senses,  were  acquired  by  the  soul  in  its  state  of  pre-existence. 

'  [Si'o  Note  Q.] 


148  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

In  all  of  these  theories,  as  well  as  in  that  of  Descartes,  the  car- 
dinal truth  is  assumed  as  indisputable,  that  the  Senses  are  not 
the  only  sources  of  human  knowledge ;  nor  is  anything  want- 
ing to  render  them  correctly  logical,  but  the  statement  of  this 
truth  as  an  ultimate  fact  (or  at  least  as  a  fact  hitherto  imex- 
plained)  in  our  intellectual  frame. 

It  is  very  justly  observed  by  Mr.  Htime,  with  respect  to  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  that  "  while  he  seemed  to  draw  off  the  veil  from 
some  of  the  mysteries  of  nature,  he  showed,  at  the  same  time, 
the  imperfections  of  the  mechanical  philosophy,  and  thereby 
restored  her  ultimate  secrets  to  that  obscurity  in  which  they 
ever  did,  and  ever  will  remain."^  When  the  justness  of  this 
remark  shall  be  as  universally  acknowledged  in  the  science  of 
Mind  as  it  now  is  in  Natural  Philosophy,  we  may  reasonably 
expect  that  an  end  will  be  put  to  those  idle  controversies  which 
have  so  long  diverted  the  attention  of  metaphysicians  from  the 
proper  objects  of  their  studies. 

The  text  of  Scripture,  prefixed  by  Dr.  Eeid  as  a  motto  to  his 
Inquiry,  conveys,  in  a  few  words,  the  result  of  his  own  modest 
and  truly  philosopliical  speculations  on  the  origin  of  our  know- 
ledge, and  expresses  this  result  in  terms  strictly  analogous  to 
those  in  which  Newton  speaks  of  the  law  of  gravitation : — 
"  The  Inspiration  of  the  Almighty  hath  given  them  understand- 
ing," Let  our  researches  concerning  the  development  of  the 
Mind,  and  the  occasions  on  which  its  various  notions  are  first 
formed,  be  carried  back  ever  so  far  towards  the  commencement 
of  its  history,  in  this  humble  confession  of  human  ignorance 
they  must  terminate  at  last. 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  on  the  writings  of  Gassendi,  much 
less  from  my  own  idea  of  their  merits,  than  out  of  respect  to  an 
author,  in  whose  footsteps  Locke  has  frequently  condescended 
to  tread.  The  epigrammatic  encomium  bestowed  on  him  by 
Gibbon,  who  calls  him  "  le  meilleur  philosophe  des  litterateurs, 
et  le  meiUeur  litterateur  des  philosophes,"  appears  to  me  quite 
extravagant.*    His  learning,  indeed,  was  at  once  vast  and  accu- 

•  Hittary  of  Cheat  Britain^  chap.  ■  Eesai  ntr  PEtude  de  la  LitUra- 

Ixxi.  tare. 


CHAP.  II.— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACX)N  TO  LOCKE.  149 

rate ;  and,  as  a  philo0op}icr,  he  in  justly  cntitleil  to  tlic  praiHe  of 
being  one  of  the  first  who  entered  thorouglily  into  the  tqiirit  of 
the  Baconian  logic.  But  Iiis  inventive  ]K)wer8,  which  were  pro- 
bably not  of  the  highest  onler,  seem  to  have  been  either  dissi- 
pated amidst  the  multij)licity  of  his  literary  pursuits,  or  laid 
asleep  by  his  indefatigable  lalniurs,  as  a  Commentator  and  a 
Compiler.  From  a  writer  of  this  class,  new  lights  were  not  to 
lie  expected  in  the  study  of  the  human  Mind ;  and  act^onlingly, 
here  he  luis  done  little  or  nothing,  but  to  revive  and  to  re|)eat 
over  the  doctrines  of  the  old  Epicureans.  His  works  amoimt 
to  six  large  vohmies  in  folio ;  but  the  substance  of  tliem  might 
be  compressed  into  a  much  similler  coniiuiss,  without  any 
diminution  of  their  value. 

In  one  respect  Gasscndi  had  certainly  a  great  advantage  over 
his  antagonist — the  good  hiunour  which  never  f()rs(X>k  him  in 
the  heat  of  a  philosophical  argument.  Tlie  comimmtive  indif- 
ference with  which  he  regardetl  most  of  the  jKjints  at  issue 
between  them,  was  perhaps  the  chief  cause  of  that  command  of 
temper  so  uniformly  displaywl  in  all  his  wuitroversies,  and  so 
remarkably  contraste<l  with  tlie  conHtitutit)nal  irritability  of 
Descartes.  Even  the  faith  of  Gasst»n<li  in  his  own  favourite 
master,  Ejncunis,  does  not  seem  to  have  l)een  ver}'  stn)ng  or 
dogmatical,  if  it  be  true  that  he  was  accustomed  to  allege,  as 
the  chief  ground  of  his  preferring  the  Epicurean  physics  to  the 
theory  of  the  Vortices,  '*  tliat  chimera  for  chimera,  he  could  not 
help  feeling  some  jiartiality  for  that  which  was  two  thousand 
years  older  tlian  the  other."' 

About  twenty  years  after  the  death  of  Gasscndi,  (who  did  not 
long  sun'ive  Descartes,)  Malebranche  entered  uiK)n  his  philo- 
sophical career.  The  earlier  {lart  of  his  life  had,  by  the  advice 
of  some  of  his  preceptors,  been  devote<l  to  the  study  of  ecclesi- 
astical history,  and  of  the  learned  languages;  for  neither  of 
which  pursuits  does  he  seem  to  have  felt  that  marked  i)retli- 
lection  which  aftbrde<l  any  promise  of  future  eminence.  At 
length,  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  his  n^i;^,  he  accidentally  met 

'   Sop  Notr  \\. 


150 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


witli  Descartes'  Treatise  on  Man,  which  opened  to  hmi  at  once 
a  new  world,  and  awakened  him  to  a  consciousness  of  powers, 
till  then  unsuspected  either  by  himself  or  by  others.  Fon- 
tenelle  has  given  a  lively  picture  of  the  enthusiastic  ardour 
with  which  Malebranche  first  read  this  performance;  and 
describee  its  effects  on  his  nervous  system  as  sometimes  so 
great,  that  he  was  forced  to  lay  aside  the  book  till  the  palpi- 
tation of  his  heart  had  subsided. 

It  was  only  ten  years  after  this  occurrence  when  he  published 
The  Search  ajler  Tntth ;  a  work  which,  whatever  judgment 
may  now  be  passed  on  its  philosophical  merits,  will  always 
form  an  interesting  study  to  readers  of  taste,  and  a  useful  one 
to  students  of  human  nature.  Few  books  can  be  mentioned, 
combining,  in  so  great  a  degree,  the  utmost  depth  and  abstrac- 
tion of  thought,  with  the  most  pleasing  sallies  of  imagination 
and  eloquence;  and  none,  where  they  who  delight  in  the 
observation  of  intellectual  character  may  find  more  ample 
illustrations,  both  of  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  human 
understanding.  It  is  a  singular  feature  in  the  history  of  Male- 
branche, that,  notwithstanding  the  poetical  colouring  which  adds 
so  much  animation  and  grace  to  his  style,  he  never  could  read, 
without  disgust,  a  page  of  the  finest  verses ;  ^  and  that,  although 
Imagination  was  manifestly  the  predominant  ingredient  in  the 
composition  of  his  own  genius,  the  most  elaborate  passages  in 
his  works  are  those  where  he  inveiglis  against  this  treacherous 
faculty,  as  the  prolific  parent  of  our  most  fatal  delusions.* 

In  addition  to  the  errors  more  or  less  incident  to  all  men, 
from  the  unresisted  sway  of  imagination  during  the  infancy 
of  reason,  Malebranche  had,  in  his  own  case,  to  struggle  with 


*  Bayle. — Fontenelle. — D'Alembert. 

'In  one  of  his  arguments  on  this 
head,  Malebranche  refers  to  the  re- 
marks previously  made  on  the  same 
subject  by  an  English  philosopher,  who, 
like  himself,  has  more  than  once  taken 
occasion,  while  warning  his  readers 
against  the  undue  influence  of  imagina- 
tion over  the  judgment,  to  exemplify 
the  boundless  fertility  and  originality  of 


his  own.  The  following  allusion  of 
Bacon^s,  quoted  by  Malebranche,  is  emi- 
nently apposite  and  happy:  "Omnes 
perceptiones  tarn  sensus  qnam  mentis 
sunt  ex  analogia  hominis,  non  ex  ana- 
logia  uniyersi:  Estque  intellectus  hu- 
roanus  instar  spcculi  infcqualis  ad  radios 
renini,  qui  suam  naturam  natura)  rcrum 
immiscct,  eamquc  distorquet  ct  in- 
ficit." 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOHOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  UX'KE. 


151 


all  the  prejadices  connected  with  the  {xxniliar  dojriiuis  uf  the 
Roman  Catholic  £uth.  Unfortunately,  too,  he  everywhere 
discovers  a  strong  disposition  to  blend  his  theology  and  his 
metaj^ysics  together;  availing  hinisell*  of  the  one  as  an 
aiudliaiy  to  the  other,  wherever,  in  either  science,  his  ingenuity 
fails  him  in  establishing  a  favourite  conclusion.  To  this  cause 
is  chiefly  to  be  ascribed  the  little  attention  now  paid  to  a  writer 
formerly  so  universally  admireil,  and,  in  point  of  fact,  the  indis- 
putable author  of  some  of  the  most  refined  speculations  claimed 
by  the  theorists  of  the  eif^teenth  century.  As  for  those  mj-stical 
controversies  about  Grcu^e  with  Anthony  Aniuuld,  on  which  he 
wasted  so  much  of  his  genius,  they  have  long  sunk  into  utter 
oblivion;  nor  shoidd  I  have  here  renved  the  recollection  of 
them,  were  it  not  for  the  authentic  record  they  furnish  of  the 
passive  bondage  in  w^hich,  little  more  than  a  hundriHl  years 
ago,  two  of  the  most  ix)werful  miiuls  of  tliat  inenionible  periixl 
were  held  by  a  cree<l,  renounceil  at  the  Eefonuation,  by  all 
the  Protestant  countries  of  £uroi)e ;  and  the  fruitful  source, 
wherever  it  lias  been  retaineil,  of  other  prt*judici*s,  not  less  to 
be  lamented,  of  an  opiKisite  description.^ 

^\^len  Malebranche  touches  on  questions  not  i)OHitively  de- 
cided by  the  church,  he  exhibits  a  rtauarkable  boldness  and 
freedom  of  inquiry ;  setting  at  nought  those  human  authorities 


*  Of  this  dispcwition  to  blond  then- 
lofpcal  dogmas  with  philosophical  dis- 
cussioDS,  Malebranche  whs  so  little 
conscious  in  hiniMrlf,  that  he  hna 
seriouslj  warned  \\\n  renders  ngaiuHt 
it,  bf  quoting  an  aphorism  of  Bacon's, 
peculiarly  applicable  to  his  own  writ- 
ings : — '*  Ex  divinorum  et  hunianorum 
nuilesana  admixtione  non  solum  educitur 
philosophia  phantastica,  sed  etiam  ro- 
ligio  hwretica.  Itaque  sahiture  admo- 
dum  est  si  nient«>  Hobriu  fidi-i  tantum 
dentur  qun  fidoi  sunt.**  In  transcrib- 
ing thesf^  words,  it  is  amusing  to  ob- 
Kerve,  that  Malebranche  huN  t\\\y  sup- 
pressed the  name  of  the  author  fn>ni 
whom  they  are  lxirrowe<l ;  manifestly 
from  an  unwillingness  to  weaken  their 


f'flt'ct,  by  the  suHpicious  authority  of  a 
I>hilosopher  not  in  communiun  with  the 
Church    of   Rome. — Recherche   de   la 
IVriit',  liv.  ii.  chap.  ix. 

Dr.  lleitl,  pnK;ee<ling  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  Malebranche  wan  a  Jesuit,  has 
aHcribed  to  the  antipathy  between  this 
order  and  t\\v  Jansi-niNts,  the  warmth 
dii^playetl  on  both  sides,  in  his  disputes 
with  Amauld,  {EMoyn  on  the  Int. 
PirtrfVMj  p.  124);  but  the  fact  is,  that 
Malebranche  Ix'longtnl  to  the  (.'ongre- 
gation  of  the  Orntt/nf:  a  wH-ifty  much 
more  nearly  allied  to  the  Jans<'nists 
than  to  the  Jesuits;  and  honourably 
diHtingiiiKhod.  fiinco  its  first  origin,  by 
the  nuKlfnitioii  sh  wrll  as  Icuniing  of 
itH  membern. 


152  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

which  have  so  much  weight  with  men  of  mieulightened  erudi- 
tion ;  and  sturdily  opposing  his  own  reason  to  the  most  inve- 
terate prejudices  of  his  age.  His  disbelief  in  the  reality  of 
sorcery,  which,  although  cautiously  expressed,  seems  to  have 
been  complete,  affords  a  decisive  proof  of  the  soundness  of  his 
judgment,  where  he  conceived  himself  to  have  any  latitude  in 
exercising  it.  The  following  sentences  contain  more  good 
sense  on  the  subject,  than  I  recollect  in  any  contemporary 
author.  I  shall  quote  them,  as  well  as  the  other  passages  I 
may  afterwards  extract  from  his  writings,  in  his  own  words, 
to  which  it  is  seldom  possible  to  do  justice  in  an  English 
version. 

"  Les  hommes  meme  les  plus  sages  se  conduisent  plutot  par 
rimagination  des  autres,  je  veux  dire  par  Topinion  et  par  la 
coutume,  que  par  les  regies  de  la  raison.  Ainsi  dans  les  lieux 
ou  Ton  brule  les  sorciers,  on  ne  voit  autre  chose,  parce  que  dans 
les  lieux  ou  Ton  les  condamne  au  feu,  on  croit  veritablement 
qu'ils  le  sont,  et  cette  croyance  se  fortifie  par  les  discours  qu'on 
en  tient.  Que  Ton  cesse  de  les  punir  et  qu'on  les  traite  comme 
des  fous,  et  Ton  verra  qu'avec  le  tems  ilsne  seront  plus  sorciers; 
parce  que  cciix  qui  ne  le  sont  que  par  imagination,  qui  font  cer- 
tainement  le  plus  grand  nombre,  deviendront  comme  les  autres 
hommes. 

"  Cest  done  avec  raison  que  plusieurs  Parlemens  ne  punissent 
point  les  sorciers :  ils  s'en  trouve  beaucoup  moins  dans  les  terres 
de  leur  ressort :  Et  Tenvie,  la  haine,  et  la  malice  des  mechans 
ne  peuvent  se  servir  de  ce  pretcxte  pour  accabler  les  innocens." 

How  strikingly  has  the  sagacity  of  these  anticipations  and 
reflections  been  verified  by  the  subsequent  history  of  this 
popular  superstition  in  our  own  country,  and  indeed  in  every 
other  instance  where  the  experiment  recommended  by  Male- 
branche  has  been  tried  I  Of  this  sagacity  much  must,  no 
doubt,  be  ascribed  to  the  native  vigour  of  a  mind  struggling 
against  and  controlling  early  prejudices ;  but  it  must  not  be 
forgotten,  that,  notwithstanding  his  retired  and  monastic  life, 
Malebranche  had  breathed  the  eame  air  with  the  associates  and 
friends  of  Descartes  and  of  Gassendi ;  and  that  no  philosopher 


CHAP.  11. — ^FHILOflOPHT  FBOM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


153 


teewA  ever  to  have  been  more  deeply  impressed  with  the  truth 
of  that  golden  maxim  of  Montaigne — '^  II  est  bon  de  frotter  et 
limer  notre  cervelle  contre  celle  d'autruL" 

Another  featmx3  in  the  intellectual  character  of  Malebranche, 
presenting  an  unexpected  contrast  to  his  i)owers  of  abstract 
meditation,  is  the  attentive  and  discriminating  eye  Mrith  which 
he  appears  to  have  surveyed  the  habits  and  manners  of  the 
comparatively  little  circle  around  liim;  and  tlie  delicate  yet 
expressive  touches  with  which  he  has  marked  and  defined  some 
of  the  nicest  shades  and  varieties  of  genius.^  To  this  bnmch 
of  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  not  certainly  the  least  important 
and  interesting,  he  has  contributed  a  greater  number  of  original 
remarks  than   Locke  himself;^ — since  whose  time,  with  the 


*  See  among  other  passages,  Jiech. 
de  la  Vfritif  IW.  ii.  chap.  ix. 

'  In  one  of  Lockers  most  notetl  re- 
marks of  this  sort,  he  has  been  antici- 
pated by  Malobranchc,  on  wh(Hic  clear 
yet  concise  statement,  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  thrown  much  new  light  by  his 
very  diffuse  and  wordy  commentary. 
*'  If  in  having  our  ideas  in  the  meniory 
ready  at  hand,  consiNts  quickness  of 
parts;  in  this  of  having  them  uncon- 
fused,  and  being  able  nicely  to  distin- 
guish one  thing  from  another,  where 
there  is  but  the  least  difference,  con- 
sists, in  a  great  measure,  the  exactness 
of  judgment  and  cleamcss  of  reamm, 
which  is  to  be  observed  in  one  man 
above  another.  And  hence,  iKThaps, 
may  be  given  some  reawm  of  thut  com- 
mon observation,  that  men  who  have  a 
great  deal  of  wit,  and  prompt  memories, 
have  not  always  the  clearest  judgment, 
or  deepest  renstm.  For  Wit,  lying  nuwt 
in  the  assemblage  of  ideas,  and  putting 
those  together  with  quickness  and  va- 
riety, wherein  can  be  found  any  rc*seni- 
blanco  or  congruity,  ikerehy  to  make  up 
pleasant  pictures,  and  agreeable  visions 
in  tiic  fancy;  .ludgnient,  on  the  con- 
trary, lies  quite  on  the  othrr  j*ide,  in 


separating  carefully,  one  fn>m  another, 
ideas  toherein  can  be  found  the  least  dif- 
ference, thereby  to  avoid  bi'ing  niisled 
by  Himilitude,  and  by  affinity  to  take  one 
thing  for  another.*' — Essay^  &c.,  b.  ii. 
c.  xi.  §  2. 

"  II  y  a  done  des  esprits  de  deux  sortes. 
IjCs  uns  reniarqnent  aisement  les  dif- 
f<'rences  des  choses,  ct  ce  sont  les  bom 
espritri.  I>es  autres  imaginent  et  sup- 
posent  de  la  ressembloncc  entrVlles,  et 
ce  Kont  les  esprits  superficiels." — Reek, 
de  Ui  V^riUf  liv.  ii.  Secotide  Ikiriie^ 
chup.  ix. 

At  a  still  earlier  period,  Bai^on  had 
pointed  out  the  same  canlinal  distinc- 
tion in  the  intellectual  characters  of  in- 
dividuals. 

"Maximum  et  vclut  radicale  discri- 
nien  ingeniorum,  cpioad  philosophiam  et 
scientias,  illud  est;  quod  alia  ingenia 
hint  fortiora  ct  aptioro  ad  notandas  re- 
rum  differontias ;  alia,  ad  notandas  ro- 
rum  similitudines.  Ingenia  enim  con- 
Ktantia  ct  acuta,  figcre  contcmplationes, 
ct  niorari,  et  liHirero  in  onmi  subtilitate 
diflerentiiirum  possunt.  Ingenia  autem 
Hublimia,  et  discursiva,  etiam  tenuissi- 
mas  et  catholicas  renim  similitudincH  et 
cogiioKcunt,  et  r(iniiH>nunt.  Utrumque 
autem  ingenium  facile  labitur  in  exces- 


154 


DISSBBTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


idngle  exception  of  Helvctius^  hardly  any  attention  ha^  been 
paid  to  it,  either  by  French  or  English  metaphyBicians.  The 
same  practical  knowledge  of  the  human  understanding,  modi- 
fied and  diversified,  as  we  everywhere  see  it,  by  education  and 
external  circumstances,  is  occasionally  discovered  by  his  very 
able  antagonist  Amauld ;  affording,  in  both  cases,  a  satisfac- 
tory proof,  that  the  narrowest  field  of  experience  may  disclose 
to  a  superior  mind  those  refined  and  comprehensive  results, 
which  common  observers  are  forced  to  collect  from  an  extensive 
and  varied  commerce  with  the  world. 

In  some  of  Malebranche's  incidental  strictures  on  men  and 
manners,  there  is  a  lightness  of  style  and  fineness  of  tact^  which 
one  would  scarcely  have  expected  from  the  mystical  divine,  who 
believed  that  he  saw  all  things  in  God,  Who  would  suppose 
that  the  following  paragraph  forms  part  of  a  profound  argu- 
ment on  the  influence  of  the  external  senses  over  the  human 
intellect  ? 

"  Si  par  exemple,  celui  qui  parle  s'enonce  avec  facility,  s'il 
garde  une  mesure  agreable  dans  ses  p^riodes,  s'il  a  Fair  d'un 
honnete  homme  et  d'un  homme  d'esprit,  si  c'est  une  personne 
de  quality,  s'il  est  suivi  d'un  grand  train,  s'il  parle  avec  autorit^ 
et  avec  gravity,  si  les  autres  I'ecoutent  avec  respect  et  en 
silence,  s'il  a  quelque  reputation,  et  quelque  commerce  avec 
les  esprits  du  premier  ordre,  enfin,  s'il  est  assez  heureux  pour 
plaire,  ou  pour  etre  estim^,  il  aura  raison  dans  tout  ce  qu'il 
avancera ;  et  il  n'y  aura  pas  jusqu'a  son  collet  et  a  ses  man- 
chettes,  qui  ne  prouvent  quelque  chose."  ^ 

In  his  philosophical  capacity,  Malebranche  is  to  be  considered 


fiiim,  pfrensando  aut  gradas  rerum,  aut 
umbras." 

Thai  strain  I  heard  was  of  a  higher 
liUfodt  It  in  erident,  that  Bacon  has 
here  seized,  in  its  most  general  form, 
the  very  important  truth  perceived  by 
his  two  ingenious  successors  in  parti- 
cular cases.  Wit,  which  Locke  con- 
trasts with  judgment,  is  only  one  of  the 
varions  talents  connected  with  what 
Bacon  calls  the  disetirsice  genintt ;  and 


indeed,  a  talent  very  subordinate  in 
dignity  to  most  of  the  others. 

'  I  shall  indulge  myself  only  in  one 
other  citation  from  Malebranche,  which 
I  select  partly  on  account  of  the  curious 
extract  it  contains  from  an  English  pub- 
lication long  since  forgotten  in  this 
country ;  and  partly  as  a  proof  that  thiK 
learned  and  pious  father  was  not  alto- 
gether insenHiblc  to  the  ludicrous. 

"  Un  illustre  entre  les  S^avans,  qui  a 


CHAP.  H. — PHILOBOPHY  FROM  BACX>N  TO  IXKJKE. 


155 


ill  two  points  of  view ;  1.  As  a  coninientator  on  Descartes ;  and, 
2.  As  the  author  of  some  conclusions  from  the  Cartesian  prin- 
ciples^ not  perceived  or  not  avowed  by  liis  predecessors  of  the 
same  school 

1. 1  have  already  taken  notice  of  Malebranche's  comments  on 


fond6  dee  chaircs  de  Geometric  et  d^An- 
troDomio  dmns  rUniTrrait^  dH)xford,* 
coDunenoe  un  livre,  qu'il  s'est  aviiiv  dc 
faire  lur  lea  huit  prcmiercH  pn)poi»iti<)iui 
d'Eiiclide,  par  ccb  paroloR.  Consilium 
meum  est,  autliioreSt  fi  vires  et  valftudo 
iuffeoerini,  explicare  definitionet^  peti- 
tionee^ communes  sentetUias,  et  octo  //rt- 
ores  prcponitiones  primi  libri  eJemetU- 
ormHj  ecetera  post  me  venientibus  re- 
linquere:  et  il  le  iinit  par  ccIIcim:!: 
ExscHvi  per  Dei  gratiam,  Domini  au- 
ditores,promis8um,  Jiberavifidcm  meam^ 
expUeavi  pro  modulo  meo  definititmes^ 
petitioneSf  communes  sententiaSf  et  octo 
priores  propositiones  elemetUontm  Eu- 
didis.  Hie  annis  fessvs  cyc^os  arfem- 
pte  repono.  SiKcedent  in  hoc  munus 
alii  fortasse  magis  vegeto  corpore  et 
vivido  ingenio.  II  no  faut  paH  iinu 
heoro  &  un  vHprit  mediocre,  pour  ap- 
prendre  par  lai  memo,  ou  par  le  Kccours 
du  pluB  petit  gi'ometru  qu'il  y  ait,  lea 
definitions,  dcmandes,  axiouieH,  et  les 
huit  premiereH  pro{x>Hition8  d'Kuclide : 
et  Toid  uii  auteur  qui  parie  de  cetto  cn- 
troprise,  coumio  de  quelquu  choKe  de 
fort  grand,  et  de  fort  difficile.  II  u  {)eur 
que  lea  ftirces  lui  mauqutfut ;  Si  vires  et 
valehido  suffecerint.  11  Iniawi  k  nea  buc- 
ceaaeoTB  &  pouBner  ces  choH<.>8:  ctctertt 
post  me  venientibus  relinquere.  II  re- 
mcrcie  Dieu  de  ce  que,  par  une  grace 
particuli^ru,  il  a  execute  ce  qu'il  avoit 
promis :  exsolvi  per  Dei  gratiam  pro- 
missum^  liberavi  Jidem  meamy  expiicuvi 
pro  modulo  meo.  Quoi  ?  la  quadrature 
du  cerclc  ?  la  duplication  du  cube  V  Co 
grand  homme  a  expliqu<';  pro  modulo 
suOy  lea  di-tinitionH,  lea  demaiidcH,  Ich 


auomeii,  et  les  huit  premieres  propoiu- 
tionv  du  pn*mier  livre  des  EUmens 
d'finclide.  Peut-etre  qu*entre  ceux  qui 
lui  luccedcrout,  il  s'en  trouvera  qui 
aunnit  plus  de  saiitc,  ct  plus  de  force 
que  lui  pour  continuer  ce  bcl  ouyrage : 
Succedent  in  hoc  munus  alii  poktaimb 
nuigis  vegeto  corpore,  ct  vivido  ingenio. 
Mais  iM)ur  Ini  il  est  t«*ms  qu'il  ho  re- 
pose ;  hie  annis  fessus  cydos  artemque 
repono,^* 

After  n>adiug  the  al>ove  passage,  it 
is  imjMiHKihle  to  avoid  reflecting,  with 
satisfaction,  on  the  effect  which  the  pn»- 
gress  of  philosophy  has  since  had  in 
reuioving  those  obstacles  to  the  acquisi- 
ti<«i  of  useful  knowledg«'  which  were 
crL^atiMl  by  the  pedantic  taste  prevalent 
two  C(*nturic8  ago.  What  a  contrast  to 
a  quttrto  commentary  on  the  definitions, 
I>OMtulates,  axioms,  and  first  eight  pro- 
positions of  Kuclid's  First  B(K>k,  is  pre- 
sented by  (\mdorcet*8  estimate  of  the 
time  now  suflicient  to  conduct  a  student 
to  the  higlu'Ht  branches  of  mathematics! 
"Dans  le  sieclc  denii<>r,  il  suftisoit  de 
quelques  annces  dN'tude  {K>ur  savoir 
t<tut  CO  qu*Archimede  et  Hipparque 
avuient  pu  connoitre ;  et  aiy'ourdlmi 
deux  anuoes  do  renseignemeut  d'un 
professeur  vout  au  deltl  de  ce  que  sa- 
voient  I>'ilmitz  ou  Newton." — {Sur  P In- 
struction Ihiblique.)  In  this  particular 
science,  I  am  aware  that  much  is  to  bo 
ascril)ed  to  the  subm^quent  invention  of 
new  and  more  gi'mrral  miOuHhi ;  but,  I 
appn:hend,  not  a  little  uIhu  to  the  im- 
pn)vementa  gradually  suggested  by  ex- 
l)cri«»nce,  in  what  Hacon  culls  the  tradi- 
tivc  part  of  logic 


*  HIr  Henry  SaTile.    The  work  hero  referred  t<>  if  a  4to  toIuiiic,  entitled.  l*rtltctivnts  xiii.  in 
rriueipium  KUmtntvntm  Kuclitlis,  Oxoniic  babitto,  Anno  1020. 


156 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


the  Cartesian  doctrine  concerning  the  sensible,  or,  as  they  are 
now  more  commonly  called,  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter. 
The  same  fulness  and  happiness  of  illustration  are  everywhere 
else  to  be  found  in  his  elucidations  of  his  master's  system ;  to 
the  popularity  of  which  he  certainly  contributed  greatly  by  the 
liveliness  of  his  fancy,  and  the  charms  of  his  composition. 
Even  in  this  part  of  his  writings,  he  always  preserves  the  air  of 
an  original  thinker ;  and,  while  pursuing  the  same  path  with 
Descartes,  seems  rather  to  have  accidentally  struck  into  it  from 
his  own  casual  choice,  than  to  have  selected  it  out  of  any  defer- 
ence for  the  judgment  of  another.  Perhaps  it  may  be  doubted, 
if  it  is  not  on  such  occasions,  that  the  inventive  powers  of  his 
genius,  by  being  somewhat  restrained  and  guided  in  their  aim, 
are  most  vigorously  and  most  usefully  displayed. 

In  confirmation  of  this  last  remark,  I  shall  only  mention,  by 
way  of  examples,  his  comments  on  the  Cartesian  theory  of 
Vision, — more  especially  on  that  part  of  it  which  relates  to  our 
experimental  estimates  of  the  distances  and  magnitudes  of 
objects ;  and  his  admirable  illustration  of  the  errors  to  which 
we  are  liable  from  the  illusions  of  sense,  of  imagination,  and  of 
the  passions.  In  his  physiological  reveries  on  the  union  of  soul 
and  body,  he  wanders,  like  his  master,  in  the  dark,  from  the 
total  want  of  facts  as  a  foundation  for  his  reasonings ;  but  even 
here  his  genius  has  had  no  inconsiderable  influence  on  the  in- 
quiries of  later  writers.  The  fundamental  principle  of  Hartley 
is  most  explicitly  stated  in  The  Search  after  Truth  ;^  as  well 


*  "  Toutes  no8  diffcrentes  perceptions 
Bont  attachees  aux  diflerens  changemens 
qui  arrivent  dans  les  fibres  de  la  partie 
principale  dn  cenreau  dans  laquelle 
r&me  reside  plus  particuli^rement." — 
(Beeh.  de  la  Viriti^  lib.  ii.  chap,  v.) 
These  changes  in  the  fibres  of  the  brain 
are  commonly  called  by  Malebranche 
^branlemens } — a  word  which  is  fre- 
quently rendered  by  his  old  English 
translator  (Taylor)  mbratuma.  "  La 
seconde  chose,"  says  Malebranche, 
"  qui  se  trouve  dans  chacune  des  sensa- 
tions, est  VihrarUement  des  fibres  de  nos 


nerfs,  qui  se  communique  jusqu'aa 
cerveau:"  thus  translated  by  Taylor: 
"  The  second  thing  that  occurs  in  every 
sensation  is  the  vibration  of  the  fibres 
of  our  nerves,  which  is  communicated 
to  the  brain." — (Liv.  i.  chap,  xii.)  Nor 
was  the  theory  of  cu$ociaUon  overlooked 
by  Malebranche.  See,  in  particular, 
the  third  chapter  of  his  second  book, 
entitled^  De  la  liaison  mutueBe  des 
id^es  de  Vespritj  et  des  traces  du 
cerveau;  et  de  la  liaison  mutueUe  des 
traces  avec  Us  traces^  H  des  idies  avefi 
Us  idies. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOOKK. 


157 


BB  a  hypothesis  concerning  the  nature  of  habits^  which,  rasli  and 
unwaiianted  as  it  must  now  appear  to  every  novice  in  science, 
was  not  thought  unworthy  of  adoption  in  The  Essay  on  Human 
Understanding? 

2.  Among  the  opinions  which  chiefly  characterize  the  system 
of  Malebranche,  the  leading  one  is,  that  the  causes  which  it  is 
the  aim  of  philosophy  to  investigate  are  only  occasional  causes; 
and  that  the  Deity  is  himself  the  efficient  and  the  immediate 
cause  of  every  effect  in  the  universe.*  From  this  single  i)rin- 
ciple,  the  greater  part  of  his  distinguishing  doctrines  may  \>e 
easily  deduced,  as  obvious  coroUarica 

That  we  are  completely  ignorant  of  the  manner  in  which 
physical  causes  and  effects  are  connected,  and  that  all  our 
knowledge  concerning  them  amounts  merely  to  a  perception  of 
constant  conjunction^  had  been  before  remnrkcil  by  Hobbes, 
and  more  fully  shown  by  Glanvill  in  his  Scepsis  Sclent ifica, 
Malebranche,  however,  has  treated  the  wnne  argument  much 
more  profoundly  and  ably  than  any  of  his  pnK^ece8^>or8,  and 
has,  indeed,  auticiiuitcd  Hume  in  some  of  the  most  int^'nious 
reasonings  contained  in  his  E8«iy  on  Necessary  Connexion, 
From  these  data^  it  was  not  unnatural  for  his  pious  mind  to 
conclude,  that  what  are  commonly  ciilled  second  causes  have  no 


*  "  Mail  afin  de  8uivn>  notrc  expli- 
cation, il  faut  R>marqucr  que  les  esprit r 
ne  trouyent  pafl  tonjonrs  les  clieinins, 
par  ou  ila  doivent  p<uu»er,  aHHcz  ouverts 
et  asiez  libres  ;  ot  que  cola  fait  quo  nous 
avoD8  do  la  difficultc  »l  romucr,  par 
excmple,  les  doi^rtR  avcc  la  vitcHHc  qui 
est  neoeRsairo  pour  juuer  den  inHtrumonH 
de  musique,  ou  les  muwIoH  qui  servont 
k  la  pniDonciation,  pour  pronnncer  les 
mots  d*une  langue  etraiip^-re :  Mais  quo 
peu-jl-peu  le$  enpriU  anhnaux  pftr  leur 
r.our»  continuel  ouvrent  et  ajtplatuMefU 
eet  ehetnitu^  en  sorte  qu*avcc  Ic  terns 
lis  n^  trouvcnt  plus  de  n'sistance.  Car 
c'est  dans  cette  faeilitc  que  les  esprits 
animaux  ont  de  passer  dans  les  membres 
de  notre  corps,  que  consistent  les  habi- 
tudes.*'— i?edk.  de  la  ViritS^  liv.  ii.  chap.v. 


"  Habits  soem  to  be  but  trains  of 
motion  in  the  animal  spiritu,  which, 
once  srt  a-g<>ing,  continue  in  the  same 
steps  they  have  been  used  to,  irAt'cA,  htf 
often  treaditKff  are  tcom  into  a  smooth 
pnth.^^ — Jjocke,  lK)<>k   ii.   chap.   x.\xiii. 

■  "Afin  qu'on  ne  puisse  plus  douter 
do  la  fauHsete  de  cette  niiHvrablo  philo- 
Bophie,  il  est  neceKsairo  <le  pruuver  <iu*il 
n'y  a  qu*un  vrai  Dieu,  pane  qu'il  n'y  a 
qu'unc  \Taie  cauKc ;  <iuo  la  nature  ou  la 
force  de  chacjuo  chose  n'<*Ht  quo  la 
volonte  de  Dieu :  que  toutes  les  causes 
naturelles  ne  sont  point  de  veritable 
causes,  mais  seulement  des  causes  occa- 
sionelles." — De  la  VSritS,  livre  vi.  2do 
Partie,  chap.  iii. 


158 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


existence ;  and  that  the  Divine  power,  incessantly  and  univer- 
sally exerted,  is,  in  truth,  the  connecting  link  of  all  the  pheno- 
mena of  natura  It  is  obvious,  that,  in  this  conclusion,  he  went 
farther  than  his  premises  warranted ;  for,  although  no  neces- 
sary connexions  among  physical  events  can  be  traced  by  our 
faculties,  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  such  connexions  are 
impossible  The  only  sound  inference  was,  that  the  laws  of 
nature  are  to  be  discovered,  not^  as  the  ancients  supposed,  by  a 
priori  reasonings  from  causes  to  effects,  but  by  experience  and 
observation.  It  is  but  justice  to  Malebranche  to  own,  that  he 
was  one  of  the  first  who  placed  in  a  just  and  strong  light  this 
fundamental  principle  of  the  inductive  logic. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  objections  to  the  theory  of  occasional 
cauaeSy  chiefly  insisted  on  by  Malebranche's  opponents,  were  far 
from  satisfactory.  By  some  it  was  alleged,  that  it  ascribed 
every  event  to  a  miraculous  interposition  of  the  Deity ;  as  if 
this  objection  were  not  directly  met  by  the  general  and  con- 
stant lai08  everywhere  manifested  to  our  senses, — in  a  depar- 
ture from  which  laws,  the  very  essence  of  a  mircucle  consists 
Nor  was  it  more  to  the  purpose  to  contend,  that  the  beauty  and 
perfection  of  the  universe  were  degraded  by  excluding  the  idea 
of  mechanism  ;  the  whole  of  this  argument  turning,  as  is  mani- 
fest, upon  an  application  to  Omnipotence  of  ideas  borrowed 
fit)m  the  limited  sphere  of  human  power.  ^  As  to  the  study  of 
natural  philosophy,  it  is  plainly  not  at  all  affected  by  the  hypo- 
thesis in  question ;  as  the  investigation  and  generalization  of 
the  laws  of  nature,  which  are  its  only  proper  objects,  present 
exactly  the  same  field  to  our  curiosity,  whether  we  suppose 
these  laws  to  be  the  immediate  effects  of  the  Divine  agency,  or 


^  This  objection,  frivoloos  as  it  is, 
was  strongly  urged  by  Mr.  Boyle,  {In- 
quiry into  the  Vulgar  Idea  eoneeming 
Niatwre,)  and  has  been  copied  fh)m  him 
by  Mr.  Hume,  Lord  Karnes,  and  many 
other  writers.  Mr.  Hume*8  words  are 
these :  **  It  argues  more  wisdom  to  con- 
trive at  first  the  fabric  of  the  world  with 
such  perfect  foresight,  that,  of  itself, 
and  by  its  proper  operation,  it  may  servo 


all  the  piU'poseR  of  providence,  than  if 
the  great  Creator  were  obliged  every 
moment  to  adjust  its  parts,  and  animate 
by  his  breath  all  the  wheels  of  that  stu- 
pendous machine." — ( Es^aif  on  the  Idea 
of  Necessary  CoTmexion.)  An  observa- 
tion somewhat  similar  occurs  in  the 
Treatise  De  Mvndo,  commonly  ascribed 
to  Aristotle. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  If)!) 

the  effects  of  second  cauaeSj  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  our 
facultiea^ 

Such,  however,  were  the  cliief  reaflonings  opposed  to  Male- 
branche  by  Leibnitz,  in  order  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Hystem 
o{  Pre-^atabliahed  Harmony;  a  HyRtom  more  nearly  allied  to 
that  of  occasional  causes  than  its  author  seems  to  have  sus- 
pected, and  encumbered  with  every  solid  difficulty  connected 
with  the  other. 

From  the  theory  of  occasional  causes^  it  is  easy  to  trace  the 
process  which  led  Malebranche  to  conclude,  that  we  see  all 
things  in  Ood.  The  same  arguments  which  convinced  him, 
that  the  Deity  carries  into  execution  every  volition  of  the  mind, 
in  the  movements  of  the  body,  could  not  fail  to  suggest,  as  a 
farther  consequence,  tliat  every  perception  of  the  mind  is  the 
immediate  effect  of  the  divine  illumination.  As  to  the  manner 
in  which  this  illumination  is  accomplished,  the  extraonlinary 
hypothesis  adopted  by  Malebranche  was  forcetl  u\Hm  him,  by 
the  opinion  then  universjilly  held,  that  the  immwliate  objects  of 
our  jiercejitious  arc  not  things  external,  but  their  ideas  or 
images.  The  only  possible  exjjedient  for  rec^onciling  these  two 
articles  of  his  creed,  was  to  transfer  the  seat  of  oiu*  ideas  from 
our  own  minds  to  that  of  the  Creator.* 

'  In  Hpeakinfi^  of  llie  tliwiry  of  orc«-  Ifuiar  Newton.     In  fiwt,  on  the  point 

»ional  cawseSf  Mr.  Hume  lum  comniittod  now  in  queNtion,  liiH  vn*vd  woh  tlic  Muue 

a  hintorical  niistako,  which  it  may  be  with  that  uf  Malebruncho.     The  follow- 

proper  to  rectify.     "  Malfhmnchc,"  he  iii^  Hontrnre  in  very  nearly  a  tnuiKlation 

ohservcB,  "and  other  CarteHiunH,  made  of  a  )>aHHaf>^  already  quoted  from  the 

the  doctrine  of  the  univenuU  and  solo  latter.     "  I'he   courBo  of  nature,  truly 

efficacy  of  the  I)eity,  the  foundation  of  nn<l  jiroiH-rly  Hp<'aking,  \h  nothing  but 

all  their  philoHophy.     It  had,  hoim'^ry  the  will  »)f(»«xl  imxlucini;  certain  ijtTertji 

%ocatthorityinEiujl(tnd.  Locke,  ( Marke,  in  a  continued,  regular,  couHtant,  and 

and  Cudworth,  never  io  much  aa  take  uniform    manner." —  Clarke^a     IfbrJbi, 

notice  of  it,  but  BUp])OMe  all  along  that  vol.  ii.  p.  098,  fol.  ed. 
matter  han  a  real,  though  subonlinato 

and  dcrive<l  power." — Hume's  Essayiiy  ■  We  are  indebted  to  I>a  Harpo  for 

vol.  ii.  p.  475,  edition  of  1784,  the   pn»Hor>'ati<)n   of  an   epigrammatic 

Mr.  Hume  was  probably  led  to  con-  line  (t/n  ver.^  fort  jtta hunt,  aH  he  juHtly 

nect,  in  this  last  sentence,  the  name  of  calls  it)  on  this  ceU'brat^^d  liyiKJtheHiH : 

(^'Uirkc  with  those  of  Locke   and  Cud-  "  Iah',  qui  rolt  tovt  en  JHev,  n*y  voit-il 

worth,   by  taking  for  granted  that  his  pn»qu^Ue>itfout — ('V-toit  aumoins,"  Tia 

metaphysical   opinions   agreed   exactly  Harfx^  adds,  "  un  fou  qui  avoit  lM*aueoup 

wth   those  commonly  ascribed  to  Sir  d'esprit." 


160 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


In  this  theory  of  Malebranche,  there  is  undoubtedly,  as  Bayle 
lias  remarked,^  an  approach  to  some  speculations  of  the  latter 
Platonists ;  but  there  is  a  much  closer  coincidence  between  it 
and  the  system  of  those  Hindoo  philosophers,  who  (according 
to  Sir  William  Jones)  "  believed  that  the  whole  creation  was 
rather  an  energy  than  a  work ;  by  which  the  infinite  Mind, 
who  is  present  at  all  times,  and  in  all  places,  exhibits  to  his 
creatures  a  set  of  perceptions,  like  a  wonderful  picture,  or  piece 
of  music,  always  varied,  yet  always  imiform."* 

In  some  of  Malebranche's  reasonings  upon  tliis  subject,  he 
has  struck  into  the  same  train  of  thought  which  was  afterwards 
pursued  by  Berkeley,  (an  author  to  whom  he  bore  a  very  strong 
resemblance  in  some  of  the  most  characteristical  features  of  his 
genius ;)  and,  had  he  not  been  restrained  by  religious  scruples, 
he  would,  in  all  probability,  have  asserted,  not  less  confidently 
than  his  successor,  that  the  existence  of  matter  was  demonstra- 
bly inconsistent  with  the  principles  then  universally  admitted 
by  philosophers.  But  this  conclusion  Malebranche  rejects,  as 
not  reconcilable  with  the  words  of  Scripture,  that  "  in  the 
beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth."  "  La  foi 
m'apprend  que  Dieu  a  cr^^  le  ciel  et  la  terre.  Elle  m'apprend 
que  I'Ecriture  est  un  livre  divin.  Et  ce  livre  ou  son  apparence 
me  dit  nettement  et  positivement,  qu'il  y  a  mille  et  mille  crea- 
tures. Done  voila  toutes  mes  apparences  changees  en  realites. 
H  y  a  des  corps ;  cela  est  d^montre  en  toute  rigueur  la  foy 
suppos^e."' 

In  reflecting  on  the  repeated  reproduction  of  these,  and  other 


*  See  his  Dictionary,  article  Amelius. 
■  Introduction   to  a  Translation  of 

some  Hindoo  verses. 

•  ErUretiens  uur   la   MitiphysiAjuf^ 
p.  207. 

The  celebrated  doubt  of  Descartes 
concerning  all  truths  but  the  existence 
of  his  own  mind^  (it  cannot  be  too  oHen 
repeated,)  was  the  real  source,  not  only 
of  the  inconsistency  of  Malebranche  on 
this  head,  but  of  the  chief  metaphysical 
puzzJe$  afterwards  started  by  Berkeley 


and  Hume.  The  illogical  transition  by 
which  he  attempted  to  pass  from  this 
first  principle  to  other  tniths,  was  early 
remarked  by  some  of  his  own  followers, 
who  were  accordingly  led  to  conclude, 
that  no  man  can  have  fiiU  assurance  of 
anything  but  of  his  oi^ti  individual  ex- 
istence. If  the  fundamental  doubt  of 
Descartes  be  admitted  as  reasonable, 
the  conclusion  of  these  philosophers 
(who  were  distinguished  by  the  name  of 
EgoigU)  is  unavoidable. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOfiOrilY  FROM  BACON  TO  UHKK.  101 

ancient  paradoxes,  by  modern  aiitliorB,  whom  it  would  l)e  hi^lily 
unjust  to  accuse  of  plagiarism  ; — still  more,  in  retlcrtin^on  the 
affinity  of  some  of  our  most  refiiuHl  tluH>rii*H  to  the  ijojtular 
belief  in  a  remote  quarter  of  the  ^lolie,  one  is  almost  t('m|)t<Hl 
to  suppose,  tliat  huinnn  invention  is  limiti'd,  like  a  harrcl-oij^in, 
to  a  specific  num1)er  of  tunes.  But  is  it  not  a  fairiT  iiiiuriMiee, 
that  the  province  of  jMire  Imap^iuation,  unlH)undLHl  as  it  may  at 
first  appear,  is  narrow,  when  comjiariHl  with  the  n»j(ions  o{>ened 
by  truth  and  nature  t<^  our  j)owors  of  ohscTvation  and  reason- 
ing ?^  Prior  to  the  time  (»f  l^teon,  the  physical  systems  of  the 
learned  performed  their  jwriiKlieal  n'volufions  in  orbits  as 
small  as  the  metaphysical  hyi)<»tlies(»s  of  their  successors;  and 
vet,  who  wouhl  now  set  anv  IkiuikIs  to  our  cnriositv  in  the 
study  of  the  materiid  universe  ?  Is  it  n'asonahle  to  think,  that 
the  phenomena  of  the  intellwtual  world  arc  less  various,  or  less 
mnrkeil  with  the  siji^J'^tures  of  Divine  wisd(»m  ? 

It  forms  an  interesting^  circumstance  in  the  history  of  the 
two  memorable  jKTsons  who  have  sn^^ested  these  remarks,  that 
they  liad  once,  and  only  onec^  the  ]»leasure  of  a  short,  inlerview. 
**The  conversation,"  we  are  toM,  'MuriKMl  on  the  non-existence 
of  matter.  Malebranche,  who  had  an  inHammalion  in  his 
lungs,  and  whom  IJerkeley  found  ])reiMirin^  a  medicine  in  his 
cell,  and  cookinc:  it  in  a  small  ])ij)kin,  exerted  his  voice  so 
violently  in  the  heat  of  their  disjaite,  that  he  iiurreased  his  dis- 
order, which  earrieii  liim  oft'  a  few  <lays  after/*^  it  is  iniiM)ssiljle 
not  to  refcret,  tliat  of  this  interview  there  is  no  other  record  ; — 
or  rather,  that  Berkeley  had  not  made  it  the  t^Toundwork  of 
one  of  his  own  dialojjpies.  Tine  as  his  imagination  was,  it 
could  scarcely  have  addinl  to  the  j)ictures<pie  etPi^ct  of  the  rcjd 
ficene.3 

'  The  liinitod  nninlMT  of  fublfs,  of  and  Ma1i*1imnc-1i«>  in  tlio  Hovouly-sovc'iith 

]iumon>UH  taU'H,  uinl  oven  of  jj-ntH,  whirh,  yrar  of  Iiin  up\     Wli.tt  a  (liautri*  in  tliu 

it  nIiouKI  WM'iii,  nru  in  cin'ulati«»n  ovi-r  Matrt»f  ilu*  |iliilt>s4(|.liu«l  wnrhl  {wli.tluT 

the  fn<'0  of  tho  j;1o1m!,  might  jH-rhajm  In^  for  the  In'ttor  nr  worK«»   is  a  jlini-ront 

Jillep'il  a8  un  udditioiinl  conHnimtion  of  (|ncstiiin)  lias  tiikiii  \A;ur  in  the  cotirM* 

this  idi'a.  of  th«>  iiilt-rvriiiii^  i-(  ntury  ! 

•  />iVh/.  lirit.  Vol.  ii.  p.  2.51.  l)r.  Warlnirtoii,  v>\in,  vun  when  ho 

■  Tins  intiTvicw  hrti»|w»ne<l  in  171 T),  thinks  \\iv  most  nnHnuinlly,  always  |m»s. 

when  IJorkeloy  wna  in  the  thirty-firet,  HOHSi'H  tho  rnn»   mrrit  of  thinking  for 

VOL.  I.  L 


162 


niSSBRTATION, — PAHT  niWT. 


Anthony  Ai'iiaiilcl,  wliom  I  have  already  mentioned  as  c 
of  tlie  tlioological  antagonists  of  Malebranche,  is  also  entitled  M  "l 
a  distinguished  rank  among  the  French  philoBophers  of  thii  | 
period.     In  his  book  On  true  and  false,  ideas,  written  in  oppo-   ' 
Bition  to  Malebrauche'a  scheme  of  onr  seeing  all  things  in  God, 
he  18  acknowletiged  by  Dr.  Reid  to  have  struck  the  first  mortal 
blow  at  the  ideal  theory,  and  to  have  approximated  very  nearly 
to  his  own  refntafion  of  this  ancient  and  inveterate  prejudice.' 


I 


hiniftclf,  in  one  of  ihe  veiy  few  ElngUsh 
aiilhorB  vha  hnr?  apoken  uf  Malebruiche 
with  the  respect  dns  to  hia  eitraonlinaiy 
titlenlB.  "  All  yaa  taj  of  Matebranchi^," 
iio  observes  in  a  letter  to  I>r.  Hurd,  "in 
Htridl;  true ;  lie  is  ui  admirable  writer. 
There  is  Bomethii));  tetj  different  in  the 
r<irtiine  of  Halehnmclie  anil  Lucke. 
When  Malebranche  first  appearcil,  it 
was  with  B  general  apptaase  and  ad- 
miration; vhen  Louke  first  publinbed 
bia  Entaj/,  lie  bad  hardlj  a  single  ap- 
prover. Now  I/tcke  is  uniTemal,  and 
Malebranche  sunk  into  obaturily.  All 
this  maj'  be  ea«ilj  accounted  for.  The 
intryisic  merit  of  either  was  out  of  tlie 
question.  But  Malebranche  Bnp]iortGd 
bis  first  appearance  on  a  pbilosophj  in 
tlie  highest  vogue ;  (bat  pbilosnpb;  has 
b«cn  orertumeil  b;  the  Newtoniao,  and 
Halebrani^lie  lias  faScQ  with  bis  muster. 
It  was  to  no  purpose  to  t*!l  the  world, 
that  Malebraacbe  could  stand  without 
him.  Tbe  publir  never  examines  so 
narrowly,  Not  but  lb  at  tbeni  waa 
another  canie  sufficient  to  do  the  husi- 
ness ;  and  that  is,  Iiis  debasing  bis  noble 
work  wilb  bis  sjt>lem  of  seeing  all 
things  in  GiiJ.  When  Ibis  happens  lo 
a  great  author,  one  half  of  his  readers 
out  of  folly,  the  otlier  nut  of  malice, 
dwell  only  on  the  unsound  part,  and  for- 
get the  other,  or  use  all  tbeir  arta  to 
have  it  forgotten. 

"But  the  sage  Locke  supported  bim- 
aclf  by  no  ayslBm  on  tbe  one  bond  ;  nor, 
on  the  other,  did  be  diebonour  liimpMilf 
liy  anr  wbiniBies.    The  consequence  "f 


wbicb  noB,  that,  neither  following  iha 
fafihioii,  nor  striking  tbn  imagination, 
he,  at  lirst,  hnd  neither  followen  nor 
admirers;  but  being  everywhere  clciir, 
and    over}-wbero   solid,    be    at    length 
workeil  bis  way,   and  aflerwards  waa 
sutiject  to  no  reverses.     Ho  was  not    . 
afierled  by  the  new  fashions  in  pbilosn- 
pby,  who  leaned  upon  none  of  the  old ;    . 
nnr  did  he  afford  gronnd  for  the  alter 
■ttacka  of  cuvy  and  folly  by  any  raodful   I 
hypolbi'ses,  which,  nbea  grown  stab?,   | 
are  the  most  nauseous  of  all  things." 
Tlic  foregoing  roflaclions  on  the  op] 
site  fates  of  these  two  philosophers,  da   I 
honour  on  the  whole  to  Warburton'i 
penetration ;  but  the  nnqnalified  pane- 
gyric on  Locke  will  be  Dow  vety  get 
ally   allowed  to  liimish   an  addition*! 
example  of  "  tbal  national  Spirit,  which," 
actording  to  Hume,  "forma  the  great 
happiness  of  the   English,  and  lead* 
bestow  on  all  tbeir  etninent 


as  may  often  appear  partial  and  excea- 

'  Tbo  following  Tiiry  condse  and  ac- 
curate  summary  of  Araaldd's  doctrine 
cunccming  Ideas,  in  given  by  Brucker. 
"  AnloniaB  Arnaldns,  Ut  argoment* 
Malebranchii  eo  fortius  everteret,  pecn- 
liarem  senlcntiam  defendit,  asKruitque, 
ideas  eammqne  perceptiones  esse  nnlun 
idumque,  et  non  nisi  relationibus  dif- 
ferro.  Ideam  scilicet  esse,  qualenns  ad 
objectum  refortor  ijuod  mens  coneiderat ; 
perceptionem  vero,  quatenus  ad  ipaam 
mrnteni  quie  percipit;  diipliecm  tamen 


CHAP.  II. — rHlLUHUl'HV  FJIOM  BAtH>N  TO  UM'KR 


1G3 


A  step  80  important  would  of  itself  be  sufficient  to  esUibliHh 
luB  claim  to  a  place  in  literary  history ;  but  wliat  cliieily 
induces  me  again  to  bring  forward  his  name,  is  the  reputa- 
tion he  has  so  justly  acquired  by  his  treiitise,  entitled  The 
Art  of  Thinking ;^  a  treatise  written  by  Aniauld  in  cun- 
jimction  with  his  friend  Nicole,  and  of  which  (considering  the 
time  when  it  api)eared)  it  is  hardly  possible  to  estimate  the 
merits  too  higlily.  No  publication  c(.»rtainly,  prior  to  Locke's 
Essay^  can  be  named,  containing  so  nuich  good  sense  and  so 
little  nonsense  on  the  science  of  Logic ;  «nd  very  few  have  since 
appeared  on  fhe  same  subject,  wiiich-can  Ik?  Justly  preferred  to 
it  in  point  of  practical  utility.  If  the  author  htul  lived  in  the 
present  age,  or  had  been  less  fettereil  by  a  prudent  reganl  to 
existing  prejudices,  the  technical  i>art  would  probably  have  I K?en 
reduced  within  a  still  narrower  comiWHs ;  but  even  there  he  has 
contrived  to  substitute,  for  the  puerile  and  contemptible  ex- 
amples of  common  logi(!ians,  seveml  interesting  illustrations 
from  the  physical  discoveries  of  his  immediate*  predecessors  ; 
and  has  indulged  himself  in  some  short  excursions  which  excite 
a  lively  regret  that  he  had  not  more  frecjuently  and  fR»ely  given 
scope  to  his  original  reflections.  Among  these  excumons,  the 
most  valuable,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  twentieth  chapter  of  the 
third  part,  which  deserves  the  attention  of  every  logical  student, 
as  an  important  and  instnictive  supplement  to  the  enumeration 
of  80i)hisms  given  by  Aristotle.^ 


illom  relationcni  od  unnm  portiucro  moii- 
Hh  mudiiicatioiK^m.** — {ILUt.  Phil.  tie. 
IdeU^  pp.  247,  248.)  Anthony  AmanM 
farther  hold,  that  "  material  tliingH  arc 
jierceivcd  imnutdiately  by  tlio  mind, 
without  the  intervention  of  idenay — 
{Hist,  de  Ideis,  p.  201.)  In  this  reHpcvt 
his  doctrine  roincided  exactly  with  that 
ofKfid. 

^  More  commonly  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Port- Hoy fd  [xHfic. 

•  Acconlinf?  to  Oousaz,  The  Art  of 
Thinking  contribntod  more  than  either 
the  Chffavon  of  Bacon,  or  the  Afethod 


of  Deseartrn,  to  inipr«)ve  the  eHtaI>li«hed 
iiKMh'H  of  aendemical  eduenticm  on  the 
('ontineiit.  (See  the  IVeface  to  his 
lA)</ie,  printed  at  (Jeneva,  1724.)  Leilv- 
nitz  himst'If  has  mentioned  it  in  the 
most  flattering  terms,  cou])lin^  tlic  name 
of  the  antliur  with  that  of  Pascal,  a  still 
mc^re  illuMtrioiis  ornament  of  the  Port- 
liof/fd  Society: — "  hifijenio.KiHsimuH  Pas- 
cal! iis  in  prnM>lara  dissertatione  de  in- 
gf'nio  (Jeonn'trico,  cuJuh  fragmentum 
extnt  in  egregio  libro  celeberri un  viri 
Autonii  Anialdi  de  Arte  U-nc  Cogi- 
tandi."   &c. ;    but   lest    this   encomium 


1R4  meHERTATION. — PART  KIHST. 

T]\ii  wiuniliiCBK  1)1'  judgment  so  ciniaently  displiiywl  in  The 
Art  of  Thinkimj,  forms  a  ciirinuB  coDtrast  to  tliat  iiasaion  for 
tlipoli^ical  controversy,  and  that  zml  for  what  he  conceived  to   i 
lie  the  purity  of  the  Faith,  which  eeem  to  have  been  the  ruling   ' 
pnsaiouB  of  the  author's  mind.     He  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty- 
three,  continuing  to  write  against  Malehrunche's  opinions  con- 
cerning Nature  and  Grace  to  his  last  hour.     "  He  died,"  says 
hifi  biographer,  "in  an  obscure  retr«?iit  at  BrusselB,  in  1692, 
without  fortune,  and  even  witliout  the  comfort  of  a  ser^■ant ;  Ac, 
whose  nephew  had  been  a  Minister  of  State,  and  who  might   ' 
liimself  have  been  a  Caniinal.     The  ple«sure  of  being  able  to 
pxibh'sk  his  sentiments  was  to  liim  a  suliicieut  recompense." 
Nicole,  Ills  friend  and  com)Minion  in  arms,  worn  out  at  length   i 
with  these  incessant  disputes,  exjiressed  a  wish  to  retire  from 
tlie  field,  and  to  enjoy  repose.     "Hepose!"  replied  Amanld ;   , 
"  won't  you  have  the  whole  of  eternity  to  repose  in  ?" 

An  anecdote  wiiieh  is  told  of  his  infancy,  when  considered  in 
connexion  with  his  subsequent  life,  affords  a  good  illnstration  of  ' 
the  force  of  impressionB  received  in  the  first  dawn  of  reason. 
He  wa*  amusing  himself  one  day  with  some  childish  sport,  in 
the  library  ol'  the  Cardinal  du  Perron,  when  he  requested  of  the 
Cardinal  to  give  him  a  pen. — And  for  what  purpose  ?  said  the 
Cardinal. — To  write  hocAie,  like  you,  against  the  Huguenots. 


from  BO  high  Ha  snthori^  ahnnW  excile 
a  curiodty  Kimavhot  out  of  propurtion 
to  the  retil  Toliie  of  the  two  works  here 
mentioned,  I  think  it  right  to  add.  (Imt 
the  pmiaet  hertiiwed  by  Ltibnitj',,  whe- 
ther OB  living  or  ilpad  nuthora,  are  not 
always  lo  be  alrictly  loid  literiillj  inter- 
preted. "  No  one."  saya  Ilmoe,  "  is  bo 
lisbla  to  aa  excess  of  idmirstion  on  a 
traly  frreat  gern'oa."  Wherever  Leib- 
niW  haa  occasion  to  refer  to  any  work 
of  aoUd  merit,  Ibia  remark  appliea  In  him 
wilh  pBGuliar  force;  partly,  it  ia  pro- 
bable, from  big  qiuck  and  sympathetic 
perception  of  congenial  excellence,  and 
partly  from  a  generous  anxiety  I'>  poirit 
it  oiit  lo  the  notice  of  Ihe  worM      II 


afiiinla.  on  Ihe  other  hand,  a  rcnuu-kahle 
iHiistration  of  the  force  of  prejudice,  (hot 
Buffier,  a  leamed  and  moat  able  Jesuit, 
ahonld  have  been  ao  far  inSnenced  by 
llie  hatred  of  hia  order  to  the  ilanaenigls, 
aa  to  diatingiiiah  the  Purt-Soyal  Lapo  I 
with  the  cold  appnilatiuQ  of  being  " 
.jndioiuuB  com^HTad™  from  former  wort» 
on  the  BBme  aiibjort,— partionlarly  from 
a  treatise  by  a  Spanish  Jeauit,  Foiufea!' 
— (Oiiwa  dr  *tViio«,  p.  873.  Paria, 
1732.)  Gibbon  alao  has  remarked  how 
much  "  the  leamed  Soi-iety  of  Port- 
Boyol  contributed  to  establish  in  Franoe 
n  lBal«  for  just  Tessouing,  aimplicity  of  I 
Bti'le,  and  philosophical  method," — M^te. 
Wor)!!.  w\.  ii.  p.  70. 


CHAP.  II. — ^PHILOSOPHY  FfiOM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  165 

The  Cardinal,  it  is  addeil,  w}io  was  then  old  and  intirni,  could 
not  conceal  his  joy  at  the  prosijcct  of  so  hoixiful  a  successor ; 
and,  as  he  was  putting  tlie  pen  into  his  liand,  said,  ^^  I  give  it 
to  yoci,  as  the  dying  shepherd  Damoetas  bequeathed  his  pipe  to 
the  little  Corydon." 

The  name  of  Pascal  {that  prodigy  of  parts,  as  Locke  calls 
him)  is  more  familiar  to  modern  ears,  than  tbit  of  any  of  the 
other  learned  and  polishe<l  anchorites,  who  liavc  renderwl  the 
sanctuary  of  Port-Royal  so  illustrious ;  but  his  writings  furnish 
few  materials  for  philosophical  history.  Abstracting  from  his 
great  merits  in  mathematics  and  in  physics,  his  reputation 
rests  chiefly  on  the  Provincial  Letters;  a  work  from  wliich 
Voltaire,  notwithstanding  his  strong  i)R»judices  against  the 
author,  dates  the  fixation  of  the  French  language  ;  and  of 
which  the  same  excellent  judge  lias  wiid,  that  "  Moliere's  best 
comedies  do  not  excel  them  in  wit,  nor  the  comiKJsitions  of 
Bossuet  in  sublimity."  The  enthusiaKtic  admiration  of  (Til)I>on 
for  this  book,  which  he  was  accuKtomed  from  his  youth  to  read 
once  a  year,  is  well  knovm  ;  and  is  suHicient  to  account  for  the 
rapture  with  which  it  never  fails  to  Ikj  spoken  of  by  the  erudite 
vulgar^  in  this  country.  I  cimnot  helj*,  however,  suspecting, 
that  it  is  now  more  praised  than  read  in  (Jreat  Britain ;  so 
completely  liave  those  disputes,  to  which  it  owt^l  its  first  cele- 
brity, lost  their  interest.  Many  passiiges  in  it,  iiidctHl,  will 
alwaj's  be  jh-TUschI  with  delight ;  but  it  may  In?  <iucKtiontMl,  if 
Gibbon  himself  would  have  read  it  so  often  from  beginning  to 
end,  had  it  not  l)een  for  the  strong  hold  which  ecclesiastical 
controversies,  and  the  Koman  Catholic  faith,  had  early  tiik(»n  of 
his  mincL 

In  one  res|X}ct,  the  Provinciid  Letters  are  well  entitled  to 
the  attention  of  pliilosojihers ;  inasmuch  as  they  present  so 
faithful  and  lively  a  picture  of  the  influence  of  false  religious 
views  in  i)erverting  the  moral  sentiments  of  mankind.  The 
overwhelming  ridicule  lavished  by  Pascal  on  the  whole  system 
of  Jesuitical  casuistry,  and  tlie  hap])y  effects  of  his  pleasiintry 

*  EruiVitinn  ViiUfnu. — IMiii.  Xat.  UtMt.  lib.  ii. 


16G  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

in  preparingj  from  a  distance,  the  fall  of  that  formidable  order, 
might  be  quoted  as  proofs,  that  there  are  at  least  some  truths, 
in  whose  defence  this  weapon  may  be  safely  employed ; — ^per- 
haps with  more  advantage  than  the  commanding  voice  of 
Reason  herself.  The  mischievous  absurdities  which  it  was  his 
aim  to  correct,  scarcely  admitted  of  the  gravity  of  logical  dis- 
cussion ;  requiring  only  the  extirpation  or  the  prevention  of 
those  early  prejudices  which  choke  the  growth  of  common 
sense  and  of  conscience :  And  for  this  purpose,  what  so  likely 
to  succeed  with  the  open  and  generous  minds  of  youth,  as 
Ridicule,  managed  with  decency  and  taste;  more  especially 
when  seconded,  as  in  the  Provincial  Letters^  by  acuteness  of 
argument,  and  by  the  powerful  eloquence  of  the  heart  ?  In 
this  point  of  view,  few  practical  moralists  can  boast  of  having 
rendered  a  more  important  service  than  Pascal  to  the  general 
interests  of  humanity.  Were  it  not,  indeed,  for  his  exquisite 
satire,  we  should  already  be  tempted  to  doubt,  if,  at  so  recent  a 
date,  it  were  possible  for  such  extravagancies  to  have  main- 
tained a  dangerous  ascendant  over  the  human  understanding. 

The  unconnected  fragment  of  Pascal,  entitled  Thoughts  on 
Religion^  contains  various  reflections  which  are  equally  just  and 
ingenious;  some  which  are  truly  sublime;  and  not  a  few 
which  are  false  and  puerile :  the  whole,  however,  deeply  tinc- 
tured with  that  ascetic  and  morbid  melancholy,  which  seems  to 
have  at  last  produced  a  partial  eclipse  of  his  facultiea  Vol- 
taire has  animadverted  on  this  fragment  with  much  levity  and 
petulance ;  mingling,  at  the  same  time,  witb  many  very  excep- 
tionable strictures,  several  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  dispute 
the  justness.  The  following  reflection  is  worthy  of  Addison, 
and  bears  a  strong  resemblance  in  its  spirit  to  the  amiable 
lessons  inculcated  in  his  papers  on  Cheerfulness:^ — "  To  con- 
sider the  world  as  a  dungeon,  and  the  whole  human  race  as 
so  many  criminals  doomed  to  execution,  is  the  idea  of  an 
enthusiast ;  to  suppose  the  world  to  be  a  seat  of  delight,  where 
we  are  to  expect  nothing  but  pleasure,  is  the  dream  of  a  Syba- 
rite;  but  to  conclude  that  the  Earth,  Man,  and  the  lower 

*  Spectator,  No.  381  ami  387. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  167 

Animalfi,  are,  all  of  them,  subservient  to  the  purposes  of  au 
unerring  Providence,  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  system  of  a  wise 
and  good  man." 

From  the  sad  history  of  this  great  and  excellent  person,  (on 
whose  deep  superstitious  gloom  it  is  the  more  painful  to  dwell, 
that,  by  an  unaccountable,  though  not  singular  coincidence,  it 
was  occasionally  brightened  by  the  inofiPensive  play  of  a  lively 
and  sportive  fancy,)  the  eye  turns  with  pleasure  to  rei)08e  on 
the  mitis  sapientia,  and  tlie  Elysian  imagination  of  Fenelon. 
i£he>  interval-  between-  the  deaths  of  these  two  writers*  is  indeed 
considerable,  but  that  between  their  births  does  not  amount  to 
thirty  years ;  and,  in  point  of  education,  both  enjoyed  nearly 
the  same  advantagea 

The  reputation  of  Fenelon  as  a  philosopher  would  probably 
have  been  higher  and  more  imivcrsal  than  it  is,  if  he  had  not 
added  to  the  deptli,  comprehension,  and  soundness  of  his 
judgment,  so  rich  a  variety  of  those  more  i)lea8ing  and  attrac- 
tive qualities,  which  are  commonly  regardeil  nither  as  the 
flowers  tlian  the  fniits  of  study.  The  same  remark  may  be 
extended  to  the  Fenelon  of  England,  whoso  ingenious  and 
original  essays  on  the  Pleasures  of  Imagination  would  have 
been  much  more  valued  by  modem  metaphysicians,  had  they 
been  less  beautifully  and  happily  wTitten.  The  charactcristical 
excellence,  however,  of  the  Archbishop  of  Cambniy,  is  that 
moral  wisdom  wliich  (as  ShaftcHbury  has  well  observed) 
"  comes  more  from  the  heart  than  from  the  head  ;"  and  which 
seems  to  depend  less  on  the  reach  of  our  reasoning  powers,  tlian 
on  the  absence  of  those  narrow  and  malignant  {Missions,  which, 
on  all  questions  of  ethics  and  i>olitics,  (perhaps  1  might  add  of 
religion  also,)  are  the  chief  source  of  our  speculative  errora 

The  Adventures  of  Telemachus,  when  considered  as  a  pro- 
duction of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  still  more  a«  the  work 
of  a  Roman  Catholic  Bishop,  is  a  sort  of  i)rodig}' ;  and  it  may, 
to  this  day,  be  confidently  recommended  as  the  best  manual 
extant  for  imi)re8sing  on  the  minds  of  youth  the  leading  tniths 
both  of  practical  morals  and  of  political  economy.     Nor  ought 


168  DlSSEliTATlON. — PART  FIRST. 

it  to  be  coucluded,  because  these  truths  appear  to  lie  so  near 
the  surface,  and  command  so  immediately  the  cordial  assent 
of  the  understanding,  that  they  are  therefore  obvious  or  trite ; 
for  the  case  is  the  same  with  cdl  the  truths  most  essential  to 
human  happiness.  The  importance  of  agriculture  and  of  reli- 
gious toleration  to  the  prosperity  of  states ;  the  criminal  im- 
policy of  thwarting  the  kind  arrangements  of  Providence,  by 
restraints  upon  conmierce ;  and  the  duty  of  legislators  to  study 
the  laws  of  the  moral  world  as  the  groundwork  and  standard  of 
their  own,  appear,  to  minds  unsophisticated  by  inveterate  pre- 
judices, as  approaching  nearly  to  the  class  of  axioms ; — ^yet  how 
much  ingenious  and  refined  discussion  has  been  employed,  even 
in  our  own  times,  to  combat  the  prejudices  which  everywhere 
continue  to  struggle  against  them ;  and  how  remote  does  the 
period  yet  seem,  when  there  is  any  probability  that  these  pre- 
judices shall  be  completely  abandoned  ! 

"  But  how,"  said  Telemachus  to  Narbal,  "  can  such  a  com- 
merce as  this  of  Tyre  be  established  at  Ithaca  ?"  "  By  the 
same  means,"  said  Narbal,  "  that  have  established  it  here. 
Receive  all  strangers  with  readiness  and  hospitality ;  let  them 
find  convenience  and  liberty  in  your  ports;  and  be  careful 
never  to  disgust  them  by  avarice  or  pride  :  above  all,  never  re- 
strain the  freedom  of  commerce,  by  rendering  it  subser\dent  to 
your  own  immediate  gain.  The  pecuniary  advantages  of  com- 
merce should  be  left  wholly  to  those  by  whose  labour  it  sub- 
sists ;  lest  this  labour,  for  want  of  a  sufficient  motive,  should 
cease.  There  are  more  than  equivalent  advantages  of  another 
kind,  which  must  necessarily  result  to  the  Prince  from  the 
wealth  which  a  free  commerce  'will  bring  into  his  state ;  and 
commerce  is  a  kind  of  spring,  which  to  divert  from  its  natural 
channel  is  to  lose."  ^  Had  the  same  question  been  put  to  Smith 
or  to  Franklin  in  the  present  age,  what  sounder  advice  could 
they  have  offered  ? 

In  one  of  Fenelon's  Dialogues  of  the  Dead,  the  following 
remarkable  words  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Socrates :  "  It  is 
necessary  that  a  people  should  have  written  laws,  always  the 

*  Hawkcswortli's  Tr{ln^<lfttion. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  169 

Bame,  and  consecrated  by  the  whole  nation ;  that  these  laws 
should  be  paramount  to  everjtliiug  else  ;  tliat  tliooc  who  govern 
should  derive  their  authority  from  them  alone ;  jiossessing  an 
unbounded  {)ower  to  do  all  the  good  which  the  lawH  prescribe, 
and  restrained  from  every  act  of  injuHtice  which  the  laws  pro- 
hibit" 

But  it  is  chiefly  in  a  work  which  did  not  a]:)pear  till  many 
years  after  his  death,  that  we  have  an  opportunity  of  tracing 
the  enlargement  of  Fenelon's  jiolitical  views,  and  t)ie  extent  of 
his  Christian  cliarity.  It  is  entitle<l  Direction  pour  la  Con- 
science  dun  Roi;  and  abounds  with  as  libeml  and  enlightened 
maxims  of  government  as,  under  the  freest  constitutions,  have 
ever  been  oflFered  by  a  subject  t4>  a  sovereign.  Where  the 
variety  of  excellence  renders  selection  so  difficult,  I  muHt  not 
venture  uik)u  any  extracts ;  nor,  indeed,  would  I  willingly 
injure  ihxt  eftect  of  the  whole  by  quoting  detjiched  iMissjiges.  A 
few  sentences  on  liberty  of  conscience  (which  I  will  not  pre- 
sume to  tniiiHlate)  may  Huffice  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  general 
iqnrit  with  which  it  is  animated  "  Sur  toute  cli(»He,  no  forcez 
jamais  vos  sujets  a  changer  de  religion.  Nulle  puisnance  hu- 
maine  ne  \ni\\i  fora»r  le  retranchement  imi^netrable  de  la  liberty 
du  ca»ur.  La  force  ne  i)eut  jjunais  jK^rsuader  Ich  hommes  ;  elle 
ne  fait  que  des  h}iHXTite8.  Quand  les  rois  se  melent  do  reli- 
gion, au  lieu  de  la  i>roteger,  ilH  la  mettent  en  HerA'itude.  Ac- 
conlez  a  tons  la  tolerance  civile,  non  en  approuvant  tout  comme 
indifferent,  mais  en  souffnnit  avcv  iMitience  tout  ce  que  Dieu 
souffre,  et  en  tacliant  de  raniener  les  bonmies  jwir  une  douce 
Iiersuasion." 


And  80  MUCH  for  the  French  philoKophy  of  the  sevent-t^enth 
century.  Tlic  extnicts  hiHt  quoted  forewarn  U8  that  we  are  fast 
approjiching  to  a  new  era  in  the  liiHtory  of  the  Human  Mind. 
The  glow-tcoim  '(/ins  to  pale  his  ineffectual  Ji re  ;  and  we  scent 
the  momin<j  air  of  the  coming  day.  This  em  I  i)roiH)se  to  date 
from  the  publications  of  Locke  and  of  Leibnitz ;  but  the  renmrks 
which  I  have  to  offer  on  their  wrilingn,  and  on  thofcie  of  their 


170  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

most  distinguished  successors,  I  reserve  for  the  Second  Part  of 
this  Discourse,  confining  myself,  at  present,  to  a  very  short 
retrospect  of  the  state  of  philosophy,  during  the  preceding 
period,  in  some  other  countries  of  Europe.^ 


SECT.  in. — PROGRESS  OF  PHILOSOPHY  DURINa  THE  SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY,  IN  SOME  PARTS  OF  EUROPE,  NOT  INCLUDED  IN  THE 
PRECEDING  REVIEW. 

^.JijSBjSQ  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  philo- 
sophical spirit  which  had  arisen  with  such  happy  auspices  in 
England  and  in  France,  has  left  behind  it  few  or  no  traces  of 
its  existence  in  the  rest  of  Europe.  On  all  questions  connected 
with  the  science  of  mind,  (a  phrase  which  I  here  use  in  its 
largest  acceptation,)  authority  continued  to  be  everywhere 
mistaken  for  argument;  nor  can  a  single  work  be  named, 
bearing,  in  its  character,  the  most  distant  resemblance  to  the 
Organon  of  Bacon ;  to  the  Meditations  of  Descartes ;  or  to  the 
bold  theories  of  that  sublime  genius  who,  soon  after,  was  to 
shed  so  dazzling  a  lustre  on  the  north  of  Germany.  Kepler 
and  Galileo  still  lived ;  the  former  languishing  in  poverty  at 
Prague;  the  latter  oppressed  with  blindness,  and  with  eccle- 
siastical persecution  at  Florence;  but  their  pursuits  were  of  a 
nature  altogether  foreign  to  our  present  subject. 

One  celebrated  work  alone,  the  Treatise  of  Grotius,  De  Jure 
Belli  et  Pacis,  (first  printed  in  1625,)  arrests  our  attention 
among  the  crowd  of  useless  and  forgotten  volumes,  which  were 
then  issuing  from  the  presses  of  Holland,  Germany,  and  Italy. 
The  influence  of  this  treatise,  in  giving  a  new  direction  to  the 
studies  of  the  learned,  was  so  remarkable,  and  continued  so 
long  to  operate  with  undiminished  effect,  that  it  is  necessary  to 

'  I  h&ve  classed  T&imaque  and  the  death  of  Louis  XIY.,  nor  that  of  the 

IHreetion  pour  la  Conscience  d'un  Hoi  latter  till  1748.    The  tardy  appearance 

with  the  philosophy  of  the  seventeenth  of  both  only  shews  how  far  the  author 

century,  although  the  publication  of  the  had  shot  ahead  of  the  orthodox  religjiou 

former  was  not  permitted  till  afler  the  and  politics  of  his  times. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  171 

allot  to  the  author,  and  to  his  successors,  a  space  considerably 
larger  than  may,  at  first  sight,  seem  due  to  their  merits.  Not- 
mthstanding  the  just  neglect  into  which  they  have  lately  fallen 
in  our  Universities,  it  will  be  found,  on  a  close  examination, 
that  they  form  an  important  link  in  the  liistory  of  modem 
literature.  It  was  from  their  school  that  most  of  our  best 
writers  on  Ethics  have  proceeded,  and  many  of  our  most 
original  inquirers  into  the  Human  Mind;  and  it  is  to  the 
same  school  (as  I  shall  endeavour  to  shew  in  the  Second  Part 
of  this  Discourse)  that  we  are  chiefly  indebted  for  the  modem 
science  of  Political  Economy.^ 

For  the  information  of  those  who  have  not  read  the  Treatise 
De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis,  it  may  be  proix?r  to  obsen'e,  that, 
under  this  title,  Grotius  has  aimed  at  a  com])lete  system  of 
Natural  Law.  Condillac  says,  that  he  chose  the  title,  in  order 
to  excite  a  more  general  curiosity ;  adding,  (and,  I  believe,  very 
justly,)  that  many  of  the  most  prominent  defects  of  his  work 
may  be  fairly  ascribed  to  a  compliance  with  the  taste  of  his  age. 
"  The  author,"  says  Condillac,  "  was  able  to  think  for  liimself ; 
but  he  constantly  lalK)urs  to  support  his  conclusions  by  the 
autliority  of  others ;  i)roducing,  on  immy  occasions,  in  support 
of  the  most  obvious  and  indisimtable  i)ropo8itioiis,  a  long  string 
of  quotations  from  the  Mosaic  law ;  from  the  Go8|>el8 ;  from 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church ;  from  the  Casuists ;  and  not  un- 
frequently,  in  the  very  same  panigraph,  from  Ovid  and  Aris- 
tophanes." In  consequence  of  tliis  cloud  of  witnesses,  always 
at  hand  to  attest  the  truth  of  his  axioms,  not  only  is  the  atten- 
tion perpetually  interrui)ted  and  distracted ;  but  the  author's 
reasonings,  even  when  jxjrfectly  solid  and  sixtisfactory,  fail  in 
making  a  due  impression  on  the  reader's  mind ;  while  the  very 
little  that  there  probably  was  of  systematical  arrangement  in 
the  geneml  plan  of  the  book,  is  tot*illy  kept  out  of  view. 

*  From  a  Ifttcr  of  (Jrotius,  quoted  by  futurum  cnt,  ut  lectorcs  dciuereri  powsit, 

(iasBcndi,  we  loiini,  that  the  Treutise  hubebit  jiiukI  tihi  ilebeat  posteritas,  qui 

J)e  Jure  BeUi  et  Pacts  was  undertaken  nie  ad  liunc  hiborcni  et  auxilio  et  lior- 

at   the   requeHt   of  Wis   h^ametl    friend  tutu  tuo  exeituhti." — Gasstndi  Opera, 

Peireskius.     "  Non  otior,  Hed  in  illo  de  toni.  v.  p.  294. 
jure  gientiuin  op<'n^  perp»,  qu«Hl  si  t*iIo 


172  DISSERTATION. — PAKT  FIK8T. 

In  spite  of  these  defects,  or  rather,  perhaps,  in  consequence 
of  some  of  them,  the  impression  produced  by  the  treatise  in 
question,  on  its  first  publication,  was  singularly  great  The 
stores  of  erudition  displayed  in  it,  recommended  it  to  the 
classical  scholar ;  while  the  happy  application  of  the  author's 
reading  to  the  affairs  of  human  life,  drew  the  attention  of 
such  men  as  Gustavus  Adolphus;  of  his  Prime-Minister, 
the  Chancellor  Oxenstiem;  and  of  the  Elector  Palatine, 
Charles  Lewis.  The  last  of  these  was  so  struck  with  it,  that 
he  founded  at  Heidelberg  a  Professorship  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  teaching  the  Law  of  Nature  and  Nations ; — an  office 
which  he  bestowed  on  Puffendorff;  the  most  noted,  and,  on 
the  whole,  the  most  eminent  of  those  who  have  aspired  to 
tread  in  the  footsteps  of  Grotius. 

The  fundamental  principles  of  Puffendorff"  possess  little  merit 
in  point  of  originality,  l)eing  a  sort  of  medley  of  the  doctrines 
of  Grotius,  with  some  opinions  of  Hobbes;  but  his  book  is 
entitled  to  the  praise  of  comparative  conciseness,  order,  and 
perspicuity ;  and  accordingly  came  very  generally  to  supplant 
the  Treatise  of  Grotius,  as  a  manual  or  institute  for  students, 
notwithstanding  its  immense  inferiority  in  genius,  in  learning, 
and  in  classical  composition. 

The  authors  who,  in  different  parts  of  the  Continent,  have 
since  employed  themselves  in  commenting  on  Grotius  and 
Puffendorff";  or  in  abridging  their  systems;  or  in  altering 
their  arrangements,  are  innumerable ;  but  notwithstanding  all 
their  industry  and  learning,  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  name 
any  class  of  writers,  whose  labours  have  been  of  less  utility  to 
the  world.  The  same  ideas  are  constantly  recurring  in  an  eternal 
circle ;  the  opinions  of  Grotius  and  of  Puffendorff",  where  they 
are  at  all  equivocal,  are  anxiously  investigated,  and  sometimes 
involved  in  additional  obscurity ;  while,  in  the  meantime,  the 
science  of  Natural  Jurisprudence  never  advances  one  single 
step ;  but,  notwithstanding  its  recent  birth,  seems  already  sunk 
into  a  state  of  dotage.^ 

»  I  have  liorrowetl,  in  this  last  para-       "(Jii.tii  et  Puffeiulorfii  iiiteri>retcs,  viri 
graph,  some  cxprejswions  fi-om  LampnMli.       <|iii.k'in  diligentisMiini,  8cil  cjui  \\x  friic- 


CHAP.  II. — PHIU)«(>rHY  FROM  BACH^N  TO  UK'KE.  173 

In  {)erusing  the  8}'8temB  now  referred  to,  it  is  im])OA8ible  not 
to  feel  a  very  painful  ilisftitiHfaetion,  from  the  difiiculty  of 
ascertaining  the  precise  object  aime<l  at  by  the  authors.  So 
vague  and  indeterminate  is  the  genend  scoih*  of  their  reHearches, 
that  not  only  are  diffen»ut  views  of  the  subject  taken  by  differ- 
ent writers,  but  even  by  the  same  ^Titcr  in  ditfen?nt  parts  of 
Ids  work ; — a  circumstanw  wliich,  of  itself,  sufficiently  accounts 
for  the  slender  additions  they  hiive  made  to  the  stock  of  useful 
knowledge;  and  which  is  the  real  source  of  that  chaos  of 
heterogeneous  discussions,  through  which  tlie  reader  is  per- 
petually forced  to  fight  his  way.  A  distinct  concejition  of  these 
different  views  will  be  found  to  tlirow  more  light  tlian  might 
at  first  l)e  expected  on  the  subsequent  history  of  Moral  and  of 
Political  Science;  and  I  shall  therefore  endejivour,  as  accu- 
rately as  I  can,  to  disentangle  and  sejmrate  them  from  each 
other,  at  the  risk  iwrhaps  of  incurring,  from  some  ivaders,  the 
charge  of  prolixity.  The  most  important  of  them  may,  I  ap- 
prehend, be  referreil  to  one  or  other  of  the  following  hea<ls : — 

1.  Among  the  diftercnt  ideas  which  have  l)een  formed  of 
Natural  Jurispnidt^nce,  one  of  the  most  common  (jMirticularly 
in  tlie  earlier  systi»ms)  sup|K)ses  its  obji^-t  to  Ik* — to  lay  down 
those  rules  of  justice  which  would  be  binding  on  men  living  in 
a  social  sttite,  without  any  positive  institutions ;  or  (as  it  is 
frequently  called  by  writers  on  this  subject)  living  together  in 
a  state  of  nature.  This  idea  of  the  province  of  Jurisprudence 
seems  to  have  l)een  ui)iK»rinost  in  the  mind  of  Grotius,  in 
various  partu  of  his  Treatise. 

To  this  s]:)eculation  al)out  the  state  of  nature,  Grotius  was 
manifestly  le<l  by  his  hiudable  Jinxiety  to  countenwt  the  at- 
tempts then  recently  mmle  to  undermine  the  foundations  of 
morality.     That  mond  diKtinctions  are  created  entirely  l)y  the 

torn  nliquem  tot  commontariii,  nilnota-  no  Intiiin  quidom  mif^iK'in  pn^f^nMlitur, 

tionibiiH,  compoiidiiH,  tal)u1iN,  r('t<>riH({iie  ot  dtiin  alioruiii  wiitontur  (iiwjiiiniiitiir 

cjiiHinodi    ariiiiHMiiiiH  lalxmbiis   attiilo-  et   i^xplanantiir,    ncnini  Nattim  quawi 

nmt:   perpetuo  ciitMilo  eaJem  n-H  rir-  Bonio  confocta   Hqualomit,   iicgloctaquo 

cumaptur,  quid  utenjuc  Kt'iiHiTit  qiuc-  jacet    ot    inobservata  oniniiio.*^ — Jitrit 

ritur,  interdum  etiaiu  utrinquc  Hoiitcntifn  PuUid  T/teoremntfi,  p.  .'M. 
obacurantiir ;    discipiina    nostra   tnnicn 


174 


niSHBRTATION. — PAKT  FnuW. 


arbitrary  and  revealed  will  of  Ghxl,  had,  Iwfore  liis  time,  been   , 
zealously  maintained  by  some  tlieologians  even  of  the  Reformed  I 
Clmrch ;  wliile,   among  the   political   theorists   of  the   same 
]>eriod,  it  was  not  unusual  to  refer  these  distiiictionB  (as  waa 
afterwords  done  by  Hobbes)  to  the  positive  institutions  of  the 
civil  m.'igifitrate.     In  opposition  to  both,  it  was  contended  by-  I 
Grotius,  that  there  is  a  natural  law  coeval  with  the  humtm  con-  > 
stitutiou,  from  which  positive  institutions  derive  all  their  force ; 
a  truth  which,  how  obvious  and  trite  soever  it  may  now  ap- 
pear,  was  no  opposite  in  its  spirit  to  the  illiberal  Byetems  teught 
in  the  monkiab  establishments,  that  he  thought  it  necessary  to   i 
exhaust  in  its  support  ail  liis  stores  of  ancient  leaxuiug.     The  i 
older  writers  on  Jurisprudence  must,  I  think,  be  allowed  to  , 
have  had  great  merit  in  dwelling  so  much  on  tills  fundamental 
Iirinciple  ;  a  principle  which  renders  "  Man  a  Law  to  Hiwsel/;" 
and  which,  if  it  be  once  admitted,  reduces  the  metaphyaical 
question  concerning  tlie  nature  of  the  moral  faculty  to  an  i 
object  merely  of  Hpeculative  curiosity.'     To  thia  faculty  the   I 
ancients  frequently  give  the  name  of  reason;  as  lu  that  noted 
passage  of  Cicero,  where  he  observes,   that  "  right  reason  la 
itself  a  law;  congenial  to  the  feelings  of  nature ;  diffused  among 
all  men ;    uniform ;    eternal ;    calling   us   imperiously  to  our 
duty,  and  i)eremptorily  prohibiting  every  violation  of  if.     Nor 
does  it  speak,"  continues  the  same  author,  "  one  language  at 
Rome  and  another  at  Athens,  varying  from  place  to  place,  or 
time  to  time  ;  hut  it  addresses  itself  to  all  nations,  and  to  all 
ages ;  deriving  its  authority  from  the  common  sovereign  of  the 


to  siipcrfnt^nd  >11  our  Bene«,  puwioin,. 
and  appetiten,  unil  lo  joiige  linw  fur 
each  of  Ihem  vox  either  to  b«  indulged 
or  rostraini^d.  The  rules,  tberefuTe, 
which  thoj  preacribE,  nra  to  be  regarded 
HH  the  cDmmnnds  and  Im^i  of  tbt  Dettg, 
prumulgated  by  thoic  vicegereats  which 
he  has  eet  np  within  us." — (Smith'! 
Thfory  o/Mvrnl  SentinirnH,  Port  iii. 
rhnp.  V.J  Src  bI«o  Dr.  Biilicr's  verj 
original  and    philnsophicid    Daeoart 


'  "  Upon  whatever  we  Buppoao  thnt 
imr  moral  facilities  are  ronnded,  whpther 
upon  a  certain  modification  of  reason, 
upon  an  original  instinct,  called  a  moral 
B.:D»e,  or  upon  Borae  other  principio  of 
our  nature,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
they  were  given  qb  for  the  direction  of 
imr  EOndnul  in  this  life.  Thfj  carry 
along  wilii  them  tlie  moat  evident 
liadges  of  this  authority,  which  dcnoto 
thnt  tlicy  were  net  up  witliin  us  to  be 
ihp  BUprenie  nrliifprs  nf  nil  o(ir  ncliniiB, 


1,  //un 


,  Kolu 


CHAP.  II. — PHIL080PHY  FROM  DACON  TO  LOGKK.  175 

universe,  and  carrying  home  its  sanctions  to  every  breast,  by 
the  inevitable  punisliment  which  it  inflicts  on  transgressors."^ 

The  habit  of  considering  morality  under  the  similitude  of  a 
laWy  (a  law  engraved  on  the  human  heart,)  le<l  not  unnaturally 
to  an  application  to  ethical  subjects  of  the  technical  language 
and  arrangements  of  the  Boman  jurisprudence ;  and  this  inno- 
vation was  at  once  facilitated  and  encouraged,  by  certain  \yec\i" 
liarities  in  the  nature  of  the  most  important  of  all  the  virtues, 
— that  of  justice;  ix?culiarities  which,  although  first  ex])lained 
fully  by  Hume  and  Smith,  were  too  prominent  to  esctipc  alto- 
gether the  notice  of  preceding  moralists. 

The  circumstances  which  distinguish  justice  from  the  other 
virtues,  are  chiefly  two.  In  the  first  place,  its  rules  may  he 
laid  down  with  a  degree  of  accuracy  whereof  moral  precepts  do 
not,  in  any  other  instance,  admit  Secondly,  its  niles  may  Ihj 
enforced,  inasmuch  as  every  transgrcKsion  of  them  implies  a 
violation  of  the  rights  of  others.  For  the  illustration  of  both 
propositions,  I  must  refer  to  the  eminent  authors  just  men- 
tioned. 

As,  in  the  case  of  justice,  there  is  always  a  right,  on  the  one 
hand,  corrc8ix)nding  to  an  obligation  on  the  other,  the  various 
rules  enjoined  by  it  may  be  stated  in  two  diflerent  forms ;  either 
as  a  system  of  duties,  or  as  a  system  of  rights.  The  former 
view  of  the  subject  l)eloiigs  i)roi)erly  t<j  the  moralist — the  latter 
to  the  lawyer.  It  is  tliis  last  view  that  the  writers  on  Natural 
Jurisprudence  (most  of  whom  were  lawj'crs  by  profession) 
have  in  general  chosen  to  adopt,  although,  in  the  same  works, 
both  views  will  be  found  to  be  not  unlmiuently  blendeil  to- 
gether. 

To  some  indistinct  conception  among  the  earlier  l^Titers  on 
Natural  Law,  of  these  iKiculiarities  in  the  nature  of  justice,  we 
may  prolmbly  ascribe  the  remarkable  contrast  i)ointetl  out  by 
Mr.  Smith  between  the  ethical  systems  of  ancient  and  of  mo- 
dem timea  "  In  none  of  the  ancient  moralists,"  he  observes, 
"  do  we  find  any  attempt  towards  a  particular  enumeration  of 
the  rules  of  justice.     On  the  contrary,  Cicero  in  his  Offices^  and 

*  Frcuj.  lib.  iii.  <le  Rep. 


176 


DISSERTATION. — FART  flBHT. 


Aristotle  in  Lis  Ethics,  treat  of  justice  in  the  enme  general 
manner  in  which  they  treat  of  generosity  or  of  charity."' 

But  although  the  rules  of  justice  are  in  every  case  precise 
and  indispensable,  and  although  their  authority'  is  altogether 
independent  of  that  of  the  civil  magistrate,  it  woidd  obvionsly   i 
be  absurd  to  spend  much  time  in  speculating  alwut  the  prin-  i 
ciples  of  this  natural  law,  as  applicable  to  men,  before  the  estab- 
lishment of  government.     The   same   state  of  society  which 
diversifies  the  condition  of  individualB  to  so  great  a  degree  as  to 
suggest,  problematical  questions  with  respect  to  their  rights  and 
their  duties,  necessarily  ^ves  birtli  to  certain  conventional  laws 
or  customs,  by  which  the  conduct  of  the  different  members  c£ 
the  associ»tion  is  to  be  guided ;  and  agreeably  to  which  the  (lia- 
piites  that  may  arise  among  them  are  to  be  adjusted.     The  ' 
imaginary  state  referred  (o  under  the  title  of  the  Stale  of  Nor- 
ture,  though  it  certainly  does  not  exclude  the  idea  of  a  moral 
right  of  property  arising  from  labour,  yet  exchuleH  all  that  J 
variety  of  cases  concerning  itfl  alienation  and  transmiesioD,  and 
the  mutual  covenants  of  parties,  which  the  political  union  alone 
could  create ; — an  order  of  things,  indeed,  wliich  is  virtually  * 
supposed  in  almost  all  the  sjieculations  about  which  the  law  of  y 
nature  is  commonly  employe*!. 

2.  It  was  probably  in  consequence  of  the  very  narrow  field  of  i 
study  which  Juriepnidence,  considered  in  this  light,  was  found 
to  open,  that  its  province  was  gradually  enlarged,  eo  as  to  com- 
prehend, not  merely  the  nile«  of  justice,  but  the  rules  enjoiuing  I 
ftU  our  other  moral  duties.     Nor  was  it  only  the  province  of  I 
Jurispnidence  which  was  tlnis  enlarged.     A  corresponding  ex-  I 
tension  was  also  given,  by  the  help  of  arbitrary  definitions,  to  ita  { 
teckniccd  phraseology,  till  at  length  the  whole  doctrines  of  prac-  I 
tical  ethics  came  to  be  moulded  into  an  artificial  form,  ori^-  j 
nally  copied  from  the  Roman  code.   Although  justice  is  the  only  j 
branch  of  virtue  in  which  every  moral  Obligation  implies  a  cor- 
responding Right,  the  writers  on  Natural  Law  have  contrived, 
by  fictions  of  imperfect  riglits  and  of  exiemal  rights,  to  treat   j 
indirectly  of  aJl  our  various  duties,  by  jMinting  out  the  right!  1 

'  Throri/  nf  Monti  Scniimcntt,  Pari  vii,  wet.  iv. 


CHAP.  IL — PHILOSOPHY  FBOM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  177 

which  are  supposed  to  be  their  correlates: — in  other  words, 
they  have  contrived  to  exhibit,  in  the  form  of  a  Rj^stcm  of  rights, 
a  connected  view  of  the  whole  duty  of  man.  This  idea  of  Juris- 
prudence, which  identifies  its  object  with  tliat  of  Moral  Philo- 
sophy, seems  to  coincide  nearly  with  tliat  of  Puffeiidorff ;  and 
some  vague  notion  of  the  same  sort  lias  manifestly  given  birth 
to  many  of  the  digressions  of  Grotius. 

Whatever  judgment  may  now  l)e  pronounced  on  the  eflfects 
of  this  innovation,  it  is  certain  that  they  were  considered,  not 
only  at  the  time,  but  for  many  years  afterwanlR,  as  highly 
favourable.  A  very  learned  and  respectable  writer,  Mr.  Car- 
michael  of  Glasgow,  comparcH  them  to  the  imi)r()vemeiitH  made 
in  Natural  Philosophy  by  the  followers  of  lA)rd  Ricon.  "  No 
person,"  he  ob8er^'es,  "  liberally  educated,  can  Iw  ignorant  that, 
within  the  recollection  of  ourselves  and  of  our  fathers,  philosophy 
has  advanced  to  a  state  of  progressive  impn)venient  hitherto 
imexampled  ;  in  consequence  pirtly  of  tlie  Rejection  of  Kcholas- 
tic  absurditicH,  and  partly  of  the  accession  of  new  discoveries. 
Nor  does  this  remark  apj)ly  solely  to  Natural  Philosophy,  in 
which  the  improvements  accomiJished  by  the  united  laboiu^  of 
the  learned  have  forced  themselves  on  the  notice  even  of  the 
vidgar,  by  their  paljMible  influence  on  the  mechanical  arts.  The 
other  branches  of  philosophy  also  liave  been  prosecuted  during 
the  last  century  with  no  less  success,  and  none  of  them  in  a 
more  remarkable  degree  than  the  science  of  Morals. 

"  This  science,  so  much  esteemeil,  and  so  assiduously  culti- 
vated by  the  sages  of  antiquity,  lay  for  a  length  of  time,  in 
common  with  all  the  other  useful  arts,  buried  in  tlie  rubbish  of 
the  (lark  ages,  till  (soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  seven- 
teenth centmy)  the  incomi>arable  Treatise  of  (Jrotius,  De  Jure 
Belli  et  P(zcis,  restored  to  more  than  Oh  ancient  splendour  that 
part  of  it  which  defines  the  rehitive  duties  of  individuals ;  and 
which,  ill  consequence  of  the  immense  variety  of  cases  com- 
prehended under  it,  is  by  far  the  most  extensive  of  any.  Since 
that  period,  the  most  learned  and  jwlite  scholars  of  Europe,  as 
if  suddenly  roused  by  the  alarm  of  a  trumixjt,  have  vied  with 
each  other  in  the  ])rosecution  of  this  study, — so  strongly  rooom- 

VOL.  I.  M 


178 


DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 


mended  to  their  attention,  not  merely  by  its  novelty,  but  by  the 
importance  of  its  conclusions  and  the  dignity  of  its  object."  ^ 

I  have  selected  this  passage,  in  preference  to  many  others 
that  might  be  quoted  to  the  same  purpose  from  writers  of 
higher  name ;  because,  in  the  sequel  of  this  historical  sketch, 


^  The  last  sentence  is  thus  expressed 
in  the  original :  "  Ex  illo  tempore,  quasi 
classico  dato,  ab  eniditissimis  passim  et 
politissimis  viris  cxcoli  certatim  coepit, 
utilissima  hsec  nobilissimaqne  doctrina.*' 
—(Seethe  edition  of  Puflfendorff,  J)e  Offir 
do  HominU  et  CivU^  by  Professor  Ger- 
Bchom  Carmichael  of  Glasgow,  1724;) 
an  author  whom  Dr.  Hutcheson  pro- 
nounces to  be  "by  far  the  best  commen- 
tator on  Piiffendorff,"  and  "  whose  notes" 
he  adds,  "  are  of  much  more  value  than 
the  text."  See  his  short  Introdvction 
to  Moral  Philosophy. 

PuffendorflTs  principal  work,  entitled 
De  Jure  Naturoi  et  Gentium,  was  first 
printed  in  1672,  and  was  afterwards 
abridged  by  the  author  into  the  small 
volume  referred  to  in  the  foregoing  para- 
graph. The  idea  of  PuffendorflTs  aim, 
formed  by  Mr.  Carmichael,  coincides  ex- 
actly with  the  account  of  it  given  in  the 
text :  *'  Hoc  dcmum  tractatu  edito,  fa- 
cile intellexerunt  sequiores  harum  rerum 
arbitri,  non  aliam  esse  genuinam  Morum 
PhUosophiam,  quam  quae  ex  evidentibus 
principiis,  in  ipsa  rerum  natura  funda- 
tis,  hominis  atque  civis  officia,  in  sin- 
gulis vitie  humante  circumstantiisdebita, 
emit  ac  dcmonstrat ;  atque  adeo  Juris 
Naturalis  scicntiam,  quantumvis  diver- 
sam  ab  Ethica  quie  in  scholis  dudum 
obtinuerat,  prse  se  ferret  faciem,  non 
esse,  quod  ad  scopum  et  rem  tractan- 
dam,ver^  aliam  disciplinom,  sed  candem 
rectius  duntaxat  et  solidius  traditam,  ita 
ut,  ad  quam  prius  male  colliueaverit, 
tandem  reips&  feriret  scopum." — See 
Carmichaers  edition  of  the  Treatise  Ve 
Officio  Hominis  et  Civis,  p.  7. 

To  so  late  a  period  did  this  admira- 


tion of  the  Treatise,  De  Officio  Hominis 
et  Civis,  continue  in  our  Scotch  Univer- 
sities, that  the  very  learned  and  respec- 
table Sir  John  Pringle  (after^'ards  Pre- 
sident of  the  Royal  Society  of  London) 
adopted  it  as  the  text-book  for  his  lec- 
tures, while  he  held  the  Professorship  of 
Moral  Philosophy  at  Edinburgh.  Nor 
does  the  case  seem  to  have  been  diffe- 
rent in  England.  "  I  am  going,"  says 
Gray,  in  a  letter  written  while  a  student 
at  Cambridge,  "  to  att<?nd  a  lecture  on 
one  Puffendorff."  And,  much  in  tho 
same  spirit,  Voltaire  thus  expresses 
himself  with  respect  to  the  schools  of 
the  Continent :  "  On  est  partage,  dans 
les  6cole«,  entre  Grotius  et  Puffendorff. 
Croyez  moi,  lisez  les  Offices  de  Ciccron." 
From  the  contemptuous  tone  of  these 
two  writers,  it  should  seem  that  the  old 
systems  of  Natural  Jurispnidence  had 
entirely  lost  their  credit  among  men  of 
taste  and  of  enlarged  views,  long  before 
they  ceased  to  form  an  essential  part  of 
academical  instruction ;  thus  affording 
an  additional  confirmation  of  Mr.  Smithes 
complaint,  that  "  tho  greater  part  of 
universities  have  not  been  very  forward 
to  adopt  improvements  after  they  were 
made ;  and  that  several  of  those  learned 
societies  have  chosen  to  remain,  for  a 
long  time,  the  sanctuaries  in  which  ex- 
ploded systems  found  shelter  and  pro- 
tection, after  they  had  been  hunted  out 
of  every  other  comer  of  the  world." 
Considering  his  own  successful  exer- 
tions, in  his  academical  capacity,  to 
remedy  this  evil,  it  is  more  than  pro- 
bable that  Mr.  Smith  had  Grotius  and 
Puffendorff  in  his  view  when  he  wrote 
the  foregoing  sentence. 


CHAP.  II. — PHIL060PBY  FROM  BACON  TU  LOCKE.     179 

it  appears  to  me  peculiarly  interesting  to  mnrk  the  ])n>^roBH  of 
Ethical  and  Political  speculation  in  that  sent  of  lenrnin^,  which, 
not  many  years  afterwards,  was  to  j^ve  birtli  1o  tho  Tliconj  of 
Moral  SentimenfSy  and  to  the  Inquiry  info  the  Naturv  and 
Oauaea  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  Tho  iKiwcrful  cOcH't  which 
the  last  of  these  works  has  produceil  on  the  ]K)liticaI  opinions  of 
the  whole  civilized  world,  renders  it  unneccfwary,  in  a  Discourse 
destined  to  form  part  of  n  Scottish  EncyclopaxUn^  to  ofttT  any 
apology  for  attempting  to  trace,  with  some  minuteness,  the 
train  of  thonght  by  which  an  undertaking,  so  highly  honour- 
able to  the  literary  character  of  our  country,  sei'nis  to  have  l>een 
suggested  to  the  author. 

The  extravagance  of  the  praise  lavishtHl  on  (in^tius  and 
Puffendorff,  in  the  alx)ve  citation  from  Carmichael,  can  l)e 
accounted  for  only  by  the  degradeil  stiite  into  which  Kthics  had 
fallen  in  the  hands  of  those  who  were  le<l  to  tlie  study  of  it, 
either  as  a  prtqxiration  for  the  casuistical  discussions  suIwht- 
vient  to  the  practice  of  auricular  confession,  or  to  justiiy  a 
scheme  of  morality  which  reconiniendetl  the  useless  austerities 
of  an  ascetic  retirement,  in  i)reference  to  the  manly  duties  of 
social  life.  The  practical  doctrines  inculcatc^d  by  the  writers 
on  Natund  Law,  were  all  of  them  favourable  to  active  virtue; 
and,  how  n^prehensible  soever  in  point  of  form,  were  not  oidy 
harmless,  but  highly  iK'ueficial  in  their  tendency.  Thi'y  wen; 
at  the  same  time  so  diversitied  fparticidarly  in  tlie  work  of 
Grotius)  with  iK'autiful  quotations  from  the  (vn^ek  and  Roman 
classics,  tliat  they  could  not  fail  tt)  i)res(Mit  a  striking  contrast 
to  the  absm-d  and  illilnTal  systems  wliich  they  8U])planted  ;  and 
perhaps  to  tliew*  passages,  to  wlu'ch  they  thus  gave  a  sort  of 
systematical  connexion,  the  progress  which  the  s<'ience  made 
in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century,  may,  in  no  inconsi<ler- 
ablc  degree,  be  ascril)ed.  Even  now,  when  so  very  ditferent  a 
t^iste  prevails,  the  treatise  De  Jure  Bdli  ef  Ptwis  jjossesses 
many  charms  to  a  classical  reader  ;  who,  although  he  may  not 
always  set  a  very  high  value  on  the  author's  n:»asonings,  must 
at  least  be  dazzled  and  delighted  with  the  splendid  profusion  of 
his  learning. 


180  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

The  field  of  Natural  Jurifiprudence,  however,  was  not  long 
to  remam  circumscribed  within  the  narrow  limits  commonly 
assigned  to  the  province  of  Ethics.  The  contrast  between 
natural  law  and  positive  institution,  which  it  constantly  pre- 
sents to  the  mind,  gradually  and  insensibly  suggested  the  idea 
of  comprehending  under  it  every  question  concerning  right  and 
wrong,  on  which  positive  law  is  silent.  Hence  the  origin  of 
two  different  departments  of  Jurisprudence,  little  attended  to 
by  some  of  the  first  authors  who  treated  of  it,  but  afterwards, 
from  their  practical  importance,  gradually  encroaching  more 
and  more  on  those  ethical  disquisitions  by  which  they  were 
suggested.  Of  these  departments,  the  one  refers  to  the  con- 
duct of  individuals  in  those  violent  and  critical  moments  when 
the  bonds  of  political  society  are  torn  asunder ;  the  other,  to 
the  mutual  relations  of  independent  communities.  The  ques- 
tions connected  with  the  former  article,  lie  indeed  within  a 
comparatively  narrow  compass ;  but  on  the  latter  so  much  has 
been  written,  that  what  was  formerly  called  Natural  Jurispru- 
dence, has  been,  in  later  times,  not  unfrequently  distinguished 
by  the  title  of  the  Laio  of  Nature  and  Nations,  The  train  of 
thought  by  which  both  subjects  came  to  be  connected  with  the 
systems  now  under  consideration,  consists  of  a  few  very  simple 
and  obvious  steps. 

As  an  individual  who  is  a  member  of  a  political  body  neces- 
sarily gives  up  his  will  to  that  of  the  governors  who  are 
entrusted  by  the  people  with  the  supreme  power,  it  is  his  duty 
to  submit  to  those  inconveniences  which,  in  consequence  of  the 
imperfection  of  all  hiunaJi  establishments,  may  incidentally  fall 
to  his  own  lot  This  duty  is  founded  on  the  Law  of  Nature, 
from  which,  indeed,  (as  must  appear  evident  on  the  slightest 
reflection,)  conventional  law  derives  all  its  moral  force  and 
obligation.  The  great  end,  however,  of  the  political  union 
being  a  sense  of  general  utility,  if  this  end  should  be  mani- 
festly frustrated,  either  by  the  injustice  of  laws,  or  the  tyranny 
of  rulers,  individuals  must  have  recourse  to  the  principles  of 
natural  law,  in  order  to  determine  how  far  it  is  competent  for 
them  to  withdraw  themselves  from  their  country,  or  to  resist 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


181 


its  governors  by  force.  To  Jurisprudence,  therefore,  consi- 
dered in  this  light,  came  with  great  propriety  to  bo  referred 
all  those  practical  discusfdons  which  relate  to  the  limits  of 
allegiance,  and  the  right  of  rcKistance. 

By  a  step  equally  simple,  the  province  of  the  science  was 
still  farther  extendeil.  Ah  inde[x?ndent  states  acknowledge  no 
superior,  the  obvious  inference  was,  that  the  dinputes  arising 
among  them  must  be  detennined  by  an  ap^ieal  to  the  Law  of 
Nature;  and  acconlingly,  this  law,  when  applied  to  states, 
forms  a  separate  part  of  Jurispnidence,  imder  the  title  of  the 
Law  of  Nations.  By  some  writers  we  are  told,  that  the 
general  princi]>les  of  the  Law  of  Nature  and  of  the  Law  of 
Nations,  are  one  and  the  same,  and  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween them  is  merely  verbal.  To  this  opinion,  which  is  very 
confidently  stated  by  Hobbes,*  Puflfendorff  lias  given  his  sane* 


*  "  Lex  Natumlis  di villi  potest  in  na- 
turalem  hominum  quA)  sola  obtiimit  dici 
Lex  Natune,  ot  nattirnlcra  civitatiiin, 
qiue  dici  potent  Lex  (tentimii,  vulgo 
antem  Jus  Geutiuin  appcllattir.  Vnc- 
ci'pta  utriu(U|uc  eatlcm  sunt;  b(h1  quia 
civitates  semcl  inNtitiitn;  iiidnunt  pn>- 
prietates  hominum  perHoualcH,  lex  qiiam 
loi}uente8  de  hominnm  Hin^iilorum  officio 
naturalem  dicimuR,  applirata  ttitin  civi- 
tatibua,  nationibns,  Hive  ^ntibuH,  vo- 
catur  Job  Gentium." — Ih  CVrf,  cap. 
xiT.  9  4. 

In  a  late  publication,  from  the  title 
of  which  bome  attention  to  tlatcH  mif^ht 
have  been  expected,  vre  are  told,  that 
"  Hobbe8*8  lK)ok,  De  Cive,  nj>i>eared  but 
a  little  time  before  the  Treat ise  of 
(]rrotiui;**  whereas,  in  (Mtint  of  fact, 
Hobbe8*fl  book  did  not  ap/wtr  till 
twenty-two  years  nfier  it.  A  few  copies 
were  indeed  printed  at  PnriH,  and  j)ri- 
vately  circulated  by  IIoblMW,  as  early  oh 
1642,  but  the  book  was  not  publinheil 
till  1647.— (See  "An  Inquiry  into  the 
Foundation  and  History  of  the  IjOW 
of  Xations  in  Eurojte"  &c.,  by  Rolwrt 
Wartl  of  t\w  Inner- Temple,  Ksq.,  Ixmi- 


don,  1795.)  TluH  inaccuracy,  however, 
is  trifling;,  when  comivan'd  with  tl^MO 
committed  in  the  same  work,  in  stating 
the  diNtinguiHhing  doctrines  of  the  two 
H^fitems. 

Ah  a  writt^r  on  the  I^iw  of  Nations, 
]Iobb«>H  is  now  alto^cether  unworthy  of 
notice.      I  Kliall  therefore  only  remark 
on  thiH  part  of  his  philcMMtphy,  that  its 
aim  is  precinely  the  reverse  of  that  of 
(irotiu.s;  the  latter  labouring   through 
the  whole  of  hiH   tn^itiHc,  to    extend, 
as  far  as  ponsible,  amonyi;  indc|>endent 
statcH,  the  Bnnie  law**  of  justice  and  of 
humanity,  which  are  univcrHully  recog- 
nised among  individimlH ;   while  llob- 
bes,  by  inrertintf  the  argument,  exerts 
bin  ingenuity  to  shew,  that  the  moral 
repulsion  which   commonly   exiHts  be- 
tween  nidepentlent   and    iioighl>ouring 
communities,  is  an  exact  picture  uf  that 
which  exiHt4*d  among  individualn  prior 
to  the  origin  (»f  government.     The  in- 
ference, indeed,  was  nn«t  illogical,  inaH- 
niuch   OH  it    is    the    stK-ial   attraction 
among  individualH  which  is  the  source 
(if  the  mutual  repulHion  among  nationn: 
and  as  this  attraction  invaiiably  o{)e- 


182 


DISSERTATION, — ^PART  FIRST. 


tion ;  and,  in  conformity  to  it,  contents  himself  with  laying 
down  the  general  principles  of  natural  law,  leaving  it  to  the 
reader  to  apply  it  as  he  may  find  necessary,  to  individuals  or 
to  societies. 

The  later  writers  on  Jurisprudence  have  thought  it  expedient 
to  separate  the  law  of  nations  from  that  part  of  the  science  which 
treats  of  the  duties  of  individuals  ;i  but  without  being  at  sufii- 
cient  pains  to  form  to  themselves  a  definite  idea  of  the  object  of 
their  studies.  Whoever  takes  the  trouble  to  look  into  their 
systems,  will  immediately  perceive,  that  their  leading  aim  is 
not  (as  might  have  been  expected,)  to  ascertain  the  great 
principles  of  morality  binding  on  all  nations  in  their  inter- 
course with  each  other ;  or  to  point  out  with  what  limitations 
the  ethical  rules  recognised  among  individuals  must  be  under- 
stood, when  extended  to  political  and  unconnected  bodies ;  but 
to  exhibit  a  digest  of  those  laws  and  usages,  which,  partly 
from  considerations  of  utility,  partly  from  accidental  circum- 
stances, and  partly  from  positive  conventions,  have  gradually 
arisen  among  those  states  of  Christendom,  which,  from  their 
mutual  connexions,  may  be  considered  as  forming  one  great 
republic.  It  is  evident,  that  such  a  digest  has  no  more  con- 
nexion with  the  Law  of  Natiu-e,  properly  so  called,  than  it  has 


mtes  with  the  greatest  force,  where  the 
individual  is  the  most  completely  inde- 
pendent of  liis  species,  and  where  the 
advantages  of  the  political  union  are  the 
least  sensibly  felt.  If,  in  any  state  of 
human  nature,  it  be  in  danger  of  be- 
coming quite  evanescent,  it  is  in  large 
and  civilized  empires,  where  man  be- 
comes indispensably  necessaiy  to  man ; 
depending  for  the  gratification  of  his 
artificial  wants  on  the  co-operation  of 
thousands  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

Let  me  add,  that  the  theory,  so 
fashionable  at  present,  which  resolves 
the  whole  of  morality  into  the  principle  of 
utility,  is  more  nearly  akin  to  Hobbism, 
than  some  of  its  partisans  are  aware  of. 

*  The  credit  of  this  improvement  is 


ascribed  by  Vattel  (one  of  the  most 
esteemed  ^Titers  on  the  subject)  to  the 
celebrated  German  philosopher  Wolfius, 
whose  labours  in  this  department  of 
study  he  estimates  very  highly. — 
{Questions  de  Droit  Naturel.  Berne, 
1762.)  Of  this  great  work  I  know 
nothing  but  the  title,  which  is  not  cal- 
culated to  excite  much  curiosity  in  the 
present  times :— "  Christiani  Wolfii  jus 
Katurce  methodo  sctentijica  pertrac- 
tatum,  in  9  tomos  distributimi." — 
(Francof.  1740.)  "  Non  est,"  says 
Lampredi,  himse'fA  professor  of  public 
law,  "qui  non  det^'rreatur  tanta  lib- 
rorum  farragine,  quasi  vero  Herculeo 
labore  opus  esset,  ut  quis  honestatem 
et  justitiam  addiscat." 


CUAI*.  II. — FUILO»OFHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  183 

with  the  rules  of  the  Botnan  law,  or  of  any  other  municipal 
code.  The  details  contained  in  it  are  hif^lily  interesting  and 
useful  in  themselves ;  but  they  l)elong  to  a  science  altogether 
different ;  a  science,  in  which  tlie  ultimate  appeal  is  made,  not 
to  abstract  maxims  of  right  and  wrong,  but  to  precedents,  to 
established  customs,  and  to  the  authority  of  the  learned. 

The  intimate  alliimce,  however,  thus  established  between  the 
Law  of  Nature  and  the  conventional  Law  of  Nations,  has  been 
on  the  whole  attended  with  fortunate  etfec^ts.  Li  conscHjuence 
of  the  discussions  concerning  questions  of  justice  and  of  ex- 
pediency which  ctune  to  be  blendeil  with  the  details  of  public 
law,  more  enlargwl  and  philosopliical  views  have  gradually 
presented  themselves  to  the  minds  of  speculative  statesmen; 
and,  in  the  hist  result,  have  led,  by  easy  steps,  to  those  liberal 
doctrines  concerning  conunercial  policy,  and  the  other  mutual 
relations  of  sejmrate  and  iii(leiK.»ndent  states,  which,  if  they 
should  ever  become  the  cri^  of  the  rulers  of  iminkind,  ])romise 
so  large  an  accession  to  human  happiness. 

3.  Another  idea  of  Natund  Jurisprudence,  essentially  <li8- 
tinct  from  thost*  hitherto  mentioned,  remains  to  be  considereil. 
According  to  this,  its  object  is  to  «sa»rtiun  the  genend  prin- 
ciples of  justice  which  ou(/ht  to  be  recogniseil  in  everj*  municipid 
cckIc  ;  and  to  which  it  oufjht  to  be  the  aim  of  every  legislator 
to  accommo<late  his  institutions.  It  is  to  this  idc^a  of  Juris- 
pnulence  that  i\Ir.  Smith  has  given  his  sanction  in  the  conclu- 
sion of  his  Tlu*ory  of  Moral  Sentiments ;  and  this  he  seems  to 
liave  conceived  to  have  l)eeu  likewise  the  idea  of  Grotius,  in 
the  Treatise  T)e  Jure  Belli  et  Pacts.    • 

"  It  might  have  Iktu  exiK?cted,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "  that  the 
reasonings  of  lawyers  uj^n  the  different  imjK^rfwtions  and 
improvements  of  the  laws  of  dilfcrent  countries,  should  have 
given  cKTcasion  to  an  incpiiry  into  what  were  the  nat^md  ndes 
of  justice,  indeiKjndent  of  all  iMjsitive  institution.  It  might 
liave  lx?en  ex{»ected,  that  these  reasonings  should  have  leil  them 
to  aim  at  establishing  a  system  of  what  might  proi)erly  be 
called  Natural  Jurisprudence,  or  a  theory  af  the  princij}les 
whidi  oiujht  to  run  throwjh^  nnd  to  be  the  foundation  of  the 


184  DISSEBTATION. — PAKT  FIRST. 

laws  of  all  nations.  But,  though  the  reasonings  of  lawyers 
did  produce  something  of  this  kind,  and  though  no  man  has 
treated  systematically  of  the  laws  of  any  particular  country, 
without  intermixing  in  his  work  many  observations  of  this 
sort,  it  was  very  late  in  the  world  before  any  such  general 
system  was  thought  of,  or  before  the  philosophy  of  laws  was 
treated  of  by  itself,  and  without  regard  to  the  particular  insti- 
tutions of  any  nation.  Grotius  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
who  attempted  to  give  the  world  anything  like  a  system  of 
those  principles  which  ought  to  run  through,  and  be  the 
foundation  of  the  laws  of  all  nations ;  and  his  Treatise  of  the 
Laws  of  Peace  and  War.  with  all  its  imperfections,  is  perhaps, 
at  this  day,  the  most  complete  work  that  has  yet  been  given  on 
the  subject." 

Whether  this  was,  or  was  not,  the  leading  object  of  Grotius, 
it  is  not  material  to  decide ;  but  if  this  was  his  object,  it  will 
not  be  disputed  that  he  has  executed  his  design  in  a  very 
desultory  manner,  and  that  he  often  seems  to  have  lost  sight 
of  it  altogether,  in  the  midst  of  those  miscellaneous  specula- 
tions on  political,  ethical,  and  historical  subjects,  which  form 
so  large  a  portion  of  his  Treatise,  and  which  so  frequently 
succeed  each  other  without  any  apparent  connexion  or  common 
aim.^ 

Nor  do  the  views  of  Grotius  appear  always  enlarged  or  just, 
even  when  he  is  pointing  at  the  object  described  by  Mr.  Smith. 
The  Boman  system  of  Jurisprudence  seems  to  have  warped,  in 
no  inconsiderable  degree,  his  notions  on  all  questions  connected 
with  the  theory  of  legislation,  and  to  have  diverted  his  atten- 
tion from  that  philosophical  idea  of  law,  so  well  expressed  by 
Cicero, — "Non  a  praetoris  edicto,  neque  a  duodecim  tabulis, 
sed  penitus  ex  intima  philogophiA,  hauriendam  juris  discipli- 
nam."    In  this  idolatry,  indeed,  of  the  Koman  law,  he  has 


*  "  Of  what  Btamp,"  says  a  most  in-  sorial  ? — Sometimes   one  thing,   some- 

genioos  and  original  thinker,  "  are  the  times  another :  they  seem  hardly  to  have 

works  of  Grotius,  Puffendorff,  and  Bur-  settled  the  matter  with  themselves." — 

lamaqui  ?    Are  they  political  or  ethical,  Bentham's  Introduction  to  the  PrindpleJt 

historical  or  juridical,  expositoiy  or  cen-  'of  Morals  and  Ijef/islativn,  p.  327. 


CUAP.  lI.-r-FHILOSOrUY  FROM  BACOM  TO  LOCKE.  185 

not  gone  bo  far  as  some  of  his  commeutators,  who  have  affirmed, 
that  it  is  only  a  different  name  for  the  Law  of  Nature ;  but 
that  his  partiality  for  Ids  professional  pursuits  has  often  led 
him  to  overlook  the  immense  difference  between  the  state  of 
society  in  ancient  and  modem  Europe,  will  not,  I  believe,  be 
now  dis{)ute(L  It  must,  at  the  same  time,  l)e  mentioned  to  his 
pndse,  that  no  writer  apjx^ars  to  liave  been,  i  ;t  theory^  more 
completely  aware  of  the  essential  distinction  between  Natural 
and  Munici[>al  laws.  In  one  of  the  paragraphs  of  liis  Prolego- 
menQj  he  mentions  it  as  a  part  of  his  general  i)lan,  to  illustrate 
the  Roman  code,  and  to  systematize  tliose  jmrts  of  it  which 
have  their  origin  in  the  Law  of  Nature.  "  The  task,"  says  he, 
"  of  moulding  it  into  the  form  of  a  system,  has  been  projected 
by  many,  but  Idtherto  accomplislied  by  none.  Nor  indeed  was 
the  thing  possible,  while  so  little  attention  was  ])aid  to  the 
distinction  between  natural  and  iwsitive  institutions;  for  the 
former  being  everywhere  the  stime,  may  be  easily  traced  to  a 
few  general  principles,  while  the  latter,  exhibiting  different 
appearances  at  different  times,  and  in  different  places,  elude 
every  attempt  towards  methodical  arrangement,  no  less  than  the 
insulated  facts  which  indindual  objects  present  to  our  external 
senses." 

This  i)assage  of  Grotius  has  given  great  offence  to  two  of 
the  most  eminent  of  his  conmientators,  Henry  and  Samuel 
de  Cocceii,  who  have  laboured  much  to  vindicate  the  Koman 
legislators  against  that  indirect  censure  which  the  words  of 
Grotius  apj)ear  to  convey.  "  My  cluef  object,"  says  the  latter 
of  those  writers,  "  was,  by  deducing  the  Roman  law  from  its 
source  in  the  nature  of  things,  to  reconcile  Natural  Juris- 
prudence with  the  civil  code ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  correct 
the  supiX)sition  implied  iu  the  foregoing  iwissagc  of  Grotius, 
which  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  exceptionable  to  ho  found  in 
his  work.  The  remarks  on  this  subject,  scattered  over  the 
following  commentiiry,  the  reader  will  find  arranged  in  due 
order  in  my  twelfth  Treliminar}'  Dissertation,  the  cluef  design 
of  which  is  to  systematize  the  whole  Roman  law,  and  to  dc- 
monstrate  its  beautiful  coincidence  with  the  Law  of  Nature." 


186  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

In  the  execution  of  this  design,  Cocceii  must,  I  think,  be 
allowed  to  have  contributed  a  very  useful  supplement  to  the 
jurisprudential  labours  of  Grotius,  the  Dissertation  in  question 
being  eminently  distinguished  by  that  distinct  and  luminous 
method,  the  want  of  which  renders  the  study  of  the  Treatise 
De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis  so  peculiarly  irksome  and  unsatisfactory. 
The  superstitious  veneration  for  the  Eoman  code  expressed 
by  such  writers  as  the  Cocceii,  will  appear  less  wonderful,  when 
we  attend  to  the  influence  of  the  same  prejudice  on  the  liberal 
and  philosophical  mind  of  Leibnitz ;  an  author,  who  has  not 
only  gone  so  far  as  to  compare  the  civil  law  (considered  as  a 
monument  of  human  genius)  with  the  remains  of  the  ancient 
Greek  geometry ;  but  has  strongly  intimated  his  dissent  from 
the  opinions  of  those  who  have  represented  its  principles  as 
being  frequently  at  variance  with  the  Law  of  Nature.  In  one 
very  powerful  paragraph,  he  expresses  himself  thus :  "  I  have 
often  said,  that,  after  the  writings  of  geometricians,  there  exists 
nothing  which,  in  point  of  strength,  subtilty,  and  depth,  can  be 
compared  to  the  works  of  the  Eoman  lawyers.  And  as  it 
would  be  scarcely  possible,  from  mere  intrinsic  evidence,  to  dis- 
tinguish a  demonstration  of  Euclid's  from  one  of  Archimedes 
or  of  Apollonius,  (the  style  of  all  of  them  appearing  no  less 
uniform  than  if  reason  herself  were  speaking  through  their 
organs,)  so  also  the  Roman  lawyers  all  resemble  each  other  like 
twin-brothers  ;  insomuch  that,  from  the  style  alone  of  any  par- 
ticular opinion  or  argument,  hardly  any  conjecture  could  be 
formed  about  its  author.  Nor  are  the  traces  of  a  refined  and 
deeply  meditated  system  of  Natural  Jurisprudence  anywhere  to 
be  found  more  visible,  or  in  greater  abundance.  And  even  in 
those  cases  where  its  principles  are  departed  from,  either  in 
compliance  with  the  language  consecrated  by  technical  forms, 
or  in  consequence  of  new  statutes,  or  of  ancient  traditions,  the 
conclusions  which  the  assumed  hypothesis  renders  it  necessary 
to  incorporate  with  the  eternal  dictates  of  right  reason,  are 
deduced  with  the  soundest  logic,  and  with  an  ingenuity  that 
excites  admiration.  Nor  are  these  dematioiis  from  the  Lata 
of  Nature  JO  frequent  as  is  comrtwnhj  ajypieheiided" 


CHAP.  II. — ^PHILOSOFHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.  187 

In  the  last  eentence  of  this  passage,  licibnitz  liad  probably 
an  eye  to  the  works  of  Grotiiis  and  his  followers ;  which,  how- 
ever narrow  and  timid  in  their  views  they  may  now  appear, 
were,  for  a  long  time,  reganle<l  among  civilians  as  savouring 
somewliat  of  theoretical  innovation,  and  of  j)olitical  heresy. 

To  all  this  may  be  addeil,  as  a  defect  still  more  imiwrtimt 
and  radical  in  the  systems  of  Natural  Jurisi)rudence  considered 
as  models  of  universal  legislation,  that  their  authors  reason 
concerning  laws  too  abstractedly,  without  siHxdfying  the  parti- 
cular circumstanc»es  of  the  society  to  which  they  mean  that  their 
conclusions  should  l)e  applied.     It  is  very  justly  obsiTved  by 
Mr.  Bentham,  that  "  if  there  are  any  Inxiks  of  univerwd'Juris- 
prudence,  they  must  be  lookeil  for  within  verj*  narrow  limits." 
He  certainly,  however,  carries  this  idea  too  far,  when  he  asserts, 
that  "  to  Ix;  susc^ei)tible  of  a  universal   apj)lication,  all  that  a 
book  of  the  expository  kind  can  have  to  ti'eat  of,  is  the  impoH 
ofioords;  and  that,  to  Ik?  strictly  si)eaking  universal,  it  must 
confine  itself  to  tenninology ;  that  is,  to  an  exphuiation  of  such 
words  connected  witli  hiw,  as  2>ourr^  ^fi/hf,  obli/jcUion^  liberty, 
to  which  are  words  pn.»tty  exactly  correspondent  in  all  lan- 
guages." ^      His  expn.»ssions,   t(M),   are   somewhat  unguarded, 
when  he  calls  the  Law  of  Nature  "  an  obscure  phantom,  which, 
in  the  imaginations  of  those  who  go  in  chase  of  it,  points  some- 
times to  manners,  sometimes  to  hues,  sometimes  to  what  law 
w,  sometimes  to  what  it  om/hf  to  be" '^    Nothing, indeed,  can l)e 
more  exact  and  judicious  than  this  dcscTij)tion,  when  restricted 
to  the  Law  of  Nature,  as  coimnonly  treated  of  by  writers  on 
Jimsprudence ;    but  if  extended  to  the  Laiv  of  Nature,  as 
originally  TniderstiKKl  among  ethical  writers,  it  is  impossible  to 
assent  to  it,  without  abandoning  all  the  j)rincij)les  on  which  the 
science  of  morals  ultimately  rests.     With  these  obvious,  Init,  in 
my  opinion,  very  essential  limitations,   I  jHTfectly  agree  with 
Mr.   Ik^ntham,   in  considering  an  abstract  ccnle  of  laws  as  a 
thing  e([ually  uni)hilosophicid  in  the  design,  and  usi'less  in  the 
execution. 

'  Intrftflurtion  to  tin:  Prinn'pUs  of  } forays  and  Lnfislutioii,  [k  32.). 


• 


188  DISSERTATION.— PAffT  PIRBT. 

In  stating  these  ol)servation8,  I  would  not  be  undfratoo*!  to 
dispute  the  utility  of  turning  the  attention  of  students  to  a 
comparative  view  of  the  municijwil  iustitutioufi  of  diflc'rent 
nations ;  but  only  to  express  my  doubtH  whether  this  can  be 
done  with  ativautage,  by  reterring  these  institutionB  to  that 
abstract  theory  called  the  Late  of  Natun;  as  to  a  common 
standard.  The  code  of  some  particidar  country  must  be  fixed 
on  as  a  groundwork  I'or  our  speculations ;  and  its  laws  studied, 
not  as  consequences  of  any  abstract  princi])le8  of  justice,  but  in 
their  connexion  with  the  circumstances  of  the  people  among 
wliom  they  originated.  A  comparison  of  these  laws  with  the 
corresponding  laws  of  other  nations,  considered  also  in  their 
connexion  with  the  circumstances  whence  tbey  arose,  would 
tbrm  a  branch  of  study  equally  interesting  and  useful ;  not 
merely  to  those  who  have  in  view  the  profession  of  law,  but  to 
all  who  receive  tiie  advantages  of  a  liberal  education.  In  fixing 
on  such  a  standard,  the  preterence  must  undoubtedly  be  given 
to  the  Koman  law,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  this,  that  its 
technical  language  is  more  or  less  incorporated  with  all  our 
municipal  regulations  in  this  part  of  the  world :  and  the  study 
of  this  language,  as  well  as  of  the  other  technical  parts  of 
Jurisprutlence,  (so  revolting  to  the  taste  when  considered  as  the 
arbitrary  jargon  of  a  philosophical  theory,)  would  possess 
sufficient  attractions  to  excite  the  curiosity,  when  considered  as 
a  necessary  pasBport  to  a  knowledge  of  that  system,  which  so 
long  determined  the  rights  of  the  gi'eatest  and  moat  celebrated 
of  nations. 

"  Universal  grammai',"  says  Dr.  Lowth,  "  cannot  be  taught 
abstractedly ;  it  must  be  done  with  reference  to  some  language 
already  known,  in  which  the  terms  are  to  be  explained  and  the 
rules  exempbfied."'  The  same  obser\'ation  may  be  applied 
(and  for  reaHona  strikingly  analogous)  to  the  science  of  Natural 
or  Universal  JuriBj)rudence, 

Of  tlie  truth  of  this  la*t  proportion  Bacon  seems  to  have 
been  fully  aware ;  and  it  was  manifestly  some  ideas  of  the  same 
kind  wliich  gave  birth  to  Montesquieu's  bistfirical  speculations 


CHAP.  IL— PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKK.  189 

with  respect  to  the  origin  of  laws,  and  the  reference  which  they 
may  be  expected  to  bear,  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  to  the 
physical  and  moral  circumsttmceH  of  the  nations  among  whom 
they  have  sprung  uj).  During  this  long  interval,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  name  any  intermediate  writer,  by  whom  the  import- 
ant considerations  just  stated  were  duly  attended  to. 

In  touching  formerly  on  some  of  Bacon's  ideas  concerning 
the  philosophy  of  law,  I  quoteil  a  few  of  the  most  prominent  of 
those  fortimate  anticiiwitions,  so  profusely  scattc»red  over  his 
works,  which,  outstripping  the  ordinary  march  of  human  reason, 
associate  his  mind  with  the  luminaries  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, rather  than  with  his  own  contemi)oraries.  These  antici- 
pations, as  well  as  many  others  of  a  similar  description,  haz- 
ardeil  by  his  bold  yet  ])roplietic  imagimition,  have  often  struck 
mc  as  resembling  the  pioires  iVattente  jutting  out  from  the 
corners  of  an  ancient  building,  and  inviting  tlie  fancy  to  com- 
plete what  was  left  unfinished  of  the  architect's  design  ; — or  the 
slight  and  broken  sketclu^s  trace<l  on  the  skirts  of  an  American 
map,  to  connect  its  chains  of  hills  and  branches  of  rivers  with 
some  future  survey  of  the  contiguous  wilderness.  Yielding  to 
such  impressions,  and  eager  to  pursue  the  rapid  flight  of  his 
genius,  let  me  alxindon  for  a  moment  the  order  of  time,  while 
I  pass  from  the  Pontes  Juris  to  tlie  Spirit  of  Laws,  To  liave 
a  just  conce])tion  of  the  comparatively  limited  views  of  Grotius, 
it  is  necessary  to  attend  to  what  was  planned  by  his  immediate 
preilecessor,  and  first  exeinited  (or  rather  first  hegnn  to  be 
executed)  by  one  of  his  remote  successors. 

The  main  object  of  the  Sjnrit  of  Laws  (it  is  necessarj'  here 
to  premise)  is  to  show,  not,  as  has  Ikx'u  freijuenlly  supi)osed, 
what  laws  ovfjlit  to  l)e, — but  how  the  diversities  in  the  j>hysical 
and  moral  circumst^mces  of  the  human  race  have  contributed 
to  produce  diversities  in  their  political  establishments,  and  in 
their  municiiml  regulations.^     On  this  i>oint,  indeed,  an  apjx^al 

*  Tliis,  though  sonifwlint  aniMgiKUiHly  8<*ntenco  :  "Djuim  cot  oiivrago,  M.  do 
oxprcBfiod,  muMf,  I  think,  have  hovn  the  MdiitPMpiii^u  sNK'cupo  ni(»in8  des  loix 
idea   of  D'AlomU*rt    in   tho   following       <|U*on  a  faitoR,  quo  dc  roWon  qn'on  a  Hn 


190  DISSERTATION. — PART  FIRST. 

may  be  made  to  the  author  himself.  "  I  write  not/*  says  he, 
"  to  censm'e  anything  established  in  any  country  whatsoever ; 
every  nation  will  here  find  the  reasons  on  which  its  maxims  are 
founded."  This  plan,  however,  which,  when  imderstood  with 
proper  limitations,  is  highly  philosophical,  and  which  raises 
Jurisprudence,  from  the  uninteresting  and  useless  state  in 
which  we  find  it  in  Grotius  and  Puffendorff*,  to  be  one  of  the 
most  agreeable  and  important  branches  of  useful  knowledge, 
(although  the  execution  of  it  occupies  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
his  work,)  is  prosecuted  by  Montesquieu  in  so  very  desultory  a 
manner,  that  I  am  inclined  to  think  he  rather  fell  into  it  insen- 
sibly, in  consequence  of  the  occasional  impulse  of  accidental 
curiosity,  than  from  any  regular  design  he  had  formed  to  him- 
self when  he  began  to  collect  materials  for  that  celebrated  per- 
formance. He  seems,  indeed,  to  confess  this  in  the  following 
passage  of  his  preface :  "  Often  have  I  begun,  and  as  often  laid 
aside,  this  undertaking.  I  have  followed  my  observations 
without  any  fixed  plan,  and  without  thinking  either  of  rules  or 
exceptions.     I  have  found  the  truth  only  to  lose  it  again." 

But  whatever  opinion  we  may  form  on  this  point,  Montes- 
quieu enjoys  an  unquestionable  claim  to  the  grand  idea  of  con- 
necting Jurisprudence  with  History  and  Philosophy,  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  render  them  all  subservient  to  their  mutual  illus- 
tration. Some  occasional  disquisitions  of  the  same  kind  may, 
it  is  true,  be  traced  in  earlier  writers,  particularly  in  the  works 
of  Bodinus ;  but  they  are  of  a  nature  too  trifling  to  detract  from 
the  glory  of  Montesquieu.  When  we  compare  the  jurispru- 
dential researches  of  the  latter  with  the  systems  previously  in 
possession  of  the  schools,  the  step  which  he  made  appears  to 
have  been  so  vast  as  almost  to  justify  the  somewhat  too  osten- 
tatious motto  prefixed  to  them  by  the  author;  Prolem  sine 
Moire  creatam.  Instead  of  confining  himself,  after  the  example 
of  his  predecessors,  to  an  interpretation  of  one  part  of  the 
Boman  code  by  another,  he  studied  the  Spirit  of  these  laws 

faire." — {Eloge  deM.de  Montesquieu,)      ing  which  I  conceive  to  be  the  very  ro- 
According  to  the  moat  obvious  interpre-      verse  of  the  truth, 
tation  of  his  words,  they  convey  a  mean- 


CHAP.  II. — PH1L080PHT  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


191 


in  the  political  views  of  their  authors,  and  in  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances of  that  extraordinary  race.  He  combined  the 
science  of  law  with  the  history  of  i>olitical  society,  employing 
the  latter  to  account  for  the  varying  aims  of  the  legislator  ;  and 
the  former,  in  its  turn,  to  explain  the  nature  of  the  government, 
and  the  manners  of  the  i)eople.  Nor  did  he  limit  his  inquiries 
to  the  Roman  law  and  to  Boman  liistory ;  but,  convinced  that 
the  general  principles  of  human  nature  are  ever)^here  the 
same,  he  searched  for  new  lights  among  the  subjects  of  every 
government,  and  the  inhabitants  of  every  climate ;  and,  while 
he  thus  opened  inexhaustible  and  unthought-of  resources  to  the 
student  of  Jurisprudence,  he  indirectly  marked  out  to  the  legis- 
lator the  extent  and  the  limits  of  liis  power,  and  recalled  tlie 
attention  of  the  jihilosopher  from  abstract  and  useless  theories, 
to  the  only  authentic  monuments  of  the  liistory  of  mankind.^ 

This  view  of  hiw,  which  unites  Histor}'  and  Philosophy  with 
Jurisprudence,  lias  been  followeil  out  with  remarkable  success 
by  various  authors  since  Montesquieu's  time ;  and  for  a  con- 
siderable number  of  years  after  the  publicutiDU  of  the  Spirit  of 
Latvs,  l)ecame  so  very  fashionable  (i)articiUarly  in  this  country) 
tliat  many  seem  to  have  considered  it,  not  as  a  step  towards  a 
farther  end,  but  as  exhausting  the  whole  science  of  Jurispru- 
dence. For  such  a  conclusion  there  is  undoubtedly  some 
foundation,  so  long  as  we  confine  our  attention  to  the  ruder 
j>erio<ls  of  society,  in  which  governments  and  laws  may  bo 
universally  regarded  as  the  gi'adual  result  of  time  and  experi- 
ence, of  circumstances  and  emergencies.  In  enlightened  ages, 
however,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt,  that  political  wisdom  comes 
in  for  its  share  in  the  administration  of  human  affairs ;  and 
there  is  reasonable  ground  for  hoping,  tliat  its  influence  will 


*  As  exaiiiplcs  (»f  M«mtc«juicu'8  pocu- 
liar  and  chanutcri.stiail  Btvlo  of  think- 
inp  in  The  Spirit  of  lAiwif,  may  l)e 
mentioned  liis  Oh$ervations  vn  the 
(tiffin  and  Jieroluticnu  of  the  Roman 
Jaiwh  on  SiKYfssions ;  and  what  he  haH 
written  on  the  IliMory  of  the  Civil 
Iaups  in  his  Of/m  Country;  aljovr  nil, 


his  Theorjf  of  the  Fe\tdal  Laws  among 
tJie  Frniiks^  considered  in  relation  to 
the  revuhitiuns  of  tlieir  monarchy.  On 
many  jKtintH  connected  with  tliese  re- 
HoarchuH,  his  conchisions  have  hcen 
since  controverted;  hut  all  his  succcs> 
sors  have  af:;Tei'd  in  acknowledging  him 
aa  their  common  roastor  and  gnido. 


192 


DISSERTATION. — ^PART  FIRST. 


continue  to  increase,  in  proportion  as  the  principles  of  legisla- 
tion are  more  generally  studied  and  understood.  To  suppose 
the  contrary,  woujd  reduce  us  to  be  mere  spectators  of  the 
progress  and  decline  of  society,  and  put  an  end  to  every  species 
of  patriotic  exertion. 

Montesquieu's  own  aim  in  his  historical  disquisitions,  was 
obviously  much  more  deep  and  refined.  In  various  instances, 
one  would  almost  tliink  he  had  in  his  mind  the  very  shrewd 
aphorism  of  Lord  Coke,  that,  "  to  trace  an  error  to  its  fountain- 
head,  is  to  refute  it ;" — a  sj^ecies  of  refutation,  wliich,  as  Mr. 
Bentham  has  well  remarked,  is,  with  many  understandings,  the 
only  one  that  has  any  weight.^  To  men  i)repossessed  with  a 
blind  veneration  for  the  wisdom  of  antiquity,  and  strongly  im- 
pressed with  a  conviction  that  everything  they  see  around  them 
is  the  result  of  the  legislative  wisdom  of  their  ancestors,  the 
very  existence  of  a  legal  principle,  or  of  an  established  custom, 
becomes  an  argument  in  its  favour ;  and  an  argument  to  which 
no  reply  can  be  made,  but  by  tracing  it  to  some  acknowledged 
prejudice,  or  to  a  form  of  society  so  different  from  that  existing 
at  present,  that  the  same  considerations  which  serve  to  account 
for  its  first  origin,  demonstrate  indirectly  the  expediency  of 
now  accommodating  it  to  the  actual  circumstances  of  mankind. 

According  to  this  view  of  the  subject,  the  speculations  of 
Montesquieu  were  ultimately  directed  to  the  same  practical 
conclusion  with  that  pointed  out  in  the  prophetic  suggestions 
of  Bacon;  aiming,  however,  at  this  object,  by  a  process  more 
circuitous ;  and,  perhaps,  on  that  account,  the  more  likely  to  be 


^  "  1/  our  ancestors  have  been  all 
along  under  a  mistake,  how  came  iltey 
to  have  fallen  into  t^f  is  a  question 
that  naturally  occurs  upon  all  such  oc- 
casions. The  case  is,  that,  in  matters 
of  law  more  especially,  such  is  the 
dominion  of  authority  over  our  minds, 
and  such  the  prejudice  it  creates  in 
favour  of  whatever  institution  it  has 
tAken  under  its  wing,  that,  after  all 
manner  of  reasons  that  can  he  thought 
of  in  favour  of  the  institution  have  been 


shewn  to  be  insufficient,  we  still  cannot 
forbear  looking  to  some  unassignable 
and  latent  reason  for  its  efficient  cause. 
But  if,  instead  of  any  such  reason,  we 
can  find  a  cause  for  it  in  some  notion, 
of  the  erroneousness  of  which  we  are 
already  satisfied,  then  at  last  we  arc 
content  to  give  it  up  without  further 
struggle  ;  and  then,  and  not  till  then, 
oiu"  satisfaction  is  complete." — Defence 
of  Usury,  pp.  94,  95. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FBOM  BACON  TO  LOCKE. 


193 


e£fectual.  The  plans  of  botli  have  been  since  combined  with 
extraordinary  sagacity,  by  some  of  the  later  writers  on  Political 
Economy ;  *  but  with  tJieir  systems  we  have  no  concern  in  the 
present  section.  I  shall  therefore  only  remark,  in  addition  to 
the  foregoing  observations,  the  peculiar  utility  of  these  re- 
searches concerning  the  history  of  laws,  in  repressing  the  folly 
of  sudden  and  violent  innovation,  by  illustrating  the  reference 
which  laws  must  necessarily  have  to  the  actual  circumstances 
of  a  people, — and  the  tendency  which  natural  causes  have  to 
improve  gradually  and  progressively  the  condition  of  mankind^ 
under  every  government  which  allows  them  to  enjoy  the  bless- 
ings of  peace  and  of  liberty. 

The  well-merited  popularity  of  the  Spirit  of  Laws,  gave  the 
first  fatal  blow  to  the  study  of  Natural  Jurisprudence;  partly 
by  the  proofs  which,  in  every  page,  the  work  afibrded,  of  the 
absurdity  of  all  schemes  of  Universal  Legislation ;  imd  partly 
by  the  attractions  which  it  possessed,  in  point  of  eloquence  and 
taste,  when  contrasted  with  the  insupportable  dulness  of  the 
systems  then  in  possession  of  the  schools.  It  is  remarkable, 
that  Montesquieu  has  never  once  mentioned  the  name  of 
Grotius ; — ^in  thisy  probably,  as  in  numberless  other  instances, 
conceiving  it  to  be  less  expedient  to  attack  established  preju- 
dices openly  and  in  front,  than  gradually  to  undermine  the 
unsuspected  errors  upon  which  they  rest 

If  the  foregoing  details  should  appear  tedious  to  some  of  my 
readers,  I  must  request  them  to  recollect,  that  they  relate  to  a 
.science  which,  for  much  more  than  a  himdred  years,  constituted 
the  whole  philosophy,  both  ethical  and  political,  of  the  largest 
portion  of  civilized  Europe.     With  respect  to  Germany,  in  par- 


*  Above  all,  by  Mr.  Smith;  who,  in 
his  Wealth  of  Nationn^  has  judiciously 
and  skilfully  combined  with  the  investi- 
gation of  general  principles,  the  most 
luminous  sketches  of  Theoretical  His- 
torif  relative  to  that  form  of  political 
Hociety,  which  has  ^ven  birth  to  so 
many  of  the  institutions  and  customs 
peculiar  to  modem  Europe.  —  "  The 
htrong  ray  of  philosophic  light  on  this 

VOL.  L 


interesting  subject,"  whirh,  according 
to  Gibbon,  "  broke  from  Scotland  in  our 
times,"  was  but  a  reflection^  though 
with  a  far  steadier  and  more  concen- 
trated force,  from  the  scatton^d  but  bril- 
liant sparks  kindled  by  the  genius  of 
Montesquieu.  I  shall  afttTwanlHliavooc- 
canion  to  take  notice  of  the  mighty  influ- 
ence which  his  writinpjK  h.ave  had  on  the 
subsequent  histor}*  <»f  Scotiish  literature. 

N 


IS- 


DIBSERTATIOV. — PABT  KtRHT. 


ticiilar,  it  appears  from  the  Count  de  Hertzlierg,  that  tliia 
science  coDtiiiued  to  maintain  its  undisputed  ground,  till  it  wafl 
supplanted  by  that  growing  passion  for  Statistical  details, 
which,  of  late,  has  given  a  direction  so  different,  and  in  some 
respects  so  opposite,  to  the  etudies  of  his  countrymen.' 

When  from  Germany  we   turn  our  eyes  to  the  south  of 

Eurojie,  the  prospect  Beema  not  merely  sterile,  but  afflicting 
and  almost  hojteless.  Of  Spanish  literature  I  know  nothing 
but  through  the  mediimi  of  translations ;  a  very  imperfect  one, 
undoubtedly,  when  a  judgment  is  to  be  passed  on  compoaitions 
addressed  to  the  powers  of  imagination  and  taste,  yet  fiJly  suiB- 
cient  to  enahle  us  to  form  an  estimate  of  works  which  treat  of 
science  and  philosophy.  On  such  suVijects  it  may  be  safely  con- 
cluded, that  whatever  is  unfit  to  stand  the  t*.'8t  of  a  literal  ver- 
sion, is  not  worth  the  trouble  of  being  studied  in  the  originaL 
The  progress  of  the  Mind  in  Spain,  during  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, we  may  therefore  confidently  pronounce,  if  not  entirely 
suspended,  to  have  been  too  inconsiderable  to  merit  attention. 

"  The  only  good  book,"  saya  Montesquieu,  "  which  the 
Spaniards  liave  to  boast  of,  is  that  which  exposes  the  absurdity 
of  all  the  rest"  In  this  remark,  I  have  little  doubt  that  there 
is  a  considerable  Bacrifice  of  truth  to  the  pointed  effect  of  an 
antithesis.  The  unqualified  censure,  at  the  same  time,  of  this 
great  man  is  not  unworthy  of  notice,  as  a  strong  expression  of 
his  feelings  with  respect  to  the  general  insignificance  of  the 
Spanish  writers.* 


as  he  infonns  us  in  Lis  Anecdatea,  that 
Drydcn  nneurcd  hitn  he  was  more  In- 
debted to  the  SpunUh  crttice  than  tu 
the  writets  of  any  other  nation." — Ma- 
luno,  in  a  note  on  Drj'Uen'a  Eitag  on 
DramatK  Potti/. 

1'he  same  anecdolo  a  told,  though 
with  a  toDBiderable  diiTerence  in  the 
tircunistancBS,  bj  Wartuo,  iu  big  £^jr 
oil  the  IVrlCiityt  of  Pope.  "Lord  Bol- 
ingbrnko  aseiitcd  I'npo,  that  Diyden 
nllcn  drcUrud  to  hiiu,  ihsl  hv  (rot  mnre 


BC  pUit  ai^uurd'hni  d'appeller  StiMi- 
ttjtM,  cat  uiie  de  cea  gcieaces  qui  sout 
deVGDUCB  i  hi  mode,  et  qui  ont  pris  una 
vogue  geni-rule  dppnia  quelquea  anuivB ; 
rile  a  presquo  d>'pn»i6dD  cctle  du  Droit 
I'ublic,  qui  rfgncnt  an  conunencenitnt 
etJDsquea  vera  le  militu  du  aide  pri>- 
Bent." — BrjitjinHt  lur  la  Force  de* 
EtaU.  Far  M.  le  Comtc  de  Hert»b*rg. 
IlerKn,  1782. 
'  "LitrdBolingbroke  lold  Mr,  Sjipni'', 


CHAP.  II.— PHILOBOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCK*.  195 

The  inimitable  work  here  referred  to  by  Montesquieu,  is  itself 
entitled  to  a  place  in  this  Discourse,  not  only  as  one  of  the  hap- 
piest and  most  wonderful  creations  of  human  fancy,  but  as  the 
record  of  a  force  of  character  and  an  enlargement  of  mind 
which,  when  contrasted  with  the  prejudices  of  the  author's  age 
and  nation,  seem  almost  miraculoua  It  is  not  merely  against 
Books  of  Chivalry  that  the  satire  of  Cervantes  is  directed. 
Many  other  follies  and  absurdities  of  a  less  local  and  temporary 
nature  have  their  share  in  his  ridicule,  while  not  a  single  ex- 
pression escapes  his  pen  that  can  give  offence  to  the  most 
fastidious  moralist  Hence  those  amusing  and  interesting  con- 
trasts by  which  Cervantes  so  powerfully  attaches  us  to  the  hero 
of  his  story ;  chastising  the  wildest  freaks  of  a  disordered  ima- 
gination by  a  stateliness  yet  courtesy  of  virtue,  and  (on  all  sub- 
jects but  one)  by  a  superiority  of  good  sense  and  of  philosophical 
refinement,  which,  even  under  the  most  ludicrous  circumstances, 
never  cease  to  command  our  respect  and  to  keep  alive  our  sym- 
pathy. 

In  Italy,  notwithstanding  the  persecution  undergone  by  Ga- 
lileo, physics  and  astronomy  continued  to  be  cultivated  with 
success  by  Torricelli,  Borelli,  Cassini,  and  others ;  and  in  pure 
geometry,  Viviani  rose  to  the  very  first  eminence,  as  the  restorer, 
or  rather  as  the  diviner,  of  ancient  discoveries ;  but  in  all  those 
studies  which  require  the  animating  spirit  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  this  once  renowned  country  exhibited  the  most  melan- 
choly symptoms  of  mental  decrepitude.  "  Rome,"  says  a  French 
historian,  "  was  too  much  interested  in  maintaining  her  prin- 
ciples, not  to  raise  every  imaginable  barrier  against  what  might 
destroy  them.  Hence  that  index  of  prohibited  books,  into  which 
were  put  the  history  of  the  President  de  Thou ;  the  works  on 
the  liberties  of  the  Gtellican  church ;  and  (who  could  have  be- 
lieved it  ?)  the  translations  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Meanwhile, 

from  the  Spaninh  critics  than  from  the  ture  of  his  own  country  and  with  that 

Itah'an,  French,  and  all  other  critics  put  of  England,  assures  me,  that  he  cannot 

together."  .  recollect  a  single  Simnish  critic  from 

T  suspect  tliat  there  is  some  mistake  whom  Dn'dcn  can  roaMonably  be  sup- 

in  this  story.     A  Spanish  gentleman,  poned  to  have  derived  any  important 

rcpially  well  acquainted  with  thn  litera-  lights. 


this  triljiinal,  though  always  ready  to  coudeiim  judicious  authors 
ujion  l'ri\-oIoiis  suspicious  oi'  heresy,  approved  those  sci:litiou&  and 
^Daticol  theologists  whose  writings  tended  to  the  encourage- 
ment of  regicide  and  the  destruction  of  government  The 
approbation  and  censure  of  books,"  it  is  justly  added,  "  deserve 
a  place  in  the  hintoiy  of  the  human  luind," 

The  gi-eat  glory  of  the  Continent  towards  the  end  of  the 
8event«nth  century  (I  except  only  the  philosophers  of  Prance) 
was  Leibnitz.  He  was  born  as  early  as  1C4() ;  and  distinguished 
himself,  while  ntill  a  very  young  man,  by  a  display  of  those 
talents  which  were  afterwards  to  contend  with  the  united  powers 
of  Clarke  and  of  Newton.  I  have  already  introduced  his  name 
among  the  writers  on  Natural  Law ;  but  in  every  other  respect 
he  ranks  more  fitly  with  the  contemporaries  of  his  old  age  than 
with  those  of  his  youth.  My  reasons  for  thinking  so  will  appear 
in  the  sequel.  In  the  meantime,  it  may  suffice  to  remark,  that 
Leibnitz  the  jiuist  belongs  to  one  centuryj  and  Leibnitz  the 
philosopher  to  another. 

In  this  and  otlier  analogous  distributions  of  my  materiala,  as 
well  as  in  the  order  I  have  followed  in  the  arrangement  of  par- 
ticular facts,  it  may  l>e  projjer,  once  lor  all,  to  observe,  that 
much  must  necessarily  be  left  to  the  discretionary,  though  not 
to  the  nr/iitrari/  decision  of  the  author's  judgment ;  that  the 
dates  which  neparate  from  each  other  the  different  stages  in  the 
progress  of  Human  Reason  do  not,  like  those  which  occur  in 
the  history  of  the  exact  sciences,  admit  of  being  fixed  with 
chronological  and  indisputable  precision  ;  while,  in  adjusting 
the  jcrplexed  rights  of  the  innumerable  clainmnts  in  this  inlel- 
lectiial  and  shatlowy  region,  a  task  is  imposed  on  the  writer, 
resembling  not  imtrequently  the  labour  of  Am,  who  should 
have  attempted  to  circiimscrilM.',  by  mathematical  lines,  the 
melting  and  intermingling  colours  of  Arachne's  web  ; 

In  i|iio  direnii  nilenul  cum  tnille  rolorpB, 

TransitiiB  ipie  laoiea  Bpectaittia  iiioiina  jallit, 

Usque  adao  (|iioil  laagit  iilem  esl,  Imiicn  ullinm  diEtfant. 

But  I  will  not  add  to  the  number  (already  too  great)  of  the 

fwegning  pages,  by  aiitici)mling,  and  nttciiipling  to  obviat«>. 


CHAP.  II. — PHILOSOPHY  FROM  BACON  TO  LOCKE.     197 

the  criticisms  to  which  they  may  be  liable.  Nor  will  I  dissem- 
ble the  confidence  with  which,  amid  a  variety  of  doubts  and 
misgivings,  I  look  forward  to  the  candid  indulgence  of  those 
who  are  best  fitted  to  appreciate  the  difficulties  of  my  under- 
taking. I  am  certainly  not  prepared  to  say  with  Johnson,  that 
"  I  dismiss  my  work  with  frigid  indifference,  and  that  to  me 
success  and  miscarriage  are  empty  sounds."  My  feelings  are 
more  in  unison  with  those  expressed  by  the  same  writer  in  the 
conclusion  of  the  admirable  preface  to  his  edition  of  Shakes- 
peare. One  of  his  reflections,  more  particularly,  falls  in  so 
completely  with  the  train  of  my  own  thoughts,  that  I  cannot 
forbear,  before  laying  down  the  pen,  to  offer  it  to  the  considera- 
tion of  my  readers. 

"  Perhaps  I  may  not  be  more  censured  for  doing  wrong,  than 
for  doing  little ;  for  raising  in  the  public,  expectations  which 
at  last  I  have  not  answered.  The  expectation  of  ignorance  is 
indefinite,  and  that  of  knowledge  is  often  tyrannical.  It  is 
hard  to  satisfy  those  who  Icnow  not  what  to  demand,  or  those 
who  demand  by  design  what  they  think  impossible  to  be 
done." 


\ 


DISSERTATION. 


PART  SECOND. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


[Oklt  IK  FiKST  Edition. — Editoii.] 


Some  apology,  I  am  afraid,  is  necessary  for  the  length  to 
which  this  Dissertation  has  already  extended.  My  original 
design  (as  is  well  known  to  my  friends)  was  to  comprise  in  ten 
or  twelve  sheet's  all  the  preliminary  matter  which  I  was  to  con- 
tribute to  this  Supplement.  But  my  work  grew  insensibly 
under  my  hands,  till  it  assumed  a  form  wliich  obliged  me  either 
to  destroy  all  that  I  had  written,  or  to  continue  my  Historical 
Sketches  on  the  same  enlarged  scale.  In  selecting  the  subjects 
on  which  I  have  chiefly  dwelt,  I  have  been  guided  by  my  own 
idea  of  their  pre-eminent  importance,  when  considered  in  con- 
nexion with  the  present  state  of  Philosophy  in  Europe.  On 
some,  which  I  have  passed  over  unnoticed,  it  was  impossible 
for  me  to  touch,  without  a  readier  access  to  public  libraries 
than  I  can  command  in  this  retirement.  The  same  circum- 
stance will,  I  trust,  account,  in  the  opinion  of  candid  readers, 
for  various  other  omissions  in  my  performance. 

The  time  unavoidably  spent  in  consulting,  with  critical  care, 
the  numerous  Authors  referred  to  in  this  and  in  the  former 
part  of  my  Discourse,  has  encroached  so  deeply,  and  to  myself 


202  '  DISSERTATION. — ADVERTISEMENT. 

BO  paiuftilly,  on  the  leisure  which  I  had  destined  for  a  diflFerent 
purpose,  thatj  at  my  advanced  years,  I  can  entertain  but  a  very 
faint  expectation  (though  I  do  not  altogether  abandon  the  hoj^e) 
of  finishing  my  intended  Sketch  of  the  Progress  of  Ethical  and 
Political  Philosophy  during  the  Eighteenth  Century.  An  un- 
dertaking of  a  much  earlier  date  has  a  prior  and  stronger  claim 
on  my  attention.  At  all  events,  whatever  may  be  wanting  to 
complete  my  plan,  it  cannot  be  difficult  for  another  hand  to 
supply.  An  Outline  is  all  that  should  be  attempted  on  such  a 
subject ;  and  the  field  which  it  has  to  embrace  will  be  found 
incomparably  more  interesting  to  most  readers  than  that  which 
has  fallen  under  my  review. 

KiNMiBL  House,  August  7,  1821. 


DISSERTATION. 


PART  II. 


INTRODUCTION. 


In  the  farther  prosecution  of  the  plan  of  which  I  traced  the 
outline  in  the  Preface  to  the  First  Part  of  this  Dissertation,  I 
find  it  necessary  to  depart  considerably  from  the  arrangement 
which  I  adopted  in  treating  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  During  that  period,  the  literary  intercoiune 
between  the  different  nations  of  Europe  was  corajmratively  so 
slight,  that  it  seemed  advisable  to  consider,  separately  and  suc- 
cessively, the  progress  of  the  mind  in  England,  in  France,  and 
in  (Jermany.  But  from  the  era  at  wliich  we  are  now  arrived, 
the  Republic  of  Letters  may  be  justly  understood  to  compre- 
hend, not  only  these  and  other  countries  in  their  neighbour- 
hood, but  every  region  of  the  civilized  earth.  Disregarding, 
accordingly,  all  diversities  of  language  and  of  geographical 
situation,  I  shall  direct  my  attention  to  the  intellectual  progress 
of  the  species  in  general ;  enlarging,  however,  chiefly  on  the 
Philosophy  of  those  parts  of  Europe,  from  whence  the  rays  of 
science  liave,  in  modem  times,  diverged  to  the  other  quarters 
of  the  globe.  I  propose  also,  in  consequence  of  the  thickening 
crowd  of  useful  authors,  keeping  i)ace  in  their  numbers  with 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  of  liberality,  to  allot  separate 


204  DISSERTATION. — INTRODUCTION. 

discourses  to  the  history  of  Metaphysics,  of  Ethics,  and  of  PoH- 
tics ;  a  distribution  which,  while  it  promises  a  more  distinct 
and  connected  view  of  these  different  subjects,  will  furnish  con- 
venient resting-places,  both  to  the  writer  and  to  the  reader,  and 
can  scarcely  fail  to  place,  in  a  stronger  and  more  concentrated 
light,  whatever  general  conclusions  may  occur  in  the  course  of 
this  survey. 

The  foregoing  considerations,  combined  with  the  narrow 
limits  assigned  to  the  sequel  of  my  work,  will  sufficiently 
account  for  the  contracted  scale  of  some  of  the  following 
sketches,  when  compared  with  the  magnitude  of  the  questions 
to  which  they  relate,  and  the  pecuUar  interest  which  they 
derive  from  their  immediate  influence  on  the  opinions  of  our 
own  times. 

In  the  case  of  Locke  and  Leibnitz,  with  whom  the  metaphy- 
sical history  of  the  eighteenth  century  opens,  I  mean  to  allow 
myself  a  greater  degree  of  latitude.  The  rank  which  I  have 
assigned  to  both  in  my  general  plan  seems  to  require,  of  course, 
a  more  ample  space  for  their  leading  doctrines,  as  well  as  for 
those  of  some  of  their  contemporaries  and  immediate  succes- 
sors, than  I  can  spare  for  metaphysical  systems  of  a  more 
modern  date ;  and  as  the  rudiments  of  the  most  important  of 
these  are  to  be  found  in  the  speculations  either  of  one  or  of  the 
other,  I  shall  endeavour,  by  connecting  with  my  review  of  their 
works,  those  longer  and  more  abstract  discussions  which  are 
necessary  for  the  illustration  of  fundamental  principles,  to 
avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  in  the  remaining  part  of  my  discourse, 
any  tedious  digressions  into  the  thorny  paths  of  scholastic  con- 
troversy. The  critical  remarks,  accordingly,  which  I  am  now 
to  offer  on  their  philosophical  writings,  will,  I  trust,  enable  me 
to  execute  the  very  slight  sketches  which  are  to  follow,  in  a 
manner  at  once  more  easy  to  myself,  and  more  satisfactory  to 
the  bulk  of  my  readers. 

But  what  I  have  chiefly  in  view  in  these  preUminary  obser- 
vations, is  to  correct  certain  misapprehensions  concerning  the 
opinions  of  Locke  and  of  Leibnitz,  which  have  misled  (with 
very  few  exceptions)  all  the  later  historians  who  have  treated 


DISSERTATION.-^INTRODUCTIOIT.  205 

of  the  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century.  I  liave  felt  a  more 
particular  solicitude  to  vindicate  the  fame  of  Locke,  not  only 
against  the  censures  of  his  opponents,  but  against  the  mistaken 
comments  and  eulogies  of  his  admirers,  both  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent.  Appeals  to  his  authority  are  so  frequent  in 
the  reasonings  of  all  who  have  since  canvassed  the  same  sub- 
jects, that,  without  a  precise  idea  of  his  distinguishing  tenets, 
it  is  impossible  to  form  a  just  estimate,  either  of  the  merits  or 
demerits  of  his  successors.  In  order  to  assist  my  readers  in 
this  previous  study,  I  shall  endeavour,  as  far  as  I  can,  to  make 
Locke  his  own  conmientator ;  earnestly  entreating  them,  before 
they  proceed  to  the  sequel  of  this  dissertation,  to  collate  care- 
ftilly  those  scattered  extracts  from  his  works,  which,  in  the 
following  section,  they  will  find  brought  into  contact  with  each 
other,  with  a  view  to  their  mutual  illustration.  My  own  con- 
viction, I  confess,  is,  that  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding 
has  been  much  more  generally  applauded  than  read ;  and  if  I 
could  only  flatter  myself  with  the  hope  of  drawing  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public  from  the  glosses  of  commentators  to  the 
author's  text,  I  should  think  that  I  had  made  a  considerable 
step  towards  the  correction  of  some  radical  and  prevailing 
errors,  which  the  supposed  sanction  of  his  name  has  hitherto 
sheltered  from  a  free  examination. 


206  DIS8ERTATI0N. — PART  BECOND. 


PROGRESS  OF  METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE 
EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


sect.  1. — historical  and  critical  review  of  the  philoso- 
phical works  of  locke  and  leibnitz. 

Locke. 

Before  entering  on  the  subject  of  this  section,  it  is  proper 
to  premise,  that,  although  my  design  is  to  treat  separately  of 
Metaphysics,  Ethics,  and  Politics,  it  will  be  impossible  to  keep 
these  sciences  wholly  unmixed  in  the  course  of  my  reflections. 
They  all  run  into  each  other  by  insensible  gradations;  and 
they  have  all  been  happily  united  in  the  comprehensive  specula- 
tions of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  writers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  connexion  between  Metaphysics  and  Ethics  is 
more  peculiarly  close ;  the  theory  of  Morals  having  furnished, 
ever  since  the  time  of  Cudworth,  several  of  the  most  abstruse 
questions  which  have  been  agitated  concerning  the  general 
principles,  both  intellectual  and  active,  of  the  human  frame. 
The  inseparable  aflSnity,  however,  between  the  different  branches 
of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Mind,  does  not  afford  any  argument 
against  the  arrangement  which  I  have  adopted.  It  only  shows, 
that  it  cannot,  in  every  instance,  be  rigorously  adhered  to.  It 
shall  be  my  aim  to  deviate  i'rom  it  as  seldom,  and  as  slightly, 
as  the  miscellaneous  nature  of  my  materials  will  permit 

John  Locke,  from  the  publication  of  whose  Essay  oil 
Human  Understanding  a  new  era  is  to  be  dated  in  the  History 
of  Pliilosophy,  was  born  at  Wrington  in  Somersetshire,  in 
1 632.  Of  his  father  nothing  remarkable  is  recorded,  but  that 
lie  was  a  captain  in  the  Parliament's  army  during  the  civil 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


207 


wars ;  a  circumstance  which,  it  may  be  presmned  from  the  son's 
political  opinions,  would  not  be  regarded  by  him  as  a  stain  on 
tlie  memory  of  his  i>arent. 

In  the  earlier  part  of  Mr.  Locke's  life,  he  prosecuted  for  some 
years,  with  great  ardour,  the  study  of  medicine ;  an  art,  how- 
ever, which  he  never  actually  exercised  as  a  profession.  Ac- 
cording to  his  friend  Le  Clerc,  the  delicacy  of  his  constitution 
rendered  this  impossible.  But  that  his  proficiency  in  the  study 
was  not  inconsiderable,  we  have  good  evidence  in  the  dedication 
prefixed  to  Dr.  Sydenliam's  Observations  on  the  History  and 
Cure  of  Actite  Diseases  ;^  where  he  boasts  of  the  approbation 
bestowed  on  his  Method  by  Mr.  John  Locke,  who  (to  borrow 
Sydenham's  own  words)  "examined  it  to  the  bottom;  and 
who,  if  we  consider  his  genius  and  penetrating  and  exact  judg- 
ment, lias  scarce  any  superior,  and  few  equals,  now  living." 
The  merit  of  this  Method,  therefore,  which  still  continues  to 
be  regarded  as  a  model  by  the  most  competent  judges,  may  be 
presumed  to  have  belonged  in  part  to  Mr.  Locke,* — a  circum- 
stance which  deserves  to  be  noticed,  as  an  additional  confir- 
mation of  what  Bacon  has  so  sagaciously  taught,  concerning 
the  dependence  of  all  the  sciences  relating  to  the  phenomena, 
either  of  Matter  or  of  Mind,  on  principles  and  niles  derived 
from  the  resources  of  a  higher  philosophy.  On  the  other  hand, 
no  science  could  have  been  chosen,  more  happily  calculated 
than  Medicine,  to  prepare  such  a  mind  as  that  of  Locke  for 
the  prosecution  of  those  speculations  which  have  immortalized 
his  name ;  the  complicated,  and  fugitive,  and  often  equivocal 
phenomena  of  disease,  requiring  in  the  observer  a  far  greater 


*  PiibliRhed  in  the  year  1676. 

■  It  is  remarked  of  Sydenham,  by  the 
Into  Dr.  John  Circgory,  "  Tliat  though 
full  of  hypothetical  reasoning,  it  had  nut 
the  usual  effect  of  making  liim  less  at- 
tentive to  obser\'ation  ;  and  that  his 
hypotheses  seem  to  have  sat  so  loosely 
about  him,  that  cither  they  did  not  in- 
fluence his  practice  at  all,  or  ho  conld 
rasily  abandon  them,  whenever  they 
w(ndd  not  bend  to  hiH  rxperirnre." 


Tliis  is  precisely  the  idea  of  Locke 
concerning  the  true  use  of  hypotheses. 
"  IIy))otheses,  if  they  are  well  made, 
are  at  least  great  helps  to  the  memory', 
and  often  direct  us  to  new  discoveries." 
— (LtKjke's  WorkSf  vol.  iii.  p.  81.)  See 
also  some  remarks  on  the  Siime  subject 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Molyneux. 
(The  eilition  of  Tiocke  to  which  I  uni- 
formly refer,  is  that  printed  at  Ijondon 
in  1812,  in  ten  vnhimes  8vo.) 


208  D1S8BRTATI0N.— PART  SECOND. 

portion  of  discriminating  sagacity,  than  those  of  Physics, 
strictly  so  called;  resembling,  in  this  respect,  much  more 
nearly,  the  phenomena  about  which  Metaphysics,  Ethics,  and 
Politics,  are  conversant. 

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

In  1666,  Mr.  Locke,  then  in  his  thirty-fifth  year,  formed  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  Lord  Ashley,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury ;  from  which  period  a  complete  change  took  place, 
both  in  the  direction  of  his  studies  and  in  his  habits  of  life. 
His  attention  appears  to  have  been  then  turned,  for  the  first 
time,  to  political  subjects ;  and  his  place  of  residence  trans- 
ferred from  the  university  to  the  metropolis.  From  London 
(a  scene  wliich  gave  him  access  to  a  society  very  different  from 
what  he  had  previously  lived  in)^  he  occasionally  passed  over 
to  the  Continent,  where  he  had  an  opportunity  of  profiting  by 
the  conversation  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  persons 
of  his  age.  In  the  course  of  his  foreign  excursions,  he  visited 
France,  Germany,  and  Holland ;  but  the  last  of  these  countries 
seems  to  have  been  his  favourite  place  of  residence;  the 
blessings  which  the  people  there  enjoyed,  under  a  government 
peculiarly  favourable  to  civil  and  religious  liberty,  amply  com- 
pensating, in  his  view,  for  what  their  uninviting  territory 
wanted  in  point  of  scenery  and  of  climate.     In  this  respect,  the 


*  Tu8c.  Quaest.  lib.  i.  tioned  among  those  who  wore  delighted 

•  Villiers  Duke  of  Buckingham,  and       with  his  conversation, 
the  I^rd  Halifax,  are  particularly  men- 


If ETAPHYBICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTESMTH  CENTURY.         209 

coincidence  between  the  taste  of  Locke  and  that  of  Descartesy 
throws  a  pleasing  light  on  the  characters  of  both. 

The  plan  of  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  is  said  to 
have  been  formed  as  early  as  1670;  but  the  various  employ- 
ments and  avocations  of  the  Author  prevented  him  from 
finishing  it  till  1687,  when  he  fortunately  availed  himself  of 
the  leisure  which  his  exile  in  Holland  afibrded  him,  to  com- 
plete his  long  meditated  design.  He  returned  to  England  soon 
after  the  Revolution,  and  published  the  first  edition  of  Ids  work 
in  1690;  the  busy  and  diversified  scenes  through  which  he 
had  passed  during  its  progress,  liaving  probably  contributed, 
not  less  tlian  the  academical  retirement  in  which  he  had  spent 
his  youth,  to  enhance  its  {)eculiar  and  cliaracteristical  mcrita 

Of  the  circumstances  which  gave  occasion  to  this  great  and 
memorable  undertaking,  the  following  interesting  account  is 
given  in  the  Prefatory  Epistle  to  the  Reader : — "  Five  or  six 
friends,  meeting  at  my  chamber,  and  discoursing  on  a  subject 
very  remote  from  this,  found  themselves  quickly  at  a  stand,  by 
the  difficulties  that  rose  on  every  side.  After  we  had  a  while 
puzzled  oiu'selves,  without  coming  any  nearer  a  resolution  of 
those  doubts  which  perplexed  us,  it  came  into  my  thoughts 
that  we  took  a  wrong  course,  and  that,  before  we  set  ourselves 
upon  inquiries  of  that  nature,  it  was  necessary  to  examine  our 
own  abilities,  and  see  wliat  objects  our  understandings  were, 
or  were  not,  fitted  to  deal  with.  This  I  pro|)08ed  to  the  com- 
pany, who  all  readily  assented,  and  thercu|K)n  it  was  agreed, 
that  tliis  should  be  our  first  inquiry.  Some  hasty  and  undi- 
gested thoughts  on  a  subject  I  liiul  never  before  considered, 
which  I  set  down  against  our  next  meeting,  gave  the  first 
entrance  into  this  discourse,  which  having  been  thus  Iwgim  by 
chance,  was  continued  by  entreaty;  written  by  incoherent 
parcels,  and,  after  long  intervals  of  neglect,  resumed  again  as 
my  humour  or  occasions  permitted ;  and  at  last  in  retirement, 
where  an  attendance  on  my  health  gave  me  leisure,  it  was 
brought  into  that  order  thou  now  seest  it." 

Mr.  Locke  afterwards  informs  us,  that  "when  lie  first  put 
pen  to  paper,  he  thought  all  he  should  have  to  say  on  this 

VOL.  I.  o 


210 


DI8SBRTATION. — PART  BKCONI). 


matter  would  have  been  eontiune*!  in  one  sheet,  hut  timt  the 
farther  he  went  the  larger  iirospect  he  had ; — new  discoveries 
still  leading  him  on,  till  his  book  grew  iuseiieibly  to  the  bulk 
it  now  appears  la." 

On  comparing  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  with 
the  foregoing  account  of  its  origin  and  progress,  it  is  curioufi 
to  observe,  that  it  is  the  fourth  and  last  book  alone  which  bears 
directly  on  the  author's  ]irincipal  object  In  tide  book,  it  is 
farther  remarkable,  that  there  are  few,  if  any,  references  to  the 
preceding  parts  of  the  Essay ;  insomuch  that  it  might  have 
been  pubhshed  separately,  without  being  less  intelligible  than 
it  is.  Hence,  it  eecniH  not  unreaBonable  to  conjecture,  that  it 
was  \hti  first  part  of  the  work  in  the  order  of  composition,  and 
that  it  contains  tbow?  loiiditig  and  fundamental  thoughts  which 
offer«i  themselves  to  the  autlior's  miud,  when  he  first  began 
to  reflect  on  the  friendly  conversation  which  gave  rise  to  his 
phiIosoi>hicaI  R'searches.  The  inquiries  in  the  first  and  second 
books,  which  are  of  a  much  more  abstract,  as  well  as  scholastic 
natiu'e,  than  the  sequel  of  the  work,  probably  opened  gradually 
on  the  author's  mind  in  proportion  as  he  studied  hia  subject 
mth  a  closer  and  more  continued  attention.  They  relate 
chiefly  to  the  origin  and  to  tlie  technical  classification  of  our 
ideas,  frequently  branching  out  into  collateral,  and  sometimes 
Into  dftfressive  discussions,  without  much  regard  to  method  or 
ciinnexion.  The  tliird  book,  (by  far  the  moat  imjwrtant  of  the 
whole,)  where  the  nature,  the  use,  and  the  abuse  of  language 
are  so  clearly  and  liappily  illustrated,  Bcems,  from  Locke's  own 
account,  to  have  been  a  sort  of  a/ter-fhonght ;  and  the  two 
excellent  chapters  on  the  Association  of  Ideas  and  on  En- 
tkitsiasm  (the  former  of  which  lias  contributed  as  much  aa 
anything  else  in  Locke's  writings,  to  the  suhscquent  progress 
of  Metaphysical  Philosophy)  were  printed,  for  the  first  time,  in 
the  fourth  edition  of  the  Essay. 

I  would  not  he  understood,  hy  these  remarks,  to  undervalae 
the  two  first  hooks.  All  that  I  have  said  amoimt^  to  this,  that 
the  subjects  wliich  they  treat  of  are  seldom  susceptible  of  any 
practical  application  to  the  conduct  of  the  uniler standing ;  and 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         21 1 

that  the  author  has  adopted  a  new  phraHeology  of  his  own, 
where,  in  some  instances,  he  might  have  much  more  clearly 
conveyed  his  meaning  without  any  dejMirture  from  the  ordinary 
forms  of  si)eecK*  But  although  these  considerations  render 
the  two  first  books  inferior  in  jwint  of  general  utility  to  the 
two  last,  they  do  not  materially  detract  from  their  merit,  as 
a  precious  accession  to  the  theory  of  the  Human  Mind.  On 
the  contrary,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  consider  them  as  the  richest 
contribution  of  well-observed  and  well-(U»8cribed  fiicts,  which 
was  ever  l)equeathed  to  this  branch  of  science  by  a  single  indi- 
vidual, and  as  the  indisputable,  though  not  always  acknow- 
ledged, source  of  some  of  the  most  refined  conclusions,  with 
respect  to  the  intellectual  phenomena,  which  liave  been  since 
brought  to  light  by  succeeding  inquirers. 

After  the  details  given  by  Locke  liimself,  of  the  circumstances 
in  which  his  Eswiy  was  begim  and  comi)leted  ;  more  especially, 
after  what  he  has  statcHl  of  the  "  discoutinueil  way  of  writing" 
imposed  on  him  by  the  avocations  of  a  busy  and  unsettled  life, 
it  cannot  bo  thought  surprising  that  so  very  little  of  method 
should  appear  in  the  disposition  of  his  materials ;  or  that  the 
opinions  which,  on  different  occawionw,  he  has  pronounced  on 
the  same  subject,  should  not  always  seem  jwrfcctly  steady  and 
consistent  In  these  last  cases,  however,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  inconsistencies,  if  duly  reflected  on,  would  be  found 
rather  apparent  than  real.  It  is  but  siildom  that  a  writer  pos- 
sessed of  the  powerful  and  upright  mind  of  Locke,  can  reason- 
ably be  suspected  of  stating  propositions  in  direct  contradiction 
to  each  other.  The  jiresumption  is,  that  in  each  of  these  j)ro- 
positions  there  is  a  mixture  of  tnith,  and  that  the  error  lies 
chiefly  in  the  luiqualified  manner  in  wliich  the  truth  is  stilted ; 
proper  allowances  not  l)eing  made,  during  the  fervour  of  com- 
position, for  the  par{ial  survey  taken  of  the  objects  from  a  jmr- 
ticuhir  i)oint  of  view.  Perhaj)8  it  would  not  Ikj  going  too  far 
to  assert,  that  most  of  the  seeming  contradictions  which  o(?c!ur 

'  r*I  allude  here  to  siu-h  phrnfWR  m  simple  and  mired  modes,  (uletpiate  mul 
inadetpiate  idaas^  &c.  &c.] 

♦  lUntftred.— i£^i. 


212 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


in  authors  animated  with  a  sincere  love  of  truth,  might  be  fairly 
accounted  for  by  the  different  aspects  which  the  same  object 
presented  to  them  upon  different  occasions.  In  reading  such 
authors,  accordingly,  when  we  meet  with  discordant  expressions, 
instead  of  indulging  ourselves  in  the  captiousness  of  verbal 
criticism,  it  would  better  become  us  carefully  and  candidly  to 
collate  the  questionable  passages ;  and  to  study  so  to  reconcile 
them  by  judicious  modifications  and  corrections,  as  to  render 
the  oversights  and  mistakes  of  our  illustrious  guides  subservient 
to  the  precision  and  soundness  of  our  own  conclusions-  In  the 
case  of  Locke,  it  must  be  owned,  that  this  is  not  always  an  easy 
task,  as  the  limitations  of  some  of  his  most  exceptionable  pro- 
positions are  to  be  collected,  not  from  the  context,  but  from 
different  and  widely  separated  parts  of  his  Essay.i 

In  a  work  thus  composed  by  sfiatches,  (to  borrow  a  phrase  of 
the  author's,)  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  he  should  be  able 
accurately  to  draw  the  line  between  his  own  ideas  and  the  hints 
for  which  he  was  indebted  to  others.  To  those  who  are  weU 
acquainted  with  his  speculations,  it  must  appear  evident  that  he 
had  studied  diligently  the  metaphysical  writings  both  of  Hobbes 
and  of  Gkissendi ;  and  that  he  was  no  stranger  to  the  Essays  of 
Montaigne,  to  the  philosophical  works  of  Bacon,  or  to  Male- 
branche's  Inquiry  after  Truth,-  That  he  was  familiarly  con- 
versant with  the  Cartesian  system  may  be  presiuned  from  what 
we  are  told  by  his  biographer,  that  it  was  this  which  first 
inspired  him  with  a  disgust  at  the  jargon  of  the  schools,  and  led 


'  That  Locke  himself  was  sensible 
that  some  of  his  expressions  required 
explanation,  and  was  anxious  that  his 
opinions  should  be  judged  of  rather  from 
the  general  tone  and  spirit  of  his  work, 
than  from  detached  and  isolated  propo- 
sitions, may  be  inferred  from  a  passage 
in  one  of  his  notes,  where  he  replies  to 
the  animadversions  of  one  of  his  anta- 
gonists, (the  Reverend  Mr.  Lowde,)  who 
had  accused  him  of  calling  in  question 
the  immutability  of  moral  distinctions. 
"  But  (says  Ijocke)  the  good  man  does 
well,  and  as  becomes  his  calling,  to  be 


watchful  in  such  points,  and  to  take  the 
alarm  even  at  expressions  which,  stand- 
ing  alone  by  themselves,  might  sound 
ill,  and  be  suspected." — Locke's  Works^ 
vol.  ii.  p.  93,  note. 

*  Mr.  Addison  has  remarked,  that 
Malebranche  had  the  start  of  Locke,  by 
several  years,  in  his  notions  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Duration. — {Spectator,  No.  94.) 
Some  other  coincidences,  not  less  re- 
markable, might  be  easily  pointed  out 
in  the  opinions  of  the  English  and  of  the 
French  philosopher. 


MKTAPHYBICS  DURING  TUB  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         2l3 

him  into  that  train  of  thinking  which  he  afterwards  i)ro6ecuted 
80  successfully.  I  do  not,  however,  recollect  that  he  has  any- 
where in  his  Essay  mentioned  the  name  of  any  one  of  these  x 
authora^  It  is  probable  that,  when  he  sat  down  to  \\Tite,  he 
found  the  result  of  his  youthful  reading  so  completely  identified 
with  the  fruits  of  his  subsequent  reflections,  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  attempt  a  separation  of  the  one  from  the  other ; 
and  that  he  was  thus  occasionally  led  to  mistake  the  treasures 
of  memory  for  those  of  invention.  That  this  was  really  the  case 
may  be  farther  presumed  from  the  peculiar  and  original  cast  of 
his  phraseology,  which,  though  in  general  careless  and  unpo- 
lished, has  always  the  merit  of  that  characteristical  miity  and 
racinesa  of  style,  which  demonstrate  that,  while  he  was  writing, 
he  conceived  himself  to  be  drawing  only  from  his  own  resourcea 
With  respect  to  his  style,  it  may  Ikj  further  ol)served,  that  it 
resembles  that  of  a  well-educated  and  well-informed  man  of  the 
world,  rather  than  of  a  recluse  student  who  had  made  an  object 
of  the  art  of  composition.  It  everj'where  abounds  with  collo- 
quial expressions,  which  he  ha<l  probably  caught  by  the  ear 
from  those  whom  he  considered  as  models  of  gootl  conversation ; 
and  hence,  though  it  now  seems  somewhat  antiquated,  and  not 
altogether  suited  to  the  dignity  of  the  subject,  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  have  contributed  its  share  towards  liis  great  object  of 
turning  the  thoughts  of  his  contemporaries  to  logicid  and  meta- 
physical inquiries.  The  author  of  the  Characteristics^  who  will 
not  be  accused  of  an  undue  j)artiality  for  Locke,  acknowledges 
in  strong  terms  the  favourable  reception  which  his  book  had 
met  with  among  the  higher  classes.  "  I  am  not  sorry,  however," 
says  Shaftesbury  to  one  of  his  corre8i)ondents,  "  tliat  I  lent  you 
Locke's  Essay,  a  book  that  may  as  well  qualify  men  for  busuiess 
and  the  world,  as  for  the  sciences  and  a  university.    No  one  lias 

*  The  name  of  Hobbcs  ocfuni  in  Mr.  the  works  of  either.    "  I  nm  not  so  well 

Jjocke'H  Reply  to  the  Bishop  of  War-  read  in  Hohhe»  and  Spinoza  as  to  be 

ceMter.     8oe  the  Notes  on  his  EsMiy,  able  to  say  what  were  their  opiniuus  in 

b.  iv.  c.  3.    It  is  curious  that  he  cUsses  this  matter,  but  possibly  there  be  thoso 

Hobbcs  and  Spinoza  together,  as  writers  who  will  think  your  Lord«hii)'s  autho- 

of  the  same  stamp;  and  that  he  dis-  riiy  of  morc  use  than  those  justly  decried 

claims  any  intimate  acquaintance  with  names,"  &c.  &c. 


214  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

done  more  towards  the  recalling  of  philosophy  from  barbarity, 
into  use  and  practice  of  the  world,  and  into  the  company  of  the 
better  and  politer  sort,  who  might  well  be  ashamed  of  it  in  its 
other  dress.  No  one  has  opened  a  better  and  clearer  way  to 
reasoning."  1 

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

That  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  should  have  ex- 
cited some  alarm  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  was  no  more 
than  the  author  had  reason  to  expect  from  his  boldness  as  a 
philosophical  reformer ;  from  his  avowed  zeal  in  the  cause  of 
liberty,  both  civil  and  religious ;  from  the  suspected  orthodoxy 
of  his  theological  creed ;  and  (it  is  but  candid  to  add)  from  the 
apparent  coincidence  of  his  ethical  doctrines  with  those  of 
Hobbes.^  It  is  more  difficult  to  account  for  the  long  continu- 
ance, in  that  illustrious  seat  of  learning,  of  the  prejudice  against 

*  See  ShafteBbuiy's  First  Letter  to  a  ■  "  It  was  proposed,  at  a  meeting  of 

Student  at  the  UniTcrsity.  the  heads  of  houses  of  the  UniverHity  of 


HETAFHY8IC8  DURING  TH£  EiaHTSfiMTH  C£NTURY. 


215 


the  logic  of  Locke,  (by  far  the  most  valuable  part  of  his  work,) 
and  of  that  partiality  for  the  logic  of  Aristotle,  of  which  Locke 
has  so  fully  exposed  the  futility.*  In  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, on  the  other  hand,  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding 
was  for  many  years  regarded  with  a  reverence  approaching  to 
idolatry ;  and  to  the  authority  of  some  distinguished  persons 
connected  with  that  learned  body  may  be  traced  (as  will  after- 
wards appear)  the  origin  of  tlie  greater  part  of  the  extrava- 
gancies which,  towards  the  close  of  the  last  century,  were  grafted 
on  Locke's  errors,  by  the  disciples  of  Hartley,  of  Law,  of  Priest- 
ley, of  Tooke,  and  of  Darwin,* 


Oxford,  to  oensare  and  diBcourage  the 
reading  of  Locke's  Essay;  and,  afler 
▼arious  debates  among  themselves,  it 
was  concluded,  that  each  head  of  a  house 
should  endeavour  to  prevent  its  being 
read  in  his  college,  without  coming  to 
any  public  censure."  —  See  Des  Maiz- 
eaux*s  note  on  a  letter  from  Locke  to 
Collins. — Locke's  Worht,  vol.  x.  p.  284. 

*  [*"The  Logic  of  Aristotle,"  says 
a  late  writer,  whose  taste,  learning,  and 
liberality  entitle  him  to  a  distinguished 
rank  among  the  eminent  men  of  whom 
Oxford  has  to  boast  during  the  last  fifty 
years, —  "the  Logic  of  Aristotle,  how- 
ever at  present  neglected  for  those  re- 
dundant and  verbose  systems  which  took 
their  rise  from  Locke's  Euay  on  the 
Human  Understanding,  is  a  mighty 
effort  of  the  mind ;  in  which  are  disco- 
vered the  principal  sources  of  the  art  of 
reasoning,  and  the  dependencies  of  one 
thought  on  another ;  and  where,  by  the 
different  combinations  he  hath  made  of 
all  the  forms  the  understanding  can 
assume  in  reasoning,  which  he  hath 
traced /or  it,  he  hath  so  closely  confined 
t^,  that  it  cannot  depart  from  them 
without  arguing  inconsequentially." — 
Warton*s  Euay  on  the  Writings  of 
Pope,  vol.  i.  p.  168. 

This  luminous  account  of  the  sc<i|>e 


of  Aristotle's  Logic  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  superiority  of  this  logic  to  that 
of  Tx)cke,  in  training  the  mind  to  habits 
of  correct  thinking  and  of  precise  ex- 
pression.] 

'  I  have  taken  notice,  with  due  praise, 
in  the  former  part  of  this  Discourse,  of 
the  metaphysical  speculations  of  John 
Smith,  Henry  More,  and  Ralph  Cud- 
worth  ;  all  of  them  members  and  orna- 
ments of  the  Univerbity  of  Cambridge 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  ITiey  were  deeply  conversant 
in  the  Platonic  Philosophy,  and  applied 
it  with  great  success  in  combating  the 
Materialists  and  Necessitarians  of  their 
times.  They  carried,  indeed,  some  of 
their  Platonic  not  ion  n  to  an  excess  bor- 
dering on  mysticism,  and  may,  pt^rhaps, 
have  contributed  to  give  a  bias  to  some 
of  their  academical  successors  towards 
the  opposite  extreme.  A  veiy  pleasing 
and  interesting  account  of  the  characters 
of  these  amiable  and  ingenious  men,  and 
of  the  spirit  of  their  philosophy,  is  given 
by  Burnet  in  the  History  of  his  Oum 
Times. 

To  the  credit  of  Smith  and  of  More, 
it  may  be  added,  that  they  were  among 
the  first  in  England  to  perceive  aud  to 
acknowledge  the  merits  of  the  Cartesian 
MetaphysicH. 


*  E»u>rtd.-Kii. 


216  DISSEKTATION.—  PABT  SECOND. 

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

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

The  success  of  Locke's  Essay,  in  some  parts  of  the  Continent, 
was  equally  remarkable  ;  owing,  no  doubt,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  the  very  accurate  translation  of  it  into  the  French  language 
by  Coste,  and  to  the  eagerness  with  which  everytluiig  proceeil- 

*  See  Note  S. 


MKTAPIlYtUCD  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


217 


iiig  from  the  author  of  the  Letters  on  Toleration^  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  have  been  read  by  the  multitude  of  learned  and  en- 
lightened refugees,  whom  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantz 
forced  to  seek  an  asylum  in  Protestant  countries.  In  Holland, 
where  Locke  was  personally  known  to  the  most  distinguished 
characters,  both  literary  and  political,  his  work  was  read  and 
praised  by  a  discerning  few,  with  all  the  partiality  of  friend- 
ship ;'  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  made  its  way  into  the 
schools  till  a  period  considerably  later.  The  doctrines  of  Des- 
cartes, at  iirst  so  vehemently  opposed  in  that  country,  were  now 


^  The  principle  of  religious  toleration 
WM  at  that  time  vcrj  imperfectly  aJ- 
mitted,  eren  by  those  philosophers  who 
were  the  most  sealonslj  attached  to  the 
canse  of  civil  liberty.  The  great  Scot- 
tish lawyer  and  statesman,  I/)nl  Stair, 
himself  no  mean  philosopher,  and,  like 
Locke,  a  warm  partisan  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, seems  evidently  to  have  regretted 
the  impunity  which  Spinoza  had  ex]>eri- 
enced  in  Holland,  and  Hoblies  in  Eng- 
land. "  Ezecrabilis  ille  Athens  Spinosa 
ailco  impudens  est,  ut  aflirmet  omnia 
esse  absolute  neccssaria,  ct  nihil  quod 
est,  fuit,  aut  erit,  alitor  fieri  potuisse,  in 
quo  onines  superiores  Atheos  ezcessit, 
ai)erte  negans  omncm  Dcitatem,  nihil- 
quc  pneter  potentias  natunc  agnosccns. 

"  Vaninus  Dcitatem  non  aperto  nega- 
vit,  sed  causam  illius  prodidit,  in  troc- 
tatu  quem  edidit,  argumenta  pro  Dei 
existentia  tanquam  futilia  ct  vana  re- 
jiciens,  adfcrendo  controrias  umnes  ra- 
tiones  per  modum  objectionuni,  casque 
prosequendo  ut  indissolubilos  vidcantur; 
postca  tamcn  larvam  exuit,  et  atheis- 
mum  clare  professus  est,  bt  jdstissimb 

IN    IXCLTTA   URBB   ThOLOSA    DAMNATU8 
EST  BT  CREMATU8. 

"  Horren<hiB  Ilobbesius  tertius  erat 
atheismi  promotor,  qui  omnia  principia 
moralia  et  politica  subvertit,  eorumque 
loco  naturalcm  vim  ot  liumann  pacta,  ut 
prima  principia  moralitatiH,  societatin, 
ft  politici  rcgiminiH  nubstituit :  mec  ta- 


MBH  SriHOeA  AUT  HOBBICS,  QUAMTIS  Of 
BEOIOMIBC8  BEPORMATIS  YIXEBIHT  BT 
MORTUI  81IIT,  BEDUM  KXEMPLA  VACTI 
8UBT  IB  ATHBOBUM  TBBBUBBM,  UT  BB  TIL 
ULLAM     PCBBAM     BBBSERUrT.*' — Phyiol. 

Nova  ExperimentalU.  Lug<I.  Batav. 
1666,  pp.  16,  17. 

'  Among  those  whose  society  Locke 
chiefly  cuhivatcd  while  in  Holland,  was 
the  celebrated  Le  Clerc,  the  author  of 
the  Btblioth^que  UniveneUe^  and  the 
BxbUoihlque  Ckoisief  besides  many 
other  learned  and  ingenious  publications. 
Uc  appears  to  have  been  warmly  at- 
tached to  Locke,  and  embraced  the  fun- 
damental doctrines  of  his  Essay  without 
any  slavish  deference  for  his  authority. 
Though  he  fixed  his  residence  at  Am- 
sterdam, where  he  taught  Philosophy 
and  the  Belles  Lcttrcs,  he  was  a  native 
of  Geneva,  where  he  also  received  his 
academical  education.  He  is,  therefore, 
to  be  numb(;riHi  with  Locke *s  3wU»  dis- 
ciples. I  hhall  have  occasion  to  speak 
of  him  more  at  length  afterwards,  when 
I  come  to  mention  his  controversy  with 
Bayle.  At  present,  I  shall  only  observe, 
that  his  Eloge  on  liOcke  was  published 
in  the  liibliothique  Choitie^  (Ann^ 
1705,)  torn.  vi. ;  and  that  some  import- 
ant remarks  on  the  Idsay  on  Human 
Understandinff,  particularly  on  the  chap- 
ter on  Power,  ore  to  be  found  in  the 
12th  vol.  of  the  same  work,  (Anne« 
1707.) 


BO  completelj  triumphant,  both  among  philosopliers  and  divines,' 
that  it  was  difficult  for  a  new  refonucr  to  obtain  a  hearing. 
The  ciise  was  very  nearly  similar  in  Germany,  where  Leibnitz 
(who  alwayn  Kjieaka  eoldly  of  Locke's  Essay)*  wa«  then  looked  up 
to  as  the  greut  oracle  in  every  bnmch  of  learning  and  of  science. 
If  I  am  not  mistaken,  it  was  in  Switzerland  where  (as  Gibbon 
observes)  "  the  intermixture  of  sects  had  rendered  the  clergy 
acute  and  learned  on  controversial  topics,"  that  Locke's  i-eal 
merits  were  first  appreciated  on  the  Coutinent  with  a  discrimi- 
nating impartiality.  Li  Crousaz's  Treatise  of  Logic,  (a  book 
which,  if  not  distinguished  by  originality  of  genius,  is  at  leaet 
strongly  marked  with  the  sound  and  unprejudiced  judgment  of 
the  author,)  we  everywhere  trace  the  influence  of  Locke's  doc- 
trines ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  eftects  of  the  Cartesian  Me- 
taphysics, in  limiting  those  hasty  expressions  of  Locke,  which 
have  been  so  often  misinterpreted  by  his  followers.^    Nor  do 

'  "Qottmvia  lioic  scche  (CurteBiaaHj) 
initio  Bcrilor  bo  opponerenl  Tlieoliigi  et 
Fhilosophi  Bclgs,  in  Acodoiniis  tamcn 
eomm  hodU  (1737.)  vix  alio,  quam  Car- 
teaiana  priscipia  iuculcnnlar." — (Hein- 
cocil£'fcn..ffM(.PMo«7iJl-)  InGriive- 
sonde's  Introdvctio  ad  Philotophiam, 
publiahed  in  1730,  tbe  name  of  Locke  ia 
nut  ouM  mentiijDed.  It  i>  probable  that 
tlus^laat  author  was  partly  inducnced 
by  his  admiration  for  Leiboitz,  nlioni  bo 
HBTvilely  followed  BVon  in  his  phj/iical 


■taphjaii 


*  "InLockioiuntquiedamparticularia 
nun  male  cxpoaita,  aed  in  siimnja  louge 
aberravit  ujanua,  nee  naturam  nientia 
veiilatigquo  iatellexit." — Lcibnilz,  Op. 
loin.  T.  p.  355,  cd,  Uutens. 

"  M.  Luckc  avuit  de  la  aublilile  ot  de 
I'aiUroBBc,  et  quelqoe  oepJcM  de  niel*- 
pbysiqiie  BuperfiLielle  qu'il  aavuit  re- 
lever."— /Wd.  pp.  U,  12. 

IlebecciQB,  a  natiye  of  Saioaj,  in  a 
Sketch  of  the  History  of  Pliilusophy, 
printed  in  1728,   omita  altogether  the 

■  Blghtly,— LelbnlB'i  nlaUn 
l«I.>»  Ui>  nm  allium  i>r  iht  Knaj.- 


aaiDu  of  Locko  in 
the  logical  and  ni< 
modern  Europe.    . 

logic,  vhcre  tbe  same  aatlior  tr^ata  of 
cJenr  and  ducure,  adeqaaie  and  inade- 
qaate  ideat,  (a  auhjecton  which  liltieor 
nutiiing  of  any  value  bad  been  adruiced 
bel'DreLoc1ie,)beobiiervea,inanDto,  "De- 
bemuB  banc  daoTiinaniLcibnitio,oamqi]o 
deinde  si'quutus  est  iUust.  Wolfius."* 

*  or  tho  Ettoy  on  Human  Vnder- 
ttanding  Ctoubbz  spcaka  in  the  follow- 
ing ttrma  ;  "  ClarieBimj,  et  merito  cele- 
bratiBsimi  Lockii  de  Inlellectu  Kuntano 

mum,  togicU  utiliasiioiB  semper  Kuaumo- 
rabilur."— (iV«fli£.)  If  Pupo  had  ever 
looked  into  this  Trcatist^.  he  cuuld  nut 
have  commiltf  d  bo  grosB  a  mislake,  ai 
lo  introduce  the  aBthor  into  the  Dunciad, 
among  Locke'a  AnBtolcliiui  oppononta  ; 
a  dislioctioD  for  whicb  Crousax  was  pro- 
bably indeblec!  to  his  acnla  strictnres  on 
thoBc  paaaages  in  The  Ettmj  era  Mint, 
which  Bocm  favoiirablo  to  falaliBni. — 
CegH.  FrrU.  if  Utii  nm  raUubsd  til  ion 


METAPHT8ICS  DUBING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        219 


Crousaz's  academical  labours  appear  to  have  been  less  useM 
than  his  writings ;  if  a  judgment  on  this  point  may  be  formed 
from  the  sound  philosophical  principles  which  he  diffused 
among  a  numerous  race  of  pupils.   One  of  these^  (M.  Allamand,) 


Prompt  at  tbt  cftll,  around  the  godden  roll 
Broad  hat*,  and  boodiy  and  cape,  a  table  shoal ; 
Thitk  and  more  thick  the  black  blockade 

extends, 
A  hundred  head  of  Aristotle's  friends. 
Nor  wert  thon,  Isls !  wanting  to  tbt  day, 
(Thon^  Ohiist-chnreh  long  kept  prudishly 

awiyr.) 
Bidi  itaandi  Polemic,  stabbom  as  a  rode. 
Bach  fierce  Logician,  still  expelling  Lock«, 
Came  whip  and  spnr,  and  dash'd  through 

thin  and  thick 
On  German  Cromai,  and  Dutch  Buisers4ydL 

[*  To  the  honoar  of  Crousaz  it  may  be 
farther  mentioned,  that  he  was  among 
the  first  (if  not  the  first)  who  introduced 
into  a  Treatise  of  Logic,  an  account  of 
Bacon*8  classification  of  our  pr^udices. 
The  first  sentences  of  this  account  shew 
at  once  how  fuUy  the  author  was  aware 
of  Bacon's  merits  ;  and  how  sensible  at 
the  same  time  of  the  sacrifices  which, 
in  point  of  diction,  he  occasionally  made 
to  the  pedantic  taste  of  his  age. 

"  Idda  vocavit  Prsejudicia  Vkbu- 
LAMius,  nunquam  satis  lamlandus,  versd 
scicntife  restaurator ;  quia  videlicet  qui 
honor  solis  debetur  Principiis  ad  Pneju- 
dicia,  acquiescentia  nostri  maximo  in- 
digna,  defertur. 

"  Pro  more  sui  teroporis,  singularibus 
et  technicis  titulis,  ingcniosis  tomen, 
Prejudiciorum  singula  genera  designa- 
vit,—Idola  Tribus"  &c.  &c.] 

Warburton,  with  his  usual  scurrility 
towards  all  Pope's  adversaries  as  well 
as  his  own,  has  caDed  Crousaz  a  blund- 
ering Stciss.f  A  very  different  estimate 
of  Crousaz 's  merits  has  been  funned  by 
Gibbon,  who  seems  to  have  studied  his 
works  much  more  carefully  than  the  Right 
Reverend  Commentator  on  the  Dimciad. 


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

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

The  following  details,  independently 
of  their  reference  to  Crousaz,  are  so  in- 
teresting in  themselves,  and  afford  so 
strong  a  testimony  to  the  utility  of  logi- 
cal studies,  when  rationally  conductcnl, 
that  I  am  tempted  to  transcribe  them. 

"December,  1755.  Li  finishing  this 
year,  I  must  remark  how  favourable  it 
was  to  my  studies.  In  the  space  of 
eight  months,  I  learned  the  principles  of 
drawing ;  made  myself  completely  mas- 
ter of  the  French  and  Latin  languages, 
with  which  I  was  very  superficially  ac- 
quainted before,  and  wrote  and  trans- 
lated a  great  deal  in  both ;  read  Cicero's 
Epistles  ad  Familiarcs,  his  Brutus,  all 
his  Orations,  his  Dialogues  de  Amicitia 


♦  Restored. -£d. 

t  [The  epithet  blundering  may  with  far  greater  juttioe  be  retorted  on  Warburton  bimnel^  as  it 
doMribes  exactly  that  unkoundness  of  understanding;  which  rendered  his  talentu,  powerful  an  they 
certainly  were,  hr  more  dan^^rous  to  his  fHends  than  to  his  opiioncnis.] 


220 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Gibbon,  deserves  particularly 
to  be  noticed  here,  on  account  of  two  letters  published  in  the 
posthumous  works  of  that  historian,  containing  a  criticism  on 
Locke's  argimient  against  innate  ideas,  so  very  able  and  judi- 
cious, that  it  may  still  be  read  with  advantage  by  many  logi- 
cians of  no  small  note  in  the  learned  world.  Had  these  letters 
happened  to  have  sooner  attracted  my  attention,  I  should  not 
have  delayed  so  long  to  do  this  tardy  justice  to  their  merits.^ 

I  am  not  able  to  speak  with  confidence  of  the  period  at 
which  Locke's  Essay  began  to  attract  public  notice  in  France. 
Voltaire,  in  a  letter  to  Horace  Walpole,  asserts,  that  he  was 
the  first  person  who  made  the  name  of  Locke  known  to  his 
countrymen;^  but  I  suspect  that  this  assertion  must  be  re- 


et  de  Senectiite;  Terence  twice,  and 
Pliny*B  Epistles.  In  French,  Gian- 
noni*8  History  of  Naples,  I'Abbe  Ba- 
nier's  Mythology,  and  M.  Rochat's 
Memoires  sur  la  Suisse,  and  wrote  a 
very  ample  relation  of  my  tour.  I  like- 
wise began  to  study  Greek,  and  went 
through  the  grammar.  I  began  to 
make  very  large  collections  of  what  I 
read.  But  what  I  esteem  most  of  all, 
— ^firom  the  perusal  and  meditation  of 
De  Crousaz's  logic,  I  not  only  under- 
stood the  principles  of  that  science,  but 
formed  my  mind  to  a  habit  of  thinking 
and  reasoning,  I  had  no  idea  of  before.*' 

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

>  For  some  remarks  of  M.  Allamand, 
which  approach  very  near  to  Reid's 
Objections  to  the  Ideal  Theory,  see 
NoteT. 

Of  this  extraordinary  man  Gibbon 
gives  the  following  account  in  his  Jour- 
rutlj  "  C'est  un  ministre  dans  le  Pays  de 


Vaud,  et  un  des  plus  beaux  gcnies  quo 
je  connoisse.  II  a  voulu  embrasser  tons 
les  genres;  mais  c'est  la  Philosophie 
qu'il  a  le  plus  approfondi.  Sur  toutes 
les  questions  il  sVst  fait  des  systemes, 
ou  du  moins  des  argumens  toujours 
originaux  et  toujours  ingenieux.  Ses 
idees  sont  fines  et  lumineuses,  son  ex- 
pression heureuse  et  facile.  On  lui  re- 
proche  avec  raison  trop  de  rafinement  et 
de  subtilit^  dans  Tesprit ;  trop  de  fierte, 
trop  d'ambition,  et  trop  de  violence  dans 
le  caractere.  Get  homme,  qui  auroit  pu 
cclairer  ou  troubler  une  nation,  vit  et 
mourra  dans  Tobscurite." 

It  is  of  the  same  person  that  Gibbon 
sneeringly  says,  in  the  words  of  Vossius, 
"  Est  aacrificvius  in  pago^  et  rusHcot 
decipit." 

■  •'  Je  peux  vous  assurer  qu*avant 
moi  person  ne  en  France  ne  connoissoit 
la  poesie  Augloise ;  k  peine  avoit  on 
entendu  parler  de  Locke.  J'ai  ete  per- 
secute pendant  trente  ans  par  une  nuee 
de  fanatiques  pour  avoir  dit  que  Locke 
est  THercule  de  la  Metaphysique,  qui  a 
pose  les  bornes  de  I'Esprit  Humain." — 
Femey,  1768. 

In  the  following  passage  of  tJie  Age 
of  Louis  XlV.f  the  same  celebrated 
writer  is  so  lavish  and  undistinguishing 


HETArHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


221 


ceived  with  considerable  qualifications.  The  striking  coinci- 
dence between  some  of  Locke's  most  celebrated  doctrines  and 
those  of  Ghissendi,  can  scarcely  be  supposed  to  have  been  alto- 
gether overlooked  by  the  followers  and  admirers  of  the  latter ; 
considering  the  immediate  and  very  general  circulation  given 
on  the  Continent  to  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding ^  by 
Coste's  French  version.  The  Gassendists,  too,  it  must  be 
remembered,  formed,  even  before  the  death  of  their  master,  a 
party  formidable  in  talents  aa  well  as  in  numbers ;  including, 
among  other  distinguished  names,  those  of  Moliere,'  Chapelle,' 


in  his  praise  of  Locke,  as  almost  to  jus- 
tify a  doubt  whether  he  had  ever  read 
the  book  which  he  extols  so  highlj. 
"  Locke  seul  a  developpv  tenUndemeni 
humainf  dans  un  livre  ou  il  n'jr  a  que 
des  verity's;  et  ce  qui  rend  I'ouvrage 
parfait,  toutes  cos  Veritas  sont  claires." 
*  Molidrc  was  in  his  youth  so  strong- 
ly attached  to  the  Epicurean  theories, 
that  he  hnd  projected  a  translation  of 
Lucretius  into  French.  lie  is  even 
said  to  have  made  some  progress  in 
executing  his  design,  when  a  trifling 
accident  determined  him,  in  a  moment 
of  ill  humour,  to  throw  his  manuscript 
into  the  fire.  The  pUn  on  which  he 
was  to  proceed  in  this  bold  undertaking 
docs  honour  to  his  good  sense  and  g^ood 
taste,  and  seems  to  me  the  only  one  on 
which  a  successful  version  of  Lucretius 
can  ever  be  executed.  The  didactic 
passages  of  the  poem  were  to  be  trans- 
lated into  prose,  and  the  descriptive 
passages  into  verse.  Both  parts  would 
have  gained  greatly  by  this  compromise ; 
for,  where  Lucretius  wishes  to  unfold 
the  philosophy  of  his  master,  he  is  not 
less  admirable  for  the  perspicuity  and 
precision  of  his  oxpreBsions,  than  he  is 
on  other  occasions,  where  his  object  is 
to  detain  and  delight  the  imaginations 
of  his  readers,  for  the  charms  of  his 
figurative  diction,  and  for  the  bold  re- 
lief of  his  images.  In  instances  of  the 
former  kind,  no  modem  language  can 


give  even  the  semblance  of  poetiy  to  tbt 
theories  of  Epicurus;  while,  at  the 
same  time,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  con- 
quer this  difficulty,  the  rigorous  preci- 
sion and  simplicity  of  the  original  are 
inevitably  lost. 

The  influence  of  Gassendi's  instruc- 
tions may  be  traced  in  several  of  Mo- 
Iiere*s  comedies;  particularly  in  the 
Femmes  SavarUes^  and  in  a  little  piece 
Le  Mariage  Forci^  where  an  Aristo- 
telian and  a  (^artesian  doctor  arc  both 
held  up  to  the  same  sort  of  ridicule, 
which,  in  some  other  of  his  perform- 
ances, he  has  so  lavishly  bestowed  on 
the  medical  professors  of  his  time. 

'  The  joint  author,  with  Bachanmont, 
of  the  Voyage  en  Provence^  which  is 
still  regarded  as  the  most  perfect  model 
of  that  light,  easy,  and  graceful  badi- 
nage which  seems  to  belong  exclusively 
to  French  poetry.  Qassendi,  who  was 
an  intimate  friend  of  his  father,  was  so 
charmed  with  his  vivacity  while  a  boy, 
that  he  condescended  to  be  his  instruc- 
tor in  philosophy ;  admitting,  at  the 
same  time,  to  his  lessons,  two  other  illus- 
trious pupils,  Moliero  and  Bemier. 
The  life  of  Chapello,  according  to  all 
his  biographers,  exhibited  a  complete 
contrast  to  the  simple  and  ascetic  man- 
ners of  his  master ;  but,  if  the  following 
account  is  to  be  cretlited,  be  missed  no 
opportunity  of  propagating,  as  widely 
as  he  could,  the  speculative  principles 


222  DISflERTATION.— PART  SECOND. 

and  Bemier,'  all  of  tbera  emiaently  calculated  to  give  the  toup, 
on  disputed  questions  of  Metaphysics,  to  that  numerous  class  of 
Parisians  of  both  sexes,  with  whom  the  practical  lessons, 
vulgarly  imputed  to  Epicurus,  were  not  likely  to  operate  to  the 
prejudice  of  hie  speculative  piinciplos.  Of  the  three  persons 
juEit  mentioned,  the  two  last  died  only  a  few  years  before 
Locke's  Essay  was  published  ;  and  may  be  presumed  to  have 
left  behind  them  many  younger  pupils  of  the  liame  school. 
One  thing  is  certain,  that,  long  before  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  the  Essay  on  Hmnan  Underalanding  was  not  only 
read  by  the  leametl,  but  Iiad  made  its  way  into  the  circles  of 
fashion  at  Paris.'  In  what  manner  this  is  to  be  accounted  for,  it 
is  not  easy  to  say ;  but  the  fiict  will  not  be  disputed  by  those 
who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  history  of  French  literature. 
In  consequence  of  this  rapid  and  extensive  circulation  of  the 
work  in  question,  and  the  strong  impression  that  it  everywhere 
produced,  by  the  new  and  striking  contrast  which  it  exhibited 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  schools,  a  very  remarkable  change  80oa 
manifested  itself  in  the  prevailing  habits  of  thinkiug  on  philo- 


in  which  ha  Lail  heen  educate  "  Tl 
£u>it  furt  floquent  dims  TivreaaB.  II 
niBtuit  »r<linair«ineut  In  ilemiar  i.  tablo, 
et  ae  mettuit  A  eipliquar  am  vnJetx  la 
philosopbia  d 'Epicure."  —  Biographie 
Uninen^le,  article  CTutpelie.  PsHs, 
IB13.     He  died  u  168G. 

>  Tho  weU-knu«D  aiitlior  of  one  of 
our  mast  iutereBting  and  instructive 
books  of  tmielB.  After  1iia  rctorn  from 
the  Eaat,  where  he  toiiidoil  Iwelvc  Jeors 
at  the  Court  of  the  Great  Mu^ul,  he 
puhliahed  at  Lyoaa,  on  excellent 
AbridiiBtmK  of  the  PlUlotopha  of  Oat- 
ttudi,  in  8  voli,  12mo;  a  second  edition 
oF  which,  Bornxled  hj-  himself,  after- 
wards appeared,  in  aeven  volumes.  To 
thi<  second  edition  (which  I  have  nevor 
met  with)  is  anncied  ■  Supplemont, 
entitled  DotUtt  <Je  M.  Bemier  mir 
^Ui^tqatt  uiu  ia  prineipaiiz  Chajntre* 
de  loa  Abwt-if  de  la  PhSoaophie.  ilc 


is  to  lh!s  work,  I  pre- 
flunie,  that  Leibnitx  tUluden  in  the  fbl- 
luwing  poKSnge  of  a  letter  to  John  Bcr- 
nouilli ;  and,  Irani  the  manoer  in  which 
he  npeaka  of  its  contents,  it  would  seem 
to  bo  an  ol>|cct  of  some  carioaitj. 
"  rVuatra  qmusivi  spud  lypngraphos 
libram  cui  lituluti ;  Thtiiei  de  M,  Ser- 
tiUr  >ur  la  Pliiloinphie,  in  Gallia  ante 
onnos  aliqui»t  edituin  et  mihi  visiuUi 
eed  nunc  nan  rcpertuiti.  Vcllera  autem 
idea  itcrnm  le^ere,  quia  iUe  Oaiten- 
dUUtrum  fuit  Princepa  ;  Bed  paoUo  onto 
mortem,  libello  hoc  edito  ingenue  pro- 
foasua  est,  in  qtiihns  noc  Gaaaondua  ueo 
CartesiuB  sntisfnciant."  —  Leihnitii  et 
Jo.  Bemonilli  (innnKrc.  l^nit.  S  vols. 
4tD.    LauHssnie  et  Gcnevs,  1745. 

Bemier  died  in  1 688> 

'  A  deciBive  pmnf  of  ihia  is  afllirded 
by  the  allusicnB  to  Loeke's  doctrines  in 
the  dramatic  pieces  then  in  possesiion 
of  Ihc  French  staBe.     S«  Nolo  V. 


MKTAPHY8ICS  DURING  THE  ElOHTKSNTH  CENTURY. 


223 


Bophical  subjecta  Not  that  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  the 
opinions  of  men,  on  particular  articles  of  their  former  creed, 
underwent  a  sudden  alteration.  I  speak  only  of  the  general 
effect  of  Locke's  discussions,  in  preparing  the  thinking  part  of 
his  readers,  to  a  degree  till  then  imknown,  for  the  unshackled 
use  of  their  own  reason.  This  has  always  appeared  to  me  the 
most  characteristical  feature  of  Locke's  Essay;  and  that  to 
which  it  is  chiefly  indebted  for  its  immense  influence  on  the 
philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Few  books  can  be 
named,  from  which  it  is  possible  to  extract  more  exceptionable 
passages ;  but,  such  is  the  liberal  tone  of  the  author ;  such  the 
manliness  with  which  he  constantly  appeals  to  recuouj  as  the 
paramount  authority  which,  even  in  religious  controversy,  every 
candid  disputant  is  bound  to  acknowledge ;  and  such  the  sin^ 
cerity  and  simplicity  with  which,  on  aU  occaaonB,  he  appears 
to  inquire  after  truth,  that  the  general  effect  of  the  whole  work  "^ 
may  be  regarded  as  the  best  of  all  antidotes  against  the  errors 
involved  in  some  of  its  particular  conclusions.^ 

To  attempt  any  general  review  of  the  doctrines  sanctioned, 
or  supj)osed  to  be  sanctioned,  by  the  name  of  Locke,  would  be 
obviously  incompatible  with  the  design  of  this  Discourse ;  but, 
among  these  doctrines,  there  are  ttoo,  of  fundamental  import- 
ance, which  have  misled  so  many  of  his  successors,  that  a  few 
remarks  on  each  form  a  necessary  preparation  for  some  histo- 
rical details  which  will  afterwards  occur.  The  first  of  these 
doctrines  relates  to  the  origin  of  our  ideas  ;  the  second  to    ^ 

THE  POWER  OF  MORAL  PERCEPTION,  AND   THE  IMMUTABILITY  OF      X 

MORAL  DISTINCTIONS     On  both  qucstious,  the  real  opinion  of 


'  The  maxim  which  he  constantly  in- 
cnlcates  is,  that  "  Reason  must  he  onr 
last  judge  and  guide  in  everything."— 
(liocke's  WorkSf  vol.  iii.  p.  145.)  To 
the  same  purpose,  he  elsewhere  ob- 
serves, that  "  he  who  makes  use  of  the 
light  and  faculties  God  has  given  him, 
and  seeks  sincerely  to  discover  truth  by 
those  helps  and  abilities  he  has,  nuiy 
have  this  satisfaction  in  doing  his  duty 
as  a  rational  creature ;  that,  though  he 


should  miss  truth,  he  will  not  miss  the 
reward  of  it.  For  he  governs  his  assent 
right,  and  places  it  as  he  should,  who 
in  any  case  or  matter  whatsoever,  be- 
lieves or  disbelieves,  according  as  reason 
directs  him.  He  that  docs  otherwise, 
transgresses  against  his  own  light,  and 
misuses  those  faculties  which  were  given 
him  to  no  other  end,  but  to  search  and 
follow  the  clearer  evidence  and  greater 
probability."— 7&fW.  p.  125. 


224 


DIgSBRTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


Locke  hajs,  if  I  am  not  widely  mistaken,  been  very  grossly 
misapprehended  or  misrepresented,  by  a  large  portion  of  his 
professed  followers,  as  well  as  of  his  avowed  antagonists. 

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


^  FhUosophiccd  Essays. 

■  "  Deinde  omnis  nostra  notitia  vide- 
tur  plane  ducere  originem  a  scnsibus ; 
et  quamvis  tu  neges  quicquid  est  in  in- 
tellectu prseesse  debere  in  sensn,  videtur 
id  esse  nikilominuB  verum,  cum  nisi 
sola  incursione  M*rk  tn^imttrtv,  ut  lo- 
quuntur,  fiat ;  perficiatur  tamcn  analo- 
gia,  compositionc,  divisione,  ampliatione, 
extenuatione,  aliisque  similibus  modis, 
quos  commemorare  nihil  est  necesse/* — 
Objectiones  in  Meditatumem  Secundam, 

This  doctrine  of  Gassendi^s  is  thus 
very  clearly  stated  and  illustrated,  by 
the  judicious  authors  of  the  Port-Royal 
JjOfjic :  "  T^n  philosophe  qui  est  estime 


dans  le  mondc  commence  sa  logique  par 
cette  proposition :  Omnis  idea  orsvm 
ducit  a  sensihus.  Thute  id4e  tire  son 
origine  des  sens.  II  avoue  neanmoins 
que  toutes  nos  idees  n'ont  pas  ete  dans 
DOS  sens  telles  qu*elles  sont  dans  notre 
esprit :  mais  il  pretend  qu'clles  ont  au 
moins  etc  formees  de  celles  qui  ont 
passe  par  nos  sens,  ou  par  composition^ 
comme  lorsque  des  images  separoes  de 
Tor  et  d'une  raontagne,  on  s'en  fait  une 
montagne  d'or;  ou  par  ampliation  et 
diminution,  comme  lorsque  do  Timnge 
d'un  homme  d'une  grandeur  ordinaire 
on  s'en  forme  un  geant  ou  im  pigmee  '^ 
ou   par  accommodation   et  proportion^ 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


225 


This  doctrine  of  Ghisseiidi's  coincides  exactly  with  that 
ascribed  to  Locke  by  Diderot  and  by  Home  Tooke ;  and  it 
differs  only  verbally  from  the  more  concise  statement  of  Con- 
dillac,  that  "  our  ideas  are  nothinp^  more  than   tramformed 


comme  lorsque  de  I'id^e  d'une  maison 
qu*on  a  vne,  on  8*en  forme  IHinage  d*une 
maison  qu*on  n*a  pas  yuc.  £t  aiicbi, 
dit  i],  KOU8  €X>NCEyo!ra  Dieu  qui  kb 

PEUT  TOMBER  80U8  LE8  BEKfl,  SOUB 
L*nfAOB   D*UM  TEVEKABLB  TIEILLARD/* 

"  Selon  cette  pcnsC'O,  quoique  toutes 
nofl  id^8  ne  fasscnt  semblables  k 
qoelqu^  corps  particalior  que  nous  ayons 
TQ,  oo  qui  ait  frapp4  nos  sens,  clles 
seroient  neanmoins  toutes  corporclles, 
et  ne  vous  represcntcroient  rien  qui  ne 
lut  entr6  dans  nos  sens,  au  moins  par 
parties.  Et  ainsi  nous  ne  concevons 
rien  que  par  des  images,  semblables  K 
eelles  qui  se  forment  dans  le  cenreau 
quand  nous  voyons,  ou  nous  nous  ima- 
ginons  des  corps." — UArt  de  Pen$er^ 
1  Partie,  c.  1. 

The  reference  made,  in  the  foregoing 
quotation,  to  Gassendi's  illustration 
drawn  from  the  idea  of  Ood^  affords  me 
an  opportunity,  of  which  I  gladly  avail 
myself,    to    contrast    it  with   Lockers 


opinion  on  the  same  subject.  "  How 
many  amongst  us  will  be  found,  upon 
inquiry,  to  fancy  God,  in  the  shape  of  a 
man,  sitting  in  heaven,  and  to  have 
many  other  absurd  and  unfit  concep- 
tions of  him?  Christians,  as  well  as 
Turks,  have  had  whole  sects  owning,  or 
contending  earnestly  for  it,  that  the 
Deity  was  corporeal  and  of  human 
shape :  And  aJthough  we  find  few 
amongst  us,  who  profess  themselves 
ArUhropomorphites  (though  some  I  have 
met  with  that  own  it,)  yet,  I  believe, 
he  that  will  make  it  his  business,  may 
find  amongst  the  ignorant  and  unin- 
structed  (.'hriHtians,  many  of  that  opi- 
nion."*—Vol.  i.  p.  67. 

"  Lot  the  ideas  of  being  and  matter 
be  strongly  joined  either  by  education 
or  much  thought,  whilst  these  are  still 
combined  in  the  mind,  what  notions, 
what  reasonings  will  there  be  about 
separate  spirits  ?  Ix?t  custom,  from  the 
very  (childhood,  have  joined  figure  and 


*  In  th«  Judgment  of  a  Tery  l«Mmed  and  pious  dirine,  the  bias  towards  AnikropomorphUm, 
which  Mr.  Locke  has  here  to  MTcrely  reprehended,  is  not  conHned  to  "  ignorant  and  nnin> 
itnicted  Chriatiaaa.**  "  If  Anthropomorphitm  (lajs  Dr.  Maclalne)  wae  banished  ftrom  theolofj, 
orthodoxy  would  be  depriTed  of  some  of  its  roost  precious  phrases,  and  our  confessions  of  fidth 
and  systems  of  doctrine  would  be  reduced  within  much  narrower  bounds." — Sole  an  Moshetm'i 
Ckurdt  Hittorif,  toL  It.  p.  SUiO. 

On  this  point  I  do  not  presume  to  offer  any  opinion:  but  one  thing  I  consider  as  indisputabtop 
that  it  is  by  means  of  Anthropomorphism,  and  other  idolatrous  pictures  of  the  inrisiUe  world, 
that  superstition  lays  hold  of  the  infimt  mind.  Such  pictures  operate  not  upon  Reason,  but  upon 
the  Imagination ;  producing  that  temporary  belief  with  which  I  conoeiTe  all  the  iUudons  of  ima- 
gination to  be  accompanied. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  bias  of  which  Locke  speaks  extends  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  to  all  men  of 
strong  imaginations,  whose  education  has  not  been  Tery  carefully  superintended  in  early  infancy. 

I  hare  applied  to  Anthropomori»hi*m  the  epithet  idolatrous,  as  it  seems  to  be  essentially  the 
same  thing  to  bow  down  and  worship  a  graTen  image  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  to  worship  a 
supposed  likeness  of  Ilim  conceiTed  by  the  Imagination. 

In  Bemier's  Ahridi/m^nt  of  GasKudi's  PhiUnophy,  (torn,  iii  p.  13  e(  ieq.)  an  attempt  is  made 
to  reconcile  with  the  Epicurean  account  of  the  orii^in  of  our  knowledge,  that  more  pure  snd  ex- 
alted idea  of  Ood  to  which  the  mind  is  gradually  led  by  the  exercise  of  its  reasoning  powers :  But 
I  am  Tery  doubtful  if  Qassendi  would  hare  subscribed,  in  this  instance,  to  the  commentu  of  hit 
ingenious  disciple. 

VOL.  I.  1* 


niBHSBTATiOlr. — PABT  SECOND. 


Beusations,"  "  Every  idea,"  eays  the  first  of  these  writers, 
"  must  necessarily,  when  brought  to  its  stutc  of  ultimate  decom- 
position, resolve  itself  into  a  sensible  representation  or  picture  ; 
and  since  every  tiling  in  our  understanding  has  been  introduced 


Dicicrol  and  Conclorccl,  niBj,  I  trust,  ba 
neefut  iti  carrecling  lliis  ver;  cammon 
miBtake;  oil  of  the  bo  quotHtionii  expU- 
citlj-  uwcrtiiiK,  tliat  lli«  cxlemitl  wnsea 
(iimibh  not  (inly  the  orxfxtioja  b;  w]iit:h 
our  inlellectiml  powera  we  eicitcd  niiil 
dcveliipeil,  but  all  the  raatcriaU  about 
vliicli  uur  tbouglite  are  cuni'ctsant ;  or, 
in  other  vorda,  that  it  ig  impocBible  lor 
ui  to  think  of  anjlhing,  vhich  i>  not 
either  a  leinible  ima)^,  or  the  remit  of 
Benaible  imngeB  combiued  tof^elLiir,  (Uiil 
tranamnted  into  now  forma  1i;  a  tort  of 
iogicttl  cheniiatrj-.  That  the  poweri  of 
the  imderatanding  would  for  ever  cun- 
tiooa  dcinDant,  vere  it  DOt  for  the  ac- 
tinn  of  tbJDga  exiemal  on  the  bodil; 
[ram?,  ia  a  propoailion  now  univereally 
admlttnl  \>y  pliiloiophera.  Even  Ur. 
Harris  and  Lord  Monboddo,  the  two 
moat  xenlona  as  veil  u  most  learned  of 
Mr.  Locke's  odverBHriei  in  Engiaud, 
have,  in  the  most  explicit  manner,  ex- 
pressed their  asaenl  to  tlte  common  doc- 
Irine.  "  The  Grst  cUsa  of  ideas  (anya 
Monboddo)  is  prodaced  from  ideas  fur- 
niahed  hy  (he  acnaes ;  the  wcond  nriaea 
from  the  opcraliona  of  the  mind  upou 
these  materials :  for  I  do  not  deny,  that 
]□  Ihia  onr  preaent  atate  of  eiistence, 
all  our  ideas,  and  oil  our  knowledge,  ara 
idtimalely  to  be  derived  from  senae  ftod 
maltar."— Vol.  i.  p.  44,  Sd  Ed.  Mr. 
Hiirria,  vjiile  he  holds  the  aame  lan< 
giiage,  poiula  out,  with  gtoati'r  preci- 
sion, the  essential  diSbreoce  between 
his  philoaophy  and  that  of  the  Hob- 
bists.  "  Thou^  gtenaible  objects  way 
be  the  destined  mediom  to  awaken  the 
dormant  energies  of  man's  understand- 
ing, yet  are  those  energies  tbemselTes 
no  mote  contained  in  sense,  than  ths 
esploaion    of  n    cannon    in    the    spark 


shape  to  the  idea  of  Ood,  and  what  ab- 
surdities will  that  mind  bo  liable  to 
about  the  Deity  ?"— Vol.  ii.  p.  1*1. 

The  authors  of  the  J'Ort-Boyal  Logic 
have  caprcsaed  themselves  on  tliis  point 
to  the  rery  some  purpose  with  I..ocko; 
and  have  enlarged  upon  it  still  more 
fidly  and  fbrcibly,  {Sea  the  sequel  of 
the  passage  above  quoted.)  Stmie  of 
their  remarks  on  thu  saljject,  which  ara 
more  parliculnriy  directed  against  Gaa- 
sendi,  have  led  Brucker  to  rank  them 
among  the  odvocstes  for  itauOe  iiieat, 
(Brucker,  Hiitoria  de  Idei),  p-  271,) 
although  these  remarks  coincide  exactly 
in  substance  with  the  forcgdng  quota- 
tion IWim  Locke.  Like  many  other 
modem  metaphyBicuuiB,  this  Iwimed 
and  laboriouB,  but  not  very  acuta  his- 
torian, could  imagine  no  intermediate 
opinion  between  the  theory  of  imiate 
ideal,  aa  Inught  by  iho  Cartesians,  and 
the  Epicurean  iccount  of  our  know- 
ledge, as  revived  by  Qassendi  and 
Hobbes ;  and  accordingly  Ihonghl  him- 
self  entitled  to  conclude,  that  whoever 
rejected  the  one  must  necessarily  have 
adopted  the  other.  The  doctrines  of 
Locke  and  of  his  predeceswir  Araauld 
wHI  he  found,  on  eiaiuination,  essen- 
tially different  from  both. 

Persona  little  acquainted  with  the 
metaphysical  speculatiuna  of  the  two 
U«t  centaries  are  apt  to  imagine,  that 
when  "  all  knowiodge  is  said  to  hare  its 
tnigia  in  the  senses,"  nothing  more  ia 
l»  be  nnderatood  than  this,  that  it  is  by 
the  impreaaions  of  cilemal  nbjecte  on 
our  organs  of  perception,  that  the  dor- 
mant poteeri  of  ihe  understanding  are 
at  Brat  awakened-  The  foregoing  quo- 
tation from  Oassendi,  together  with 
ihotc  which  I  i-.m  about  to  produce  from 


METAPHT81C8  DURIKO  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  227 

there  by  the  channel  of  sensation,  whatever  proeeedB  out  of  the 
understanding  is  either  chimerical,  or  must  be  able,  in  return- 
ing by  the  same  road,  to  re-attach  itself  to  its  sensible  arche- 
type. Hence  an  important  rule  in  philosophy,— that  every 
expression  which  cannot  find  an  external  and  a  sensible  object, 
to  which  it  can  thus  establish  its  affinity,  is  destitute  of  si^iifi- 
csiiiojL''—(Euvre8  de  Diderot,  tom.  vi 

Such  is  the  exposition  given  by  Diderot,  of  what  is  regarded 
in  France  as  Locke's  great  and  capital  discovery;  and  pre- 
cisely to  the  same  purpose  we  are  told  by  Condorcet,  that 
"  Locke  was  the  first  who  proved  that  all  our  ideas  are  comr 
pounded  of  sensations." — Esquisse  Historiquey  Ac. 

K  this  were  to  be  admitted  as  a  fair  account  of  Locke's 
opinion,  it  would  follow,  that  he  has  not  advanced  a  single  step 
beyond  Gassendi  and  Hobbes ;  both  of  whom  have  repeatedly 
expressed  themselves  in  nearly  the  same  words  with  Diderot 
and  Condorcet  But  although  it  must  be  granted,  in  favour  of 
their  interpretation  of  his  language,  that  various  detached  pas- 
sages may  be  quoted  from  his  work,  which  seem,  on  a  super- 
ficial view,  to  justify  their  comments,  yet  of  what  weight,  it 
may  be  asked,  are  these  passages,  when  compared  with  the 
stress  laid  by  the  author  on  Bejlection,  as  an  original  source  of 
our  ideas,  altogether  different  from  Sensationf  "  The  other 
fountain"  says  Locke,  " from  which  experience  fiimisheth  the 
understanding  with  ideas,  is  the  perception  of  the  operations  of 
our  own  mind  within  us,  as  it  is  employed  about  the  ideas  it 
has  got ;  wliich  operations,  when  the  soul  comes  to  reflect  on 
and  consider,  do  furnish  the  understanding  with  another  set  of 
ideas,  which  could  not  be  had  from  things  without ;  and  such 
are  Perception^  Thinking,  Doubtingy  Believifig,  Reasoning, 
Knowing,  Willing,  and  all  the  different  actings  of  our  own 
minds,  which,  we  being  conscious  of,  and  observing  in  our- 

which  gave  it  firo." — (Hermei.)     On  sented,  Although  the  contrary  opinion 

this  subject  see  ElemenU  of  the  PhUo-  has  been  generally  supposeil  by  his  ad- 

9tfphjfofthe  Human  Mind^  vol.  i.  chap.  i.  vcrsaries  to  be  virtually  involved  in  his 

sect.  4.  Theory  of  Innate  Ideas*    My  reasons 

To  this  doctrine  I  have  little  doubt  for  thinking  so,  th<^   rcndrr  will  fin<l 

that  Descartes  himself  would  have  as-  stated  in  Xoto  X. 


228 


1II88EKTATIOH. — PAKT  HECOMD. 


M.'Ivea,  do  from  tliese  receive  into  our  uiiderKUiiiUiigs  ideas  a 
distinct  as  wi?  do  from  Ixidies  affecting  our  Reuses.     Tliis  source 
of  idena  every  man  has  wholly  in  himself;    And  though  it  1 
not  sense,  ax  having  nothing  to  da  with  extemai  o^'ecte,  yet  iu 
is  very  lite  it,  and  might  properly  enough  be  called  intern- 
sense.      But  as   I   call   the   other  SBNi?ATiON,  so  I  call  tliiu^ 
Reflection  ;  the  ideas  it  affords  being  such  only  as  the  miat^fl 
gets  by  TpfleHing  on  its  own  operationn  within  itself."' — Locke'^ 
Works,  vol.  i.  p.  78. 

"  The  understanding  seems  to  me  not  to  have  the  least  gliiii>-l 
iiieriug  of  any  ideas  which  it  doth  not  receive  from  one  of  thesel 
two.  Exterjial  ohjeets  furnish  the  mind  with  the.  ideas  ofsen'T 
sible  qualities ;  and  the  mind  _famis}ien  Que  miderstamlh^lM 
with  ideas  of  its  own  operations." — Ibid.  p.  79. 

Ill  another  part  of  the  same  chapter,  Locke  expresses  himself'! 
thus  ;  "Men  come  to  l)c  furnishtil  with  fewer  or  more  simplq:! 
ideas  from  without,  according  as  the  objects  they  converse  witb.  I 
afford  greater  or  less  variety  ;  and  from  the  ojieratious  of  their  I 
minds  within,  according  as  tliey  more  or  less  reflect  on  them,  I 
For  though  he  that  contemplates  the  operations  of  his  mind,  I 
cannot  but  have  plain  and  clear  ideas  of  them  ;  yet,  imless  he  I 
turn  his  thoughts  that  way,  and  consider  them  attentively,  he  I 
will  no  more  have  clear  and  distinct  ideas  of  all  the  oiwrationa  | 
of  lits  mind,  and  all  that  may  l>e  ol)8erved  therein,  than  he  will  1 
have  all  the  particular  ideas  of  any  landscape,  or  of  the  parts  \ 
and  motions  of  a  clock,  wim  will  not  turn  his  eyes  to  it,  an4  I 
with  attention  heed  all  the  parts  of  it.  The  picture  or  clock  ] 
may  be  so  placed  that  they  may  come  in  liis  way  every  i! 
hut  yet  he  will  have  but  a  confused  idea  of  aU  the  part*  they  1 
are  raaile  up  of,  till  he  applies  himself  with  attention  to  consider 
them  in  each  particidar. 

"  And  hence  we  see  the  reason  why  it  is  pretty  late  before  I 
most  children  get  ideas  of  the  operations  of  their  own  nunds ;   f 
and  some  have  not  any  very  clear  or  jterfoct  ideas  of  the  g 
est  part  of  them  all  their  lives.  .  ,  .  Children,  when  they  first 
come  into  it,  are  surrounded  with  a  world  of  new  things,  whieli,  j 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


229 


by  a  constant  solicitation  of  their  senses,  draw  the  mind  con- 
stantly to  them, — ^forward  to  take  notice  of  new,  and  apt  to  be 
delighted  with  the  variety  of  changing  objects.  Thus,  the  first 
years  are  usually  employed  and  directed  in  looking  abroad. 
Men's  business  in  them  is  to  acquaint  themselves  with  what  iB 
to  be  found  without ;  and  so  growing  up  in  a  constant  attention 
to  outward  sensations,  seldom  make  any  considerable  reflection 
on  what  passes  within  them,  till  they  come  to  be  of  riper 
years ;  and  some  scarce  ever  at  all." — Ibid,  pp.  80,  81. 

I  l)eg  leave  to  request  more  particularly  the  attention  of  my 
readers  to  the  following  paragraphs : — 

"  If  it  be  demanded,  wJien  a  inan  begins  to  have  any  ideas  f 
I  think  the  true  answer  is,  when  he  first  lias  any  sensation,  ,  ,  . 
I  conceive  that  ideas  in  the  understanding  are  coeval  with  sen- 
sation ;  which  is  such  an  impression  or  motion,  made  in  some 
part  of  the  body,  as  produces  some  perception  in  the  under- 
standing. It  is  about  these  impressions  made  on  om*  senses  by 
outward  objects,  that  the  mind  seems  Jirst  to  employ  itself  ui 
such  operations  as  we  call  Perception,  liemembering^  Consi- 
iteration,  Reasoning,  <fec. 

''  In  time,  the  mind  comes  to  reflect  on  its  own  operations, 
and  about  the  ideas  got  by  sensation,  and  thereby  stores  itself 
with  a  new  set  of  ideas,  wliich  I  call  ideas  of  reflection.  These 
impressions  that  are  made  on  our  senses  by  objects  extrinsical 
to  the  mind  ;  and  its  oivn  operations,  proceeding  Jrom  powers 
irdrinsical  and  proper  to  itself,  (which,  when  reflected  on  by 
itself,  l>ecome  also  objects  of  its  contemplation,)  are,  as  I  have 
said,  the  original  of  all  knowledge!*^ — Ibid,  pp.  1)1,  92. 


*  The  idea  attached  by  l/ocke  in  the 
above  passages  to  the  word  Rejledum^ 
\H  clear  and  precise.  But  in  the  course 
of  his  subsequent  spccuhitions,  he  docs 
not  always  rifjidly  adhere  to  it,  fre- 
quently employing  it  in  that  more  ox- 
tc'usive  and  popular  scime  in  which  it 
<lcnoteK  the  attentive  and  deliberate  con- 
sideration of  any  objoct  of  thought,  whe- 
ther relating  to  the  external  or  to  th<* 
inteniai  world.     It  is  in  this  sense  he 


uses  it  when  he  refers  to  Reflection  our 
ideas  of  ( 'ause  and  Effect,  of  Identity 
and  Diversity,  and  of  all  other  relations. 
*'  All  of  these  (he  observes)  terminate  in, 
and  are  concerned  about,  those  simple 
ideas,  either  of  Sensation  or  Keflection, 
which  I  think  to  be  the  whole  materials 
of  all  our  knowledge.'- — (Book  ii.  c.  xxv. 
sect.  \).)  From  this  explanation  it  would 
app(>arthat  l.oeke  conceived  it  sutHcient 
to  justify  his  account  of  the  (»ri;^in  of  our 


230 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

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

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

"  I  think  we  have  as  many  and  as  clear  ideas  belonging  to 
mind  as  we  have  belonging  to  body,  the  substance  of  each  being 


knowledge,  if  it  could  be  shewn  that  all 
our  ideas  terminate  in^  and  are  con- 
cerned about,  ideas  derived  either  from 
Sensation  or  Reflection,  according  to 
which  comment,  it  will  not  be  a  difficult 
task  to  obviate  every  objection  to  which 
his  fundamental  principle  concerning 
the  two  sources  of  our  ideas  may  appear 
to  be  liable. 

In  this  lax  interpretation  of  a  prin- 
ciple so  completely  interwoven  with  the 
whole  of  his  philosophy,  there  is  un- 
doubtedly a  departure  from  logical  accu- 
racy; and  the  same  remark  x3ky  be 
extended  to  the  vague  and  indefinite 
use  which  he  occasionally  makes  of  the 
word  Beflection — a  word  which  expresses 
the  peculiar  and  characteristical  doc- 
trine by  which  his  system  is  distin- 
guished from  that  of  the  Gassendists 
and  Hobbists.  All  this,  however,  serves 
only  to  prove  still  more  clearly,  how 
widely  remote  his  real  opinion  on  this 
subject  Wiis  from  that  commonly  ascribed 


to  him  by  the  French  and  German  com- 
mentators. For  my  own  part,  I  do  not 
think,  notwithstanding  some  casual  ex- 
pressions which  may  seem  to  favour  the 
contrary  supposition,  that  Locke  would 
have  hesitated  for  a  moment  to  admit, 
with  Cudworth  and  Price,  that  the  Un- 
derstanding is  itself  a  source  of  new 
ideas.  That  it  is  by  Reflection  (which, 
according  to  his  own  definition,  means 
merely  the  exercise  of  the  Underetand* 
ing  on  the  internal  phenomena)  that  we 
get  our  ideas  of  memory,  imagination, 
reasoning,  and  of  all  other  intellectual 
powers,  Mr.  Locke  has  again  and  again 
told  us  ;  and  from  this  principle  it  is  so 
obvious  an  inference,  that  all  the  simple 
ideas  which  are  necessarily  implied  in 
our  intellectual  operations,  are  ultimately 
to  be  referred  to  the  same  source,  that 
we  cannot  reasonably  suppose  a  philo> 
sopher  of  Locke's  sagacity  to  admit  the 
former  proposition,  and  to  withhold  his 
assent  to  the  latter. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THS  ElOHTSENTH  CENTURY.        231 

equally  unknown  to  us ;  and  the  idea  of  thinking  in  mind  as 
clear  as  of  extension  in  body ;  and  the  communication  of  mo- 
tion by  thought,  which  we  attribute  to  mind,  is  as  evident  as 
that  by  impulse,  which  we  ascribe  to  body.  Constant  experi- 
ence makes  us  sensible  of  both  of  these,  though  our  narrow 
understanding  can  comprehend  neither.^ 

^  To  conclude :  Sensation  convinces  us,  that  there  are  solid 
extended  substances ;  and  Beflection,  that  there  are  thinking 
ones :  Experience  assures  us  of  the  existence  of  such  beings ; 
and  that  the  one  hath  a  power  to  move  body  by  impulse,  the 
other  by  thought ;  ^t^  we  cannot  doubt  o£  But  beyond  these 
ideas,  as  received  from  their  proper  sources,  our  faculties  will 
not  reach.  K  we  would  inquire  farther  into  their  nature,  causes, 
and  manner,  we  perceive  not  the  nature  of  Extension  clearer 
than  we  do  of  Thinking.  If  we  would  explain  them  any  far- 
ther, one  is  as  easy  as  the  other ;  and  there  is  no  more  difficulty 
to  conceive  hoto  a  substance  we  know  not  should,  by  thought^  set 
body  into  motion,  than  how  a  substance  we  know  not  should, 
by  impulse,  set  body  into  motion." — Ibid.  pp.  26,  27. 

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

"  It  may  also  \esA  us  a  little  towards  the  original  of  all  our 
notions  and  knowledge,  if  we  remark  how  great  a  dependence 
our  words  have  on  common  sensible  ideas ;  and  how  those  which 
are  made  use  of  to  stand  for  actions  and  notions  quite  removed 
from  sense,  hi^ve  their  rise  from  thence,  and  from  obvious  sen- 
sible ideas  are  transferred  to  more  abstruse  significations,  and 
made  to  stand  for  ideas  that  come  not  under  the  cognizance  of 
our  senses ;  c.  g.  to  imaginej  apprehendy  comprehend^  (mJhere, 
conceive,  instil,  disgust,  disturbance,  tranq^iillUy,  Ac,  are  all 

^  In  transcribing  this  paragraph,  I  hare  and  the  latter  (which  9ums  to  involve  a 

taken  the  liberty  to  substitute  the  word  theory  concerning  the  nature  ofthe  think- 

Mind  instead  of  Spirit.  The  two  words  ing  principle)  is  now  alraoHt  univenmlly 

were  plainly  considered  by  Locke,  on  the  rejected  by  English  metaphysicians  from 

present  occasitm,  as  quite  synonymous ;  their  Philosophical  Vocabulary. 


232 


PlS»BllTATlU}f. — ^FABT  UECONn 


woixla  token  frmu  tlie  operatioos  of  sensible  things,  and  appliml 
to  certain  nnxlcs  of  thinking.  Spirit,  in  its  primary  significa- 
tion, is  breath ;  angel,  a  messenger :  and  I  tixyubt  not,  but  if 
we  could  trace  them  to  their  sources,  we  elutuldjind,  in  ail  lati- 
guagea,  the  flames  which  stand  for  things  that  fall  not  under 
ovr  scTisea,  to  have  had  their  first  rise  from  sensible  ideas. 
By  which  we  may  give  some  kiuil  of  guess  what  kind  of  notions 
tliey  wero,  and  whence  derived,  which  filled  their  minds,  who 
were  the  first  Ix^ginnera  of  languages ;  and  how  nature,  even 
in  the  naming  of  things,  unawares  suggested  to  men  the  ori- 
ginals and  principles  of  all  their  knowledge." 

80  far  the  words  of  Locke  coincide  verj-  nearly,  if  not  exactly, 
with  the  doctrines  of  Hobbes  and  of  Gassendi ;  and  I  have  not 
a  doubt,  that  a  mistaken  interpretation  of  the  clause  which  I 
have  distinguished  by  itcdics,  furnished  the  germ  of  all  the 
mighty  discoveries  contained  iu  the  "ETrea  Ilrepoetn-a.  If  Mr. 
Tooke,  however,  heid  studied  with  due  attention  the  import  of 
what  immediately  follows,  he  must  have  instantly  perceived 
bow  essentially  different  Locke's  real  opinion  on  the  subject 
was  from  what  he  conceived  it  to  be. — "  Wliilst  l«  give  names, 
that  might  make  known  to  others  any  operations  they  felt  in 
themselves,  or  any  other  ideas  tliat  came  not  under  their  senses, 
they  were  fain  to  borrow  words  from  ordinary  known  ideas  of 
sensation,  by  that  means  to  make  others  the  more  easily  to 
conceive  those  operations  they  experienced  in  themselves,  which 
made  no  outward  sensible  appearances ;  and  then,  when  they 
had  got  known  and  agreed  names,  to  signify  those  internal 
operations  of  their  own  minds,  they  were  suffieiently  furnished 
to  make  known  by  words  all  their  other  ideas ;  since  they 
could  consist  of  nothing  but  either  of  outward  sensible  percei>- 
tions,  or  of  the  inward  operations  of  their  minds  about  them." — 
Vol.  ii.  pp.  147,  148. 

From  the  sentences  last  quoted  it  is  manifest,  that  when 
Locke  remarked  the  material  etymology  of  all  our  language 
about  mind,  lie  had  not  the  most  distant  iutention  to  draw 
from  it  any  inference  which  might  tend  to  identity  the  sensible 
iniHges  wliich  tliis  language  preseut-s  t^i  (he  fancy,  wilh  the 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUBY.         233 

metaphysical  notious  wliich  it  figuratively  expresses.  Through 
the  whole  of  his  Essay ^  he  uniforiuly  represents  sensation  and 
reflection  as  radically  distinct  sources  of  knowledge ;  and,  of 
consel|uence,  he  must  have  conceived  it  to  be  not  less  unphilo- 
sophical  to  attempt  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  mind 
by  the  analogy  of  matter,  than  to  think  of  explaining  the  pheno- 
mena of  matter  by  tlie  analogy  of  mind.  To  this  fimdamental 
principle  concerning  the  origin  of  our  ideas,  he  has  added,  in 
the  passage  now  before  us, — That,  as  our  knowledge  of  mind  is 
posterior  in  the  order  of  time  to  that  of  matter,  (the  first  years 
of  our  existence  being  necessarily  occupied  about  objects  of 
sense,)  it  is  not  surprising,  that "  when  men  wished  to  give  names 
that  might  moke  knoion  to  others  any  operations  they  felt  in 
themselves,  or  any  other  ideas  that  came  not  under  their  senses, 
they  should  have  been  fain  to  borrow  words  from  ordinary 
known  ideas  of  sensation,  by  that  means  to  make  others  tlie 
more  easily  to  conceive  those  operations  which  make  no  out- 
ward sensible  appearances/'  According  to  this  statement,  the 
purpose  of  these  "  borrowed"  or  metaphorical  words  is  not  (as 
Mr.  Tooke  concluded)  to  explain  the  nature  of  the  operations, 
but  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  hearer  to  that  internal 
world,  the  phenomena  of  which  he  can  only  learn  to  compre- 
hend by  the  exercise  of  his  own  power  of  reflection.  If  Locke 
has  nowhere  affirmed  so  explicitly  as  his  preilecessor  Descartes, 
that  "nothing  conceivable  by  the  power  of  imagination  can 
throw  any  light  on  the  operations  of  thought,''  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed that  he  considered  tliis  as  unnecessary,  after  having 
dwelt  so  much  on  reflection  as  the  exclusive  source  of  all  our 
ideas  relating  to  mind ;  and  on  the  peculiar  difficulties  attend- 
ing the  exercise  of  this  power,  in  consequence  of  the  effect  of 
early  associations  in  confounding  togetlier  our  notions  of  mind 
and  of  matter. 

The  misiipprehensions  so  prevalent  on  the  Continent,  with 
resjKJct  to  Locke's  doctrine  on  this  most  important  of  all  metti- 
[)hy8ical  questions,  began  diu-ing  his  own  lifetime,  and  were 
countenanced  by  the  authority  of  no  less  a  writer  than  Leibnitz, 
who  always  represents  Locke  as  a  partisan  of  the  scholastic 


234 


DI88KBTATION. — PART  SBOOKD. 


m,  Nihil  est  in  intellecfii  quod  non  fv&rii  in  sensu.— 
"  Nempe  (says  Leibuitz,  id  reply  to  this  niaxim)  nihil  est  in 
intellectu  quod  non   fuerit  in  sensu,  nisi  ipse  intdlectus."^ 


'  Optra,  torn.  t.  pp.  358,  359. 

Thnl  Ibo  Bane  miaUke  still  keepi  ita 
ground  uaODg  aaoy  foreign  writers  of 
the  higbest  cluB,  the  folloidiig  pnwage 
aSorAt  a  lufficient  proof: — "  Lrilmiti  a 


,ff  fun 


do  dialectinuo 
de  Ijocke,   qni 


a  id^B  i  n 


combattu  n 
admirsLle  1o 
■ttribae  toatt 

iLxioiui]  si  I'OBna,  qu'il  n'y  nvoit  ri«n  duns 
riatelligencF'  qui  n'eut  Et£  d'fibord  iitnt 
ba  BCDULtioiK,  it  LcibniCiyiLJaiita  cctta 
■nblime  restriction,  li  ee  n'at  NnteBt- 
gmce  dU-mfme.  Dc  ce  prineipe  derive 
touta  la  philoaophie  nouvelle  qoi  cxoree 
tout  d'inSuence  anr  lea  espriti  en  Alio- 
luigne." — Madiune  de  Sui'l  dt  CAUe- 
m^ne,  torn,  iii,  p.  65. 

I  obeerved  in  Ihe  Fint  Part  of  this 
DiwerUtioD,  (page  87,)  that  this  ivilime 
Ttttridtoa  OD  which  so  much  atraas  lias 
b«en  kid  bji  the  partisans  of  the  Ger- 
man achool,  is  little  mure  Ihsn  a  trans- 
ktion  of  the  fallowing  words  of  Arigtotla : 
X^  bMi  a  r.M  Hum  iiri.,  imf  ri 

Irr.  rt.M^  ■■)  rt  .,.i^>»> — n'eAm-na. 

As  to  Locke,  the  aamo  injostii^e 
which  he  received  frum  Ix'ibniU  wot 
very  early  done  to  him  in  hia  own 
conntry.  In  a  tract  printed  m  1697,  by 
a  mathematician  of  some  note,  iJiu  au- 
thor of  the  EMMiy  on  Human  Under- 
ttanding  !a  represented  as  liolding  the 
same  opinion  with  Qas«endi  conceniing 
the  origin  of  our  idcaa.  "  Idta  nomine 
sensu  ator;  eanim  originem  an  a  sensi- 
bna  salnm,  nt  Gasoendo  et  Lockio  noa- 
trati,  cvlerisqne  plurimii  viaum  eat, 
BO  aliunde,  hiyus  lod  non  est  iti[(uiier«." 
— {/>e  .^HitiD  Beedi,  leu  Enle  Injmito 
Coimmen  itatktmalieo-MUapki/iieum. 
Auclore  Jniepho  Rapiison,   Hep.  See. 


lgt!i  jEquatianum  UnivertaHt.     LoDd. 
1702.) 

In  order  to  enable  my  readers  mora 
easily  to  form  a  judgment  or  the  argu- 
ment in  the  text,  I  must  beg  leave  once 
more  to  remind  them  of  the  distinclioa 
already  pointed  out  between  the  Qoasen- 
dista  and  the  CarlesionB;  the  fbnuer 
asserting,  that,  as  all  our  ideas  are  de- 
rived from  the  eilemal  senses,  the  in- 
telleoliial  phsnamcna  eau  admit  of  no 
otber  Piptanation  than  what  ia  fumuihed 
by  aualogies  drawn  from  the  material 
world :  the  latter  rejecting  these  analo- 
gies altogether,  bb  dcluaivo  and  trcoch- 
crous  lights  in  the  study  of  mind  ;  and 
contending,  that  the  exereiso  of  tha 
power  of  reflcetion  is  the  only  medium 
through  which  any  knowledge  of  its 
operations  is  to  be  ohtnined.  To  Ihs 
one  or  the  other  of  tbeiie  two  classes, 
all  the  melaphyBiciuoB  uf  the  last  cen- 
tury may  be  referred  ;  and  even  at  tiie 
preacDt  day,  the  fundamental  question 
which  formed  the  chief  ground  of  con- 
troventy  between  Gossendi  and  Des- 
cartes (I  mean  the  queation  conceming 
the  proper  logical  method  of  studying 
the  mind)  still  continues  the  binge  on 
which  tha  moat  important  disputes  re- 
lating to  the  internal  world  will  bo  found 
ultimately  to  turn. 

According  to  this  distinction,  Locke, 
notwithat4Lnding  some  oeciuionoil  elipa 
of  hie  pen,  belongi  indisputably  to  tlie 
closa  of  Cartesians ;  as  well  as  the  very 
small  number  of  his  followers  who  have 
entered  thoroughly  into  the  <>pirit  of  his 
philosophy.  TotheclassofCJaBSendiBls, 
on  ihe  other  hand,  belong  all  those 
Krench  nielaphysiciaiiB  wh-i,  prufcssiiig 


METAPHTSICB  DUBIKQ  THE  EIOHTKENTH  CENTURY. 


235 


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


to  tread  in  Lockers  footsteps,  have  de- 
riTed  all  their  knowledge  of  the  E$$ay 
om  Human  Undertttrnding  from  the 
works  of  Condillac  ;  together  with  most 
of  the  commentators  on  Locke  who  have 
proceeded  from  the  school  of  Bishop 
Law.  To  these  may  be  added  (among 
the  writers  of  later  times)  Priestley, 
Darwin,  Beddoes,  and,  above  all,  Home 
Tooke  with  his  numerous  disciples. 

The  doctrine  of  Hobbes  on  this  car- 
dinal question  coincided  entirely  with 
that  of  Oassendi,  and  accordingly  it  is 
not  unusual  in  the  present  times,  among 
Hobbes's  disciples,  to  ascribe  to  him  the 
whole  merit  of  that  account  of  the  origin 
of  our  knowledge  which,  from  a  strange 
misconception,  has  been  supposed  to 
have  deen  claimed  by  Locke  as  his  own 
discovery.  But  where,  it  may  be  asked, 
has  Hobbes  said  anything  about  the 
origin  of  those  ideas  which  Locke  refers 
to  the  power  of  reflection  f  and  may  not 
the  numerous  observations  which  Locke 
has  made  on  this  power  as  a  source  of 
ideas  peculiar  to  itself,  be  regarded  as 
an  indirect  refutation  of  that  theory 
which  would  resolve  all  the  objects  of 
our  knowledge  into  tentaUonSf  as  their 
ultimate  elements  ?  This  was  not  merely 
a  step  beyond  Hobbes,  but  the  correc- 
tion of  an  error  which  lies  at  the  very 
root  of  Hobbes's  system, — an  error  under 
which  (it  may  be  added)  the  greater 
part  of  Hobbes*s  eulog^ta  have  the  mis- 
fortune still  to  labour. 

It  is  with  much  regret  I  add,  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  the  English 
writers  who  call  themselves  LoekieUf 
and  who,  I  have  no  doubt,  believe  them- 
selves to  be  so  in  reality,  are  at  bottom 
(at  least  in  their  metaphysical  opinions) 
Gaaendiita  or  HobhitU.    In  what  re- 


spect do  the  following  observations  diiler 
from  the  Epicurean  theory  concerning 
the  origin  of  our  knowledge,  as  ex« 
pounded  by  Oassendi?  ''The  ideaa 
conveyed  by  sight,  and  by  our  other 
senses,  having  entered  the  mind,  inter- 
mingle, unite,  separate,  throw  them- 
selves into  various  combinations  and 
postures,  and  thereby  generate  new  ideas 
of  reflection,  strictly  so  called ;  such  aa 
those  of  comparing,  dividing,  distiii- 
guishing,~of  abstraction,  relation,  with 
many  others  ;  all  which  remain  with  us 
as  stock  for  our  further  use  on  future 
occasions."  I  do  not  recoUect  any  pas- 
sage, either  in  Helvetius  or  Diderot, 
which  contains  a  more  expUcit  and  de- 
cided avowal  of  that  Epicurean  ^stem 
of  Metaphysics  which  it  was  the  great 
aim  both  of  Descartes  and  of  Locke  to 
overthrow. 

In  the  following  coigectures  concern- 
ing the  nature  of  our  ideas,  the  same 
author  has  far  exceeded  in  extravagance 
any  of  the  metaphysicians  of  the  French 
school.  "What  those  eubetaneee  tire, 
whereof  our  ideas  are  the  modifications, 
whether  parts  of  the  mind^  as  the  meni- 
hers  are  of  our  hody^  or  contained  in  ii 
like  toafers  in  a  hoxy  or  enveloped  by  it 
Uke  fish  in  water;  whether  of  a  spiri- 
tual, eorporealt  or  middle  nature  &e- 
tween  boiht  I  need  not  now  ascertain. 
All  I  mean  to  lay  down  at  present  ii 
this,  that  in  every  exercise  of  the  under- 
standing, that  which  discerns  is  nume- 
rically  and  substantially  distinct  from 
that  which  is  discerned;  and  that  an 
act  of  the  understanding  is  not  so  much 
our  own  proper  act,  as  the  act  of  some- 
thing else  operating  upon  us." 

I  should  scarcely  have  thought  it 
worth  while  to  take  notice  of  these  pas- 


236  DISSERTATION. — PART  BECOMD. 

Mtiurcf  ut'  a  ulaes  of  \duan  osseutiiillj'  dilferent  from  tliose  which 
Mv  derived  from  sensation.  To  my«;lf  it  appears,  that  tlie 
words  of  LeiliiiitK  only  convey  iu  a  more  concise  and  epigram- 
mntie  iorm,  the  substance  of  Locke's  doctrine.  Is  anything 
implied  in  them  wliich  Locke  hiis  not  more  fully  and  clearly 
utated  in  the  following  sentence?  "External  olijects  furnish 
the  mind  with  the  ideas  of  sensible  qualities ;  and  the  mind 
furnishes  the  understanding  with  ideas  of  its  own  operations." 
— Locke's  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  79. 

The  extraoi-dinary  zeal  displayed  by  Locke,  at  the  very  outset 
of  his  workj  against  the  hyiHjthesis  of  innate  ideas,  goes  far  to 
account  for  the  mistakes  committed  by  his  commentators,  in 
interpreting  Ids  account  of  the  origin  of  our  knowledge.  It 
ought,  however,  to  be  always  kept  iu  view,  iu  reading  his  argu- 
ment on  the  subject,  that  it  is  the  Cartesian  Uieory  of  innat*; 
ideas  which  he  is  here  combating ;  acconiing  to  wliich  theory, 
(as  understood  by  Locke,)  an  innate  idea  signifies  something 
coevai  in  its  existence  with  the  mind  to  which  it  belongs,  and 


Hugea,  tad  not  tlio  liiictriuca  conlained 
in  the  work  frcmi  wliicli  they  nre  tukeo 
been  BBnciioned  in  llie  most  umiiiftliflcd 
terms  by  tlie  bigli  autbority  uFDr.  Polej. 
"  There  is  one  work  (be  obaencti)  lu 
which  I  owe  so  mucli,  that  it  would  be 
iingrnterul  nut  to  confosB  the  ubligHtlon ; 
I  meaa  tlie  writings  or  the  late  Abrehaui 
Tuaker,  Eaq.,  part  ol  which  were  pub- 
lished by  himself,  and  the  remainder 
Biiice  his  death,  under  Ihe  title  of  the 
lAtjlU  of  Natiirt  Pnmitd,  by  Edward 
Search,  Esq."  " Ihave  fomid.  inthU 
Kriter,  more  oriffinai  thltiting  and  ob- 
tereatitm,  njioit  the  teitral  labjeeli  thai 
he  ha$  lahen  !»  hand,  than  in  any  other, 
mil  to  lay  (Ann  in  alJ  othertpiit  lefitlher. 
H;«  tslent  also  for  illustrDtioii  is  nnri- 
volled.  But  his  thoughts  ore  diffused 
thrnugh  a  lung,  various,  and  irregular 
work.  I  shsll  acvfiunt  it  nn  mean  pmiw, 
if  1  have  been  sometimes  iilile  to  diHpnse 
!«  method,  lo  folleet  into  beiicta  and 


pxhibil  i 


imps.l 


and  tangible  luasses,  what,  iu  that  excel- 
lent perfbroiance,  is  sproad  overloo  mueh 
stirface." — iVinojrfe*  of  Moral  and  Fo- 
litiaU  Philoiophy,  Preface,  pp.  Z5,  26, 

Of  an  unthor  wbom  Dr.  Palny  ha« 
bouourcd  with  so  veiy  wum  an  eulogy, 
it  would  \k  ei|iintty  absurd  sjid  pntsuinp- 
tirnus  to  dispnte  the  merits.  Norbavc 
I  any  wish  to  detract  from  the  praise 
here  besluwerl  on  Lim  as  uii  orifpnal 
thinltiT  and  observer.  I  reiulily  admit, 
also,  bis  talent  for  illustratitin,  Wlthough 
it  sotDDtimvs  leads  bini  to  soar  into  Ikhh- 
bssi,  and  mure  frequently  to  sitik  into 
buffoonery.  As  an  himest  Inquirer  after 
moral  and  reli|^ou«  tnitb,  lie  is  entitled 
tu  the  most  unquulilieil  npprabatinD. 
But  I  must  be  permitted  Iu  odd,  that, 
Hs  a  metspbytiFian,  he  seems  lu  me 
much  more  fiiucilid  thun  solid;  and,  at 
the  KBJiie  time,  lu  be  so  rambliDg,  ver- 
bose, luid  excursive,  ns  lo  1*  more  likely 
tu  uuscille  than  lo  lix  the  pHucigleB  of 
bis  renders. 


METAPHYSICS  DUUING  TUK  KKiHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


237 


illuminating  the  understanding  before  the  external  senses  begin  v 
to  oi)erate.  The  very  close  affinity  between  this  theory,  and 
some  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Platonic  school,  prevented  Leibnitz, 
it  is  probable,  from  judging  of  Locke's  argument  against  it, 
with  his  usual  candour ;  and  disposed  him  hastily  to  conclude, 
that  the  opposition  of  Locke  to  Descartes  proceeded  from  views 
essentially  the  same  with  those  of  Gassendi,  and  of  liis  other 
Epicurean  antagonists.  How  very  widely  he  was  mistaken  in 
this  conclusion,  the  numerous  passages  which  I  have  quoted  in 
Locke's  own  words  sufficiently  demonstrate. 

In  what  respects  Locke's  account  of  the  origin  of  our  ideas 
faiUB  short  of  the  truth,  will  appear,  when  the  metaphysical  dis- 
cussions of  later  times  come  under  our  review.  Enough  has 
been  already  said  to  show,  how  completely  this  account  has  been 
misapprehended,  not  only  by  his  opponents,  but  by  the  most  de- 
voted of  his  admirers ; — a  misapprehension  so  very  general,  and 
at  the  same  time  so  obviously  at  varianc^e  with  the  whole  spirit 
of  his  Essay,  as  to  prove  to  a  demonstration  that,  in  point  of 
niunbers,  the  intelliyent  readers  of  this  celebrated  work  have 
liitherto  borne  but  a  small  proportion  to  its  purchasers  and 
panegyrists.  What  an  illustration  of  the  folly  of  tnisting,  in 
matters  of  literary  history,  to  the  traditionary  judgments  copied 
by  one  commentator  or  critic  from  another,  when  recourse  may 
so  easily  be  had  to  the  original  sources  of  information  !  ^ 


*  In  justicft  to  Dr.  Hartley  I  mnst 
hem  obseri'e,  that,  although  his  account 
of  the  origin  of  our  ideas  ir  precisely  the 
same  with  that  of  Gassendi,  Hobbcs,  and 
Condillac — one  of  his  fundamentAl  prin- 
ples  being,  that  the  ideas  of  sensation 
are  the  elementt  of  ^vhich  all  the  rest 
are  compounded — (Hartley  on  Man^ 
4th  Edit.  p.  2  of  the  Introduction) — he 
has  not  availed  himself,  like  the  other 
Gassendists  of  later  times,  of  the  name 
of  Locke  to  recommend  this  theory  to 
the  favour  of  his  readers.  On  tlie  con- 
trary, he  has  very  clearly  and  candidly 
pointed  out  the  wide  and  essential  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  opinions.    "  It 


may  not  be  amiss  here  to  take  notice 
how  far  the  theory  of  these  papers  has 
led  me  to  differ,  in  respect  of  logic,  from 
Mr.  liOcke's  excellent  Euay  on  the 
Human  Understanding ^  to  which  the 
world  is  so  much  indebted  for  removing 
prejudices  and  encumbrances,  and  ad- 
vancing real  and  useful  knowledge. 

"  First,  then,  it  api)ears  to  me,  that 
all  the  most  com])1ex  ideas  arise  from 
sensation,  and  that  reflection  is  not  a 
distinct  source,  ns  Mr.  Locke  makes  it." 
—Hartley  on  Man,  4th  Edit.  p.  360  of 
the  Inti-oduction. 

This  hist  pn)p()siti<)n  Hartley  .seems 
to  have  considered  as  an  important  and 


DTB8ERTATI0N. — ^PABT  BBCOKD. 


II,  Another  inisapi)reheii8ion,  not  lew  prevalent  than  the 
former,  with  respect  to  Locke's  pliilosophical  creed,  relates  to 
the  power  of  moral  perception,  and  the  immutability  of  mor&l 
distinctione.     The  consideration  of  such  tjiieetionB,  it  may  at 


original  improvement  uf  Lis  own  on 
LockaV  hi^c ;  whorens,  in  fact,  it  jh 
only  a  relnpae  into  Ibo  old  Epiourcftn 
hypothMiB,  which  it  WBSoaeoflhoiDaiii 
objecta  of  Loi;ke'8  Essay  to  explode. 

I  woold  not  have  enlarged  so  fully  on 
Loclce's  nacount  of  the  origin  of  onr 
ideoa,  had  not  a  miataken  view  of  Lis 
argiunenl  on  this  hend,  served  as  a 
gronndwork  for  tho  whole  Metaphysical 
Philogoph;  of  the  Freneh  Eiaydepidin. 
That  all  our  knowledge  Is  derived  lixini 
onr  eitemal  seniles,  is  everywheni  as- 
anmed  by  the  conductors  of  that  work 
aa  ■  demomtmted  principle ;  and  the 
credit  of  this  damanitration  ia  unifomity 
■scribed  to  Locke,  wbo,  we  ore  (old,  was 
the  first  that  fally  uofiddcd  and  esta- 
blished >  truth,  of  whii-h  his  preda- 
ceunni  had  only  an  imperfect  glioipse. 
Iji  Hurpe,  in  his  fjyclt,  has,  on  this 
BCcnunt,  jnstly  censured  ttie  metaphysi- 
cal phnueology  nf  tha  EncytlopidU,  aa 
tending  to  degrade  the  inteUeotual 
nature  of  man ;  while,  with  a  strange 


.ebest' 


s  tho  m 


qualified  praise  on  itie  writingH  of  Con- 
dillac.  Little  did  he  suspect,  when  he 
wrote  the  following  MntenCTs.  hoirniueh 
the  reasonings  of  Ms  favourite  logiciitn 
hod  contributed  tn  pave  the  way  lo 
those  concluaiona  whiih  he  repmboti-'a 
with  BO  much  asperity  in  Diderot  and 
D'Alemberl. 

"La  gloire  de  Condillac  est  d'avoir 
{te  le  premier  disciple  de  Locke ;  nais  si 
f^ndiUac  eut  un  maiire,  il  mcrita  d'en 
Berrir  i  tons  lea  autres;  il  repandit 
memo  unc  plus  grande  lumiSre  sur  les 
decoiivertes  dn  philosophe  Anglois;  il 
lea  rendit  pour  aiusi  dire  BCusibles,  et 


familifres.  En  un  mot, 
la  iaiae  Mctapbysique  nedate  en  France, 
quedes  oiivrsges  d«  Condillac,  et  i  ce 
titre  il  diiit  ctre  compIS  dans  le  p«ti( 
nombre  d'hommes  qui  ont  avancS  la 
science  ((u'ils  ont  cullivee." — Lj/ett, 
torn.  XT.  pp.  136,1.17. 

La  Harpe  proceeda  in  the  ssnie  pane- 
gyrical strain  through  mors  than  seventf 
pages,  and  concludes  his  eulogy  of  Con- 
dillac with  these  words:  "Le  style  de 
Condillac  est  cloir  st  pur  comme  sea  con- 
ceptions; c'est  en  gfneral  I'esplit  1* 
plus  juste  et  le  plus  Irnninvux  qui  ut 
conlribuj,  dans  ce  siiicle,  am  progr^s  de 
la  bonne  pliilnai^hie." — Ibid.  p.  814. 

La  Ilarpe's  account  of  the  power  of 
BefiecAm  will  Ibrm  an  appropriate  sup- 
plement to  big  comments  on  Condillac. 
"  L'imprefision  sentie  dea  objets  M  nom- 
tne  perception  I  Taction  de  I'lmo  qui  lea 
con»idere,  se  nomuie  rejkcion,  Ce  mot, 
il  e»t  Trai,  eiprime  un  monvemenl  phy- 
sique, cclui  de  se  replier  snr  soi-mSme  on 
snr  quelque  chose  ;  maia  Untie*  nol  ifUat 
vnunil  det  tern,  nnus  sommea  iOuvent 
obliges  de  nons  aerrir  do  termes  phy- 
siques pour  exprimer  lea  opfratJoaa  de 
rSiDB."— (7iW.  p.  158.)  In  another 
passage,  he  defines  Reflection  as  follows  i 
"La  RiculbS  do  rrflezioD,  c'est.A-dire,  le 
pouToir  qu'a  notre  Kme,  dc  comparer, 
d'assembler,  de  combiner  les  percep- 
tion a."— (/tM.  p.  183.)  How  widely  do 
these  definitions  of  rtfieetion  differ  from 
that  given  by  Locke ;  and  how  exactly  do 
Ihoy  accord  with  the  Philosophy  of  Oaa- 
lendi,  of  Hobbes,  and  of  Diderot ! 

In  a  lately  published  sketch  Qf  lie 
SlaU  of  French  Literature  during  tie 
Eightemth  Century,  (a  work,  to  whick 
the  Author's  taste  and  powers  as  a  wiitcr 


of., 


MSTAPHTBICS  DUBINQ  THE  EIGHTEKNTH  CENTURY.         239 


first  Bight  be  thought,  belongs  rather  to  the  history  of  Ethics 
than  of  Metaphysics ;  but  it  must  be  recollected,  that,  in  intro- 
ducing them  here,  I  follow  the  example  of  Locke  himself,  who 
has  enlarged  upon  them  at  considerable  length,  in  his  Ai^ument 
against  the  Theory  of  Innate  IdecLS,  An  Ethical  disquisition 
of  this  sort  formed,  it  must  be  owned,  an  awkward  introduction 
to  a  work  on  the  Human  Understanding ;  but  the  conclusicm 
on  which  it  is  meant  to  bear  is  purely  of  a  Metaphysical  nature ; 
and  when  combined  with  the  premises  from  which  it  is  de- 
duced, affords  a  good  illustration  of  the  impossibility,  in  tracing 
the  progress  of  these  two  sciences,  of  separating  completely  the 
history  of  the  one  from  that  of  the  other. 


tion  something  beyond  what  was  due 
to  his  philosophical  depth  and  discern- 
ment,) there  are  some  shrewd,  and,  in 
mj  opinion,  sound  remarks,  on  the  morci 
tendencj  of  that  metaphysical  system  to 
which  Condillac  gave  so  much  circula- 
tion and  celebrity.  I  shall  quote  some 
of  his  strictures  which  bear  more  parti- 
cularly on  the  foregoing  argument. 

"  Autrefois,  ncgligeant  d*examiner 
tout  06  m^canisme  des  sens,  tous  ces 
rapports  directs  du  corps  avec  les  objets, 
lea  philosophes  ne  s*occupoient  que  de 
ce  qui  se  passe  au-dedans  de  lliomme. 
La  science  de  I'ame,  telle  a  6te  la  noble 
6tude  dc  Descartes,  de  Pascal,  de  Male- 
branche,  de  Leibnitx.  (Why  omit  in  this 
list  the  name  of  Locke  ?)  .  .  .  P^t- 
Stre  se  perdoient-ils  quelquefois  dans  les 
nuages  des  hautes  regions  oii  ils  avoient 
pris  leur  vol ;  peut-otre  lears  travaux 
6toient-ils  sans  application  directe  ;  mais 
du  moins  ib  suivoient  une  direction 
elevee,  leur  doctrine  etoit  en  rapport 
avec  les  pensees  qui  nous  agitent  quand 
nous  reflechissons  profondement  sur 
nous-memes.  Cctte  route  conduisoit 
necessairement  au  plus  nobles  des  sci- 
ences, &  la  religion,  et  il  la  morale.  Elle 
supposoit  dans  ceuz  qui  la  cultiroient 
un  genie  eleve  et  de  vastes  meditations. 

"  On  se  lassa  de  les  suivre  ;  on  traita 
de  vainet  subtiKt^,  on  B^trit  do  titre  de 


reveries  scholastiqnes  les  travaux  de  cet 
grands  esprits.  On  se  jeta  dans  Is 
science  des  sensations,  esp^rant  qa'eDd 
seroit  plus  IL  la  port^e  de  I'intelligenca 
humaine.  On  s*occupa  de  plus  en  plus 
des  rapports  m^caniques  de  Hiooime 
avec  les  nlgets,  et  de  l*influence  de  son 
organisation  physique.  De  cette  sorte, 
la  metaphysique  alia  toi\jours  se  rabais- 
sant,  au  point  que  maintenant,  poor 
quelques  personnes,  elle  se  confond  pret- 
que  avec  la  physiologic.  .  .  .  Le  dix- 
huitidme  si^le  a  voulu  faire  de  cette 
mani^re  d'envisager  lliomme  un  de  iet 
principaux  titres  de  gloire.  .  .   . 

"  Condillac  est  Ic  chef  de  cette  ^le. 
C*cst  dans  ses  ouvragos  que  cette  meta- 
physique exerce  toutes  les  sanctions  de 
la  methode,  et  de  la  lucidity ;  d*autant 
plus  claire,  qu*e]le  est  moins  profondo. 
Pen  d^ccrivains  out  obtenu  plus  de  suc- 
cds.  II  reduisit  jL  la  port^  du  vulgair* 
la  science  de  la  pensce,  en  retranchant 
tout  ce  qu'ellc  avoit  d'^lev^.  Chacun 
fut  surpris  et  glorieux  de  pouvoir  philo- 
sopher si  facileroent;  et  Ton  eut  une 
grande  reconnoissance  pour  celui  k  qui 
Ton  devoit  ce  bienfait.  On  ne  s*apper- 
9Ut  pas  qu'il  avoit  rabaissi  la  science, 
au  lieu  de  rendre  ses  disciples  capable 
d*y  att«indre.'' — Tableau  de  la  LitUror 
twre  Fran^mte  pendant  le  dixhuUihne 
Slide,  pp.  87,  88,  89,  92. 


240  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

"  The  First  Book  (says  Dr.  Beattie)  of  the  Essay  on  Human 
Understanding^  which,  with  submission,  I  think  the  worst, 
tends  to  establish  this  dangerous  doctrine,  that  the  human 
^lind,  previous  to  education  and  habit,  is  as  susceptible  of  any 
one  impression  as  of  any  other : — a  doctrine  which,  if  true, 
would  go  near  to  prove,  that  truth  and  vdrtue  are  no  better 
than  human  contrivances ;  or  at  least,  tliat  they  have  nothing 
permanent  in  their  nature,  but  may  be  as  changeable  as  the 
inclinations  and  capacities  of  men."  Dr.  Beattie,  however,  can- 
didly and  judiciously  adds,  "  Surely  this  is  not  the  doctrine 
that  Locke  meant  to  establish;  but  his  zeal  against  innate 
ideas,  and  innate  principles,  put  him  off  his  guard,  and  made 
him  allow  too  little  to  instinct,  for  fear  of  allowing  too  much." 

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

It  is  fortunate  for  Locke's  reputation,  that,  in  other  pai'ts  of 
his  Essay,  he  has  disavowed,  in  the  most  unequivocal  terms, 
those  dangerous  conclusions  which,  it  must  be  owned,  the 
general  strain  of  his  first  book  has  too  much  the  appearance  of 
favouring.  "  He  that  hath  the  idea  (he  observes  on  one  occa- 
sion) of  an  intelligent,  but  frail  and  weak  being,  made  by  and 
depending  on  another,  who  is  omnipotent,  perfectly  wise,  and 
good,  will  as  certainly  know,  that  man  is  to  honour,  fear,  and 
obey  God,  as  that  the  sun  shines  when  he  sees  it ;  nor  can  he 
be  surer,  in  a  clear  morning,  that  the  sun  is  risen,  if  he  will  but 

*  See  Principles  of  Moral  and  Pditi-  the  author  discusses  tb^  question  con- 
cal  Philosophy,  book  i.  chap.  5,  where      ceming  a  moral  sense. 


METAPHYHIOS  DITUIXG  THK  £I(»HTBENTH  CKNT17RY.        241 

open  his  eyes,  and  turn  them  that  way.  But  yet  thtfje  tnithn 
being  never  8o  certain,  never  bo  clear,  he  may  be  ignorant  of 
either,  or  all  of  them,  who  will  never  take  the  pains  to  employ 
his  faculties  as  he  should  to  inform  himself  about  them."  To 
the  same  purix)8e,  he  has  elsewhere  said,  tliat  ^'  there  is  a  Law 
of  Nature,  as  intelligible  to  a  rational  creature  and  atudiero/ 
that  lawy  as  the  positive  laws  of  commonwealths.*'  Nay,  he  has 
himself,  in  the  most  explicit  terms,  anticipated  and  disclaimed 
those  dangerous  consequences  wliich,  it  Ims  been  so  often  sup- 
posed, it  was  the  chief  scope  of  this  introductory  chapter  to 
establish.  "  I  would  not  be  mistaken, — as  if,  because  I  deny  an 
innate  law,  I  thought  there  were  none  but  positive  laws.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  diflFerence  between  an  innate  law  and  a  law  of 
nature ;  Ixjtween  something  imprinted  on  our  minds  in  their 
very  original,  and  sometliing  that  we,  l)eing  ignorant  of,  may 
attain  to  the  knowledge  of,  by  the  use  and  due  applic^ition  of 
our  natiu*al  faculties.  And  I  think  they  equally  forsake  the 
truth,  who,  nmning  into  the  contrary  extremes,  either  affirm 
an  innate  law,  or  deny  that  there  is  a  law  knowable  by  the 
light  of  nature,  without  the  helj)  of  a  {Kjsitive  revelation." — 
(Vol.  1.  p.  44.)  Nor  was  L<x;ke  unaware  of  the  influence  on 
men's  lives  of  their  sjK^culative  tenets  concerning  these  meta- 
physical and  ethical  questions.  On  this  point,  which  can  alone 
render  such  discussions  interesting  to  human  happiness,  he  has 
expressed  himself  thus :  "  Let  tliat  principle  of  some  of  the 
philosophers,  that  all  in  matter,  and  that  there  is  nothing  else, 
be  received  for  certjiin  and  indubitable,  and  it  will  l)e  easy  to 
l)e  seen,  by  the  writings  of  some  that  have  revived  it  again  in 
our  days,  what  consequences  it  will  lead  into.  .  .  .  Nothing  can 
be  so  dangerous  as  principles  thus  taken  up  without  due  ques- 
tioning or  examimition ;  especially  if  they  Ixj  such  as  influence 
men's  lives,  and  give  a  bias  to  all  their  actions.  He  that  with 
Archdaus  shall  lay  it  doAvn  as  a  principle,  that  right  and 
wrong,  honest  and  dishonest,  are  define<l  only  by  laws,  and  not 
bv  nature,  vnW  have  other  measures  of  moral  rectitude  and 
pravit}',  than  those  who  take  it  for  granted,  that  we  are  under 
obligations  antecedent  to  all  human  constitutions." — (Vol.  iii. 
VOL.  I.  g 


242 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


p.  75.)     Is  not  the  whole  of  this  passage  evidently  pointed  at 
the  Epicurean  nia.xim8  of  Hobbes  and  of  Grassendi  ?^ 

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

"  'Twas  Mr.  Locke  that  struck  the  home  blow :  for  Mr. 
Hobbes's  character,  and  base  slavish  principles  of  government 
took  off  the  poison  of  his  philosophy.  'Twas  Mr.  Locke  that 
struck  at  all  fundamentals,  threw  all  order  and  virtue  out  of 
the  world,  and  made  the  very  ideas  of  these  (which  are  the 
same  with  those  of  GtOd)  unnatural^  and  without  foundation  in 
our  minds.  Innate  is  a  word  he  poorly  plays  upon :  the  right 
word,  though  less  used,  is  connatural.  For  what  has  birth  or 
progress  of  the  foetus  out  of  the  womb  to  do  in  this  case  ? — ^the 
question  is  not  about  the  time  the  ideas  entered,  or  the  moment 
that  one  body  came  out  of  the  other ;  but  whether  the  constitu- 


*  To  the  above  quotations  from  Locke, 
the  following  deserves  to  be  added: 
"  Whilst  the  parties  of  men  cram  their 
tenets  down  all  men's  throats,  whom 
they  can  get  into  their  power,  without 
permitting  them  to  examine  their  truth 
or  falsehood,  and  will  not  let  truth  have 
fair  play  in  the  world,  nor  men  the 
liberty  to  search  after  it,  what  improve- 
ments can  be  expected  of  this  kind? 


What  greater  light  can  be  hoped  for  in 
the  moral  sciences  ?  The  subject  pjirt 
of  mankind  in  most  places  might,  in- 
stead thereof,  with  Egyptian  bondage 
expect  Egyptian  darkness,  were  not  the 
candle  of  the  Lord  set  up  hy  him- 
9eLf  in  men^e  mindSf  which  it  is  im- 
possible for  the  breath  or  power  of 
man  wholly  to  extinguish*^ — Vol.  ii. 
pp.  343,  344. 


HETAPHT8IC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


243 


tion  of  man  be  sach,  that,  being  adiilt  and  grown  up,^  at  such 
a  time,  sooner  or  later  (no  matter  when)  the  idea  and  sense  of 
order,  administraJtion,  and  a  Gk)D,  will  not  infallibly,  inevitably, 
necessarily  spring  up  in  him." 

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


^  Lord  Shaftcsbuiy  ihould  havo  said, 
"  grown  up  to  the  poflsession  and  ezor- 
ciae  of  his  reasoning  powers." 

*  I  must,  at  the  same  time,  again  re- 
peat, that  the  facts  and  reasonings  con- 
tained in  the  introduction  to  Locke's 
Ettay,  go  very  far  to  account  for  the 
teyeritj  of  Shaftesbury's  censures  on 
this  part  of  his  work.  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  himself,  an  intimate  friend  of 
Locke's,  appears,  from  a  letter  of  his 
which  I  have  read  in  his  own  hand- 
writing, to  hare  felt  precisely  in  the 
same  manner  with  the  author  of  the 
ChanuierMci.  Such,  at  least,  wore 
hiBfirit  impressions ;  although  he  after- 
wards requested,  with  a  humility  and 
candour  worthy  of  himself,  the  forgive- 
ness of  Locke,  for  this  injustice  done  to 
his  character.  "  I  Insg  your  pardon 
(says  he)  for  representing  that  you 
struck  at  the  root  of  morality  in  a  prin- 
ciple you  laid  down  in  your  book  of 
ideas,  and  designed  to  pursue  in  another 
book ;  and  that  I  took  you  for  a  Hob- 


bist."  In  the  same  letter  Newton 
alludes  to  certain  unfounded  suspiciims 
which  he  had  been  led  to  entertain  of 
the  propriety  of  Locke's  conduct  in  some 
of  their  private  concerns :  adding,  with 
an  ingenuous  and  almost  infantine  sim- 
plicity, *'  I  was  so  much  affected  with 
this,  that  when  one  told  me  you  was 
sickly  and  would  not  live,  I  answered, 
'twere  better  if  you  were  dead.  I  de- 
sire you  to  forgive  me  this  uncharitable- 
ness."  The  letter  is  subscribed,  your 
moit  humble  and  mott  unfortunate  ser- 
vantf  h.  Newton.* 

The  rough  draft  of  Mr.  Locke's  reply 
to  these  afflicting  acknowledgments 
was  kindly  communicated  to  me  by  a 
friend  some  years  ago.  It  is  written 
with  the  magnanimity  of  a  philosopher, 
and  with  tlu*  gnod-humourtMl  forU^ar- 
ance  of  a  man  of  the  world;  and  it 
breathes  throughout  so  tender  and  so 
unaffected  a  veneration  for  the  good  as 
well  OS  great  qualities  of  the  excellent 
person  to  whom  it  is  addresaed,  a«i  de- 


*  It  Is  dated  at  the  Bull  in  Skortdilch,  London,  Se/ttembn'  1C93:  and  la  addreaMd.  /-'or  John 
loekf,  E*q..  at  Sir  Fra.  Mntham'*,  Hart.,  <d  Gates,  in  KMte.r. 


244 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


Under  the  title  of  Locke's  Metaphysical  (or,  to  speak  with 
more  strict  precision,  his  Logical)  writings,  may  also  be  classed 
his  tracts  on  Education,  and  on  the  Conduct  of  the  Under- 
standing. These  tracts  are  entirely  of  a  practical  nature,  and 
were  plainly  intended  for  a  wider  circle  of  readers  than  his 


monstrates  at  once  the  conscious  integ- 
rity of  the  writer,  and  the  superiority  of 
his  mind  to  the  irritation  of  little  pas- 
sions. I  know  of  nothing  from  Locke's 
pen  which  does  more  honour  to  his  tem- 
per and  character;  and  I  introduce  it 
with  peculiar  satisfaction,  in  connexion 
with  those  strictures  which  truth  has 
extorted  from  me  on  that  part  of  his 
system  which  to  the  moralist  stands 
most  in  need  of  explanation  and  apo> 
logy. 

MR.  LOCKE  TO  MR.  inSWTON. 

"  Oaiti,  5th  October  1693. 
"  Sir, — I  have  been  ever  since  I  first 
knew  you  so  kindly  and  sincerely  your 
friend,  and  thought  you  so  much  mine, 
that  I  could  not  have  believed  what  you 
tell  me  of  yourself,  had  I  had  it  from 
anybody  else.  And  though  I  cannot 
but  be  mightily  troubled  that  you  should 
have  had  so  many  wrong  and  unjust 
thoughts  of  me,  yet,  next  to  the  return 
of  good  offices,  such  as  from  a  sincere 
good  will  I  have  ever  done  you,  I  re- 
ceive your  acknowledgment  of  the  con- 
trary as  the  kindest  thing  you  could 
have  done  me,  since  it  gives  me  hopes 
I  have  not  lost  a  friend  I  so  much 
valued.  After  what  your  letter  ex- 
presses, I  shall  not  need  to  say  any- 
thing to  justify  myself  to  you :  I  shaU 
always  think  your  own  reflection  on  my 
carriage  both  to  you  and  all  mankind 
will  sufficiently  do  that.  Instead  of 
that,  give  me  leave  to  assure  you,  that 
I  am  more  ready  to  forgive  you  than 
you  can  be  to  desire  it ;  and  I  do  it  so 
freely  and  fully  that  I  wish  for  nothing 
more  than  the  opportunity  to  convince 
you  that  I  truly  love  and  esteem  you  ; 
and  that  I  have  still  the  same  good  will 


for  you  as  if  nothing  of  this  had  hap- 
pened. To  confirm  this  to  you  more 
fully,  I  should  be  glad  to  meet  you  any- 
where, and  the  rather,  because  the  con- 
clusion of  your  letter  makes  me  appre- 
hend it  would  not  be  wholly  useless  to 
you.  I  shall  always  be  ready  to  serve 
you  to  my  utmost,  in  any  way  you  shall 
like,  and  shall  only  need  your  commands 
or  permission  to  do  it. 

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

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


M£TAPHY8I<!8  DURING  TU£  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         245 

Essay;  but  they  everywhere  bear  the  strongest  marks  of  the 
same  zeal  for  extending  the  empire  of  Truth  and  of  Reason, 
and  may  be  justly  regarded  as  parts  of  the  same  great  design.^ 
It  has  been  often  remarked,  that  they  display  less  originality 
than  might  have  been  expected  from  so  bold  and  powerful  a 
thinker ;  and,  accordingly,  both  of  them  have  long  fallen  into 
very  general  neglect  It  ought,  however,  to  be  remembered, 
that,  on  the  most  imj)ortant  ix)ints  discussed  in  them,  new  sug- 
gestions are  not  now  to  be  looked  for;  and  that  the  great 
object  of  the  reader  should  be,  not  to  learn  something  which  he 
never  heard  of  before,  but  to  learn,  among  the  multiplicity  of 
discordant  precepts  current  in  the  world,  which  of  them  were 
sanctioned,  and  ^vhich  reprobated  by  the  judgment  of  Locke. 
The  candid  and  unreserved  thoughts  of  such  a  writer  upon 
such  subjects  as  Education,  and  the  culture  of  the  intellectual 
powers,  possess  an  intrinsic  value,  which  is  not  diminished  by 
the  consideration  of  their  triteness.  They  not  only  serve  to 
illustrate  the  peculiarities  of  the  author's  own  character  and 
views,  but,  considered  in  a  practical  light,  come  recommended 
to  us  by  all  the  additional  weight  of  his  discriminating  experi- 
ence. In  this  point  of  view,  the  two  tracts  in  question,  but 
more  especially  that  on  the  Conduct  of  the  Understandingj  will 
always  continue  to  be  interesting  manuals  to  such  as  are 
qualified  to  appreciate  the  mind  from  which  they  proceeded.' 

^  Mr.  Locko,  it  would  appear,   had  and   as   it  deserves,   will,   I  conclude, 

once  intended  to  publish  his  thoughts  make  the  largest  chapter  of  my  Essay.** 

on  the  Conduct  of  the  Understanding,  — Locke's  WorkSf  vol.  ix.  p.  407. 

as  an  additional  chapter  to  his  Essay.  '  A  similar  remark  may  be  extended 

"  I  have  lately,**  says  he,  in  a  letter  to  to  a  letter  from  Locke  to  his  friend  Mr. 

Mr.  Molyneux,  '*  got  a  little  leisure  to  Samuel  Bold,  who  had  complained  to 

think  of  some  additions  to  my  book  him  of  the  disadvantages  he  laboured 

against  the  next  edition,  and  within  under  from  a  weakness  of  memory.    It 

these  few  days  have  fallen  upon  a  sub-  contains  nothing  but  what  might  have 

ject  that  I  know  not  how  far  it  will  lead  come  from  the  pen  of  one  of  Newberry's 

me.    I  have  written  several  pages  on  it,  authors ;  but  with  what  additional  in- 

but  the  matter,  the  farther  I  go,  opens  terost  do  we  read  it,  when  considered  as 

the  more  upon  me,  and  I  cannot  get  a  comment  by  Locke  on  a  suggestion 

sight  of  any  end  of  it.    The  title  of  the  of  Bacon's ! — Locke's  Works,  vol.  x.  p. 

chapter  will  he,  Of  the  Conduct  of  the  317. 

Under$tandinffj  which,  if  I  shall  pur-  It  is  a  judicious  reflection  ()f  Shen- 

hue  as  far  as  I  imagine  it  will  reach,  btone's,  that  **  every  single  observation 


246 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

I  have,  on  a  former  occasion,  taken  notice  of  the  slow  but 
(since  the  invention  of  printing)  certain  steps  by  which  Truth 
makes  its  way  in  the  world :  "  The  discoveries  which,  in  one 
age,  are  confined  to  the  studious  and  enlightened  few,  becoming, 
in  the  next,  the  established  creed  of  the  learned  ;  and,  in  the 
third,  forming  parii  of  the  elementary  principles  of  education.'* 
The  harmony,  in  the  meantime,  which  exists  among  truths  of 
all  descriptions,  tends  perpetually,  by  blending  them  into  one 
common  mass,  to  increase  the  joint  influence  of  the  whole ;  the 
contributions  of  individuals  to  this  mass  (to  borrow  the  fine 
allusion  of  Middleton)  "  resembling  the  drops  of  rain,  which, 
falling  separately  into  the  water,  mingle  at  once  with  the  stream, 
and  strengthen  the  general  current."  Hence  the  ambition,  so 
natural  to  weak  minds,  to  distinguish  themselves  by  paradoxical 
and  extravagant  opinions ;  for  thesCj  having  no  chance  to  incor- 
porate themselves  with  the  progressive  reason  of  the  species,  are 


published  by  a  man  of  genius,  be  it  ever 
80  trivial,  should  be  esteemed  of  import- 
ance, because  he  speaks  from  his  own 
impressions  ;  whereas  common  men 
publish  common  things,  which  they 
have  perhaps  gleaned  from  frivolous 
writers.  I  know  of  few  authors  to  whom 
ihih  observation   H])pIio8  more  forcibly 


and  happily  than  to  Locke,  when  he 
touches  on  the  culture  of  the  intellectual 
powers.  His  precepts,  indeed,  are  not 
all  equally  sound ;  but  they,  in  general, 
contain  a  large  proportion  of  truth,  and 
may  always  famish  to  a  speculative 
mind  matter  of  useful  meditation. 
*  Leib.  0}i  toiii.  vi.  p.  226. 


METAPHYSICS  DUKINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  i^ENTUUY.         247 

the  more  likely  to  iiumortalizc  the  eccentricity  of  their  imthorH, 
and  to  furnish  subjects  of  wonder  to  the  common  compilers  of 
literary  history.  This  ambition  is  the  more  general,  as  ho  little 
expense  of  genius  is  necessary  for  its  gratification.  *'  Truth 
(as  Mr.  Hume  has  well  observed)  is  one  thwg,  but  errors  are 
numberless  f  and  hence  (he  might  have  added)  the  dilKcuIty 
of  seizing  the  former,  and  the  facility  of  swelling  the  number 
of  the  latter.^ 

HaWng  said  so  much  in  illustration  of  Locke's  philo60})hicaI 
merits,  and  in  reply  to  the  common  charge  against  his  meta- 
physical and  ethical  principles,  it  now  only  remains  for  me  to 
take  notice  of  one  or  two  defects  in  his  intellectual  character, 
which  exhibit  a  strong  contrast  to  the  general  vigour  of  his 
mental  powers. 

Among  these  defects,  the  most  prominent  is,  the  facility  witli  /a 
which  he  listens  to  historical  evidence,  when  it  ha})])ens  to 
favoiur  his  own  conclusions.  Many  remarkable  instances  of  this 
occur  in  his  long  and  rambling  argument  (somcwliat  in  the 
style  of  Montaigne)  against  the  existence  of  innate  jrrcu'iuxd 
principles ;  to  which  may  be  added,  the  degr(?e  of  credit  ho 
appears  to  have  given  to  the  popular  tales  aliout  mermaids,  and 
to  Sir  William  Temple's  idle  story  of  Prince  Maurice's  "  nitional 
and  intelligent  parrot."  Strange  I  that  the  same  fierson  who, 
in  matters  of  reasoning,  had  divested  himself,  almost  to  a  fault, 
of  aU  reverence  for  the  opinions  of  others,  Hhould  have  fiuled  to 
perceive,  that,  of  all  the  various  sources  of  error,  one  of  the 
most  copious  and  fatal  is  an  unreflecting  faith  in  human  testi- 

monv! 

» 

'  Df  scutes  has  struck  into  nearly  the  le  nature!  <1cb  homines  qn'ilH  nVKltriKint 

same  train  of  thinking  with  the  above,  que  les  choses  qui  hrur  IniHrn^nt  d*a<i- 

but  his  remarks  apply  much  better  to  miration  r>t  qu'ils  ne  ]MH>Mrili;iit  pa«<  tout- 

the  writings  of  I>ockc  than  to  his  own.  iL-fait.    T' est  ainKi  que  quoiqn*'  la  ^11114* 

"  L  experience  m'apprit.  que  qu(4qiio  s<iit  le  plus  grand  df  tons  l^s  bii*ns  (pii 

men  ripinions  surprcnnont  d'abord,  juirce  rf>ncenient  le  cori>f«,  c'«'Ht  iHMirtaiit  <-fdui 

qu^cllfN  K^rtit   fort   difieri'nteB   des  vul-  anquel  w\\\%  faifM>ii<*  lf>  nHijiih  do  n'fli'X- 

gairen,   cep^ndant,   apres  qu'on   les  a  ion,  et  que  iiouh  gout«mM  if  moiuM.     Or, 

comprises  on  les  troure  si  simplfs  et  si  la  counoissaiirf  <1"  U  vi'rit/*  f:Kt  romiiio 

conforme*  an  sens  commun,  qu'on  c«-i(se  la  haiit/'  df  \k\i\*' ;   lorK<|iU'  on   la  |iiin 

entierement  de  les  admirer,   et  par  la  w-<1p  on  n'y  pfiiue  plun."-  /y//^/*/.*,  t'>nif 

nicni'*  dVu  f«in:  ca«»:  i^an-f-qiip  t*-l  tM  i   J>'tti«;  xliii. 


248  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

With  this  disposition  of  Locke  to  depreciate  the  ancients, 
was  intimately  connected  that  contempt  which  he  everywhere 
expresses  for  the  study  of  Eloquence,  and  that  perversion  of 
taste  which  led  him  to  consider  Blackmore  as  one  of  the  first 
of  our  English  poets.^  That  his  own  imagination  was  neither 
sterile  nor  torpid,  appears  sufficiently  from  the  agreeable  colour- 
ing and  animation  which  it  has  not  unfrequently  imparted  to 
his  style :  but  this  power  of  the  mind  he  seems  to  have  re- 
garded with  a  peculiarly  jealous  and  unfriendly  eye ;  confining 
his  view  exclusively  to  its  occasional  effects  in  misleading  the 
judgment,  and  overlooking  altogether  the  important  purposes 

'  Plcbeii  PhiloBopbi  (sajB  Cicero)  qui  in  comparison  to   Sir  Richartl  Black* 

a  Platone  ct  Socrate,  et  ab  ea  faniilia  more."    In  reply  to  which  Locke  says, 

dissident.  "  There  is,  I  with  pleasure  find,  a  strange 

•  "All   our  English    poets,    except  harmony    throughout    between     your 

Miltou,"  says  Molyneux  in  a  letter  to  thoughts  and  mine." — Locke's  Worksy 

TiOcke,  "have  been  mere  ballad-makers  vol.  ix.  pp.  423,  426. 


M£TAPHYBI(!B  DURING  TH£  EIOHTSENTH  CENTURY.         249 

to  which  it  is  subHervient,  both  in  our  intellectual  and  moral 
frame.  Hence,  in  all  his  writings,  an  inattention  to  those  more 
attractive  as|)ect8  of  the  mind,  the  study  of  which,  as  Burke 
has  well  observed,  ^'  while  it  communicates  to  the  taste  a  sort 
of  philosophical  solidity,  may  be  expected  to  reflect  back  on  the 
severer  sciences  some  of  those  graces  and  elegancies,  without 
which  the  greatest  proficiency  in  these  sciences  will  always 
have  the  appearance  of  something  illiberal." 

To  a  certain  hardness  of  character,  not  unfrequently  imited 
with  an  insensibility  to  the  cliarms  of  ]>oetry  and  of  eloquence, 
may  partly  be  ascribed  the  severe  and  forbidding  spirit  which 
has  suggested  some  of  the  maxims  in  his  Tract  on  Education} 
He  had  been  treated  himself,  it  would  appear,  with  very  little 
indulgence  by  his  parents ;  and  probably  was  led  by  that  filial 
veneration  which  he  always  expressed  for  their  memory,  to 
ascribe  to  the  early  habits  of  self-denial  imposed  on  him  by 
their  ascetic  system  of  ethics,  the  existence  of  those  moral 
qualities  which  he  owed  to  the  regulating  influence  of  his  own 
reason  in  fostering  his  natural  dis})ositions ;  and  which,  under 
a  gentler  and  more  skilful  culture,  might  have  assumed  a  still 
more  engaging  and  amiable  form.  His  father,  who  had  served 
in  the  Parliament's  army,  seems  to  have  retained  tlirough  life 
that  austerity  of  manners  which  characterized  his  puritanical 
associates ;  and,  notwithstanding  the  comparative  enlargement 
and  cultivation  of  Mr.  Locke's  mind,  something  of  this  heredi- 
tary leaven,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  continued  to  operate  upon 
many  of  his  opinions  and  habiti)  of  thinking.  If,  in  the  Con- 
duct of  the  Understanding  J  he  trusted  (as  many  have  thought) 
too  much  to  nature,  and  laid  too  little  stress  on  logical  rules,  he 
certaiidy  fell  into  the  opjwsite  extreme  in  everything  connected 
with  the  culture  of  the  heart ;  distrusting  nature  altogether, 
and  placing  his  sole  confidence  in  the  effects  of  a  systematical 
and  vigilant  discipline.     That  the  great  object  of  education  is 

*  Such,  for  example,   as  this,  that  ncux  obiicrvcs)  "which  bcoiub  to  bear 

•'  a  chiM  Rhoiild  never  he   Ruflered  to  hanl  on  the  tender  npirits  of  cliiUlren, 

have  what  he  cravoH,  or  bo  much  as  and  the  natural  affectionB  of  parenti*."— 

apeaksjbr,  much  Iosb  if  he  cries  for  it !"  Lock<*'8  Worlctt,  vol.  ix.  p.  319. 
A  maxim  (as  his  corrcHpondent  Moly- 


DISSEBTATION. — FAltT  SECOND. 

not  to  thwaii,  and  disturb,  but  to  study  tbe  aim,  and  to  facili- 
tate the  accompUslmient  of  her  beneficial  nrrangementB,  in  a 
nia^vim,  one  should  think,  obvious  to  common  sense ;  and  yet  it 
is  only  of  late  years  that  it  has  begun  to  gain  ground  even 
(imong  philosophera  It  is  but  justice  to  Kousseau  to  acknow- 
ledge, that  the  zeal  and  eloquence  with  which  he  has  enforced 
it,  go  fiu-  to  compensate  the  mischievous  tendency  of  some  of  > 
liis  uthcr  doctrines. ' 

To  the  same  causes  it  was  probably  owing,  that  Locke  has 
availed  himself  so  little  in  bia  Conduct  of  (he  Understandinqj 
of  liin  own  favourite  doctrine  of  tlie  Association  of  Ideas.  He 
has  been,  indeed,  at  sufficient  piuns  to  warn  parents  and  guard- 
ians of  the  mischievous  consequences  to  he  apprehended  from 
this  part  of  our  constitution,  if  not  diligently  watehed  over  in 
our  infant  yeara  But  he  seems  to  have  altogether  overlooked 
the  positive  aud  immense  resources  which  might  be  derived 
from  it,  in  the  culture  and  amelioration,  both  of  our  intellectual 
and  moral  powers  \ — in  strengthening,  (for  instance,)  by  early 
habits  of  right  thinking,  the  authority  of  reason  and  of  con- 
science ; — in  blending  with  our  best  feelings  the  congenial  and 
ennohling  sympathies  of  taste  and  of  fancy  ; — and  iu  identily- 
ing,  with  the  first  workings  of  the  imagination,  those  plea^ng 
views  of  the  order  of  the  universe,  which  are  so  essentially 
necessary  to  human  happiness.  A  law  of  our  nature,  so  mighty 
and  so  extensive  in  its  influence,  was  surely  not  given  to  man 
in  vain ;  and  the  fatal  purchase  which  it  has,  iu  all  agea, 
aiforded  to  MachiaveUian  statesmen,  and  to  political  religion- 
ists, in  carrying  into  effect  their  joint  conspiracy  against  the 
improvement  and  welfare  of  our  species,  is  the  most  decisive 


'  [•Tto  most  BWicptionablo  purl  of 
the  Tre-itisa  ia  qucBtiun  is,  ia  my  opin- 
icin,  that  which  rtktca  li 


9  DtlierffiBB.    His  remarki  on 

it  of  youth  iu  their  Approach 

)  mnnhood  are  nf  Tor  grt^alcr  value. 


0  tetnpor  Bud  dispoBitioni  of      They  iliacoTer  much  koowl 


cbililren.  Oa  this  labjeut  Locks  « 
to  have  written  more  from  Iheorj  thou 
from  actual  obBcrvation  ;  nor,  intlced, 
di<]  tha  drcumitoncei  of  hi>  life  cnalla 


world.u  wcU  as  of  butnan  nature,  andai 
tulall;  uninfccled  with  that  spirit  of  folH 
refinemeut  by  which  so  many  of  our  later 
writcri  on  education  have  been  misted,] 


mTAPHTSICS  DURING  THS  KIQHTEENTH  CENTURY.         251 

proof  of  the  manifold  uses  to  which  it  might  be  turned  in  the 
hands  of  instructors,  well  disposed  and  well  qualified  humbly 
to  co-operate  with  the  obvious  and  unerring  purposes  of  Divine 
Wisdom, 

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

*  And  jet  with  what  modesty  does  ployed  as  an  under-Ubourer  in  clearing 

Locke  8peak  of  his  own  pretensions  as  the  ground  a  little,  and  remoying  some 

a  PhiloHopher !     "  In  an  age  that  pro-  of  tho  rubbish  that  lies  in  the  way  to 

duces  such  masters  as  the  great  Huy>  knowUnlge.** — Esany  on  Hiiman  Under- 

genius  and  the  incomparable  Mr.  New-  ttanding.    Epistle  to  the  Header.    8e« 

ton,  it  is  ambition  enough  to  be  em-  Note  Z. 


252  DISSEBTATION, — PART  SECOND. 


sect.  ii.— continuation  of  the  review  of  locke 

and  leibnitz. 

Leibnitz. 

Independently  of  the  pre-eminent  rank  which  the  versatile 
talents  and  the  universal  learning  of  Leibnitz  entitle  him  to 
hold  among  the  illustrious  men  who  adorned  the  Continent  of 
Europe  during  the  eighteenth  century,  there  are  other  consi- 
derations which  have  determined  me  to  unite  his  name  with 
that  of  Locke,  in  fixing  the  commencement  of  the  period,  on 
the  history  of  which  I  am  now  to  enter.  The  school  of  which 
he  was  the  founder  was  strongly  discriminated  from  that  of 
Locke  by  the  general  spirit  of  its  doctrines ;  and  to  this  school 
a  large  proportion  of  the  metaphysicians,  and  also  of  the  ma- 
thematicians  of  Grermany,  Holland,  France,  and  Italy,  have 
ever  since  his  time  had  a  decided  leaning.  On  the  fundamen- 
tal question,  indeed,  concerning  the  Origin  of  our  Knowledge^ 
the  philosophers  of  the  Continent  (with  the  exception  of  the 
Germans,  and  a  few  eminent  individuals  in  other  countries) 
have  in  general  sided  with  Locke,  or  rather  with  Grassendi ;  but 
in  most  other  instances,  a  partiality  for  the  opinions,  and  a  de- 
ference for  the  authority  of  Leibnitz,  may  be  traced  in  their 
speculations,  both  on  metaphysical  and  physical  subjects.  Hence 
a  striking  contrast  between  the  characteristical  features  of  the 
continental  philosophy  and  those  of  the  contemporary  systems 
which  have  succeeded  each  other  in  our  own  island ;  the  great 
proportion  of  our  most  noted  writers,  notwithstanding  the  oppo- 
sition of  their  sentiments  on  particular  points,  having  either 
attached  themselves,  or  professed  to  attach  themselves,  to  the 
method  of  inquiry  recommended  and  exemplified  by  Locke. 

But  the  circumstance  which  chiefly  induced  me  to  assign  to 
Leibnitz  so  prominent  a  place  in  this  historical  sketch,  is  the 
extraordinary  influence  of  his  industry  and  zeal  in  uniting,  by 
a  mutual  communication  of  intellectual  lights  and  of  moral 
sympathies,  the  most  powerful  and  leading  minds  scattered 
over  Christendom.     Some  preliminary  steps  towards  such  an 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIQHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


253 


union  had  been  already  taken  by  Wallis  in  England,  and  by 
Mersenne  in  France ;  but  the  literary  commerce^  of  which  they 
were  the  centres,  was  confined  almost  exclusively  to  Mathe- 
matics and  to  Physics ;  while  the  comprehensive  correspondence 
of  Leibnitz  extended  alike  to  every  pursuit  interesting  to  man, 
either  as  a  speculative  or  as  an  active  being.  From  this  time 
forward,  accordingly,  the  history  of  philosophy  involves,  in  a  far 
greater  degree  than  at  any  former  period,  the  general  history  of 
the  human  mind ;  and  we  shall  find,  in  our  attempts  to  trace 
its  farther  progress,  our  attention  more  and  more  irresistibly 
withdrawn  froA  local  details  to  more  enlarged  views  of  the 
globe  which  we  inhabit  A  striking  change  in  this  literary 
commerce  among  nations  took  place,  at  least  in  the  western 
parts  of  Europe,  before  the  death  of  Leibnitz ;  but  during  the 
remainder  of  the  last  century,  it  continued  to  proceed  with  an 
accelerated  rapidity  over  the  whole  face  of  the  civilized  world. 
A  multitude  of  causes,  undoubtedly,  conspired  to  produce  it ; 
but  I  know  of  no  individual  whose  name  is  better  entitled  than 
that  of  Leibnitz  to  mark  the  era  of  its  commencement.^ 

I  have  already,  in  treating  of  the  philosophy  of  Locke,  said 
enough,  and  perhaps  more  than  enough,  of  the  opinion  of  Leib- 
nitz concerning  the  origin  of  our  knowledge.  Although  ex- 
pressed in  a  different  phraseology,  it  agrees  in  the  most  essential 
points  with  the  innate  ideas  of  the  Cartesians ;  but  it  approaches 
still  more  nearly  to  some  of  the  mystical  speculations  of  Plato. 
The  very  exact  coincidence  between  the  language  of  Leibnitz 
on  this  question,  and  that  of  his  contemporary  Cudwortb,  whose 
mind,  like  his  own,  was  deeply  tinctured  with  the  Platonic 


^  Tlie  following  maxims  of  lieibnitz 
deserve  the  serious  attention  of  all  who 
have  at  heart  the  improvement  of  man- 
kind:— 

"  On  trouve  duns  le  monde  plusieurs 
personnes  bicn  intentionnees ;  mais  Ic 
mal  est,  qu*elles  no  s'entendent  point,  et 
ne  travaillent  point  de  concert.  S'il  y 
nvoit  moyen  de  trouver  une  espece  de 
gin  pour  lea  r^unir,  on  feroit  quolqne 


chose.  Le  mal  est  souvent  que  les  gens 
de  bien  ont  quelques  caprices  ou  opi- 
nions particuli^res,  qui  font  qu'ils  sent 
contraires  entr'eux.  .  .  .  Ij'esprit  sec- 
taire  consistc  propremcnt  dans  cette 
pretention  de  vouloir  ({uc  les  autres  se 
reglent  sur  nos  maximes,  au  lieu  qu*on 
se  devroit  contcnter  de  voir  qu*on  oille 
an  but  principal." — Tjcib.  Op,  torn.  i. 
p.  740. 


254  DISSERTATION. — PART  8BC0KD. 

Metaphysics,  is  not  unworthy  of  notice  here,  as  an  historical 
fact;  and  it  is  the  only  remark  on  this  part  of  his  system 
which  I  mean  to  add  at  present  to  those  in  the  preceding 
history. 

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

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

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

'^  I  cannot  help  coining  into  this  notion,  that  Grod  created  the 
soul  in  such  manner  at  first,  that  it  should  represent  within 
itself  all  the  simultaneous  changes  m  the  body ;  and  that  he 
has  made  the  body  also  in  such  manner,  as  that  it  must  of 
itself  do  what  the  soul  wills : — So  that  the  laws  which  make 
the  thoughts  of  the  soul  follow  each  other  in  regular  succession, 
must  produce  images  which  shall  be  coincident  with  the  im- 
pressions made  by  external  objects  upon  our  organs  of  sense ; 
while  the  laws  by  which  the  motions  of  the  body  follow  each 
other  are  likewise  so  coincident  with  the  thoughts  of  the  soul, 


MBTAPHYSIC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTSENTH  CENTUBT.         255 

as  to  give  to  our  volUions  and  actions  the  very  same  appear- 
ance, as  if  the  latter  were  rcaUy  the  natural  and  the  necessary 
conseqaences  of  the  former." — (Leib.  Op.  L  p.  163.)  Upon 
another  occasion  he  observes,  that  '^  everything  goes  on  in  the 
soul  as  if  it  had  no  body,  and  that  everything  goes  on  in  the 
body  as  if  it  had  no  soul." — Ibid,  ii  p.  44. 

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

From  this  outline  of  the  scheme  oi  Pre-esUMidied  Harmony^ 
it  is  manifest  that  it  took  its  rise  from  the  very  same  train  of 
thinking  which  produced  Malebranche's  doctrine  of  Occasional 
Causes,  The  authors  of  both  theories  saw  clearly  the  impos- 
sibility of  tracing  the  mode  in  which  mind  acts  on  body,  or 
body  on  mind  ;  and  hence  were  led  rashly  to  conclude,  that  the 

*  Author  of  a  book  entitled  Ofmformiii  de  la  Foiarec  la  Rniaon, 


256 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


ixmnexion  or  union  which  seems  to  exist  between  them  is  not 
real,  but  apparent  The  inferences,  however,  which  they  drew 
from  this  common  principle  were  directly  opposite ;  Malebranche 
maintaining  that  the  commmiication  between  mind  and  body 
was  carried  on  by  the  inmiediate  and  incessant  agency  of  the 
Deity ;  while  Leibnitz  conceived  that  the  agency  of  Grod  was 
employed  only  in  the  original  contrivance  and  mutual  adjust- 
ment of  the  two  machines  ; — all  the  subsequent  phenomena  of 
each  being  the  necessary  results  of  its  own  independent  me- 
chanism, and,  at  the  same  time,  the  progressive  evolutions  of 
a  comprehensive  design,  harmonizing  the  laws  of  the  one  with 
those  of  the  other. 

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


*  The  mutual  action,  or  (as  it  was 
called  in  the  schools)  the  mutual  influr 
ence  (infliucui)  of  soul  and  body,  was, 
till  the  time  of  Descartes,  the  prevailing 
h^^othesis,  both  among  the  learned  and 
the  vulgar.  The  reality  of  this  influx^ 
if  not  positively  denied  by  Descartes, 
was  at  least  mentioned  by  him  as  a  sub- 
ject of  doubt ;  but  by  Malebranche  and 
Leibnitz  it  was  confidently  rejected  as 
absurd  and  impossible.  (See  their  works 
passim.)  Gravesande,  who  had  a  very 
strong  leaning  towards  the  doctrines  of 
Leibnitz,  had  yet  the  good  sense  to  per- 
ceive the  inconclusiveness  of  his  reason- 
ing in  this  particular  instance,  and  states 
in  opposition  to  it  the  following  sound 
and  decisive  remarks  : — "  Non  concipio, 
qnomodo  mens  in  corpus  agere  possit ; 
non  etiam  video,  quomodo  ex  motu  nervi 
porceptio  sequatur ;    non   tamen    inde 


sequi  mihi  apparet,  omnem  influxitm 
esse  rejiciendum. 

"  Substantife  incognitse  sunt.  Jam 
videmus  naturam  mentis  nos  latere ; 
scimus  banc  esse  aliquid,  quod  ideas 
habct,  has  confert,  &c.  sed  ignoramus 
quid  sit  subjectum,  cui  hse  proprietates 
conveniant. 

"  Hoc  idem  de  corpore  dicimus  ;  est 
extensum,  impenetrabile,  &c.  sed  quid 
est  quod  habet  liasce  proprietates  ? 
Nulla  nobis  via  aperta  est,  qua  ad  banc 
cognitioncm  pervenire  possimus. 

"  Inde  concludimus,  multa  nos  latere, 
qure  proprietates  mentis  ct  corporis  spec- 
tant. 

"  Invicta  demon stratione  constat,  non 
mentem  in  corpus,  ncque  hoc  in  illam 
agere,  ut  corpus  in  corpus  agit ;  sed 
mihi  non  videtur  inde  concludi  po8s<*, 
omnem  influxum  esse  impossibilcm. 


METAPHYSICS  DUKINQ  THE  EIGHTEEIJTH  CENTUKY. 


257 


the  doctrine  of  Pre-eatablished  Harmony y  besides  being  equally 
liable  to  this  objection,  labours  under  the  additional  disadvan- 
tage of  involving  a  perplexed  and  totally  inconsistent  conception 
of  the  nature  of  Mechanism;  an  inconsistency,  by  the  way, 
with  which  all  those  philosophers  are  justly  chargeable  who 
imagine  that,  by  likening  the  universe  to  a  machine,  they  get 
rid  of  the  necessity  of  admitting  the  constant  agency  of  powers 
essentially  different  from  the  known  qualities  of  matter.  The 
word  Mechanism  properly  expresses  a  combination  of  natural 
powers  to  produce  a  certain  effect.  When  such  a  combination 
is  successful,  a  machine,  once  set  a-going,  will  sometimes  con- 
tinue to  perform  its  office  for  a  considerable  time,  without  re- 
quiring the  interposition  of  the  artist :  and  hence  we  are  led 
to  conclude,  that  the  case  may  perhaps  be  similar  with  respect 
to  the  universe,  when  once  put  into  motion  by  the  Deity.  This 
idea  Leibnitz  carried  so  far  as  to  exclude  the  supposition  of  any 


"  Motu  sno  corpus  non  agit  in  aliud 
corpus,  sine  resistcnte ;  sed  an  non  ac- 
tio, omnino  di versa,  et  cujus  ideam  non 
habcmus,  in  aliam  substantiam  dari  pos- 
sit,  et  ita  tamen,  ut  causa  effectui  re- 
spondeat, in  re  adeo  obscura,  determinaro 
non  ausim.  Difficile  ccrte  est  influxum 
negare,  quando  exacte  perpendimus, 
quomodo  in  minimis  quas  mens  pcrcipit, 
relatio  detur  cum  agitationibus  in  cor- 
pore,  et  quomodo  hi^jus  niotus  cum  men- 
tis detcrminationibus  conveniant.  At- 
tendo  ad  ilia  quie  medici,  et  anatomici, 
nos  de  his  docent. 

"  Nihil,  ergo,  do  systematc  infivxuM 
determino,  pr«eter  hoc,  uiihi  nondum 
hujus  impossibilitatem  satis  clare  de- 
monstratam  esse  videri." — Introductio 
ad  PhUosophiain.     See  Note  A  A. 

With  respect  to  the  mnnner  in  which 
the  intercourse  between  Mind  and  Mat- 
ter is  carried  on,  a  ver\'  rash  assertion 
escaped  Mr.  Locke  in  the  first  edition  of 
his  Essay.  "  The  next  thing  to  be  con- 
sidered is,  how  bodies  produce  ideas  in 
us,  and  that  is  manifestiy  by  impvUe^ 
thi*  only  way  which  tr/*  can  conceive 

VOL.  I. 


bodies  operate  tn." — Essay ^  B.  ii.  ch. 
viii.  §  11. 

In  the  course  of  Ix)cke's  controversial 
discussions  with  the  Bishop  of  Wor- 
cester, he  afterwards  became  fully  sen- 
sible of  this  important  oversight ;  and 
he  had  the  candour  to  acknowledge  his 
error  in  the  following  terms  : — "  'Tis 
true,  I  have  said  that  bodies  operate  by 
impulse,  and  nothing  else.  And  so  I 
thought  when  1  writ  it,  and  can  yet 
conceive  no  other  way  of  their  opera- 
tions. But  I  am  since  convinced,  by 
the  judicious  Mr.  Newton's  incomparable 
book,  that  it  is  too  bold  a  presumption 
to  limit  God's  power  in  this  point  by 

my  narrow  conceptions And, 

therefore,  in  the  next  edition  of  my 
book,  I  will  take  care  to  have  that  pas- 
sage rectified.'* 

It  is  a  circumstance  that  can  onlv  1h» 
accounted  for  by  the  variety  of  Mr. 
liOcke's  other  pursuits,  that  in  all  the 
later  editions  of  the  Essay  which  have 
fallen  in  my  way,  the  proposition  in 
question  has  been  allowed  to  remain  as 
it  originally  stood. 

n 


258 


niBSERTATfON. — PABT  8ECOND. 


Bobeequent  agraicy  in  the  firet  contriver  and  mover,  excepting 
in  the  case  of  a  mintfli;.  But  tbe  faWnees  of  the  analogy  ap- 
pears from  this,  tliat  tlie  moving  force  in  every  machine  is  Bome 
natural  power,  such  as  gravity  or  elasticity ;  and,  consequently, 
the  very  idea  of  mechanism  assumes  the  existence  of  those  active 
powers,  of  wliich  it  is  the  professed  object  of  a  meclianical  theory 
of  the  miiveree  to  give  an  explanation.  Whether,  therefore, 
with  Malohrauche,  we  resolve  every  effect  into  the  immediate 
agency  of  God,  or  suppose,  with  the  great  majority  of  New- 
tonians, that  he  employs  the  instriimentahty  of  second  cauaefl 
to  accomplish  his  purposes,  we  are  equally  forced  to  admit » 
Bacon,  the  necessity  not  only  of  a  first  contriver  and  mover,  I 
of  his  constant  and  efficient  concurrence  (either  immediately  a 
mediately)  iii  carrying  his  design  into  execution  :- 
(says    Bacon)  quod  operatur   Detts   a  primordio   usque   • 

/»«»." 

In  what  I  have  now  said  I  have  confined  myself  to  the  idea  o 
Mechanism  as  it  applies  to  the  material  universe ;  for,  t 
this  word,  when  applied  by  Leibnitz  to  the  mind,  which  he  caltl 
a  Spiritual  A  ulomaton,  I  confess  myself  quite  unable  to  a 
a  meaning  to  it ;  I  sliall  not,  therefore,  ofier  any  remarks  ( 
this  part  of  his  system.' 

To  theae  visionary  speculations  of  Leibnitz,  a  strong  a 
instructive  contrast  is  exhibit«tl  in  the  philosophy  of  Locke ; 
philosophy,  the  main  object  of  which  is  less  to  enlarge  o 
knowledge,  than  to  make  us  sensible  of  our  ignorance ;  or  (a| 
the  author  himself  expresses  it)  "  to  prevail  with  the  bu/ 
mind  of  man  to  be  cautious  in  meddling  with  things  exceedinj 
its  comprehension ;  to  stop  when  it  is  at  the  utmost  extent  ( 

ignorans,  ou  ilea  esprils  bornfB." — (£•<-■ 
tru   <k   H.   Edi.eb  3  una  Prineaas 
d'AUtmagnc.SZmeliettiK.)  It  would  !>■ 
aniiiBing  to  reckon  up  tlie  auccoMiion  of 
metaphyiticHl  creodii  wliich  have  b 
since  swHllon-ed  with  the  hi 
fluth  \\j  thii  lenrned  and  apocuiativc,  ft 
(in  all  thuqo  braiiL'hvsaf  knowledge  wl 
imagiDntion  has  no  iiiflueaca  o 
jiidgmtrl)pi-ofiiimdnndJiivpnlivjn™tio«5 


'  Absurd  as  the  hTpatbusis  of  a  /Ve- 
taaXAUhid  Harmony  ma;  now  appear, 
not  many  yetn  havo  elapsed  ainto  it 
wu  the  preTailiaK,  or  ratlier  llaiTcraal 
cnwd,  among  the  pbilosophen  of  Ger- 
many. "  II  fut  uu  teniiis"  (aaja  tbe 
celobraUd  Eal«r)  "  ou  le  syetSma  do 
I'hanuDnia  pr^clablie  6toit  tcllement  en 
Togue  dans  touterAlIemogue,  que  ceuz 
qui  en  dontcient,   pusmiierit  pimr  dps 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


259 


its  tether ;  and  to  sit  down  in  a  quiet  ignorance  of  those  things 
which,  upon  examination,  are  found  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of 
our  capacities."  .  .  .  .  "  My  right  hand  writes,"  says  Locke,  in 
another  part  of  his  Essay ^  "  whilst  my  left  hand  is  stilL  What 
causes  rest  in  one,  and  motion  in  the  other  ?  Nothing  but  my 
wiU,  a  thought  of  my  mind  ;  my  thought  only  changing,  my 
right  hand  rests,  and  the  left  hand  moves.  This  is  matter  of 
fa/ci  which  cannot  he  denied.  Explain  this  and  make  it  intelli- 
gible, and  then  the  next  step  will  be  to  understand  Creation. 
....  In  the  meantime,  it  is  an  overvaluing  oiu-selves,  to  re- 
duce all  to  the  narrow  measure  of  our  capacities ;  and  to  con- 
clude all  things  impossible  to  be  done,  whose  manner  of  doing 

exceeds  our  comprehension If  you  do  not  understand 

the  operations  of  your  own  finite  Mind,  that  thinking  thing 
within  you,  do  not  deem  it  strange  that  you  cannot  compre- 
hend the  operations  of  that  eternal  infinite  Mind,  who  made 
and  governs  all  things,  and  whom  the  heaven  of  heavens  can- 
not contam."»— Vol.  ii.  pp.  249,  250. 

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

The  theory  of  pre-established  harmony  led,  by  a  natiu-al  and 

*  That  this  is  a  fair  representation  of 
the  scope  of  Locke's  philosophy,  ac- 
cording to  the  author's  own  view  of  it, 
is  demonstrated  hy  the  two  mottos  pre- 
fixed to  the  Essay  on  Human  Under- 
standing. The  one  is  a  passage  of  the 
book  of  Ecdesiastes,  which,  from  the 
place  it  occupies  in  the  front  of  his 
work,  may  be  presumed  to  express  what 
he  himself  regarded  as  the  most  impor- 
tant moral  to  be  drawn  from  his  Hpccu- 
lations.  "  As  thou  knowest  not  what  is 
the  way  of  the  spirit,  nor  how  the  bones 


do  grow  in  the  womb  of  her  that  is  with 
child;  even  so,  thou  knowest  not  the 
works  of  Qod,  who  makcth  all  things." 
The  other  motto  (from  Cicero)  strongly 
expresses  a  sentiment  which  every  com- 
petent judge  must  feel  on  comparing 
the  above  quotations  from  Loi-ke,  with 
the  monads  and  the  pre-^Mablished  har- 
mony of  Leibnitz.  "  Quam  bellum  est 
voile  confiteri  potius  nescire  quod  ncs- 
cias,  quam  ista  effutientem  nanseare, 
atque  ipsum  sibi  displicere!"  Hec 
Note  B  B. 


vfid  P18SEBTATI0N. — PART  SECOND. 

oljvioua  transition,  to  the  scheme  of  Optimism.     As  it  repre-  I 
sented  all  events,  both  in  the  physical  and  moral  worlds,  as  ths.1 
necessary  effects  of  a  mechanism  originally  contrived  and  aetM 
a-going  by  the  Deity,  it  reduced  ita  author  to  the  alternative  of '" 
either  calling  in  question  the  Divine  power,  wisdom,  and  good- 
nesa,  or  of  asserting  tliat  the  universe  which  he  had  called  into 
being  was  the  best  of  all  possible  systems.     This  last  opinion, 
accordingly,  was  eagerly  embraced  by  Leibnitz ;  and  forms  thft  J 
subject  of  a  work  entitled   Theoditxea,  in  which  are  combined  1 
together,  in  an  estraordinaiy  degree,  the  acuteneas  of  the  logi-- 
cian,  the  imagination  of  the  poet,  and  the  imjienetrable,  yet[  I 
sublime  darkness,  of  the  metaphysical  theologian.' 

The  modification  of  Optimism,  however,  adopted  by  Leibiiit:^,! 
was,  in  some  esaentisd  respects,  peculiar  to  himself.     It  differe 
from  that  of  Plato,  and  of  some  other  sages  of  antiquity,  ii^ 
considering  the   hmnan   mind   in  the   light   of   a  sjnritvt 
machine,  and,  of  consequence,  in  positively  denying  the  freedot 
of  human  actions.     Acconling  to  Plato,  every  thing  is  right,  s 
far  as  it  is  the  work  of  God ; — ^the  creation  of  Iwings  endowed.^ 
with  free  will,  and  consequently  lialile  to  moral  delinquency^  1 
and  the  government  of  the  world  by  general  laws,  from  which,! 
occasional  e^dls  muat  result, — fiu-nisliing  no  objection  to  t 
perfection  of  the  univei^se,  to  which  a  satisfactory  reply  majj 
not  be  found  in  the  partial  and  narrow  views  of  it,  to  whicl 
our  faculties  are  at  present  confined.     But  he  held,  at  the  b 
tune,  that,  although  the  pennission  of  mora!  evil  docs  not 
detract  from  the  goodness  of  God,  it  is  nevertheless  imputable'  i 
to  man  ns  a  fault,  and  rcnilers  him  justly  obnoxious  to  puoish*.! 
ment     This  system  (under  a  variety  of  forms)  has  been  in  a 
ages  maintained  by  the  wisest  and  best   philosophers,  wht 
while  they  were  anxious  to  vindicate  the  perfections  of  C 


'  "  Iji  ThwdicM  senle  (»aya  Fon- 
tenelle)  siiffimit  pour  tvprfscnter  M, 
Ij«ibiiiU.  Tue  lecluro  imuutiBe,  d(^i 
anecdotci  curieiiHea  tiur  les  livres  ou  ic:8 
perBOnne*,  bMUCOup  d'^uite  et  mrme 
de  favenr  pour  Iodb  tei  auli-uni  cit^a,  fnt- 


nlps 


deiTt 


aiibllin 


ftmd  deitquels  an  sec 
gpomftriijue,  un  iity\e  on  It  furcs  d 
mine,  et  oQ  vc]icndant  lont  ndmU  1m| 
BgTenji>nii  d'line  iniiiginatian  henrsuae,^ 
-Ehge  lU  Ulbml 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


261 


saw  the  importance  of  stating  their  doctrine  in  a  manner  not 
inconsistent  with  man's  free  will  and  moral  agency. 

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


*  It  18  obaerrcd  by  Dr.  Akenside,  that 
**  the  Theory  of  Optimism  has  been  de« 
livered  of  late,  especially  abroad,  in  a 
manner  which  subverts  the  freedom  of 
human  actions ;  whereas  Plato  appears 
very  careful  to  preserve  it,  and  has  been 
in  that  respect  imitated  by  the  best  of 
his  followers." — Notes  on  the  2d  Book 
of  the  PUiuures  of  the  Imagination. 

I  am  perfectly  aware,  at  the  same 
time,  that  different  opinions  have  been 
entertained  of  Plato's  real  sentiments  on 
this  subject ;  and  I  readily  grant  that 
passages  with  respect  to  Fate  and  Ne- 
cessity may  be  collected  from  his  works, 
which  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  re- 
concile with  any  one  consistent  scheme. 
— See  the  notes  of  Mosheim  on  his 
Latin  Version  of  Cudworth's  InteUec- 
tual  System^  torn.  i.  pp.  10,  310,  et  seq. 
Lugd.  Batav.  1773. 

Without  entering  at  all  into  this  ques- 
tion, I  may  be  permitted  here  to  avail 
myself,  for  the  sake  of  conciseness,  of 
Plato's  name,  to  distinguish  that  modi- 
fication of  optimism  which  I  have  op- 
posed in  the  text  to  the  optimism  of 
Leibnitz.  The  following  sentence,  in 
the  10th  Book  De  Republica,  seems  suf- 
ficient of  itself  to  authorize  this  liberty : 
— .'A^ir^  }ii  itii0Vr»9^  Hf  rifiiHf  xa)  itrt- 

t^i$'  ttirm  \\»fAU9u  B%9t  atairi^f,  Yir- 
twt  inviolabilis  ac  libera  (piam  prout 
honorahit  quis  aut  negliyet,  itaplus  ant 
minus  ex  ea  possidebit     Eligentis  qui- 


dem  culpa  est  omnit.     Deus  vero  extra 
culpam. 

A  short  abstract  of  the  allegory  with 
which  Leibnitz  concludes  his  Theodi- 
C(ea,  will  convey  a  clearer  idea  of  the 
scope  of  that  work,  than  I  could  hope  to 
do  by  any  metaphysical  comment.  The 
groundwork  of  this  allegory  is  taken 
from  a  dialogue  on  Free- Will,  written 
by  Laurcntius  Valla,  in  opposition  to 
Bocthius  ; — in  which  dialogue,  Sextus, 
the  son  of  Tarquin  the  Proud,  is  intro- 
duced as  consulting  Apollo  about  his 
destiny.  Apollo  predicts  to  him  that  he 
is  to  violate  Lucretia,  and  afterwards, 
with  his  family,  to  be  expelled  from 
Rome.  {Exul  inopsque  cades  irata 
pulsus  uh  urbe.)  Sextus  complains  of 
the  prediction.  Apollo  replies,  that  the 
fault  is  not  his ;  that  he  has  only  the 
gift  of  seeing  into  futurity  ;*  that  all 
things  are  regulated  by  Jupiter;  and 
that  it  is  to  him  his  complaint  should 
be  addressed.  {Here  finishes  the  alle- 
gory  of  VaUa^  which  Leibnitz  thus  con- 
tinues, agreeably  to  his  oum  principles.) 
In  consequence  of  the  advice  of  the 
Oracle,  Sextus  goes  to  Dodona  to  com- 
plain to  Jupiter  of  the  crime  which  he 
is  destined  to  perpetrate.  "  Why,  (says 
he,)  0  Jupiter !  have  you  made  me 
wicked  and  miserable  ?  Either  change 
my  lot  and  my  will,  or  admit  that  the 
fault  is  yours,  not  mine."  Jupiter  re- 
plies to  him :  "  Renounce  all  thoughts 
of  Rome  and  of  the  crown  ;  be  wise,  and 


ft  <• 


Futura  uori,  non  fafcio.* 


262 


DleiiBHTATiON. — ^PAET  SECOKD. 


It  is  of  great  importance  to  attend  to  the  dietinctioii  Iwtween  I 
these  two  systems ;  becaiiBC  it  has,  of  late,  Ijecome  cuetomaiy 
among  sceptical  writers,  to  confound  them  studiously  together, 
in  order  to  extend  to  both  that  ridicule  to  which  the  latter  ia 
justly  entitled.     This,  in  particular,  was  the  case  with  Voltaire, 
who,  in  many  parts  of  his  later  works,  and  more  especially  in 
his  C'andide,  has,  under  the  pretence  of  exposing  the  extravar- 
gancee  of  Leibnitz,  indulged  his  satirical  raillery  against  tbej.  J 
order  of  the  universe.     The  success  of  his  attempt  was  much  j 
aided  by  the  confused  and  inaccurate  manner  in  which  the  * 
sclieme  of  o2)timiBm  had  been  recently  stated  by  various  writeifl, 
who,  in  their  zeal  to  "  vindicate  the  ways  of  God,"  had  been  led 
to  hazard  priuciplea  moro  dangerous  in  their  consequences,  thao 
the  prejudices  and  errors  which  it  was  their  lum  to  correct.' 


jon  shnll  bo  bsppy.  If  jon  relnm  to 
Rame  jou  are  andone."  Seitus,  un- 
willing to  Bubmit  to  auch  a  uicrifice, 
qniU  the  Temple,  uid  sbtmdons  him- 
self to  his  fRto. 

After  hU  departure,  the  bifsb  priest, 
Tlwodurua,  askH  Jupiter  why  he  hitd  not 
pyen  SDUther  WiU  (o  SextUB.  Jupiter 
sends  Theodoras  to  Athens  to  ponsutt 
Minerva.  Tlie  goddess  shows  him  the 
Pnkce  of  the  DoHtinies,  nhore  tm  re- 
presentntions  of  all  possible  worlds,* 
e&ch  nf  tbem  coutiiining  a  Sextus  T&r- 
IDinius  with  a  diSercnt  WiS,  leading  to 
a  catiistrophc  tnore  or  less  happj.  In 
the  last  and  best  of  these  worlds,  fonn- 
ing  tbe  BnmmiC  of  the  pyramid  com- 
posnd  by  the  Others,  the  high  priest  sees 
Seitus  go  to  Bome,  throw  every  thing 
into  confusion,  uud  violuto  the  wifu  of 
hisfriend.  " YouBee"(aaysthoOodileB« 
of  Wisdom)  "  it  waa  not  my  father  that 
made  Seitus  wicked.  He  was  wicked 
from  sU  eternity,  and  he  was  always  so 
iueonsequcnceofbiaown  will.f  Jupiter 


has  only  bestowed  on  him 
ence  which  he  could  not  rofuBe  hitn  u 
the  beat  of  all  possible  worlds.    He  on^fl 
trauBfcrrcd  htm  iroiu  the  region  of  pD^V 
»ibU  to  Uiat  of  aOniil  beinga.     Whal^ 
great  events  does  the  crime  of  Sextni 
draw  after  it?    The  liberty  of  Bome — 
the  rise  of  n  government  fertile  in  dvU 
and  niilitary  virtues,  and  of  an  empire 
destined  to  conquer  and  to  civilize  the 
earth."    Theodurua  returns   thanks  to 
the  goddoBB,  and  ackoovrledgea  ibo  JUB- 

'  Among  this  number  must  be  in-  J 
cludeil  tbe  author  of  the  Estoym  itfott,  ■ 
who,  from  a  want  of  preriHi 
mntnphysica!  ideas,  has  uncODBcioiud]>  J 
fallen  into  TariooB  exprasaions,  eqni " 
ineonsistent  with  each  other  and  n 
hia  own  avowed  opinions  : 

If  pUguv   Hod   cuthciDakv   bnak   not  1 
nsB.en'i  dnipi, 
Wliy  Ihra  «  Borgia  or  *  CMilino 


METAPHYSICS  DUBINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY. 


263 


The  zeal  of  Leibnitz  in  propagating  the  dogma  of  Necessity, 
is  not  easily  reconcilable  with  the  hostility  which,  as  I  have 
already  remarked,  he  miiformly  displays  against  the  congenial 
doctrine  of  MaterialisnL  Such,  however,  is  the  fact,  and  I 
believe  it  to  be  quite  unprecedented  in  the  previous  histoiy  of 
philosophy.  Spinoza  himself  has  not  pushed  the  argument  for 
necesriiy  further  than  Ldbnitz,-the  reaflonings  of  both  con- 
eluding  not  less  forcibly  against  the  free-will  of  Grod  than 
against  the  free-will  of  man,  and,  of  consequence,  terminating 
ultimately  in  this  proposition,  that  no  event  in  the  universe 
coold  possibly  have  been  different  from  what  has  actually  taken 


Wbo  bMfw  old  OoMa,  Mid  vho  wiogi  tbe 

•tonnf, 
Poon  fleroe  ambition  on  a  Caaar'i  mind. 
Or   tornt  young  Ammon  Ioom  (o  icouigtt 


— The  general  order  linoe  the  wb<^  began. 
Is  kept  in  Nature,  and  It  kept  in  Man. 

[•"How  this  18  to  be  reconciled,'* 
says  Dr.  Warton,  "  with  the  orthodox 
doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man,  we  are  not 
informed."  It  certainly  required  some 
explanation  from  the  Right  Reverend 
annotator,  not  less  than  many  others 
which  he  has  employed  no  small  in- 
genuity to  illustrate.] 

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

What  makee  an  physical  and  moral  ill  ? 
There  deriates  Nature,  and  here  wanden  Will. 

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


Tet  gav'Bt  me  In  thia  dark  eelaU 
To  know  the  good  from  ill. 
And,  binding  Nature  test  in  Ikte, 
Left  free  the  human  wilL 

[•  With  respect  to  Pope's  unguarded 
expressions  in  this  poem,  a  curious  anec- 
dote is  mentioned  by  Dr.  Warton  in  his 
Essay  on  the  Genius  and  Writings  of 
Pope.  The  late  Lord  Bathurst  (we  are 
ti)ldj  had  read  the  whole  scheme  of  the 
Essay  an  Man,  in  the  handwriting  of 
Bolingbroke,  drawn  up  in  a  series  of 
propositions  which  Pope  was  to  verify 
and  illustrate.  The  same  author  men- 
tions, upon  what  he  thinks  good  autho- 
rity, that  Bolingbroke  was  accustomed 
to  ridicule  Pope  as  not  understanding 
the  drift  of  his  own  principles,  in  their 
full  extent ;  a  circumstance  which  will 
not  seem  improbable  to  those  who  shall 
compare  together  the  import  of  the  dif- 
ferent pA8«;nge8  quoted  above.] 

In  the  Dunciad,  too,  the  scheme  of 
Necessity  is  coupled  with  that  of  Mate" 
rialisrHf  as  one  of  the  favourite  doctiines 
of  the  sect  of  free-thinkers. 

Of  nought  wo  certain  as  our  Reason  still. 
Of  nought  so  doubtful  as  of  Soul  and  WiU. 

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


*  Reiitored.  -EcL 


2G4 


UIBBERTATION. — ^FABT  BECOKD. 


place.i     The  distintfuiahing  feature  of  this  article  of  tlie  Leib-' 
Dit^an  creed  ie,  that,  while  the  Hobbigta  and  SpinoaistB  wemi 
employing  their  ingenuity  in  connecting  together  Matcrialisni' 
and  Necessity,  as  branches  springing  from  one  common  roo^ 
lieibnitz  always  speaks  of  the  soul  as  a  machine  purely  eptt  ' 
ttial,' — a  machine,  however,  as  necessarily  regulated  by  pi 
ordained  and  immutable  laws,  aa  the  movements  of  a  clock 
the  revolutions  of  the  planets.     In  eonsequence  of  holding  tliia 
language,  he  seemed  to  represent  Man  in  a  less  degrading  light 
than  other  necessitarians ;  but,  in  as  far  as  such  speculative 
tenets  may  he  supposed  to  have  any  practical  eifect  on  himian 
conduct,  the  tendency  of  his  doctrines  is  not  less  dangerous 
than  that  of  the  most  obnoxious  systems  avowed  by  bis  prede- 
cessors.' 


'  8a  cample  tul;,  indeed,  atid  so  ma- 
iberoatically  linked,  did  Leibailz  cun- 
ceive  all  truths,  both  physical  and  moral, 
to  he  with  each  other,  that  be  represcnU 
the  eternal  geomEtrieian  an  incesBantly 
occupied  in  tlie  aoluliun  of  liiis  problem, 
—  The  iSnie  of  one  Monad  {or  etmaen' 
Ian/  atom)  being  ginert,  to  dfternilne  tie 
nUOe,  pant,  praeat,  and  future,  of  the 

'  "  C'uaata  itaqne  in  hamine  ceria 
iiiint,etiiiuiteccBBUmdeleniimata,  utiin 
ueteris  rebos  omnibus,  et  animn  hiimana 
eat  ipirittHde  ^tHxIrima  automotom." — 
Leib.  Op.  lotD.  i.  p.  15l5. 

In  a  uote  on  this  Bentence,  the  editor 
qaotea  a  passage  from  BJI  finger,  a  learned 
(Jerman,  in  whiob  aa  attempt  is  made  to 
viadicute  the  prupriely  dF  the  pbraso,  bjr 
a  reference  to  the  etyioiilug^  of  the  wurd 
automaton.  This  word,  it  is  observed, 
vben  trai'ed  to  iM  source,  literally  ex- 
presBea  somethiog  wbich  contain*  within 
itielfits  principle  of  motion,  and,  conae- 
qnentlj,  it  applies  still  more  literallj'  to 
Mind  than  to  a  macbiae.  Tlie  rcninrk, 
coniidored  in  a  pbilola^cul  puiut  of  view, 
is  indisputably  just ;  but  is  it  not  evi- 
dent that  it  leada  to  n  cnnelusian  pre- 


rarylaw. 


deduce  from  it?  Whatever  maj  bav«| 
been  the  primitive  meaning  of  the  WOI~ 
iU  common,  or  rather  ita  univeraal  dh 
in^,  even  among  scientific  wr 
s  matxrvd  macliiDe,  moving 
any  foreign  itopalsc ;  and,  that  lliis  vu 
the  idea  anneiLed  to  it  bj  Leibmta, 
appears  &am  biBdisliaguinhing'  it  bf  tlie 
epithet  tpiritimle, — an  epithet  whick 
would  have  been  altogether  superfloaiu 
bad  he  intauded  lo  convey  the  opinion 
ascribed  to  bira  by  Bilflnger.  In  apply- 
ing, therefore,  this  langiuige  to  Uib 
mind,  we  may  conclude,  with  confidence, 
that  Leibnita  bad  no  intention  to  cou- 
trast  together  mind  and  body,  in  respect 
of  their  moving  or  actustiiig  principlei^ 
but  only  to  contrast  tbem  in  i 
the  a«lntinieei  of  which  tliey 
posed.  In  a  word,  be  concwved  both  i 
them  to  bo  equally  mocAiuu,  made  ui 
wound  up  by  the  Supreme  Being ;  but 
the  macMner;  in  tlie  one  case  to  he 
material,  and  in  the  other  s^nritual. 

'  The  [bllowing  remark  in  Uadane 
de  Stjial's  Interealing  and  eloquent  re- 
view of  German  philoHophy,  bears  morki 
of  a  baste  and  precipitation  with  which 
her  criticiama  are  aeldom  cbnrgeaUe : 
"  Iiea  njiiniins  de  Leibiiiti  tcudent  sur- 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


265 


The  scheme  of  necessity  was  still  farther  adorned  and  su- 
blimed in  the  Theodiccea  of  Leibnitz,  by  an  imagination  nurtured 
and  trained  in  the  school  of  Plato.  "  May  there  not  exist/'  he 
asks  on  one  occasion,  "  an  immense  space  beyond  the  region  of 
the  stars  ?  and  may  not  this  empyreal  heaven  be  filled  with 
happiness  and  glory?  It  may  be  conceived  to  resemble  an 
ocean,  where  the  rivers  of  all  those  created  beings  that  are 
destined  for  bliss  shall  finish  their  course,  when  arrived  in  the 
starry  system,  at  the  perfection  of  their  respective  natures." — 
Leib.  Op.  tom.  i.  p.  135.^ 


tout  au  perfecdonnemcnt  mora],  B*il  est 
Trai,  comme  les  philosophes  Allemandfl 
ont  tacb^  de  le  pronver,  que  le  libre  ar- 
bitre  repose  sur  la  doctrine  qui  affranchit 
I'iLme  des  objets  extcrieurcs,  et  que  la 
vertu  ne  puisae  exister  sans  la  pariaite 
ind^pendance  du  vouloir." 

[*  I  cannot  omit  this  opportunity  of 
remarking  an  Historical  inaccuracy 
which  has  escaped  the  pen  of  Madame 
de  Stael,  who,  in  one  of  her  latest  and 
most  brilliant  works,  has  pointed  out 
Leibnitz  as  the  first  Philosopher  who 
raised  his  voice  against  the  prevailing 
Materialism  and  Necessitarianism  of  his 
contemporaries.  To  the  fint  part  of 
this  praise  he  was  certainly  well  en- 
titled ;  but  as  to  the  second  it  is  so  com- 
pletely at  variance  with  the  uniform 
tenor  of  his  doctrines,  that  if  I  were 
called  on  to  name  the  individual  who 
had  contributed  the  most  during  the  last 
century  to  the  propagation  of  the  dogma 
in  question,  I  would  without  hesitation 
fix  upon  Leibnitz.  It  not  only  forms  the 
basis  of  the  two  theories  which  have 
been  already  mentioned,  but  is  stated 
by  the  author  w^ith  all  the  confidence  of 
demonstration  as  au  obvious  and  indis- 
putable corollary  from  his  favourite  prin- 
ciple of  the  Sufficient  Reason ; — a  prin- 
ciple on  which  I  intend  to  offer  here- 
after some  remarks.  .  .  .  The  mistake 
of  Madame  de  Stael  with  respect  to  the 


spirit  of  the  Leibnitzian  system,  is  com- 
mon to  her  with  many  French  and  even 
with  some  English  writers.  The  author 
of  the  Tableau  de  la  Littirature  t^ran- 
^ise,  thus  expresses  himself:  "  La  sci- 
ence de  Tame,  telle  a  et6  la  noble  etude 
de  Descartes,  de  Pascal,  de  Malebranche, 
de  Jjcibnitz.  Cette  metaphysique  les 
conduisait  directemcut  k  toutes  les 
questions  qui  importent  le  plus  a  notre 
coeur ;  .  .  .  et  aux  plus  nobles  des 
sciences,  &  la  religion  et  b.  la  morale.*' 
—Tableau,  &c.  pp.  87,  88.J 

*  The  celebrated  Charles  Bonnet,  in 
his  work  entitled,  Contemplation  de  la 
Nature,  has  indulged  his  imagination 
so  far,  in  following  out  the  above  con- 
jecture of  Leibnitz,  as  to  rival  some  of 
the  wildest  flights  of  Jacob  Behmen. 
*'  Mais  I'echclle  de  la  creation  ne  so 
termine  point  au  plus  Aleves  des  mondes 
planetaircs.  lA  commence  un  autre 
univers,  dont  Tetendue  est  peut-ctre  k 
ccUe  de  I'univers  des  Fixes,  ce  qu'est 
I'espaco  du  systeme  solaire  ^  la  capacite 
d'une  noix. 

"  lA,  comme  des  Abtreb  resplcndis- 
sans,  brillcnt  les  IIierabchies  Ce- 
lestes. 

"  JA  rayonncnt  de  toutes  parts  les 
Angea,  les  ARCiiANOEfl,  IcH  Sekapitins, 
les  CiiKRUBiNS,  les  Tkone«,  les  Vertus, 
les  Principautes,  les  Dominations,  les 
Puissances. 


♦  Restored.— J5tf. 


UIDSEHTATIUN,—  fAilT  SBCOKD. 

In  various  otiier  inatances,  he  rises  from  the  dee p  and  seem- 
iiigly  hojMilesa  abyss  of  Fatalimn,  to  the  aame  lofty  concejitioaa 
of  the  universe ;  and  has  thi^  insesteti  the  most  liiuaihating 
article  of  tlie  atheistic  creed,  with  an  air  of  Platonic  mysticism. 
Tlie  influence  of  Ids  example  appears  to  me  to  have  contri- 
buted much  to  cormpt  the  tasf*  and  to  bewilder  the  specula^-  I 
tious  of  his  countrymen ;  giving  birth  in  the  last  result,  to  ' 
that  heterogeneous  combination  of  all  that  is  jkti 
Spinozism,  with  the  transcendental  eccentricities  of  a  heated 
and  exalted  fancy,  which,  for  many  years  past,  has  so  deeply 
tinctm-ed  both  their  philosophy  and  their  works  of  fiction.* 


"Aucontrede  cosAcousTEsSpHEttES, 
cclnte  1e  Soleil  de  Jitstice,  i-'OBienT 
D'EnHAnT,  dont  touB  lea  Abtbes  em- 
pnmtent  Ibot  inmiireplleuraplendpiir." 

"  La  Theodieft  du  Laibnitz,"  tlie 
■Mn«  author  tells  \a  in  another  piuaagc, 
"  est  mi  dc  mee  livreg  de  devotion  :  J  'si 
intitnlf  mini  Exompbure,*  Manuel  de 
PhiloiopAit  Chrfliaine." 

'  "  The  gross  appclito  of  Love  (nys 
Gibbon)  becomes  most  dangerous  when 
it  is  elevatcil,  or  ralber  diagaiBed,  lij 
■entimenlal  passion."  The  remark  is 
atrikingl?  applicable  [o  some  of  tbii  most 
popiiUr  DOTcls  and  dramas  of  Germ&cy ; 
and  something  tcry  aimilar  to  it  will  be 
found  to  hold  with  respect  to  those  spe- 
culative extravagances  which,  in  the 
German  ijetemB  of  philosophy,  are  e'r- 
vatfd  or  iliigtand  bf  the  imposing  caitt 
of  moral  eathuaiasm. 

In  one  of  Lcibniti'a  controversial  dis- 
cussione  with  Dr.  Clnrke,  thvrc  is  a  pas- 
saga  which  throws  some  light  on  his 

in  judging  of  works  of  imagination. 
"  Da  temps  do  H.  Boyle,  et  d'autrcs 
eicellans  hommoa  qui  flcuriasoient  en 
Angletorre  sous  Charles  II.  on  n'auroit 
pas  oa£  nous  debitor  de»  wih'ons  n 
cutUK*.  {Thx  itottma  here  alluded  to 
are  Ouue  of  Newtoa  coiuxmhg  the  law 
of  grauUa^on!)     J'eapere  quo  lo  beau- 


gouTemi-ment   que   cclui  tVi,  present, 
Lc  capital  de  H.  Boyle  etoit  dlnoalqaeF 
que  tout  se  liiiaat  mfeaitiqutrntnt  dana 
la  physique.     Uais  c'est  un  malfaenr 
del  hommoa,  te  se  dfgouter  enfin  de  !■  ,  j 
raison  nii'mc,  et  do  s'ennuyer  d 
lumi^re.    Lea  chimeres  conimenci 
revcnir,  et  plaiscat  paree  qu'elles  ont 
quelque  chose  de  merveillciix.    H  sr- 
rlvc  dnus  le  pays  philosophiqne  ce  qui 
est  arrive  dans  le  pays  poetique.     On   . 
e'cst  lasBC  das  romana  raisonnables,  lei  | 
que  In  Clilie  Frcmgoiie  ou  VAnraihie-  J 
AUanande;  et  on  est   revcnn  depi 
qncli^uD  temps  am  Cantet  det  Ftet."- 
CiHTuibiif fbnfde H.Leibnitz, p. !<S6^   ] 

From  this  passage  it  woold  seem,  that  \ 
Leihniti  hioked  forward  to  the  period 
when  ibe  dreams  of  the  Newtonian  phi- 
losophy would  give  way  to  some  of  the 
ciploded  mechanical  theories  of  the 
universe ;  and  when  the  Fairy-Vde* 
Ihpn  in  fashion  (among  which  number 
must  have  been  included  those  of  Count 
Anthony  Hamilton)  wonld  be  suppUot- 
cd  by  ibe  revival  of  snch  reiuoiiaUs 
Rrrmimcu  as  the  Qnmd  CIdia.  In 
neither  of  these  inirtances  does  there 
seem  to  be  much  probability,  at  pre- 
sent, that  liis  prediction  will  he  ever 
verified. 

Tho  German  writers,  wlio,  of  lata 
years,  have  made  the  greatest  noisa 
among  thp  Biiolists  cf  this  country,  wilt 


MSTAPHTSICS  OURiKG  TU£  UUinKKNTtt  CKNTi'HY, 


^til 


In  other  parts  of  Europe,  the  e£fSM)U  of  ii\^  Th0{HliiHm  hnvu 
not  been  equaUy  unfavourable.  lu  Fnuioo,  nioro  ]HU'U(niliU'))', 
it  has  furnished  to  the  few  who  have  cuUivaUHl  witti  niiiHH^NM 
the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  new  weapons  for  (HunluUiiiK  l\\0 
materialism  of  the  Qassendists  and  Hobbists ;  anil,  in  KdkIiuuI, 
we  are  indebted  to  it  for  the  irresistible  reasoniuKH  by  yfhMt 
Garke  subverted  the  foundations  on  wluch  Uio  whole  nuiw^ 
structure  of  Fatalism  rests. 


be  found  less  indebted  for  tbeir  fame  to 
the  Bew  lights  which  they  have  struck 
out,  than  to  the  unexpected  and  gro- 
tesque forms  in  which  they  have  com- 
bined together  the  materials  supplied 
bj  the  invention  of  former  ages,  and  of 
other  nations.  It  is  this  combination 
of  truth  and  error  in  their  philosophical 
systems,  and  of  right  and  wrong  in  their 
works  of  fiction,  which  has  enabled 
them  to  perplex  the  understandings, 
and  to  unsettle  the  principles  of  so 
many,  both  in  Metaphysics  and  Ethics. 
In  point  of  profound  and  exteusiTe  eni- 
ditioo,  the  scholars  of  Germany  still 
continue  to  maintain  their  hug  est*- 
bhabed  superiority  orer  the  rest  of 
Europe. 

'  A  Tery  interesting  aooooai  is  given 
by  Leibnitx.  of  tke  dmnauacM  which 
gave  oocanou  u*  hi*  Tkec^diema,  in  s 
ktter  to  a  Scutch  gKaiilnuaxL  Ifx.  hm- 
net  of  Keaner ;  to  vIkbi  he  neeaus  to 
have  onlwwaed  Liaoaeikf  en  «21  vu^jhit^ 
without  sfiT  n«erre :  *'  lluu  htn  juu- 
titiile  F«sffi'f  di  TlnSudio^  sur  Is  buuSt 
de  I>X4L  }a  iliitine  dt  llHjauitrt-,  tit 
rorigizK;  de  natl,  sera  iunuliA  it/dLiv^i. 
La  phs§  puiiUf  fiimitr  dt-  uui  uurruia' 
aTost  tct  ikht  yuz  mmliettux..  tjuiuid  jn 
toe  truuT'.iii^  cikvz  in  i<iut  J^ui*  iW 
PnuMR;.  m  ij«  muueT»,'(h  ♦nui»nit  »uu*uut 
s^3U«fr  b  J  tr'juttHiuL  au  l*i''Uimuttin  trt 
de»  antref  ^lurTUi^u^  at  m.  ikiyit  qu  inj 
r  httuii  i«buutiiu)^.  Apt^  itt  luxirr  (k 
cntair  gnoiut^  I'riuuuww..  ;'  ui    ruM^^uiUlt' 


des  amis  qui  en  ^toient  Inforni^s,  nt  J'ttn 
ai  (ait  I'ouvrage  dont  Jn  vi«iiH  d«  parlor. 
Commo  J'ai  m^'dit^  sur  onttis  ifialUirM 
depuis  ma  JeuiieMse,  Ja  pr^t^itils  dn 
I'avoir  discut^e  k  fond."- l^lbiiUii, 
Opera,  torn.  yL  p.  2S4. 

In  another  letter  to  the  samit  eitrrti- 
spondeut,  he  f%itT*:nittu  hifiiM^lf  thus  { — 

*'  La  plufMirt  di}  uwu  mtuiiutituit  tmi 
kXJk  euSn  arri-ti^s  apr^s  u\m  tUiMU^ni^iinu 
de  20  aiis:  car  j'ai  anuutttutM  bi^w 
jeune  k  iii«^it«r,  et  J«  n'av<4«  pN#  ttu^Jtfit 
16  ans,  quaii/l  j"  M^tr  itriHit*rit4Ait  <trs 
joum«)«rs  euti/;f«N  daiM  uii  1#(/U«  pc^^r 
prendre  partj  <rfitr«  Aii«i>/t«  #1  Ui-m** 
cnu.  Ckyttwitmi  i'tti  t^Uimi^  «i  ri 
chaog^  sttf  dk^  mmti:iUc4  UuttiicrtcMf  «i 
c«  litest  que  d«rp«u*  *i»t^<^  f  lit  aMK  *^*m 
je  OMr  tf^Mve  aBt4«6iit«  H  q«bv  >«  s«i^ 
amie  a  dtr*  dittiMMit#iilM««s    mwt  aass 

ablit«  ^   <>fArft«d«A4  4ir  ia  MMMUMf^  ^^  >« 
my  ^nrtnim,  oes  <b(«(M«ufl#4ilM4lUS |M»V>^«)Mt 

qUitt^Ul;  k  ^Xt/A  ^<i»t»  J'JMtSi^^AtlXtoMH-'  - 

I'iMc  it«b«r  irvau  wiutii  Um*  JUma  ymi^ 

Igr*^  jut  IsiMtti  il>  <iaUid  Mi  lUr  >  MIM  iiUV7 

t^i^uivuu.  ««k*  Vv  ik'  ai»«'«    «kii    ikU>ui<i 

bit)    i»IV|.  Ot«Mii,    V^     tU«      i4#<4l>l    i^tj/VNTilMlt 


268 


DISBERTATIOK. — PAttT  SSCOSD. 


It  may  be  justly  regarded  as  a  proof  of  the  progress  of  l 
reason  and  good  sense  among  the  Metaphysicians  of  this  I 
L'ouutry  since  the  time  of  Leibnitz,  that  tlie  two  tlieories  of  1 
wliich  I  have  been  speaking,  and  which,  not  more  than  a  J 
century  ago,  were  honoured  by  the  opitosition  of  such  an  I 
antagonist  as  Clarke,  are  now  remembered  only  as  subjects  I 
of  literary  history. — In  the  arguments,  however,  alleged  ia  4 
Bupijort  of  these  theories,  there  are  some  logical  principles  J 
involved,  which  still  continue  to  have  an  extensive  influence! 
over  the  reasonings  of  the  leamal,  on  questions  seemingly  the  I 
most  remote  from  all  metapliysical  conclusions.  The  two  most  4 
prominent  of  these  are,  the  principle  of  the  Sufficient  i 
and  the  Law  of  CojUinuiti/  ;  both  of  them  so  intimately  con-t  I 
nected  with  some  of  the  most  celebrated  disputes  of  the  1 
century,  as  to  require  a  more  particular  notice  than  may,  atl 
first  aght,  seem  due  to  their  importance, 
difibKnt  from  that  of  Bujlo.  Gibboa  ingenuit.r  and  leaming  in  sapport  of  ■ 
liypoth^BJa  to  wliirh  he  aUselied  t 
Giith  whatCYcr ;  aa  bypotheas,  he  migft 
hiiye  added,  with  wliiob  ibo  wlioio  p:' 
cifJuB  uf  his  philosophy  are  Bj'itr 
callj,  and,  ts  he  conceived,  malht 
eally  connected.  It  U  difficult  to  b< 
that  omonf;  Che  innumurable  or 
dnDlB  of  Leibnitz,  he  Bbnold  hi 
Icoitd  a  I^feSBor  of  Theology  at 
gen,  nft  Uiv  lule  depuHlary  of  a  n 
which  he  WM  aniioua  to  concwd  from  ~ 
nil  Ihe  rest  of  the  world. 

Surety  a  solitary  docunuMit  Buch  u 
thiB«eighii  Icsa  Ihan  nothing,  whon  op- 
poied  to  the  delaila  quoted  in  the  bs- 
gianing;  of  tbie  Dote ;  not  to  mentioii  iti 
complete  inconsietcncy  with  the  ohar- 
ncler  of  Leibnitz,  and  vilh  the  wbola 
lonor  ofhia  writitig;^. 

For  my  Own  part,  I  cannot  1 
thinking,  that  the  posiage  in  qnei 
boa  fur  more  tho  air  of  perti/age,  p 
Totpd  by  the  vanity  of  PfaPGuB,  tbi 
a  serious  cotnpUuiBnt  tii  his  sngi 
and  penotrnlion.  No  injnnction  l< 
rrecy,  it  is  lo  he  obaerveJ,  is  here  g 
by  Leilinita  to  his  cnriPFpondcnt. 


(0  for  as  to  say,  that  "  in 
his  defence  of  the  attribulen  and  provi- 
dence of  tho  Deity,  ho  was  suspacU-'d 
of  a  wcret  correspondence  vritli  his  ad- 
versary." — {Aiiliquiltft  of  the  Haute  of 
tiruntaick.)  In  support  of  this  very 
imprabsblo  chargr,  1  do  not  know  that 
gjiy  BvidencB  has  aver  been  produced, 
eicejit  the  following  passage,  in  ^  tetter 
of  hiH  addressed  tn  a  Professor  of  Theo- 
logy in  tho  UniTenBtj  of  Ttibiugen 
(P&fEns):— "  Ita  pronus  est,  vir  suni- 
nie  reverends,  uti  scribia.  de  Theodiciea 
men.  Rum  at^o  tetigisti ;  ct  miror, 
n«iniiiein  hactonns  fiiisse,  qui  scnsiim 
hone  mcuni  senaerit.  Neque  enim  Fhi- 
losophomin  est  rem  serin  semper  agero ; 
qui  in  fiugendia  hypotheaibua,  uti  bene 
nionca.  kgenli  sui  vires  experiuntur, 
Tu,  qui  TbeolngiiB,  in  refutandia  errori- 
biu  Thcologiun  agis."  In  reply  to  this  it 
is  otiservcit,  by  the  leaned  editor  of  Leib- 
nitz's works,  (Dntena,)  that  it  is  much 
more  probable  that  Lcihnitu  should  have 
cxprcBBcd  himsetf  on  tbia  particular  ncrn- 
lion  in  jocular  and  ironirni  terms,  than 
Ibat  he  Bhonld  have  wutted  au  much 


MBTAPHTSIC8  DURING  THE  EIQHTRENTM  CENTURY. 


269 


I.  Of  the  principle  of  the  Sufficient  Reason^  the  following 
succinct  account  is  given  by  Leibnitz  himself,  in  his  contro- 
versial correspondence  with  Dr.  Clarke : — "  The  great  founda- 
tion of  Mathematics  is  the  principle  of  contradiction  or  identity; 
that  is,  that  a  proposition  cannot  be  true  and  false  at  the  same 
time.  But,  in  order  to  proceed  from  Mathematics  to  Natural 
Philosophy,  another  principle  is  requisite,  (as  I  have  observed 
in  my  Theodiccea;)  I  mean  the  principle  of  the  Svfficieni 
Reason ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  nothing  happens  without  a 
reason  why  it  should  be  so,  rather  than  otherwise :  And,  ac- 
cordingly, Archimedes  was  obliged,  in  his  book  De  JEquilibriOj 
to  take  for  granted,  that  if  there  be  a  balance,  in  which  every- 
thing is  alike  on  both  sides,  and  if  equal  weights  are  himg  on 
the  two  ends  of  that  balance,  the  whole  will  be  at  rest.  It  is 
because  no  reason  can  be  given  why  one  side  should  weigh 
down  rather  than  the  other.  Now,  by  this  single  principle  of 
the  Sufficient  Reason,  may  be  demonstrated  the  being  of  a 
God,  and  all  the  other  j^arts  of  Metaphysics  or  Natural 
Theology;  and  even,  in  some  measure,  those  physical  truths 
that  are  independent  of  Mathematics,  such  as  the  Dynamical 
Principles,  or  the  Principles  of  Forces."^ 

Some  of  the  inferences  deduced  by  Leibnitz  from  this  almost 
gratuitous  assumption  are  so  paradoxical,  that  one  cannot  help 
wondering  he  was  not  a  little  staggered  about  its  certainty. 
Not  only  was  he  led  to  conclude,  that  the  mind  is  necessarily 
determined  in  all  its  elections  by  the  influence  of  motives,  in- 
somuch that  it  would  be  impossible  for  it  to  make  a  choice 
between  two  things  perfectly  alike ;  but  he  had  the  boldness  to 
extend  this  conclusion  to  the  Deity,  and  to  assert,  that  two 


*  [♦  The  following  sentence  in  a  letter 
from  Leibnitz  to  M.  Des  Maizeaux,  af- 
fords A  strong  proof  of  the  importance 
which  he  attached  to  the  principle  in 
question. — (See  Leib.  Opera,  vol.  v.  pp. 
38,  39.)  "  J'esp^'re  qn'il  y  a  beaucoup 
<le  gens  en  Angleterre,  qui  ne  seront 
pas  de  I'avis  de  Mr.  Newton  ou  de  Mr. 
Clarke   sur  la   Philosophie,  et  qui    ne 


gouteroni  point  les  Attractions  pro- 
prement  dites  ;  ni  le  Vuide  ;  ni  le  Sen- 
gortum  de  Dieu  ;  ni  cetto  imperfection 
de  rUnivers,  qui  oblige  Dieu  de  le  re- 
dresser  de  t^ms  en  terns ;  ni  la  necessity 
ou  lea  sectateurs  de  Newton  se  trou- 
vent,  de  nicr  le  grand  PrinrijK;  du 
Iwsoin  d'une  liaison  Suffisante,  par 
lequelje  les  bats  en  mine."] 


•  Rertorfcl.— K*f. 


270 


niSSERTATION. — PART  BECONI), 


things  perfectly  alike  coiild  not  have  been  produced  even  h/M 
Dndne  Power.     It  was  upon  this  ground  tlmt  he  rejected  a 
vacuum,  because  all  the  parts  of  it  would !«  perfectly  like  to  eacltfl 
other ;  and  that  he  also  rejected  the  supiHMiition  of  aloniB,  o 
similar  particles  of  matter,  and  ascrilted  to  each  pai-ficle  l 
monad,  or  active  principle,  by  which  it  is  discriminated  from 
every  other  particle.'     The  application  of  his  principle,  hoW'^ 
ever,  on  which  he  evidently  valued  himself  the  most,  was  t 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded ;  the  demonstrative  evidenodfl 
with  which  he  conceived  it  to  establish  the  impossibility  i 
free-agency,  not  only  in   man,  but   in  any  other   intelligeoifl 
lieing:*   a  concUision  which,  under  whatever  form  of  words  iH 
may  be  disguised,  is  liable  to  every  objection  which  can  1 
urged  against  the  system  of  Spinoza. 


•  Tha  following; 
part  or  the  Leibnitrian  ByBlem  i«  from 
the  pen  of  one  of  Ue  greatest  ndmtn-ra, 
Charbs  Bomietr  "Cette  MltaphyriquB 
tnnuwndante  daviemlre  un  pen  plm 
intelligible,  ai  I'on  fuit  atlcntion,  i^u'en 
vertu  du  prineipe  de  U  rniion  tuffuanif, 
tniit  est  neceMuiremGnt  Vie  daaH  I'linl- 
VEr».  ToutcB  les  Acliona  des  Elres 
Simples  sont  bannoniques,  ou  subordoti- 

actuel  lie  I'activitc  d'utic  monade  don- 
nee,  est  detenninS  par  t'exeroice  actuel 
de  I'activitc  dea  monndea  miiqnallee 
ello  (■orreapond  inunediotcmeiit.  Cetle 
convsponduice  continue  d'lin  point  qiict- 
Ronque  de  I'umvors  jiuqii'A  aus  oitre- 
milcs.  Repriiaenlei-roui  leu  ordrea  cir- 
cnlsires  et  concentriques  qu'uce  jiierro 
eicito  dsna  une  eoii  dnrmantB:  Ellsa 
Tont  loufnura  en  B'f'largiasant  et  en 
a'affuiblisfunt. 

"  Mais,  I'elst  actnel  d'une  moaaJe 
est  Decestairement  dvtcnnine  pnr  son 
Etat  ulvcedent:  Cclui-ci  par  un  ftat 
qui  a  precede,  et  una  en  remontant 
jusqtt'i  I'inslant  de  la  creation.  .  ■  . 


"  AJnai  le  pfiaup,  1e  prcaent.  et  It 
fiitur  ne  fonnent  dans  la  meme  monad* 
qirnn(>  seule  chain''.  Nutra  philoonphe 
diaoit  ing&iieiiBemenl,  que  leprtaaa  at 
loujouri  groi  <U  I'mfnlr. 

"  11  diaoit  encore  que  VExt 
niStre  rf  solvoit  aims  cosae  ce  Pro1>Unuij| 
I'ftat  d'une   monade   Itant  doDD^,  t 
dftenniner  I'^l  pMsi,  prfsent,  et  futnr 
do  tout  I'lmiveni." — Bovket,  tot 
pp.  303-305. 

[■  For  some  accoiinl  of  the  n 
of  Wolff,  see  £»(fr— Letlres,  76,  99. 

To  tbis  hjpotheaia  Wolff  w 
rallj  led  b;  the  phrase  Spiritual  n 
dine,  vhich   Leibnitz  applied  to  I 

In   B  view  of  the   NeoeantATun  i 
Best  Bcbeine,  ascribed  to  Collina,  a, 
commonly  anneneil  to  bia  Inqxnr;  « 
ccming  human  UbcriT,  I  Had  llie  BA- 
lowing  sentence  : — "  Thnt   our   bodka 
are  machines  is  not  donied,  but  I  n 
lieanl   that   Leibnitz   cnlled   spiril*  o 
inlelligcncci   madiinei."     This  aingi«,J 
Bonleuce  affords  a  proof  how  imper{iwtI|'iB 
the  writer  waa  acquainted  with  Lcitu 


METAPHTSICS  DURING  THE  BIOHTESNTH  CENTURY.        271 


With  respect  to  the  principle  from  wliich  these  important 
consequences  were  deduced,  it  is  observable,  that  it  is  stated  by 
Leibnitz  in  terms  so  general  and  vague,  as  to  extend  to  all  the 
different  departments  of  our  knowledge ;  for  he  teUs  us,  that 
there  must  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  every  existence^  for  every 
everU^  and  for  every  truth.  This  use  of  the  word  reason  is  so 
extremely  equivocal,  that  it  is  quite  imj>08sible  to  annex  any 
precise  idea  to  the  proposition.  Of  this  it  is  unnecessary  to 
produce  any  other  proof  than  the  application  which  is  here 
made  of  it  to  things  so  very  different  as  existences^  events,  and 
truths;  in  all  of  which  cases,  it  must  of  necessity  have  differ- 
ent meanings.  It  would  be  a  vain  attempt,  therefore,  to  com- 
bat the  maxim  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  commonly  appealed 
to :  nor,  indeed,  can  we  either  adopt  or  reject  it,  without  con- 
sidering particularly  how  far  it  holds  in  the  various  instances 
to  which  it  may  be  applied. 

The  multifarious  discussions,  however,  of  a  physical,  a  meta- 
physical, and  a  theologiciil  nature,^  necessarily  involved  in  so 
detailed  an  examination,  would,  in  the  present  times,  (even  if 
this  were  a  proper  place  for  introducing  them,)  be  equally  use- 
less and  uninteresting;  the  peculiar  opinions  of  Leibnitz  oh 
most  questions  connected  with  these  sciences  having  already 
fallen  into  complete  neglect  But  as  the  maxim  still  continues 
to  be  quoted  by  the  latest  advocates  for  the  scheme  of  necessity, 
it  may  not  be  altogether  superfluous  to  observe,  that,  when 
understood  to  refer  to  the  changes  that  take  place  in  the 
material  universe,  it  coincides  entirely  with  the  common  maxim, 
that  "  every  cliange  implies  the  operation  of  a  cause;"  and 
that  it  is  in  consequence  of  its  intuitive  evidence  in  this  par- 


*  Since  the  time  of  Ix'ibnitz,  tlio 
principle  of  the  mifficient  reawn  lias 
been  adopted  by  nomo  mathematicians 
as  a  legitimate  mode  of  reasoning  in 
plane  geometry ;  in  which  case,  the  ap- 
plication made  of  it  has  been  in  general 
just  and  logical,  notwithstanding  the 
vague  and  loose  manner  in  which  it  is 
expressed.  In  this  science,  however, 
the  use  of  it  can  never  be  attended  with 


much  advantage ;  except  perhaps  in 
demonstrating  a  few  elementary  truths, 
(such  as  the  5th  and  6th  propositions 
of  Euclid's  first  book,)  which  are  com- 
monly eHtablished  by  a  more  circuitous 
process :  and  even  in  these  instances, 
the  spirit  of  the  reasoning  might  easily 
be  preserved  under  a  different  form, 
much  less  exceptionable  in  point  cif 
phraseology. 


DIBSBHTATlOlf. — PAST  BEOOND, 

ticiilar  case,  tliat  so  many  have  been  led  to  acquiesce  ia  it,  in] 
the  unlimited  It'ims  in  which  Leibnitz  has  announced  it. 
thing  will  be  readily  granted,  that  the  maxim,  when  applied  t 
the  determinations  of  iatelligent  and  moral  agen(«,  Ih  not  quiSk 
»ii  obvious  and  indisputable,  a&  when  applied  %a  the  changt 
that  lake  place  in  things  altogether  inanimate  and  jmssive. 

Wliat  then,  it  may  be  asked,  induced  Leibnitii,  in  the  emu 
ciation  of  his  maxim,  to  depart  from  the  form  in  which  it  has 
generally  been  stated,  and  to  substitute  instead  of  tlie  word 
caitse,  the  word  reason,  which  is  certainly  not  only  the  mora 
imusual,  but  the  more  ambiguous  expression  of  the  two  ?    Wa| 
it  not  evidently  a  perception  of  the  uupropriety  of  calling  t 
motives  from  which  we  act  the  cauaea  of  our  actions ;  or,  a 
least  of  the  inconsistency  of  this  language  with  the  commca 
ideas  and  feelings  of  mankind  ?      The  word  reason 
much  loss  suspicious,  and  much  more  likely  to  pass  ciurend 
without  examination.    It  was  therefore  with  no  small  ilexteritj 
that  Leibnitz  contrived  to  express  his  general  principle  in 
a  manner,  that  the  impropriety  of  his  language  should  be  mot 
apparent  in  that  case  in  which  the  proposition  is  instants 
ously  admitted  by  every  reader  as  self-evident ;  and  to  adajll 
it,  in  its  most  precise  and  definite  shape,  to  the  case  in  whic^ 
it  was  in  the  greatest  danger  of  undergoing  a  severe  scrutit^ 
In  this  respect  he  has  managed  Ids  argument  with  more  add] 
than  Collins,  or  Edwards,  or  Hume,  all  of  whom  have  applied 
the  maxim  to  mtnd,  in  the  very  same  words  in  which  it  i 
usually  applied  to  inanimate  matter. 

But  on  this  article  of  Leibnitz's  philosophy,  which  gave 
occasion  to  his  celebrated  controversy  with  Clarke,  I  shall  havanj 
a  more  convenient  opportimitj-  to  offer  some  strictiues,  when  1 1 
come  to  take  notice  of  another  antagonist,  more  formidablty 
still,  whom  Clarke  had  soon  after  to  contend  with  on  the  s 
ground.  The  person  I  allude  to  is  Anthony  Collins,  a  write 
certainly  not  once  to  he  compared  with  Leibnitz  ia  the  graspj 
of  his  intellectual  powers ;  but  who  seems  to  have  studied  1 
pjirticular  question  with  greater  attention  and  accuracy,  aiidj 
who  is  universally  allowed  to  have  defended  liis  opinions  con-1 


METAFHYHICH  DUliiSU  THE  EIUUTKENTU  CENTl'KY.         *J73 

cerning  it  in  a  luaiiuer  fur  more  likely  to  uiiHleiul  tlie  opinioiiH 
Off  the  multitude. 

II.  The  siuue  remark  which  hoH  ]\wn  already  made  on  the 
I>rinciplc  of  the  Suffwient  Jiamm,  may  Ix;  extended  to  that  of 
the  Law  of  Continuity,  In  both  instances  the  phnifieolo^'  is  so 
indeterminate,  that  it  may  be  iiiteq)reted  in  various  senses 
essentially  different  from  «ich  other ;  and,  accordingly,  it  would 
be  idle  to  argue  against  either  principle  as  a  gencnd  theorem, 
witliout  attending  sei>aratc^ly  to  the  siK'cialties  of  the  manifold 
cases  which  it  may  Ikj  understood  to  comprehend.  Where  such 
a  latitude  is  taken  in  the  enunciation  of  a  pro]x)sitiou,  which, 
so  iiM  as  it  is  tnie,  must  luive  l)een  inferred  from  an  induction 
of  particulars,  it  is  at  least  i)ossible  tlmt  while  it  holds  in  some 
of  its  applications,  it  may  yet  be  far  from  i^ssessing  any  chiim 
to  that  universidity  which  seems  nea»ssarily  to  IxJong  to  it, 
when  considereil  in  the  light  of  a  meta])hysicid  axiom,  resting 
on  its  own  intrinsic  evidence. 

AVhether  this  vagueness  of  language  was  the  eflect  of  arti- 
fice, or  of  a  real  vagueness  in  the  author's  notions,  may  i^Thajw 
l)e  doubted ;  but  that  it  liiu*  contributed  greatly  to  extend  his 
reputation  among  a  very  numerous  class  of  retiders,  may  be 
confidently  asst»rteiL  The  possession  of  a  general  maxim, 
sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  an  illustrious  name,  and  in 
which,  as  in  those  of  the  schoolmen,  more  seems  to  he  meant 
than  meets  the  ear,  afi<>rds  of  itself  no  slight  gratification  to  the 
vanity  of  many ;  nor  is  it  uiconvenient  for  a  disputant,  that 
the  maxims  to  which  he  is  t^)  ai)i)eal  should  be  statinl  in  so 
dubious  a  shape*,  as  to  enable  him,  when  pn^ssed  in  an  argu- 
ment, to  shift  his  ground  at  pleasure,  from  one  interpretation 
to  another.  The  extraordinaiy  jMipularity  which,  in  our  own 
times,  the  i)hilosoj)hy  of  Kant  enjoyed  for  a  few  years,  among 
the  countrnnen  of  Leibnitz,  may,  in  like  manner,  Ih'  in  a  great 
degi'ee  as(!rilx.Ml  to  the  imj)08ing  asjK^ct  of  his  enigmatical 
onicles,  and  to  the  conse<pient  facility  of  arguing  without  end, 
in  defence  of  a  system  so  tnmsmutable  and  st)  cluHive  in  its 
forms. 

The  extension,  lujwcver,  given  to  the  L(tu'  of  Otttt limit ij^  in 
Vol.  r.  s 


274  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

the  lator  publications  of  Leibnitz,  and  still  more  by  some  of  his 
successorSj  has  been  far  greater  than  there  is  any  reason  to 
think  was  originally  in  the  author's  contemplation.  It  first 
occurred  to  him  in  the  course  of  one  of  his  physical  contro- 
versies, and  was  probably  suggested  by  the  beautiful  exempli- 
fications of  it  which  occur  in  pure  geometry.  At  that  time  it 
does  not  appear  that  he  had  the  slightest  idea  of  its  being 
susceptible  of  any  application  to  the  objects  of  natural  history, 
far  less  to  the  succession  of  events  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 
worlds.  The  supposition  of  bodies  perfectly  hard,  having 
been  shown  to  be  inconsistent  with  two  of  his  leading  doc- 
trines, that  of  the  constant  maintenance  of  the  same  quantity 
of  force  in  the  Universe,  and  that  of  the  proportionality  of 
forces  to  the  squares  of  the  velocities. — he  found  himself 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  asserting,  that  all  changes  are 
produced  by  insensible  gradations,  so  as  to  render  it  impossible 
for  a  body  to  have  its  state  changed  from  motion  to  rest,  or 
from  rest  to  motion,  without  passing  through  all  the  inter- 
mediate states  of  velocity.  From  this  assumption  he  argued, 
with  much  ingenuity,  that  the  existence  of  atoms,  or  of  per- 
fectly hard  bodies,  is  impossible ;  because,  if  two  of  them 
should  meet  with  equal  and  opposite  motions,  they  would 
necessarily  stop  at  once,  in  violation  of  the  laiv  of  co7itinutty. 
It  would,  perhaps,  have  been  still  more  logical,  had  he  argued 
against  the  universality  of  a  law  so  gratuitously  a^^siuned,  from 
its  incompatibility  with  an  hy|)othesis,  which,  whether  true  or 
false,  certainly  involves  nothing  either  contradictory  or  impro- 
bable :  but  as  this  inversion  of  the  argument  would  have 
undermined  some  of  the  fundamental  j^rinciples  of  his  physical 
system,  he  chose  rather  to  adopt  the  other  alternative,  and  to 
announce  the  law  of  continuity  as  a  metaphysical  truth,  which 
admitted  of  no  exception  whatever.  The  facility  with  which 
this  lata  has  been  adopted  by  subsequent  philosophers  is  not 
easily  explicable ;  more  especially,  as  it  has  been  maintained 
by  many  who  reject  those  physical  errors,  in  defence  of  which 
Leibnitz  was  first  led  to  advance  it. 

One  of  the  earliest,  and  cei-tainly  the  most  illustrious,  of  all 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTLUY. 


27"! 


the  |)artiRUii8  and  dcfoiulers  of  tliiti  priuci])le,  was  John  Bor- 
nouiUi,  whose  DiHcourse  on  Motion  firnt  ai)ix^ar(Hl  at  Paris  in 
1727,  having  l)een  previously  communicated  to  the  Royal  Aca- 
demy of  Sciences  in  1724  and  172(5.^  It  was  from  this  |)eri«^l 
it  began  to  attract  the  general  attention  of  the  learned ;  although 
many  years  were  yet  to  elapse  l)efore  it  was  to  accjuiR*  that 
authority  which  it  now  possesses  among  our  most  eminent  ma- 
thematicians. 

Mr.  Maclaurin,  whose  Memoir  on  the  Percussion  of  Bodies 
gained  the  prize  from  the  Royal  Academy  of  kSciences  in  1724, 
continues!  from  that  time,  till  his  death,  the  sleady  o])])oser  of 
this  new  law.  In  his  Treatise  of  llimons^  jaiblished  in  1742, 
he  observes,  that  "  the  existence  of  hard  bodies  void  of  elasti- 
city has  l)ecn  rejected  for  the  sake  of  what  is  cjdled  the  Law  of 
Continuity;  a  law  which  luis  Intern  supposed  to  be  general, 
without  sutHcient  ground."  2  And  still  more  explicitly,  in  his 
Posthumous  Account  of  Newton  s  PhiIoso2>hical  Disrovrries^  he 
complains  of  those  who  "  have  rejectixl  hard  bodies  as  impos- 
sible, from  far-fetched  and  metapliysical  considerations ;"  pro- 
posing to  his  adversjiries  this  unanswerable  (piestion,  "  U])on 
what  grounds  is  th(^  laiv  of  continuity  assumed  as  a  univerwd 
law  of  nature  ?"  ^ 


'  "  En  ffij't  (ravh  ncmouilli)  iin  [w- 
rcil  princiiM-  df  diin'tr  (tlio  8ui>}H).sitini), 
to  wit,  of  InhHir  j)orfectly  Imnl)  in*  Hrjui- 
roitexiHtcr;  cvni  uuo  rIiiiin*T<!  qui  r6- 
pnpnt*  a  <'«'tU'  ]oi  g«'iirral«'  qih-  hiiiatiin* 
oL>fHTV(>  roiiNtainiiK'iit  <1<iiin  toutcs  hch 
ojK'ratiuim ;  ji*  pari**  do  cot  onln*  iiniini- 
iil»k'  ot  fM^rjKtiiel  «'tnl»li  dcpniri  ]a  ci ca- 
tion tie  ruiiivt'rR,  t/non  jn'iit  rpfn'Irr  ijoi 
DE  coxTixriTK,  <'ii  vortu  «!i»  ]a(|u<>1Ir  lout 
ce  qui  sVxci'Uto,  ft'cxcoiito  par  t\vH  dr^^rrH 
infiniinent  )M;titH.  II  Rf^inlilc  que  \v  U*n 
sens  dirto,  qu'auciin  ohaiigoiiicnt  no 
pcut  SI!  i'niro  j>ftr  savt;  natura  non  ojtr- 
ratur  ptr  taltum ;  non  no  j>riit  paHsor 
d'uno  cxtn'niit*'  a  Taiiln',  sans  passer 
par  tons  1«'8  defcrvsdii  milieu,"  &<:.  The 
(-ontinanii<iu  of  this  pansajre  (which  I 
have  not  room  to  quote)  is  curious,  as  it 


HupjfeKts  an  arj^umcnt,  in  proof  of  tho 
law  ofcontinnitffy  fron»  the  principle  <»f 
the  niiffiilvut  rett«m\. 

It  nuiv  Im»  worth  while  to  olmorve 
here,  that  thoujL^h,  in  the  alNivc  <|uota- 
tioii,  ncrnouilli  H|K'aks  of  the ///ir  fi/Vo«- 
ti  mill  if  aH  an  arbitrary  urran::c<''u<'"*  *>f 
the  rreat<»r,  he  nprcNcnts,  in  iUo  pre- 
ceding; paragraph,  the  iilea  of  JH^rfectly 
hard  hixlics  aH  involving:  a  inanilcht  con- 
tradiction. 

*  Maclaurin 's  I'luj-uma,  vol.  ii.  p.  4.'W. 

■  Nearly  t<»  the  same  jmrpose  Mr. 
Rohins,  a  inathenuttician  and  philo.so- 
pher  c»f  th(?  hij^hent  eminence,  exprcKses 
himself  thuH  :  "  M.  IiennMiilli,  (in  his 
])l)irourn  Mvr  Irs  Jmi's  tie  In  f^oiuuniui- 
rnt'ion  (in  Mouvancut.)  in  onlcr  t'»  provn 
timt  thero  are  no  hodies  pcrlef  tl\  haul 


276 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


In  the  speculations  hitherto  mentioned,  the  law  of  continuity 
is  applial  merely  to  such  successive  events  in  the  material  world 
as  are  connected  together  by  the  relation  of  cause  arid  effect ; 
and,  indeed,  chiefly  to  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the  state 
of  bodies  with  respect  to  motion  and  rest  But  in  the  philo- 
sophy of  Leibnitz,  we  find  the  same  laiu  appealed  to  as  an 
indisputable  principle  in  all  his  various  researches,  physical, 
metaphysical,  and  theological.  He  extends  it  with  the  same 
confidence  to  mind  as  to  matter,  urging  it  as  a  demonstrative 
proof,  in  opposition  to  Locke,  that  the  soul  never  ceases  to  think 
even  in  sleep  or  in  ddiquium  ;^  nay,  inferring  from  it  the  im- 
possibility that,  in  the  case  of  any  animated  being,  there  should 
b3  such  a  thing  as  death,  in  the  literal  sense  of  that  word.^  It 
is  by  no  means  probable  that  the  author  was  at  all  aware,  when 
he  first  introduced  this  principle  into  the  theory  of  motion,  how 
far  it  was  to  lead  him  in  his  researches  concerning  other  ques- 


aiul  inflexible,  lays  it  down  as  an  immu- 
table law  of  nature,  that  no  body  can 
pass  from  motion  to  rest  instantane- 
ously, or  without  having  its  velocity 
gradually  diminished.  That  this  is  a 
law  of  nature,  M.  Bemouilli  thinks  is 
evident  from  that  principle,  Natura  non 
operatur  per  sdUum^  and  from  good 
sense.    But  how  good  sense  can,  op 

ITSELF,  WITHOUT  JSXPERIMENT,  DETER- 
MINE ANY  OP  THE   LAWS   OF   NATURE,    IS 

TO  MB  VERY  ASTONISHING.  Indeed,  from 
anything  M.  Bemouilli  lias  said,  it 
would  have  been  altogether  as  conclu- 
sive to  have  begun  at  the  other  end, 
and  have  disputed,  that  no  body  can 
pass  instantaneously  from  motion  to 
rest ;  because  it  is  an  immutable  law  of 
nature  that  all  l)odic8  shall  be  flexible." 
— Bobins,  vol.  ii.  pp.  174,  175. 

In  quoting  these  passages,  I  would 
not  wish  to  be  understood  as  calling  in 
question  the  universality  of  the  Law  of 
Goniinuity  in  the  phenomena  of  moving 
bodies ;  a  point  on  which  I  am  not  led 
by  the  subject  of  this  Discourse,  to  offer 


any  opinion,  but  on  which  I  intend  to 
hazard  some  remarks  in  a  Note  at  the 
end  of  it.  (See  Note  D  D.)  All  that 
I  would  here  assert  is,  that  it  is  a  law^ 
the  truth  of  which  can  be  inferred  only 
by  an  induction  from  the  phenomena ; 
and  to  which,  accordingly,  we  are  not 
entitled  to  say  that  there  cannot  possi- 
bly exist  any  exceptions. 

*  "Jc  tiens  que  ITime,  et  mcme  lo 
corps,  n'est  jamais  sans  action,  et  que 
Tame  n'est  jamais  sans  quelquo  percep- 
tion ;  memo  en  dormant  on  a  quelquo 
sentiment  confus  et  sombre  dn  lieu  oii 
Ton  est,  et  d'autres  choses.  Mais  qvand 
Vejrp€rience  ne  le  confirmeroU  pas^  je 
crois  qu'U  y  en  a  d^manstrcUion,  C'est 
h  peu  pros  comme  on  ne  syauroit  prouvcr 
absolument  par  les  experiences,  s'il  n*y 
a  point  de  vuide  dans  I'espace,  et  s'il 
n'y  a  point  de  repos  dans  la  matiere.  Et 
cependant  ccs  questions  me  paroissent 
decidees  d^monstrativement,  aussi  bien 
qu'^  M.  Locke." — Ixjib.  Op.  tome  ii. 
p.  220. 

'  See  Noto  E  E. 


M£TAPHYBIC8  DURINU  TUK  EIUHT££NTH  C£NTtKY. 


277 


tions  of  greiitcT  momeut ;  nor  docs  it  apjK'ar  that  it  attracted 
much  notice  from  the  le^rntKl,  but  as  a  new  niedianical  axiom, 
till  a  considerable  time  after  his  death. 

Charles  Bonnet  of  Geneva,  a  man  of  unquestionable  talents 
and  of  most  exemplarj'  worth,  was,  as  far  iis  I  know,  the  first 
who  entered  fully  into  the  views  of  Leibnitz  on  this  \\o\\\i ;  iwr- 
ceiving  how  insejMirably  the  law  of  continuity  (as  well  as  the 
principle  of  the  suflicient  reason)  was  interwoven  with  his 
scheme  of  universal  concatenation  and  mechanism ;  and  infer- 
ring from  thence  not  only  all  the  jwimdoxical  corollaries  deiluced 
from  it  by  its  author,  but  some  cMjually  bold  conclusions  of  his 
own,  wldch  Leibnitz  either  did  not  foresee  in  their  full  extent, 
or  to  which  the  course  of  his  inquiries  did  not  jwrticularly 
attract  liis  attention.  The  most  remarkable  of  these  conclusions 
was,  that  all  the  various  licings  which  comjwse  the  imiverse, 
form  a  scale  descending  downwards  without  any  chasm  or  saUus, 
from  the  Deity  to  the  simplc^st  forms  of  unorgiuiized  matter;' 


'  "  Ix'ibnitz  adiiicttoit  coinnio  un 
principt;  fonilAnicntul  d<;  an  HuMiiiic  plii- 
losophic,  qiiMl  n^  n  jninaifl  do  wiutH  dnnH 
1a  nntiire,  ct  quo  tout  est  contiiui  ou 
nuunce  dans  Ic  phyHic^ue  et  dniiH  Ic  luo- 
ral.  CV'toit  hi  famuutM'  Ixyi  ih  (\m- 
tinnitf;^  quil  cn)yoit  n-tnmvcr  encore 
dans  Ic8  mathrmatiques,  ct  v'avoit  ctv 
cettc  ]oi  qui  lui  avoit  inHpiro  la  Hiufpi- 
Here  prediction  duut  je  jmrli uh."*  *'  Tous 
Ics  etn^R,  disoit  il,  no  fonncnt  qu*uno 
Boide  clmine,  dans  laquelle  \vh  difK-rentoa 
claMOB,  connue  autant  d'annt'aux,  ticn- 
nont  si  etnntonient  les  uiu*h  aux  antros, 
qu'il  est  inqmsHiblc  nux  sons  ot  a  Tima- 
giiiation  do  fixer  prrcisrnunt  le  |>oint 
ou  qu<  ^u*un  coninience  ou  fiuit :  loutos 
Ics  CHiKTi's  qui  Ix)rd«;ut  OU  (jui  ocrujH'nt, 
pour  ainsi  <Hre,  \vh  n'j^ioiis  d'iiiflection, 
ct  do  rebrouHHOiiU'iit,  d«.vwit  ttrc  t(iui- 
voques  et  doueos  do  canu.teres  <|ui  p<Mi- 
vent  st.1  rapportcr  aux  eK|K,'<;eH  voiHins 
egalenu^'ut.     Ain.^^i,  rexistcnri*  dos  z«»o- 


pliylrs  ou  Phint'Anhfutvx  n'a  rien  d« 
moiiHtnuMix  ;  mais  il  ebt  nu  luc  conven- 
ahlc  A  Tonlrc  de  la  nature  qu'il  y  en  ait. 
Et  telle  est  la  force  du  i»rin<'ii»o  de  con- 
tinuite  cliez  nioi,  (pie  non  Houloment  jo 
no  Horois  i>oint  etonne  d'apprcMidro,  qu*on 
cut  trouve  dt;s  etrcH,  qui  par  rapiK)rt  il 
pluHicurs  i>roprietrH,  jNir  oxon»j)lo,  cello 
de  Hc  nourrir  ou  de  so  inulti])lier,  puis- 
Hont  paHKiT  i>our  den  vof^etaux  A  auKsi 
Ihmi  droit  (|Ue  j)our  des  animnux,  .... 
J'cn  wnuM  si  jm'U  i-toinu',  diH-|e,  quo 
nienie  jo  Huis  convuincu  qu'il  doit  y  en 
avoir  de  tels,  i\\\Q  I'llistoin*  Natiircllo 
par^ieiidra  i)0ut-4"trc  a  eonuoitroun  jour," 
&o.  &c. — CohUniplHiiuH  dc  la  Nuture^ 
pp.  341,342. 

lioniK't,  in  llio  He<piol  of  thin  passage, 
sjH'aks  of  the  words  tif  IxMlmit/.  uh  apnr- 
diction  of  the  diseovi-ry  of  the  Pohfpvs^ 
deduced  from  tho  Mctajtlujs'u'al  prin 
ciple  of  tho  Tiiiw  of  (.'ontinuity.  llut 
\v(tuld  it   not  he  nion*  phiU»t!Oi»hical  to 


•  Ii«  prf'dicti'»n  de  la  dOcouvrrlo  dcs  r«»lyiteM. 


278 


DISSERTATION.— PART  SECOND. 


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


regard  it  as  a  quen'  founded  on  the  ami- 
logy  of  nature,  us  made  known  .to  us  by 
experience  and  observation?* 

[t  In  another  passage  of  the  same 
work,  Bonnet  expresses  himself  thus : 
"  La  Nature  paroit  aller  par  degres  d'uno 
production  fi  une  autre  production  ;  point 
de  sauts  dans  sa  marche  ;  encore  moins 
de  cataractes.  II  semble  que  hi  k)i  de 
Contiimit6  soit  la  loi  universclle,  et  Ic 
philosophe  qui  I'a  introduite  dans  la 
physique,  nous  a  ouvert  un  grand  spec- 
tacle. C'est  en  consequence  de  cctte 
loi  que  Leibnitz  soutenait  que  la  nature 
"va  toujours  par  nuances  et  par  grada- 
tions, d'une  production  \  une  autre  pro- 
duction, et  que  t<m8  les  itats  par  les- 
gvels  un  etre  passe  successivevient,  aont 
tons  d^terminSs  les  wis  par  les  aulres, 
en  sorte  que  V€tM  suhs&jtient  itoit  ren- 
fermS  dfins  V^tat  antecedent  comme 
Veff'et  d^ns  sa  canse.^' — Bonnet,  torn, 
viii.  pp.  350,  351.] 

*  Lec^ons  d^Anatomie  Compar^e. 

■  AVliile  Bonnet  was  thus  employing 
his  ingenuity  in  generalizing,  still  far- 
ther than  his  predecessors  had  done,  the 


law  of  contini^ity,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  his  fellow-citizens,  with 
whom  he  appears  to  have  been  connected 
in  the  closest  and  most  confidential 
friendship,  (the  very  ingenious  M.  Le 
Sage,)  was  led,  in  the  course  of  his  re- 
searches concerning  the  physical  cause 
of  gravitation,  to  deny  the  existence  of 
the  law,  even  in  the  descent  of  heavy 
bodies.  "  The  action  of  gravity  (ac- 
cording to  him)  is  %iot  continuous."  In 
other  words,  "  each  of  its  impressions 
is  finite  ;  and  the  interval  of  time  whict 
separates  it  from  the  following  impres- 
sion is  of  a  finite  duration."  Of  this 
proposition  he  offers  a  proof,  which  he 
considers  as  demonstrative ;  and  thence 
deduces  the  follownng  very  paradoxical 
corollar}',  That  "  Projectiles  do  not  move 
in  curvilinear  paths,  but  in  rectilinear 
polygons."! — "C'est  ainsi  (he  adds) 
qu'un  pre,  qui  vu  de  priis,  se  trouve 
convert  de  parties  vertcs  reellement  se- 
parees,  offre  cependant  aux  personncs 
qui  Ic  regardent  de  loin,  la  sensation 
d'une  verdure  continue  :  Et  qu'un  corps 
poli,  auquel  le  microscope  dccou\Te  mi  lie 


*  "  Ad  emn  modum  summuR  opifex  rerum  seriem  concatenavit  a  planta  ad  hominem,  ut  qaiwi 
sine  uUo  cohaereant  intorrallo ;  bic  Zuoipvret  cum  plaiitLs  bruta  conjungunt ;  sic  cum  homin* 
»imia  qutidrupedes.  Itaque  in  hominis  quaque  specie  invcnimus  dirinos,  humanod,  feros.** — 
Scaliger,  (prefixed  aa  a  motto  to  Mr.  Wliite't  Essay  on  the  rcjular  gradation  in  Man.  London, 
1799.) 

t  Restored.— JTd. 

}  "  lIUa«  vero  curras  in  rerum  natura  esse  negavere  multi.  Nominabo  tnntum,  qui  nunc  occur- 
runt :  Luhimtm,  Bassonrtrt,  Regium,  lionartem,  et  quern  parum  abtst,  quin  add^un  J/obbcsium.*' — 
Lefbnitil  Op.  lorn.  ii.  p.  47. 


METAPHYSICB  DUUIXO  THK  EUiHTKENTll  CKNTIUY.  279 

At  a  i)criud  soinewliat  IhUt,  an  atk»inpt  lias  bot»ii  luade  to 
connect  the  mine  law  of  continuity  with  the  history  of  human 
improvement,  and  more  particularly  with  the  prt»;i;re8H  of  inven- 
tion in  the  sciences  and  arts.  Helvetius  is  the  most  noted 
writer  in  whom  I  have  obser\'ed  this  last  extension  of  the 
licibnitzian  principle ;  and  1  have  little  douht,  from  his  known 
opinions,  that,  when  it  (x.*curred  to  him,  he  conceived  it  to 
attonl  a  new  illustration  of  the  scheme  of  lUHCssitv,  and  of  the 
mechanical  conaitenation  of  all  tlie  i)henomena  of  human  life. 
Ar*^iing  in  support  of  his  favourite  paradox  concerning  the 
original  ecpiality  of  all  men  in  in^int  of  mental  capacity,  he  re- 
presents the  successive  advances  made  by  dillcrent  individuals 
in  the  career  of  discovery,  as  so  many  imiwrccptible  or  infi- 
nitesimal ste])s,  each  indiviihial  suqwissing  his  predecessor  by  a 
triile,  till  at  length  nothing  is  wanting  but  an  additional  mind, 
not  sujKTior  to  the  others  in  natural  i)owcrs,  to  combine  to- 
gether, and  to  turn  to  its  own  account,  their  accumulated 
lal^ours.  "  It  is  ui>on  this  mind,"  he  observes,  "  that  the 
world  is  always  ready  to  In'stow  the  attribute  of  geniua  From 
the  tragedies  of  TAc  i\//w./o7/,  to  the  points  Hardy  and  Rotrou, 
and  to  the  Mariamnc  of  Tristan,  the  French  theatre  was  always 
acipiiring  successively  an  infinite  numUT  of  inconsiderable  im- 
provements, ('orneille  was  Innn  at  a  moment  when  the  addi- 
tion he  made  to  the  art  coidd  not  fail  to  form  an  cikk-Ii  ;  and 
accordingly  Corneille  is  universtdlv  regarded  as  a  Genius.  I 
am  far  from  wishing,"  Helvetius  adds,  "  to  detract  from  the 
glory  of  this  great  ])(M't.  I  wish  only  to  jirove,  that  Utdurc 
never  procecih  tku  SAi/rrM,  [an  old  and  vamuion  axiom  in  philo- 
s<>|)hy. — E<h^  and  that  the  Latv  o/Confiunitf/  is  always  vjcactly 
observed.     The  remarks,  therefore,  now  made  on  the  dramatic 

KoliitiiinH  do  contlniiiti'.  pnntit  i\  riN'il  nil,  pi-lniont  |)lnl<w»|tlics  «!(»  4l«*ri»lrr  si  <lop- 

|HiSMr<IiT  uiie  roiitiiiuiti'  parfaito."  inati(|nriii('iit,  In  rnntiiiuitt'  n'rlh?,  dr  cc 

'"  (fvin'TaU'iiK'nt,  li' siiijpli*  Imiiis  srns,  fjiii  avoit  uiir  niiitiniiit«'   ajtparriite ;  ct 

qui  vent  qu'on  hiisjm*ihI«  turn  jup'inrnt  la   iiim-<'xiNt«*ii('<*  «1ch    iritrrvalK'H  «prilH 

wir   cc*   qu'on    ij^jore,    et   quo    Ton   no  n'a|»»'rc«'V«»i«'nt  |mM," — hlsAni  dv.  <  Inimie 

trandic  piis  hanlinirnt  fiur  la  nnn-cxist-  i^frcnitjnr.      i\mnm\\r   vn    IT.OH,    par 

^iici^  do  cc   qui   «'i-liapiM>   «\   nos   kouh,  I'Aj-ailuuic  d<»   Koum  :  Iniprimt'  n  (Sc- 

Aun>it  ilu  fininVluT  «K»M  p^'UN  (pii  h'ap-  ikv**,  1701.     I'p.  1U-*.M>. 


280 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


art,  may  also  be  applied  to  the  sciences  which  rest  on  observa- 
tion."*— De  I' Esprit  J  (lis.  iv.  chap.  i. 

With  tliis  last  extension  of  the  Law  of  Continuity ^  as  well 
as  with  that  of  Bonnet,  a  careless  reader  is  the  more  apt  to  be 
dazzled,  as  there  is  a  large  mixture  in  both  of  unquestionable 
truth.  The  mistake  of  the  ingenious  writers  lay  in  pushing  to 
extreme  cases  a  doctrine,  which,  when  kept  within  certain 
limits,  is  not  only  solid  but  important ;  a  mode  of  reasoning 
which,  although  it  may  be  always  safely  followed  out  in  pure 
Mathematics  (where  the  principles  on  which  we  proceed  are 
mere  definitions,)  is  a  never-failing  source  of  error  in  all  the 
other  sciences ;  and  which,  when  practically  applied  to  the 
concerns  of  life,  may  be  regarded  as  an  infallible  symptom  of 
an  understanding  better  fitted  for  the  subtle  contentions  of  the 
schools,  than  for  those  average  estimates  of  what  is  expedient 
and  practicable  in  the  conduct  of  affairs,  which  form  the  chief 
elements  of  political  sagacity  and  of  moral  wisdom.^ 


*  It  may,  perhaps,  be  alleged,  that 
the  above  allusion  to  the  Law  of  Con- 
tinuity  was  introduced  merely  for  the 
sake  of  illustration,  and  that  the  author 
did  not  mean  his  words  to  be  strictly  in- 
terpreted ;  but  this  remark  will  not  be 
made  by  those  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  philosophy  of  Helvetius. 

Let  me  add,  that,  in  selecting  Cor- 
neilk)  as  the  only  exemplification  of  this 
theory,  Helvetius  has  been  singularly 
unfortunate.  It  would  have  been  diffi- 
cult to  have  named  any  other  modem 
poet,  in  whose  works,  when  compared 
with  those  of  his  immediate  predeces- 
sors, the  Law  of  Continuity  has  been 
more  remarkably  violated.  "  Comeille 
(says  a  most  judicious  French  critic) 
est,  pour  ainsi  dire,  do  notre  tems ;  mais 
8C8  contemporains  n'en  sent  pas.  Le 
Cid,  les  Horaces^  Cinna^  PoJieticte,  fer- 
ment le  commencement  de  cette  chaine 
brillante  qui  reunit  notre  litterature 
actucllf  de  cclle  du  regno  do  Kichelieu 
et  dv  la  niiuoritc  de  Louim  XIV. ;  mais 
autnur  do  oom  jM^ints  luminoux   rogne 


encore  une  nuit  profonde ;  Icur  eclat  les 
rapproche  en  apparence  de  nos  yeux ; 
le  rcste,  repousse  dans  Tobscurit^,  sem- 
ble  bien  loin  de  nous.  Pour  nous  Cor- 
neille  est  modeme,  et  Rotrou  ancien," 
&c.  (For  detailed  illustrations  and 
proofs  of  these  positions,  see  a  slight 
but  masterly  historical  sketch  of  the 
French  Theatre,  by  M.  Suard.) 

*  Locke  has  fallen  into  a  train  of 
thought  very  similar  to  that  of  Bonnet, 
conceniing  the  Scale  of  Beings;  but 
has  expressed  himself  with  far  greater 
caution ; — stating  it  modestly  as  an  in- 
ference deduced  from  an  induction  of 
particulars,  not  as  the  result  of  any 
abstract  or  metaphysical  principle. — 
(See  Locke's  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  101.) 
Li  one  instance,  indeed,  he  avails  him- 
self of  an  allusion,  which,  at  first  sight, 
may  appear  to  favour  the  extension  of 
the  mathematical  Law  of  Continuity  to 
the  works  of  creation  ;  but  it  is  evident, 
from  the  coiitoxt,  that  ho  meant  this 
allusion  merely  as  a  popular  illustration 
of  a  fact  in  Natiu-iU  lliHtory ;  not  as  the 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  £IOHT££NTH  CENTURY. 


281 


If  on  these  two  celebrateil  priucij)k!8  of  Leibnitz,  I  have 
enlarged  at  greater  length  tlian  may  ajj^K^ar  to  some  of  my 
readers  to  be  necessarj'^,  I  must  remind  them,  Isf,  Of  the  illns- 
tnition  they  afford  of  what  Locke  has  so  forcibly  urged  with 
renpect  to  the  danger  of  ailopting,  ujwn  the  faith  of  rcMisonings 
a  priori,  metiiphysical  conclusions  concerning  the;  laws  by 
which  the  universe  is  governed :  2dly,  Of  the  proof  they  exhibit 
of  the  strong  bias  of  the  huniun  mind,  even  in  the  present 
advanced  shige  of  experimentiil  knowledge,  to  grasp  at  general 
mnxiniR,  without  a  careful  examination  of  the  grounds  on 
which  they  rest ;  and  of  that  less  frequent,  but  not  less  unfor- 
tunate bias,  wliich  hns  led  some  of  our  most  eminent  mathema- 
ticians to  transfer  to  sciences,  resting  ultimately  on  an  appeal 
to  factSy  those  habiti^  of  thinking  which  have  l)een  formed 
amidst  the  hypothetical  abstractions  of  pure  geometry :  Z««%, 
Of  the  light  they  throw  on  the  mighty  influence  which  the 
name  and  authority  of  lAubnitz  have,  for  more  than  a  century 
jmst,  exercised  over  the  strongest  and  acutest  understandings 
in  the  most  enlightened  countrien  of  Euroi>e. 

It  would  be  improper  to  close  these  reflections  on  the  philo- 
sophical st)eculations  of  Leibnitz,  without  taking  some  notice 
of  his  very  ingenious  and  original  thoughts  on  the  etymological 
study  of  languagcH,  considered  as  a  guide  to  our  conclusions 
concerning  the  origin  and  migrations  of  difftreut  tribes  of 
our  sjxxjies.  Tliese  thoughts  were  jmblished  in  1710,  in  the 
Memoirs  of  the  BitHu  Academy,  and  form  the  first  ailicle  of 
the  first  volume  of  that  justly  celebnit-tnl  collection.  I  do  not 
recollect  any  author  of  an  earlier  date,  who  seenis  to  have  Ikjcu 
comj)letcly  aware  of  the  imi)ortimt  conseiiuences  to  which  the 


rij^onmK  onnnriiition  of  a  thoonrm  ii\\- 
plirnble  nlikc*  to  nil  tnithn,  niatlunnu- 
lical,  physical,  aiul  iiK.ral.  "  It  is  a 
banl  in.itt(r  t<»  say  where  sensihlo  and 
rational  ln'gin,  and  when;  inscnsihlc  and 
imitional  end ;  and  who  is  there  qnittk- 
iiighted  enonfch  to  detennine  i)recisely, 
which  is  tin*  lowest  sfwcies  <if  living 
things,  and  which  is  the  firbt  of  those 
who  hav«»  no  life  ?    Things,  as  far  as  we 


can  ()hser>*e,  less*;!i  and  augin**nt,  as  the 
(jnantity  docs  in  a  rajnlar  amcj  where, 
thongh  thcri^  bo  a  nninifest  odds  Wtwixt 
the  bigness  of  the  diameter  at  a  remote 
distance,  vit  the  diflerrnee  betwet^n  the 
upjMT  and  under,  wlu're  they  touch  one 
another,  is  hanlly  »liseeniibl<*." — Ihiil. 

See  some  IJellections  on  this  si>ecii- 
lati<ui  of  Locke's  in  the  JSiHcUitor, 
No  .519. 


282  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

prosecution  of  this  inquiry  is  likely  to  lead ;  nor,  indeed,  was 
much  progress  made  in  it  by  any  of  Leibnitz  s  successors,  till 
towards  the  end  of  the  last  century ;  when  it  became  a  favourite 
object  of  pursuit  to  some  very  learned  and  ingenious  men,  both 
in  France,  Germany,  and  England.  Now^  however,  w^hen  our 
knowledge  of  the  globe,  and  of  its  inhabitants,  is  so  wonderfully 
enlarged  by  commerce,  and  by  conquest ;  and  when  so  great 
advances  have  been  made  in  the  acquisition  of  languages,  the 
names  of  which,  till  very  lately,  were  unheard  of  in  this  quarter 
of  the  world, — there  is  every  reason  to  hope  for  a  series  of 
farther  discoveries,  strengthening  progressively,  by  the  multipli- 
cation of  their  mutual  points  of  contact,  the  conmion  evidence 
of  their  joint  results ;  and  tending  more  and  more  to  dissipate 
the  darkness  in  which  the  primeval  history  of  oiu*  race  is  in- 
volved. It  is  a  field,  of  which  only  detached  corners  have 
hitherto  been  explored ;  and  in  w^hich,  it  may  be  confidently 
presxuned,  that  unthought  of  treasures  still  lie  hid,  to  reward 
sooner  or  later  the  researches  of  our  posterity.^ 

My  present  subject  does  not  lead  me  to  speak  of  the  mathe- 
matical and  physical  researches,  which  have  associated  so 
closelv  the  name  of  Leibnitz  with  that  of  Newton,  in  the 
history  of  modern  science  ;  of  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  his 
erudition,  both  classical  and  scholastic  ;  of  his  vast  and  mani- 
fold contributions  towards  the  elucidation  of  German  anti- 
quities and  of  Koman  jurisprudence ;  or  of  those  theological 
controversies,  in  which,  while  he  combated  with  one  hand  the 
enemies  of  revelation,  he  defended,  with  the  other,  the  ortho- 
doxy of  his  own  dogmas  against  the  profoundest  and  most 
learned  divines  of  Europe.  Nor  would  I  have  digressed  so  far 
as  to  allude  here  to  these  j)articulars,  were  it  not  for  the  un- 
paralleled example  they  display,  of  what  a  vigorous  and  ver- 
satile genius,  seconded  by  habits  of  persevering  industry,  may 
accomplish,  within  the  short  span  of  human  life.  Even  the 
relaxations  with  which  he  was  accustomed  to  fill  up  his 
moments  of  leisure,  partook  of  the  general  character  of  his 
more  serious  engagements.     By  early  and  long  habit,  he  had 

»  See  Note  F  F. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  TH£  £lCSnT££NTIl  CKNTUllY. 


283 


acquired  a  singular  facility  in  tlie  coiii]M>.sitinu  of  I^itiii  verses; 
and  he  seems  to  have  delighted  in  l(Midin<]^  his  niusc»  with  new 
tetters  of  his  o^\^l  coiitrivanei*,  in  addition  to  thosi*  iniiM>sed  hy 
the  laws  of  classiail  proso<ly.^  The  nundKT,  besides,  of  his 
literary  corresjwndents  was  inimeiist*,  ineludin*^^  all  that  was 
most  illustrious  in  EurojK* :  and  the  rich  materials  everywhere 
scattered  over  his  letters  are  sulHcient  of  themst»lves  to  show, 
that  his  amusements  consistent  rather  in  a  chan<^  of  ohj(*cts, 
than  in  a  suspension  of  his  mental  activity.  Yet  while  wc 
lulmire  these  stui^cndous  monuments  of  liis  intellectual  energy, 
we  must  not  forget  (if  I  may  lK)rrow  the  langutige  of  (liMxm) 
that  "  even  the  }K)wers  of  Leihnitz  were  dissipateil  by  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  his  ])ursuits.  He  attempted  more  than  he  could 
finish ;  he  designt»d  more  than  he  could  execute ;  liis  imagina- 
tion was  too  easily  witisiicHl  witli  a  l)old  and  rajud  glance  on 
the  subject  which  he  was  imj>atient  to  leave ;  and  he  may  be 
comjwired  to  those  heroes  whose*  empire  has  been  lost  in  the 
ambition  of  universal  conquest."* 

From  som6  expressions  wliich  Leibnitz  has  o<*casionally 
drof)ped,  I  think  it  probable,  that  he  himself  l)ecame  sensible, 
as  he  advanced  in  life,  that  his  time*  might  have  Ikvxi  more  pro- 
fitably emjJoycHl,  had  his  studies  Ikh'Ii  more  confined  in  their 
aim.  "  If  the  whole  earth  (he  has  obsi»rv(Ml  on  one  oci-asion) 
had  continue<l  t<i  Ik.'  of  one  Itniguage  and  of  one  siKH.»ch,  human 
life  might  Ik?  considered  as  extended  kyond  its  j»resent  tenn, 
by  the  addition  of  all  that  j)art  of  it  which  is  devoted  to  the 
ac(|uisition  of  dead  and  foreign  tongues.  Many  other  branches 
of  knowledge,  too,  may,  in  this  resjM'ct,  l>e  classed  with  the 
languages;  such  as  Positive  Laws,  Ceremonies,  the  Styles  of 


*  A  rt'iii;irkjil»l<'  instance  (»f  tliis  U 
nicntioned  hv  liinisrif  in  om*  of  IiIh 
U'ttrrfl.  "  AnnoH  natuH  tn.'dociin  una 
(Ho  tn'ccnt«»s  vrrsiis  licxninrtmH  (.'fTuili, 
Bine  eliKiom-  nninrs,  (ju(m1  Ihh*  fieri  farile 
po.sHO  forte  al!iiinas.sein." — (Leib.  f>jK 
torn.  V,  p.  Hot.)  II*'  also  amused  him- 
self CKrcaNicuiallv  with  writinur  verHes  in 
(iennan  and  in  Fn  neh. 

•  May  I  pre»4iinie  to  runiark  farther, 


that  tlu'  nativf  |M»werM  of  Liihnitz'H 
mind,  astonishing  and  protcmat'iRil  hh 
they  ecrtainly  wrp',  Merm  MiinetimeMop. 
pn'ssed  and  (»verlaid  und«'r  the  Wfij^^ht 
(»f  his  still  inorr  astonishinjr  erudition  ? 
The  iulluen<*e  of  his  Heholastir  reading 
is  more  p«'<'uliarly  aj»parrnt  in  warpinj^ 
his  judgment,  niul  <li»udiii^  his  reason, 
on  all  cpieHtiouB  eonne«ied  with  Meta- 
physicjd  Thcul<»j;y. 


284  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

Courts,  and  a  great  proportion  of  what  is  called  critical  erudi- 
tion. The  utility  of  all  these  arises  merely  from  opinion ;  nor 
is  there  to  be  found,  in  the  innumerable  volumes  that  have  been 
written  to  illustrate  them,  a  hundredth  part,  which  contains 
anything  subservient  to  the  happiness  or  improvement  of  man- 
kind." 

The  most  instructive  lesson,  however,  to  be  drawn  from  the 
history  of  Leibnitz,  is  the  incompetency  of  the  most  splendid 
gifts  of  the  understanding,  to  advance  essentially  the  interests 
either  of  Metaphysical  or  of  Ethical  Science,  unless  accompanied 
with  that  rare  devotion  to  truth,  which  may  be  regarded,  if  not 
as  the  basis,  at  least  as  one  of  the  most  indispensable  elements, 
of  moral  genius.  The  chief  attraction  to  the  study  of  philoso- 
phy, in  his  mind,  seems  to  have  been  (what  many  French 
critics  have  considered  as  a  chief  source  of  the  charms  of  the 
imitative  arts)  the  pride  of  conquering  difficulties :  a  feature  of 
his  character  which  he  had  probably  in  his  own  eye,  when  he 
remarked,  (not  without  some  degree  of  conscious  vanity,)  as  a 
peculiarity  in  the  turn  or  cast  of  his  intellect,  that  to  him  "  all 
difficult  things  were  easy,  and  all  easy  things  difficult."'  Hence 
the  disregard  manifested  in  his  writings  to  the  simple  and  ob- 
vious conclusions  of  experience  and  common  sense ;  and  the 
perpetual  eflbrt  to  unriddle  mysteries  over  which  an  impene- 
trable veil  is  drawn.  "  Scilicet  sublime  et  erectum  ingenium, 
pulchritudinem  ac  speciem  excelsae  magnaaque  gloriaB  vehemen- 
tius  quam  caute  appetebat.*'  It  is  to  be  regretted,  that  the 
sequel  of  this  fine  eulogy  does  not  equally  apply  to  him.  "  Mox 
mitigavit  ratio  et  eetas ;  retinuitque,  quod  est  difficiUimum,  et 
in  sapientia  modum"^  How  happily  does  this  last  expression 
characterize  the  temperate  wisdom  of  Locke,  when  contrasted 
with  that  towering,  but  impotent  ambition,  which,  in  the  Theo- 
ries of  Optimism  and  of  Pre-established  Harmony,  seemed  to 
realize  the  fabled  revolt  of  the  giants  against  the  sovereignty  of 
the  gods ! 

*  "Sentio  paucoR  esse  mci   charac-       omnia  contra  difficilia  raihi  facilia  esse." 
teriH,   et   omnia   focilia   mihi  difficilia,       — Leib.  (Tj^?.  torn.  vi.p.  302. 

*  Tacitus,  Agrtc. 


XICTAPHYSIOS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURT.  285 

After  all,  a  similarity  may  be  traced  between  these  two  great 
men  in  one  intellectual  weakness  common  to  both ;  a  facility  in 
the  admission  of  facts,  8tnnii>ed  sufficiently  (as  we  should  now 
think)  by  their  own  intrinsic  evidence,  with  the  marks  of  incre- 
dibility. The  observation  has  been  often  made  with  respect  to 
Locke  ;*  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  Loc^ke's  writings, 
anything  so  absurd  as  an  accoimt  gravely  transmitted  by  Ijcib- 
nitz  to  the  AblxJ  de  St  Pierre,  and  by  him  communicated  to 
the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris,  of  a  dog  who  spoke.* 
No  person  liberally  educated  could,  I  l)elieve,  ]h}  found  at 
present  in  any  Protestant  country  of  Cliristendom,  cajxable 
of  such  credulity.  By  what  causes  so  extraordinary  a  revolu- 
tion in  the  minds  of  men  has  been  effected,  within  the  short 
space  of  a  himdred  years,  I  must  not  here  stop  to  inquire. 
Much,  I  apprehend,  must  be  ascribed  to  our  enlarged  know- 
ledge of  nature,  and  more  imrticularly  to  those  scientific  voy- 
ages and  travels  which  liave  amiihilated  so  many  of  the  pro- 
digies which  exercised  the  wonder  and  sulnlued  the  reason  of 
our  ancestors.  But,  in  whatever  manner  the  revolution  is  to 
be  explained,  there  can  l)e  no  doubt  that  this  growing  disjKHsi- 
tion  to  weigh  scrupulously  the  j)robahil{ti/  of  alleged  facf^ 
against  the  faith  due  to  the  testimonies  brought  to  attest  them, 
and,  even  in  some  cases,  jigainst  the  apjiarent  evidence  of  our 
own  senses,  enters  largi»ly  and  essentially  into  the  com|)osition 
of  that  philosophical  spirit  or  tennx?r,  which  so  strongly  dis- 
tingiushes  the  eighteenth  centurj'  from  all  those  which  preceded 
it.*  It  is  no  small  consolation  to  reflect,  that  some  im{)ortant 
maxims  of  good  sense  have  been  thus  familiarized  to  the  most 
ordinary  understandings,  which,  at  so  very  recent  a  jwriod, 
failed  in  pro<lucing  their  due  effect  on  two  of  the  most  powerful 
minds  in  Euroix?. 

*  [*  The  pa8fuigr>8  commonly  citcMl  in  px*e  of  croJit  he  ap]>earH  to  liav<»  pven 

pr(H>f  of  T/x;ke'H  crodulit y,  arc  the  refer-  to  the  stor}'  of  a  mtional  parrot,  and  to 

enccs  to  tlie  maniiera  of  sava^;  nations  the  iM>])ular  fables  al^out  niennaidH. — 

intnMlncod  in  the  conrsc  of  ln«   arpnJ-  Vitl*-  p.  247.] 

ment    afi:uin8t  innate  Practical  Princi-  *  Sec  N«»tc  G  fl. 

/>/*•«.     To  thcHi"  may  In*  added,  the  de-  •  See  Note  11  II. 

•  Restored.— /■;</. 


286  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

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

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

"  Si  non  crrassct,  fcccrat  ille  minus.''  * 
*  Sec  Note  T  I. 


METAPHTSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         287 


SECT.  III. — OF  THE  METAPHYSICAL  SPECULATIONS  OF  NEWTON 
AND  CLARKE — DIGRESSION  WITH  RFiiPECT  TO  THE  SYSTEM  OF 
SPINOZA  —  COLLINS  AND  JONATHAN  EDWARDS — ANXIETY  OF 
BOTH  TO  RECONCILE  THE  SCHEME  OF  NECFXSITY  WITH  MANS 
MORAL  AGENCY — DEPARTURE  OF  SOME  LATER  NECESSITARIANS 
FROM  THEIR  VIEWS.* 


The  foregoing  rc\icw  of  the  pliilosopliical  writings  of  Ijocke 
ami  of  Leibnitz  naturally  leads  our  att^Mition,  in  the  next  place, 
to  those  of  our  illustrious  countrymen  Newton  and  Clarke  ;  the 
former  of  whom  has  exhibited,  in  his  Pnucipia  and  (ypficSy 
the  most  perfect  exemjJitications  wliich  have  yet  apjK'ared  of 


^  In  confonnity  to  \\u*  plan  announrcil 
in  the  pn*fn<M'  to  tluH  Pij*tn'rtatlon^  I 
confine  myM'lf  to  thoKi'  luithnrH  wIicho 
opiniuns  have  had  u  marked  and  gene- 
ral influence  on  the  Ku1iiMM|uent  hiHtory 
of  pliiloHoph y ;  pashiiig  over  a  multitude 
of  other  names  well  worthy  to  Ik.'  ro- 
conled  in  the  annalH  of  inrtapliyNical 
M'ienee.  Among  tli<'Hc  I  nhall  only 
mention  the  name  of  Do  vie,  to  whom 
the  world  is  indebted,  In-siile  some  very 
acute  n'marlcH  and  many  tine  illuHtni- 
tionn  of  hin  own  ui>on  metapliysiral 
quefftinnR  of  the  hif;h«Nt  moment,  for 
the  philiN^ophiral  ar^umentM  in  dfiiMiee 
of  relitnon,  which  have  utlded  ho  much 
lustre  to  the  namrs  of  Drrliam  and 
li<*ntlcy ;  and,  far  alxive  both,  to  that  t»f 
Clarke,*  The  remarks  and  Uluatrn- 
tioiM,  which  I  here  n-fcr  to,  an*  to  Iw 
found  in  Ih'm  Int/nirif  into  tlm  Vuhjar 
Notion  of  Xati/rt',  and  in  hiw  Kuninf^ 
iuquiritui  irAc/ZtiT,  ami  how,  a  Saturul- 
it*t should  connidcr  Final  (.'austs.  J^>th 
of  thcKo  tracts  display  |)owcrs  which 
mi^ht  have  placed  their  author  on  a 
hvel  with  Descartes  an«l    L<K:ke,  had 


not  luH  taste  and  inclination  determined 
him  more  strongly  to  other  pursuits.  I 
am  Hiclined  to  think  that  neither  of 
them  is  so  well  known  as  wen*  to  be 
wished.  I  do  not  even  r«*collect  to 
have  wen  it  anvwhon?  notii:ed,  that 
sonu'  <»f  the  nx'st  striking  and  l»eautiful 
instances  of  design  in  the  (»nler  of  the 
material  world,  which  oi.'cur  in  the 
iSermons  pnMiched  at  Iloyle's  Ij*rturf, 
are  lM>m)weil  from  the  works  of  the 
founder.f 

Notwithstanding, how»«ver,  these  great 
merits,  he  has  written  too  little  on  such 
abstract  subjects  to  entitle  him  to  a 
place  among  Knglish  meta]ihysi(*ian8 ; 
nor  has  he,  lik<'  Newton,  started  any 
leading  thoughts  which  have  sin<'«' given 
a  new  liirection  to  the  Htudies  of  meta- 
])hysical  impiirers.  From  the  slight 
s})eeiniens  he  has  left,  then'  is  rt.>ason  to 
conclude,  that  his  mind  was  still  moro 
happily  tunieil  than  that  of  Ncwt^m, 
for  the  prosecution  of  that  branch  o( 
science  to  which  their  contem|Kimry 
L<Kke  was  then  Wginning  to  invite  the 
ottention  of  the  public-. 


•  To  the  Engllith  reader  it  in  upneecawirjr  t<i  obmrrre,  tliat  I  alhidc  to  the  8enu«»nii  pn-ached  ftt 
the  Lecture  r<>tinda«l  hy  the  Ilunounilile  Robert  Hoyle. 

t  Th*iie  in^tances,  more  CHpociallv.  which  arc  drawn  from  the  nimlnniiral  utrutlurc  <>f  animalii, 
and  tlie  adaptation  of  their  |>erccptive  orgaiw  t"  tlie  hahit*  «•!  life  f«>r  which  thcv  ure  (h-etlned.. 


288 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


the  cautious  logic  recommended  by  Bacou  and  Locke ;  wliilo 
the  other,  in  defending  against  the  assaults  of  Leibnitz  the 
metaphysical  principles  on  which  the  Newtonian  philosophy 
proceeds,  has  been  led,  at  the  same  time,  to  vindicate  the 
authority  of  various  other  tniths,  of  still  higher  importance, 
and  more  general  interest. 

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

Although  Newton  does  not  appear  to  have  devoted  much  of 
his  time  to  metaphysical  researches,  yet  the  general  spirit  of 
liis  physical  investigations  has  had  a  great,  though  indirect, 


*  From  a  letter  of  Leibnitz  to  M. 
Remond  dc  Montmort,  it  appeara  that 
he  considered  Newton,  and  not  Clarke, 
as  his  real  antagonist  in  this  contro- 
versy. "  M.  Clarke,  on  plutfit  M. 
Newton,  dont  M.  Clarke  sentient  les 
dogmcs,  est  en  dispute  avec  moi  sur  la 
philosophic." — (Leib.  Op.  torn.  v.  p.  33.) 
From  another  letter  to  the  same  corre- 
spondent we  learn,  that  Leibnitz  aimed 
at  nothing  less  than  the  complete  over- 
throw of  the  Newtonian  philosophy; 
and  that  it  was  chiefly  to  his  grand 


principle  of  the  sufficient  reason  that  he 
trusted  for  the  accomplishment  of  this 
object.  "J'ai  reduit  I'etat  de  notre 
dispute  k  cc  grand  axiome,  que  rien 
rCexUte  ou  iVarrive  sans  qu^U  y  ait  vne 
raison  svffisonte^  ponrquoi  il  en  est  pin- 
tSt  ainsi  (ptautrement,  S'il  continue  \ 
me  le  nier,  oh  en  sera  sa  sinceritc? 
S'il  me  I'accorde,  adieu  le  vuido,  Ics 
atomes,  e.t  tonte.  la  philosophic  de  M. 
Newton^ — {Ibid.)  See  also  a  letter 
from  Leibnitz  to  M.  des  Maizcaux  in 
the  same  volume  of  his  works,  p.  39. 


METAPHT8IC8  DURING  THK  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  289 

influence  on  the  metaphjRical  Btiidics  of  his  siiccessora  It  is 
jusfly  and  profoundly  remarked  by  Mr.  Himie,  that  "while 
Newton  seemed  to  draw  off  the  veil  from  some  of  the  mysteries 
of  nature,  he  showed,  at  the  same  time,  tlie  imperfections  of 
the  mechanical  philosophy,  and  thereby  restored  her  ultimate 
secrets  to  that  obsciuity  in  which  they  ever  did,  and  ever  will 
remain."  In  this  way,  his  discoveries  have  co-operated  jiowor- 
fiilly  with  the  reasonings  of  Ijocke,  in  producing  a  general  con- 
viction of  the  inadequacy  of  our  faculties  to  unriddle  those 
sublime  enigmas  on  which  Descartes,  Malebranche,  and  Iicil>- 
nitz  had  so  recently  wasted  their  strength,  and  which,  in  the 
ancient  world,  were  regarded  as  the  only  fit  objects  of  philo- 
sophical curiosity.  It  is  chiefly  too  since  the  time  of  Newton, 
that  the  ontology  and  pneiunatology  of  the  dark  ages  have 
been  abandoned  for  inquiries  resting  on  the  solid  basis  of  expe- 
rience and  analogy ;  and  tliat  philosoplicrs  have  felt  themselves 
emboldened  by  his  astonishing  discoveries  concerning  the  more 
distant  parts  of  the  material  universe,  to  argue  from  the  known 
to  the  unknown  parts  of  the  moral  world  So  completely  has 
the  prediction  been  verified  which  he  himself  haairded,  in  the 
form  of  a  query,  at  the  end  of  his  Optics,  that  "  if  natural 
philosophy  should  continue  to  be  improved  in  its  various 
branches,  the  bounds  of  moral  philosophy  would  be  enlarged 
also." 

How  far  the  peculiar  cast  of  Newton's  genius  qualified  him 
for  prosecuting  successfully  the  study  of  Mind,  he  has  not 
afforded  us  sufiicient  dafu  for  judging;  but  such  was  the 
admiration  with  which  his  transcendent  i>owers  as  a  mathe- 
matician and  natural  philosoj^her  were  universally  regarded, 
that  the  slightest  of  his  lunts  on  other  subjects  have  been 
eagerly  seized  upon  as  indisputable  axioms,  though  sometimes 
with  little  other  evidence  in  their  favour  but  the  Hupi)0sed 
sanction  of  his  authority.^  The  part  of  his  works,  however, 
which  chiefly  led  me  to  connect  his  name  with  that  of  Clarke, 

*  WitncHS  Hartlev's  Phiffiolofficnl.  tlicorics  in  medicine,  grafted  on  a  hint 
Theory  of  the  MM,  iouTiiX^iX  imfn\\\QTy  thrown  out  in  the  same  querj',  in  the 
in  Ncwton^B  Optic*;  and  a  long  list  of      form  of  a  miHlest  conjecture. 

VOL.  I.  T 


290 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

"  -Stemus  est  et  infinitus,  omnipotens  et  omnisciens :  id  est, 
durat  ab  83temo  in  setemum,  et  adest  ab  infinito  in  infinitum. 
.  .  .  Non  est  aetemitas  et  infinitas,  sed  aetemus  et  infinitus ; 
non  est  duratio  et  spatium,  sed  durat  et  adest.  Durat  semper 
et  adest  ubique,  et  existendo  semper  et  ubique  durationem  et 


*  This  Scholium^  it  is  to  be  observed, 
first  appeared  at  the  end  of  the  second 
edition  of  the  Principia,  printed  at 
Cambridge  in  1713.  The  former  edi- 
tion, published  at  London  in  16S7,  has 
no  Scholium  annexed  to  it.  From  a 
passage,  however,  in  a  letter  of  New- 
ton's to  Dr.  Bentley,  (dated  1692,)  it 
seems  probable,  that  as  far  back,  at 
least,  as  that  period,  he  had  thoughts  of 
attempting  a  proof  a  ^?rw>ri  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  After  some  new  illustra- 
tions, drawn  from  his  own  discoveries, 
of  the  common  argument  from  final 
causesj  he  thus  concludes :  "  There  is 
yet  (mother  argument  for  a  Deity,  which 
I  take  to  be  a  very  strong  one;  but, 
till  the  principles  on  which  it  is  grounded 
arc  Letter  received,  I  think  it  more  ad- 
visable to  let  it  sleep." — Four  Letten 
from  Sir  I.  Newton  to  Dr.  Bentley,  p. 
11.     London,  Dodsley,  1766. 

It  appears  from  this  passage,  that 
Newton  had  no  intention,  like  his  pre- 
decessor Descartes,  to  supersede,  by  any 
new  argument  of  his  own  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  the  common  one  drawn 
from  the  consideration  of  final  causes,' 
and,  therefore,  nothing  could  be  more 
uncandid  than  the  following  sarcasm, 
pointed  by  Pope  at  the  laudable  attempts 
of  his  two  countrymen  to  add  to  the 


evidence  of  this  conclusion,  by  deducing 
it  from  other  principles : 

"  Let  others  creep  by  timid  steps  and  slow. 
On  plain  experience  lay  foundations  low. 
By  common  sense  to  common  knowledge 

bred. 
And  last  to  Nature's  canie  tbroogb  Na- 
ture led; 
We  nobly  take  the  high  pHoW-road, 
And  reason  downwards  till  we  doubt  of 
God." 

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

"Let  Clarke  lire  half  his  life  the  poor's 
support, 
But  let  him  lire  the  other  half  at  ooort* 


And 


again — 


"  Eren  in  an  ornament  its  place  remark: 
Nor  in  a  hermitage  set  Dr.  Clarke :" 

in  which  last  couplet  there  is  a  mani- 
fest allusion  to  the  bust  of  Clarke, 
placed  in  a  henuitage  by  Queen  Caro- 
line, together  with  those  of  Newton, 
Boyle,  Locke,  and  WoUaston.  See 
some  fine  verses  on  these  busts  in  a 
poem  called  the  Grotto^  by  Matthew 
Green. 


IfSTAPUYHlCS  DURING  THE  ElUHTRENTH  CENTURY. 


291 


spatium  constituit."^  Proceeding  on  these  principles,  Dr.  Clarke 
argued,  that,  as  immensity  and  eternity  (which  force  themselves 
irresistibly  on  our  belief  as  necessary  existences,  or,  in  other 
words,  as  existences  of  which  the  annihilation  is  imix>ssible) 
are  not  svbstances^  but  attributes,  the  immense  and  eternal 
Being,  whose  attributes  they  are,  must  exist  of  necessity  also. 
The  existence  of  Grod,  therefore,  according  to  Clarke,  is  a  truth 
that  follows  with  demonstrative  evidence  from  those  concep- 
tions of  space  and  time  wliicli  are  inseparable  fnun  the  human 
mind.  ..."  These  (says  Dr.  Reid)  are  the  sixxjulations  of 
men  of  superior  genius;  but  whether  they  Ikj  as  solid  as  they 
are  sublime,  or  whether  they  be  the  wanderings  of  imagination 
in  a  region  beyond  the  limits  of  the  human  understanding,  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  determine."  After  this  candid  acknowledgment 
from  Dr.  Reid,  I  necnl  not  be  ashamed  to  confess  my  own 
doubts  and  difficulties  on  the  stune  question.^ 

But  although  the  argument,  as  stated  by  Clarke,  does  not 
carry  complete  satisfaction  to  my  mind,  I  think  it  must  be 
granted  that  there  is  something  jxiculiarly  wonderful  and 
overwhelming  in  those  conceptions  of  immensity  and  eternity, 
which  it  is  not  less  im])os8ible  to  banish  from  our  thoughts, 
than  the  consciousness  of  our  own  existence.  Nay,  further,  I 
tldnk  that  these  conceptions  are  very  intimately  connected  with 
the  fimdamental  principles  of  Natural  lU^ligion.  For  when 
once  we  have  establislied,  from  the  evidences  of  design  every- 
where manifeste<l  around  us,  the  existence  t)f  an  intelligent  imd 
powerful  cause^  we  are  imavoidal)ly  led  to  apply  to  this  cause 
our  conceptions  of  immensity  and  eternity,  and  to  conceive  Him 
as  filling  the  infinite  extent  of  both  with  his  presence  and  with 


*  Thiw    translatea    l>v   Dr.   C'larko: 

w 

"  God  18  eternal  and  infinite,  omni}K>tent 
and  omniflcient;  that  iu,  he  endures 
from  everlasting  to  cvcrlnfiting,  and  is 
present  from  infinity  to  infinity.  He  is 
not  eternity  or  infinity,  but  eternal  and 
.nfinite.  lie  is  not  duration  or  space, 
but  he  endures  and  {h  pres<Mit.  lie  en- 
dures always,  and  is  present  everywhere, 
.nd  by  existing  always  and  everywhere, 


constitutes  duration   and  sjvicc." — See 
Clarke's  Fotirth  Reply  to  Ijeibnitz. 

*  An  argument  substantially  the  same 
with  this  for  the  existence  of  God,  is 
hinted  at  verj*  distinctly  by  Cudworth, 
InUllect.  JSifHtem,  chap.  v.  §  3,  4.  Also 
by  Dr.  Henry  More,  Knchir.  Metaph 
cap.  8,  §  8.  See  Moshcim's  Trawl  of 
Cudworth,  torn.  ii.  p.  356. 


292  DIB8KRTATI0N. — PART  SECOND. 

his  power.  Hence  we  ajssociate  with  the  idea  of  God  those  awful 
impressioiis  which  are  naturally  produced  by  the  idea  of  infinite 
space,  and  perhaps  still  more  by  the  idea  of  endless  duration. 
Nor  is  this  aU.  It  is  from  the  immensity  of  space  that  the 
notion  of  infinity  is  originally  derived  ;  and  it  is  hence  that  we 
transfer  the  expression,  by  a  sort  of  metaphor,  to  other  subjects. 
When  we  speak,  therefore,  of  infinite  power,  wisdom,  and  good- 
ness, our  notions,  if  not  wholly  borrowed  from  space,  are  at 
least  greatly  aided  by  this  analogy ;  so  that  the  conceptions  of 
Immensity  and  Eternity,  if  they  do  not  of  themselves  devruynr- 
draJte  the  existence  of  Glod,  yet  necessarily  enter  into  the  ideas 
we  form  of  his  nature  and  attributes 

To  these  various  considerations  it  may  be  added,  that  the 
notion  of  necessary  existence  which  we  derive  from  the  contem- 
plation of  Space  and  of  Time,  renders  the  same  notion,  when 
applied  to  the  Supreme  Being,  much  more  easy  to  be  appre- 
hended than  it  would  otherwise  be. 

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

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


MSTAPHTSICB  DUBING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


2^3 


it  occurs,  may  be  regarded  as  strongly  symptomatic  of  some- 
thing  peculiar  and  decided  in  the  philosophical  character  of  the 
individual. 

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


*  The  questioD  concerning  the  neces- 
sary exiHtence  of  Space  and  of  Time, 
formed  one  of  tlie  principal  subjectH  of 
discuaiiion  between  Clarke  and  lioibnitz. 
According  to  the  former,  space  and  time 
are,  both  of  them,  infinite,  immutable, 
and  indestructible.  Acconling  to  liis 
antagonist,  "space  is  nothing  but  the 
order  of  things  co-existing,"  and  "time 
nothing  but  the  order  of  things  succes- 
sive!'' The  notion  of  real  absolute 
Space,  in  particular,  ho  pn)nounces  to 
be  a  mere  chitnera  and  hvperficud  \um- 
ffination;  classing  it  with  those  preju- 
dices which  Bacon  called  idola  trilms. 
—See  his  4th  Jhper,  S  14. 

It  has  always  appeared  to  me  a  thing 
quite  inexplicable,  that  the  great  majo- 
rity of  philosophers,  both  in  CScrmauy 
and  in  France,  have,  on  the  above  ques- 
tion, decided  in  favour  of  Leibnitz. 
Even  D*Alembert  himself,  who,  on  most 
metaphysical  points,  reasons  so  justly 
and  so  profoundly,  has,  in  this  instance, 
been  carried  along  by  the  prevailing 
opinion  (or,  perhaps,  it  would  be  more 
correct  to  say,  by  the  fashionable  phrase- 


ol<)g\')  among  his  countrymen.  "  Yau- 
roit-il  un  cHpace,  H*il  n'y  avoit  point  de 
corps,  ot  uno  duree  s'il  n'y  avoit  rien  ? 
Ces  questions  vienuent,  ce  me  semblo, 
de  CO  qu'on  Hupi>ose  au  temps  et  k 
I'espaco  plus  do  realite  qu*ils  n'on  ont. 
.  .  .tliCH  enfants,  qui  disent  que  le 
vuide  n'est  rien,  ont  raison  parce  qu'ils 
s*en  tiennent  au  simples  notions  du  sens 
commun  :*  et  les  philosophes  qui  vcul- 
ent  realiH<T  le  vuido  so  pcrdent  dans 
leurs  speculations:  lo  vuido  a  et6  en- 
fante  par  les  abstractions,  et  voiU  Tabus 
d'une  mvthode  si  utile  H  bien  des  egards. 
S'il  n'l/  avoit  point  de  corps  et  de  auc- 
cetnmu  Ve*pace  et  le  temps  aeroient  2>o#- 
aibfeSf  mats  i's  n^eristeroient  pa$.^^ — 
{M^lanyeSj  &c.  torn.  v.  §  xvi.)  Bnilly, 
a  writer  by  no  means  partial  to  D'Alem- 
iM^rt,  quotes,  with  entire  approbation,  the 
foregoing  observations  ;  subjoining  to 
them,  in  the  following  terms,  his  own 
judgment  on  the  merits  of  this  branch 
of  the  controversy  between  ('liirke  and 
Leibnitz.  "  La  notion  du  temps  et  de 
I'espace,  est  un  des  {M^iuts  sur  le»((uels 
Leibnitz   a  combat tu    centre    Clarke ; 


*  I  qaot«  the  lequel  of  this  pMsage  on  the  authority  of  Bailly,  (fee  his  Elcge  on  LribnUx,)  fur  it 
in  not  to  be  found  in  tbt  copj  of  the  Milan ffe$  before  me  printed  at  Amsterdam  in  1767. 


294 


DISSERTATION. PART  SECOND. 


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


mais  il  nous  semble  que  rAnglois  n'a 
rien  oppose  de  satisfaiBant  aux  raisons 
de  Leibnitz." — JSloge  de  Leibnitz. 

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

For  some  remarks  on  the  scholastic 
controversies  concerning  apace  and  Hme, 
see  the  First  Part  of  this  ZHasertatian, 
Note  I.  See  also  Locke's  Essay,  book 
ii.  chap.  xiii.  §  16,  17,  IS. 

*  [*  An  anecdote  somewhat  similar 
to  this  is  told  by  Dr.  Henry  More,  of  his 
own  philosophical,  or  rather  mystical 
habits  of  reflection,  before  he  left  Eton 
school.  Though  not  immediately  con- 
nected with  my  present  subject,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  transcribing  part  of  his  very 
picturesque  description  of  himself  "  In 
a  certain  ground,  belonging  to    Eton 


College,  where  the  boys  used  to  play 
and  exercise  themselves,  walking  as  my 
manner  was,  slowly,  and  with  my  head 
on  one  side,  and  kicking  now  and  then 
the  stones  with  my  feet,  I  used  some- 
times, with  a  sort  of  musical  and  melan- 
cholic murmur,  to  repeat  to  myself  these 
verses  of  Claudian : — 

'  Snpe  mihi  dubiftxn  traxit  aententiamenteiD, 
Comrent  gnperi  (aras;  an  noUiis  ineaset 
Kector,  et  incerto  fluerent  mortalia  canLf 

Yet  that  sound  and  entire  sense  of  God, 
which  nature  herself  had  planted  deeply 
in  me,  very  easily  silenced  all  such 
slight  and  poetical  doubts  as  these. 
Yea,  even  in  my  first  childhood,  an  in- 
ward sense  of  the  Divine  presence  was 
so  strong  upon  my  mind,  that  I  then 
believed,  that  no  action,  word,  or  thought, 
could  be  concealed  from  him.  Which 
thing  since  no  distinct  reason,  philoso- 
phy, or  instruction  taught  it  me  at  that 
age,  but  only  an  internal  sensation  urged 
it  upon  mo,  I  think  is  a  veiy  evident 
proof,  that  this  was  an  innate  sense  or 
notion  in  me,  contrary  to  some  absurd 
and  sordid  pretenders  to  philosophy  in 
our  present  age.  And  if  these  sophists 
shall  reply,  that  I  derived  this  sense  ex 
traduce,  or  by  way  of  propagation,  as 
being  bom  of  parents  of  great  piety ;  I 
demand,  how  it  came  to  pass,  I  received 
not  Calvinism  also  along  with  it  ?  for  my 
father,  mother,  and  uncle,  were  all  seid- 


•  Restored.— JScf. 

t  [So  also  tbe  Paalmift,  "  My  feet  were  ready  to  slip,  when  I  saw  (he  prospoity  of  the  wiciced.'n 


METAPHYBICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         295 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  dwell  longer  on  the  history  of 
these  speculations,  which,  whatever  value  they  may  possess  in 
the  opinion  of  persons  accustomed  to  deep  and  abstract  reason- 
ing, are  certainly  not  well  adapted  to  ordinary  or  to  unculti- 
vated understandings.     This  consideration  furnishes,  of  itself, 
no  slight  presumption,  that  they  were  not  intended  to  be  the 
media  by  which  the  bulk  of  mankind  were  to  be  led  to  the 
knowledge  of  trutlis  so  essential  to  human  happiness;^  and,  ac- 
cordingly, it  was  on  this  verj-  ground  that  Bishop  Butler  and 
Dr.  Francis  Hutcheson  were  induced  to  strike  into  a  different 
and  more  popular  path  for  establishing  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  religion  and  morality.   Both  of  these  writers  appear  to 
have  communicated,  in  very  early  youth,  their  doubts  and  objec- 
tions to  Dr.  Clarke ;  and  to  have  had,  even  then,  a  glimpse  of 
those  inquiries  by  which  they  were  afterwards  to  give  so  new 
and  so  fortunate  a  direction  to  the  ethical  studies  of  their  coun- 
trymen.    It  is  sufficient  here  to  remark  this  drciimstance  as 
an  important  step  in  the  i)rogreHS  of  Moral  Philosophy.     The 
farther  illustration  of  it  properly  Ix^longs  to  another  part  of  this 
discourse. 

The  chief  glory  of  Clarke,  as  a  metaphysical  author,  is  due 
to  the  boldness  and  ability  with  wliich  he  placed  himself  in  the 
breach  against  the  Necessitarians  and  Fatalists  of  his  times. 
With  a  mind  far  inferior  to  that  of  Locke,  in  comprehensive- 
ness, in  originality,  and  in  fertility  of  invention,  he  was,  never- 
theless, the  more  wary  and  skilful  disputant  of  the  two, 
possessing,  in  a  singular  degree,  that  reach  of  thought  in 
grasping  remote  consequences,  wliicli  effectually  saved  him 
from  those  rash  concessions  into  which  Locke  was  frequently 
betrayed  by  the  greater  warmth  of  his  temperament,  and  viva- 
city of  his  fancy.  Tliis  logical  foresight  (the  natural  result  of 
his  habits  of  mathematical  study)  rendered  him  peculiarly  fit 
to  contend  with  adversaries,  eager  and  qualified  to  take  ad- 

0U8  foUowcra  of  Calvin,  and  withal  very  *  [*Qincqiiid  nos  aut  meliores   aut 

piouB  and  good  persons.'* — Preface  to       bcatiorcs  facturum  est  vol  in  apcrto,  vol 
the  first  volume  of  his  Philo$ophical      in  proximo  posuit  natura. — Seneca.] 
Works.] 

•  Reniorcd.— /?^. 


296 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


vantage  of  every  vulnerable  point  in  his  doctrines ;  but  it  gave, 
at  the  same  time,  to  his  style  a  tameness,  and  monotony,  and 
want  of  colouring,  which  never  appear  in  the  easy  and  spirited, 
though  often  unfinished  and  unequal,  sketches  of  Locke.  Vol- 
taire has  somewhere  said  of  him,  that  he  was  a  mere  reasoning 
machine,  {un  moulin  A  raisonriementj)  and  the  expression, 
though  doubtless  much  too  unqualified,  possesses  a  merit,  in 
point  of  just  discrimination,  of  which  Voltaire  was  probably 
not  fully  aware.* 


*  In  the  extent  of  liia  learning,  the 
conrectneBs  of  his  taste,  and  the  deptli 
of  his  scientific  acqnirements,  Clarke 
possessed  indisputable  advantages  over 
Locke ;  with  which  advanti^s  he  com- 
bined another  not  less  important,  the 
systematical  steadiness  with  which  his 
easj  fortane  and  unbroken  leisure  en- 
abled him  to  pursue  his  favourite  spe- 
culations through  the  whole  course  of 
his  life. 

On  the  subject  of  Free  Will,  Locke  is 
more  indistinct,  undecided,  and  incon- 
sistent, than  might  have  been  expected 
from  his  powerful  mind,  when  directed 
to  so  important  a  question.  This  was 
probably  owing  to  his  own  strong  feel- 
ings in  favour  of  man^s  moral  liberty, 
struggHng  with  the  deep  impression 
left  on  his  philosophical  creed  by  the 
writings  of  Hobbes,  and  with  his  defer- 
ence for  the  talents  of  his  own  intimate 
friend,  Anthony  Collins.*  That  Locke 
oonceived  himself  to  be  an  advocate  for 
Jree-wUlf  appears  indisputably  from 
many  expressions  in  his  chapter  on 
Flower;  and  yet,  in  that  very  chapter, 
he  has  made  various  concessions  to  his 
adversaries,  in  which  he  seems  to  yield 
all  that  was  contended  for  by  Hobbes 
and  Collins:  And,  accordingly,  he  is 
ranked,  with  some  appearance  of  truth, 
by  Priestley,  with  those  who,  while 
they  opposed  verbally  the  scheme  of 
necessity,    have    adopted    it    substan- 


tially,  without  being  aware  of    their 
mistake. 

Li  one  of  Locke's  letters  to  Mr.  Moly- 
neux,  he  has  stated,  in  the  strongest 
possible  terms,  his  conviction  of  man's 
free  agency ;  resting  this  conviction  en- 
tirely on  our  indisputable  consciousness 
oi  the  fact.  This  declaration  of  Locke 
I  consider  as  well  worthy  of  attention 
in  the  argument  about  Free  Will ;  for, 
although  in  questions  of  pure  specula- 
tion, the  authority  of  great  names  is 
entitled  to  no  weight,  excepting  in  so 
far  as  it  is  supported  by  solid  reason- 
ings, the  case  is  otherwise  with  facts 
relating  to  the  phenomena  of  the  human 
mind.  The  patient  attention  with  which 
Mr.  Locke  had  studied  these  very  nice 
phenomena  during  the  course  of  a  long 
life,  gives  to  the  results  of  his  meta- 
physical experience  a  value  of  the  same 
sort,  but  much  greater  in  degree,  with 
that  which  we  attach  to  a  delicate  ex- 
periment in  chemistry,  when  vouched 
by  a  Black  or  a  Davy.  The  ultimate 
appeal,  after  all,  must  be  made  by  every 
person  to  his  own  consciousness;  but 
when  we  have  the  experience  of  Locke 
on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  Priestley 
and  Belsham  on  the  other,  the  contrast 
is  surely  sufficient  to  induce  every  cau- 
tious inquirer  to  re-examine  his  feelings 
before  he  allows  himself  to  listen  to  the 
statements  of  the  latter  in  preference  to 
that  of  the  former. 


*8«e  Note  KK. 


METAPHYSICS  DUBING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        297 

I  have  already  taken  notice  of  Clarke's  defence  of  moral 
liberty  in  opposition  to  Leibnitz ;  but  soon  after  this  contro- 
versy was  brought  to  a  conclusion  by  the  death  of  his  anta- 
gonist, he  had  to  resume  the  same  argument,  in  reply  to  his 
countryman,  Anthony  Collins  ;  who,  following  the  footsteps  of 
Hobbes,  with  logical  talents  not  inferior  to  those  of  liis  master, 
and  with  a  weight  of  personal  character  m  liis  favour,  to  which 
his  master  had  no  pretensions,^  gave  to  the  cause  wliicli  he  so 
warmly  espoused,  a  degree  of  credit  among  sober  and  serious 
inquirers,  which  it  had  never  before  iK)sses8ed  in  England.  I 
liave  rcHcrved,  therefore,  for  this  place,  the  few  general  reflec- 
tions  which  I  have  to  otter  on  this  endless  subject  of  contro- 
versy. In  stating  these,  I  shall  be  the  less  anxious  to  conilense 
my  thoughts,  as  I  do  not  mean  to  return  to  the  discussion  in 
the  sequel  of  this  historictd  sketch.  Indeed,  I  do  not  know  of 
anything  that  has  been  advanced  by  later  AVTiters,  in  8U])))ort  of 


For  the  infoniiutioii  of  Bouie  of  my 
readers,  it  may  l)e  prop«T  to  mention 
that  it  has  of  late  become  faAliionable 
amoDfi^  a  certain  class  of  metaphysicians, 
boldly  to  assert,  that  the  evidcme  of 
their  conHcioiisncss  is  decidedly  in  fa- 
Tour  of  the  scheme  of  necessity. 

But  to  return  to  Mr.  Ix)eke.  The 
only  consideration  on  this  subject  which 
seems  to  have  stagc^crcd  him,  was  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  this  opinion  with 
the  prescience  of  God.  As  tu  this  theo- 
logical difficulty,  I  have  notliing  to  say 
at  present.  The  only  question  which  I 
consider  as  of  any  consequence,  is  the 
matter  of  fact ;  and,  on  this  point,  no- 
thing can  be  more  explicit  and  satis- 
factory than  the  words  of  liocke.  In 
examining  these,  the  attentive  reader 
will  be  satisfied,  that  Locke's  declara- 
tion is  not  (as  Priestley  asserts)  in  favour 
of  the  Liberty  of  Spontaneity,  but  in 
favour  of  the  Liberty  of  IndilTorence ; 
for  as  to  the  former,  there  seems  to  be 
no  difficulty  in  reconciling  it  with  the 
prescience  of  God.  "  I  own  (says  Mr. 
Locke)  freely  to  you  the  weakuess  of 


my  iindcrstauding,  that  though  it  be 
unquestionable  that  there  is  omnipot- 
ence and  omniHci<;nce  in  (io<i  our 
Maker,  and  though  /  cnnnot  fuii'e  a 
clearer  jyercrptiun  ofant/thim/  tfutn  that 
I  am  free. ;  yet  I  conm>t  make  freedom 
in  man  conHistent  with  omnipotence  and 
omniscience  in  (tod,  though  I  am  as 
fully  iKTHuatltMl  of  l»oth  as  of  any  truth 
1  most  finuly  assent  to ;  and  therefore 
1  have  long  since  given  off  the  consi- 
delation  of  that  question  ;  resolving  all 
into  this  short  conclusion,  that,  if  it  he 
jyosfiihle  for  God  to  itKike  a  free  affent, 
tfien  man  is  free^  thotujh  I  tee  not  the 
way  ofit.^^ 

'  In  speaking  disrespectfully  of  the 
]H;rsonal  character  of  Hobbes,  I  alludo 
to  the  base  servility  of  his  political 
principles,  and  to  the  suppleness  with 
which  he  a<lapted  them  to  the  opposite 
interests  of  the  three  successive  govern- 
ments under  which  his  literary  life 
was  spent.  To  his  private  virtues  the 
most  honourable  testiuiony  has  been 
borne,  both  by  his  friends  and  by  his 
enemies. 


298 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


the  scheme  of  necessity,  of  which  the  germ  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  inquiry  of  Collins. 

In  order  to  enter  completely  into  the  motives  which  induced 
Clarke  to  take  so  zealous  and  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  dis- 
pute about  Free  Will,  it  is  necessary  to  look  back  to  the  system 
of  Spinoza;  an  author,  with  whose  peculiar  opinions  I  have 
hitherto  avoided  to  distract  my  readers'  attention.  At  the 
time  when  he  wrote,  he  does  not  appear  to  have  made  many 
proseljrtes;  the  extravagant  and  alarming  consequences  in 
which  his  system  terminated,  serving  with  most  persons  as  a 
sufficient  antidote  against  it.  Clarke  was  probably  the  first  who 
perceived  distinctly  the  logical  accuracy  of  his  reasoning ;  and 
that,  if  the  principles  were  admitted,  it  was  impossible  to  resist 
the  conclusions  deduced  from  them.^  It  seems  to  have  been 
the  object  both  of  Leibnitz  and  of  Collins,  to  obviate  the  force 
of  this  indirect  argument  against  the  scheme  of  necessity,  by 
attempting  to  reconcile  it  with  the  moral  agency  of  man ;  a 
task  which,  I  think,  it  must  be  allowed,  was  much  less  ably 
and  plausibly  executed  by  the  former  than  by  the  latter.  Con- 
vinced, on  the  other  hand,  that  Spinoza  had  reasoned  from  his 
premises  much  more  rigorously  than  either  Collins  or  Leibnitz, 
Clarke  bent  the  whole  force  of  his  mind  to  demonstrate  that 
these  premises  were  false ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  put  incau- 
tious reasoners  on  their  guard  against  the  seducing  sophistry  of 
his  antagonists,  by  showing,  that  there  was  no  medium  between 
admitting  the  free  agency  of  man,  and  of  acquiescing  in  all  the 
monstrous  absurdities  which  the  creed  of  Spinoza  involves. 

Spinoza,^  it  may  be  proper  to  mention,  was  an  Amsterdam 


'  Dr.  Keid's  opinion  on  tliis  point 
coincides  exactly  with  that  of  Clarke. 
See  his  Essays  on  the  Active  Powers  of 
Jfan,  (p.  289,  4to  edition,)  where  he 
pronounces  the  system  of  Spinoza  to  be 
"  the  genuine,  and  the  most  tenable 
system  of  necessity." 

•Born  1632,  died  1677.  It  is  ob- 
served by  Bayle,  that  "  although  Spi- 
noza was  the  first  who  reduced  Atheism 
to  a  system,  and  formed  it  into  a  body 


of  doctrine,  connected  according  to  the 
method  of  geometricians,  yet,  in  other 
respects,  his  opinion  is  not  new,  the 
substance  of  it  being  the  same  with  that 
of  several  other  philosophers,  both  an- 
cient and  modem,  European  and  East- 
em." — See  his  Diet.,  Art.  Spinoza^  and 
the  authorities  in  Note  S. 

It  is  asserted  by  a  late  German  vrriter, 
that  "  Spinoza  has  been  little  heard  of 
in  England,  and  not  at  all  in  France, 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


299 


Jew  of  Portuguese  extraction,  who  (with  a  view  prolwibly  to 
gain  a  more  favourable  reception  to  his  philosophical  dogmas) 
withdrew  himself  from  the  sect  iu  which  he  had  been  educated, 
and  afterwards  apj)ears  to  liave  lived  chiefly  iu  the  society  of 
Christians ;  ^  without,  however,  making  any  public  i)rofession 
of  the  Christian  faith,  or  even  submitting  to  the  ceremony  of 
baptism.  In  his  philosophicid  creed,  he  at  first  embraceil  the 
system  of  Descartes,  and  l)egim  his  literary  career  with  a  work 
entitled,  Renati  Descartes  rrindjnorum  Philosophue,  Para 
Prima  et  Secunda^  More  Geometrico  Deniojistrafce,  1G63.  It 
was,  however,  in  little  else  than  his  physical  principles  that  he 
agreed  with  Descartes ;  for  no  two  philosophers  ever  differed 
more  widely  in  their  metai)hysical  and  theological  tenets. 
Fontenelle  characterizes  his  system  as  a  "  Cartesianism  pushed 
to  extravagance,"  (une  Cartas lanisme  outr6e;)  an  expression 
wliich,  although  far  from  conveying  a  just  or  adecjuate  idea  of 
the  whole  sjririt  of  his  doctrines,  applies  ver}'  happily  to  his 
boldness  and  iwrtinacity  in  following  out  his  avowed  i)rinciples 
to  the  most  jmnuloxical  consecjuences  which  he  conceived  them 
to  involve.  The  reputation  of  his  writings,  accordingly,  has 
fallen  entirely  (excepting  i>erluips  in  Germany  an<l  in  Holland) 
with  the  plulosophy  on  which  they  were  grafteil;  although 
some  of  the  most  obnoxious  opinions  contained  in  them  are 
still,  from  time  to  time,  obtrudeil  on  the  world,  under  the  dis- 
guise of  a  new  form,  and  of  a  phraseology  less  revolting  to 
modem  taste.^ 


and  that  he  has  bo(>n  zcalouHly  defentled 
and  attacked  by  (icnnann  alone."  Tiic 
Dame  writer  infonua  ur,  that  "  the 
philosophy  of  Ix^ibnitz  has  been  little 
8tiidied  in  France,  and  nut  at  nil  in  Eng- 
land. **  —  Lectures  on  tfte  llinturif  of 
Literature^  by  Fred.  Sc^iilkoeu  Enj;* 
lish  TranBl.  publiHhcd  at  Edin.  1818. 
Vol.  ii.  p.  243. 

Ih  it  possible  that  nn  author  who  pro- 
nounces HO  dogmatically  upon  the  j)lii- 
losophy  of  England,  should  never  have 
heard  the  nanie  of  Dr.  Cljirko? 

*  The  Synagogue  were  so  indignant 


at  his  apoHtitsy,  that  they  pronounced 
against  him  their  highest  sentence  of 
excommunicution  called  ScJiftmntata. 
1'ho  form  of  the  sentence  may  be  found 
in  the  Treatise  of  Selden,  JJe  Jure  Na- 
turce  ct  Oentiunij  lib.  iv.  c.  7.  It  is  a 
document  of  some  curiosity,  and  will 
scarcely  suffer  by  a  compiirison  i^iththo 
Popish  f(»nn  of  excommunicution  re- 
corded by  Stenie.  For  some  further 
particulars  with  resi>ect  to  Spinoza  see 
Note  I J  I  J. 

■  "On   vient  de  pn)i)Orter  u  I'Acade- 
mie  de  B<*rlin,  pnir  sujet  de  concours : 


300 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


In  no  part  of  Spinoza's  works  has  be  avowed  himself  an 
atheist ;  but  it  will  not  be  disputed,  by  those  who  comprehend 
the  drift  of  his  reasonings,  that,  in  ix)int  of  practical  tendency, 
Atheism  and  Spinozism  are  one  and  the  same.  In  tliis  respect, 
we  may  apply  to  Spinoza  (and  I  may  add  to  Vanini  also)  what 
Cicero  has  said  of  Epicurus,  Verbis  reliquit  Deos,  re  smtvlit ; 
a  remark  which  coincides  exactly  with  an  expression  of  New- 
ton's in  the  Scholium  at  the  end  of  the  Prindpia :  "  Deus  sine 
dominio,  providentia,  et  caiisis  finalibus,  nihil  aliud  est  quam 
Fatum  et  Natura."^ 

Among  other  doctrines  of  natural  and  revealed  religion  which 
Spinoza  affected  to  embrace,  was  that  of  the  Di\dne  Omnipre- 
sence ;  a  doctrine  which,  combined  with  the  Plenum  of  Des- 
cartes, led  him,  by  a  short  and  plausible  process  of  reasoning, 
to  the  revival  of  the  old  theory  which  represented  God  as  the 
80vl  of  the  tvorld  ;  or  rather  to  that  identification  of  God  and 
of  the  material  universe,  which  I  take  to  be  still  more  agree- 
able to  the  idea  of  Spinoza.^  I  am  particularly  anxious  to  direct 


'  Quels  Bont  les  points  de  contact  du 
Cart^sianisme  et  du  sjsteme  de  Spi- 
noza ? '  " — Recherches  PhilosophiqueSf 
par  M.  do  Bonald,  1S18. 

^  One  of  the  most  elaborate  and  acute 
refutations  of  Spinozism  whicli  has  yet 
appeared,  is  to  be  found  in  Bayle's  Dic- 
tionary, where  it  is  described  as  "  the 
most  monstrous  scheme  imaginable,  and 
the  most  diametrically  opposite  to  the 
clearest  notions  of  the  mind.'*  The 
same  author  affirms,  that  "  it  has  been 
fully  overthrown  even  by  the  weakest 
of  its  adversaries." — "  It  does  not,  in- 
deed, appear  possible,"  as  Mr.  Mac- 
laurin  has  observed,  "  to  invent  another 
system  equally  absurd  ;  amounting  (as 
it  does  in  fact)  to  this  proposition,  that 
there  is  but  one  substance  in  the  uni- 
verse, endowed  with  infinite  attributes, 
(particularly  infinite  extension  and  cogi- 
tation,) which  produces  all  other  things 
necessarily  as  its  own  modifications,  and 
which  alone  is,  in  all  events,  both  phy- 


sical and  moral,  at  once  cause  and  effect, 
agent  and  patient.** — View  of  Newton* t 
Discoveries,  book  i.  chap.  iv. 

*  Spinoza  supposes  that  there  are  in 
God  two  eternal  properties,  thought  and 
extension;  and  as  he  held,  with  Des- 
cartes, that  extension  is  the  essence  of 
matter,  he  must  necessarily  have  con- 
ceived materiality  to  be  an  essential 
attribute  of  God.  "  Per  Corpus  intelligo 
modum,  qui  Dei  essentiam  quatenus  ut 
res  extensa  consideratur,  certo  et  deter- 
minato  modo  exprimit." — (Ethica  oT" 
dine  Geometrico  Demonstrataj  Pars  ii. 
Defin.  1.  See  also  Ethic,  Pars  i.  Prop. 
14.)  With  respect  to  the  other  attri- 
butes of  God,  he  held  that  God  is  the 
cavse  of  all  things ;  but  that  he  acts  not 
from  choice,  but  from  necessity ;  and  of 
consequence,  that  he  is  the  involuntaiy 
author  of  all  the  good  and  evil,  virtue 
and  vice,  which  are  exhibited  in  human 
h'fe.  "  Res  nullo  alio  modo,  neque  ah'o 
ordine  a  Deo  produci  potuenmt,  quani 


MSTAPHT8IC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         301 


the  attention  of  my  readers  to  this  part  of  his  system,  as  I  con- 
ceive it  to  be  at  present  very  generally  misrepresented,  or,  at 
least,  very  generally  misunderstood ;  a  thing  not  to  be  wondered 
at,  considering  the  total  neglect  into  which  his  works  have  long 


productn  lunt." — {Ibid,  Para  i.  Prop. 
83.)  In  one  of  hiii  letters  to  Mr.  Olden- 
burg,  (Letter  21,)  he  acknowledges 
that  his  ideas  of  Qod  and  of  nature  were 
Teiy  different  from  those  entertained  hy 
modem  Christians ;  adding,  by  way  of 
explanation,  "  Deani  rorum  omnium 
caasam  immanentem,  non  vero  transe- 
untem  statuo ;" — an  expression  to  which 
I  can  annex  no  other  meaning  but  this, 
that  God  is  inseparably  and  essentially 
united  with  his  works,  and  that  they 
form  together  but  one  being.  [*  The 
transietU  acts  of  God  (ac<;ording  to 
Bishop  Burnet)  ''are  those  which  are 
done  in  a  succession  of  times,  such  as 
creation,  providence,  and  miracles  ; 
whereas  his  immanent  acts,  his  know- 
ledge and  decrees,  are  one  with  his 
essence.*' — Expotit.  pp.  2<i,  27.] 

The  diverHity  of  opinions  entertained 
concerning  the  natiu'o  of  Spinozism  has 
been  chiefly  owing  to  this,  that  some 
have  formed  their  notions  of  it  from  the 
books  which  Spinoza  published  during 
his  life,  and  others  from  bis  )>osthumous 
remains.  It  is  in  the  last  alone  (parti- 
cularly in  his  Ethics)  that  his  system  is 
to  be  seen  completely  unveiled  and  un 
diHguiscd.  In  the  former,  and  also  in 
the  letters  addressed  to  his  friends,  ho 
occasionally  acconmuKhitcs  himself,  with 
a  yer}'  temporizing  spirit,  to  what  ho 
considere<l  as  the  pro  judicos  of  the  woHil. 
In  proof  of  this,  see  his  Tractutua  Theo- 
loffico-Politicus,  and  his  epistolary  cor- 
respondence, ^XM^/m;  above  all,  his  letter 
to  a  young  friend  who  had  a{>ostatized 
from  Protestantism  to  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  letter  is  otldresscd,  **  No- 
bilissimo  Juvcni,  Alberto  Burffh,"  — 
Spin.  Op.  torn.  ii.  p.  695. 


The  edition  of  Spinoza's  works  to 
which  my  references  are  made,  is  the 
complete  and  vcr}*  accurate  one  pub- 
lished at  Jena,  in  1802,  by  Henr.  Kberh. 
Gottlob  Paulus,  who  styles  himself  Doc- 
tor and  Professor  of  Theol(^'. 

This  learned  divine  is  at  no  pains  to 
conceal  his  a<buiration  of  the  character 
as  well  OS  talents  of  his  author;  nor 
dues  ho  seem  to  havo  much  to  object  to 
the  system  of  Spinozism,  as  explained 
in  his  posthumous  work  upon  Ethics ; 
a  work  which,  the  editor  admits,  con- 
tains the  only  genuine  exposition  of 
Spinoza's  creed.  "  Sedes  systematis 
qmxl  sibi  condidit  in  ethica  est."  — 
{Prfrf,  Iterattc  EditioniSf  p.  ix.)  In 
what  manner  all  this  was  reconciled  in 
his  theological  lectures  with  the  doc- 
trines either  of  natural  or  of  revealed 
religion,  it  is  not  very  easy  to  imagine. 
Perhaps  he  only  affords  a  new  example 
of  what  Dr.  (Marko  long  ago  remarked, 
that  '*  Believing  too  much  and  too  little 
have  commonly  the  luck  to  meet  toge- 
ther, like  two  things  moving  contrary 
ways  in  the  same  circle." — Third  Letter 
to  IhtdweU. 

A  late  Ctemmn  writer,  who,  in  his 
own  opinions,  has  certainly  no  leaning 
towards  Spinozism,  has  yet  spoken  of 
the  moral  tendency  of  S])inoza*H  writings 
in  terms  of  the  wannest  praise,  "'llie 
morality  of  Spinoza  (nays  M.  Fred. 
Schlegel)  is  not  indeed  that  of  the  Bible, 
for  he  himself  was  no  (.'hristian,  but  it 
is  still  a  pure  and  noble  morality,  re- 
sembling that  of  the  ancient  Stoics, 
perhapN  poRseHsing  considerable  advan- 
tages over  that  system.  That  which 
makes  him  strong  when  opposed  to 
adversaries  who  do  not  understand  or 


•  R«iit<>red.~/':d. 


302 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


fallen.  It  is  only  in  this  way  I  can  account  for  the  frequent 
use  which  has  most  unfairly  been  made  of  the  term  Spinozism 
to  stigmatize  and  discredit  some  doctrines,  or  rather  some  modes 
of  speaking,  which  have  been  sanctioned  not  only  by  the  wisest 


feel  his  depth,  or  who  unconsciously 
have  fallen  into  errors  not  much  different 
from  his,  is  not  merely  the  scientific 
clearness  and  decision  of  his  intellect, 
hut  in  a  much  higher  degree  the  open- 
heartedness,  strong  feeling,  and  convic- 
tion, with  which  all  that  he  says  seems 
to  gush  from  his  heart  and  soul." — 
(Lect,  of  Fred.  Schlegel,  Eng.  Transl. 
vol.  ii.  p.  244.)  The  rest  of  the  passage, 
which  contains  a  sort  of  apology  for  the 
system  of  Spinoza,  is  still  more  curious. 


Although  it  is  with  the  metaphysical 
tenets  of  Spinoza  alone  that  we  are  im- 
mediately concerned  at  present,  it  is  not 
altogether  foreign  to  my  purpose  to  ob- 
serve, that  he  had  also  speculated  much 
about  the  principles  of  government ;  and 
that  the  coincidence  of  his  opinions  with 
those  of  Hobbes,  on  this  last  subject, 
was  not  less  remarkable  than  the  simi- 
larity of  their  views  on  the  most  import- 
ant questions  of  metaphysics  and  ethics. 
Unconnected  as  these  different  branches 
of  knowledge  may  at  first  appear,  the 
theories  of  Spinoza  and  of  Hobbes  con- 
cerning all  of  them,  formed  parts  of  one 
and  the  same  system;  the  w^hole  ter- 
minating ultimately  in  the  maxim  with 
which,  according  to  Plutarch,  Anaxar- 
chus  consoled  Alexander  after  the  mur- 
der of  Clytns :  n£?  r«  vr^m^^hv  ««'«  rtu 
»(mr9vvr»s  ^ix«/«?  ttf^i.  Even  in  discus- 
sing the  question  about  Liberty  and 
Necessity,  Hobbes  cannot  help  glancing 
at  this  political  corollary.  "  The  power 
of  God  alone  is  a  sufficient  justification 
of  any  action  he  doth."  ..."  That 
which  ho  doth  is  made  just  by  his  doing 
it."  ..."  Power  irresistible  justifies 
all  actions  really  and  properly,  in  whom- 
/cver  it  be  found." — (Cf  Liberty  and 


Necessity,  addressed  to  the  Lord  Mar- 
quis of  Newcastle.)  Spinoza  has  ex- 
pressed himself  exactly  to  the  same  pur- 
pose.— (See  his  Tractatus  Ihliticits, 
cap.  2,  §  3,  4.)  So  steadily,  indeed, 
is  this  practical  application  of  their  ab- 
stract principles  kept  in  view  by  both 
these  writers,  that  not  one  generous  feel- 
ing is  ever  suffered  to  escape  the  pen  of 
either  in  favour  of  the  rights,  the  liberties, 
or  the  improvement  of  their  species. 

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

The   prevalence  of  Hobbism  at  the 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  E1(}HTEENTH  (^KNTITRY. 


3(« 


of  the  ancients,  but  by  the  highest  names  in  English  ])liih»8c)})hy 
and  literature ;  and  which,  whether  right  or  wrong,  will  be 
found,  on  a  careful  examination  and  compirisi^n,  not  to  liave 
the  most  distant  affinity  to  the  absurd  canjd  with  which  they 
have  been  confounded.  I  tun  afraid  that  Pope,  in  tlie  following 
lines  of  the  Dunciad,  suffered  himself  so  far  to  be  misled  by 
the  malignity  of  Warburton,  as  to  aim  a  secret  stab  at  Newton 
and  Clarke,  by  associating  their  figurative,  and  not  altogether 
unexceptionable,  language  concerning  space  (when  they  called 
it  the  senaorium  of  the  Deity)  mth  the  opinion  of  Spinoza,  as 
I  have  just  exj^lained  it.^ 

"  Tlinwt  Rome  Mechanic  Cause  into  His  phwe, 
Or  bind  in  matter,  or  diffuse  in  spare.'* 

How  little  was  it  suspected  by  the  i)oet,  when  this  sarcasm 
escaped  him,  that  the  charge  of  SiMnozism  and  Pantheism  was 
afterwards  to  \k>  brought  agJiinst  himself,  for  the  sublimest 
I>assage  to  be  found  in  his  writings ! 


court  of  Cliarles  II.,  (a  fact  acknow- 
letlf]^  by  ('larcndon  biin»elf,)  in  but  one 
of  the  many  inotancoH  which  nii^ht  be 
quoted  from  m<Mh'm  tiniCH  in  confirma- 
tion of  thene  rcniarkn. 

The  practical  tendency  of  such  doc- 
trines as  wouhl  pave  thtr  way  to  univer- 
sal scepticiHm,  by  holding  up  to  ridicule 
the  extravagances  and  inconKistencics 
of  the  learned,  is  precisely  similar.  We 
are  told  by  Tacitus,  {AniuiJ.  lib.  xiv.) 
that  Nero  was  accustomed,  at  th(*  close 
of  a  banquet,  to  summon  a  party  of  phi- 
losophers, that  he  might  amuse  himsi'lf 
with  listening  to  the  endless  diversity 
and  discordancy  of  their  respective  sys- 
tems: nor  were  there  wanting  philo- 
sophers at  Kome,  the  same  historian 
adds,  who  were  flattered  to  bo  thus  ex- 
hibited as  a  spectacle  at  the  table  of  the 
emperor.  "What  a  deep  and  instructive 
moral  is  conveyed  by  this  anecdote  !  and 
what  a  contraat  does  it  ailbrd  to  the  sen- 


timent of  one  of  Nero's  successors,  who 
was  himself  a  philosopher  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  wonl,  an<l  whos»i  n'iprn  fur- 
nishes some  of  the  fain>st  |>agcs  in  the 
annals  of  the  human  race  !  "  I  search 
for  truth,  (says  Marcus  Antoninus,)  by 
which  no  jH*rson  has  ever  lM?en  injured." 

*  Warburton,  indeed,  always  prq/<?Me« 
great  respect  for  N«wton  ;  but  of  his 
hostility  to  Clarke  it  is  unnecessary  to 
pnNhice  any  other  pn>f>f  than  his  note 
on  the  following  line  of  the  Duticiad: — 

"  Where  Tlndal  dictates,  and  Silenuf  nioreH." 

— B.  It.  L  492. 

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

"  And  shuw'd  a  Xewton  tm  we  Hhew  an  ape,* 

could  not  piissibly  have  been  written  by 
any  i)erson  impressed  with  a  <lue  vene- 
ration for  this  glory  of  his  species  V 


304  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOKD. 

''  All  are  bat  parts  of  one  stapendoas  wbole, 
Whose  body  Nature  is,  and  God  the  soul. 

•  •  •  «  • 

Lives  through  all  Life,  extends  through  aU  extent^ 
Spreads  undimded^  operates  unspent.''  ^ 

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

"  Estne  Dei  sedes  nisi  terra,  et  pontus,  et  aer, 
Et  coelum,  et  virtus?    Superos  quid  queerimus  ultra? 
Jupiter  est  quodcumque  vides,  quocumque  moveris.'* 

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

Bowe*s  Lxtcan, 

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

On  a  subject  so  infinitely  disproportioned  to  our  faculties,  it 
is  vain  to  expect  language  which  will  bear  a  logical  and  cap- 
tious examination.  Even  the  Sacred  Writers  themselves  are 
forced  to  adapt  their  phraseology  to  the  compreliension  of  those 
to  whom  it  is  addressed,  and  frequently  borrow  the  figurative 
diction  of  poetry  to  convey  ideas  which  must  be  interpreted, 
not  according  to  the  letter,  but  the  spirit  of  the  passage.  It  is 
thus  that  thunder  is  called  the  voice  of  God ;  the  wind,  His 
breath ;  and  the  tempest,  the  blast  of  His  nostrils.  Not  attend- 
ing to  this  circumstance,  or  rather  not  choosing  to  direct  to  it 

*  This  passage,  as  Warton  has  re-  ticularly  in  the  Hynm  to  Narra}fna^ 
marked,  bears  a  very  striking  analogy  or  the  Spirit  of  God,  taken,  as  he  in- 
to a  noble  one  in  the  old  Orphic  verses  forms  us,  from  the  writings  of  their 
quoted    in    the   treatise    lli(i    nivfitv,  ancient  authors : 

ascribed  to  Aristotle;  and  it  is  not  a  ^  .        ..     „ 

..^^,  .         .1    ^  .1  •!  Omniscient  Spirit,  whose  all  ruling  power 

little  curious,  that  the  same  ideas  occur       ^j^  ^^  ^^  ^^  ^^^^  emanations  beam ; 

in   some  specimens  of  Hindoo  poetry,       qjowb  in  the  rainbow,  sparkles  in  the  ttream. 
translated  by  Sir  W.  Jones ;  more  par-  &c.  Ac 


MSTAPHTSICB  DURING  THE  EiaHTEXMTH  CENTUBT. 


305 


the  attention  of  his  reatlers,  Spinoza  has  laid  hold  of  the  well- 
known  expression  of  St  Paul,  that  "  in  God  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being,"  as  a  proof  that  the  ideas  of  the  a]x)8tle, 
concerning  the  Divine  Nature,  were  pretty  much  the  same  with 
his  own ;  a  consideration  which,  if  duly  weighed,  might  have 
protected  some  of  the  passages  above  quoteil  from  the  unchari- 
table criticisms  to  which  they  have  fre<jucntly  been  exi>08ed.* 

To  return,  however,  to  Collins,  from  whose  controversy  with 
Clarke  I  was  insensibly  led  aside  into  this  short  digression 


*  Mr.  Gibbon,  in  commenting  upon 
tbe  celebrated  lines  of  Virgil, 

*'  SpirUai  intuB  aJit,  toUmque  infiua  per  artui, 
MflDi  Acitat  molMD.  ot  magno  m  curpnre  mit- 
ert,- 

obsenres,  that  "  the  mind  which  in 
IVFU8RD  into  the  diflcrent  jmrts  of 
matter,  and  which  mikolbm  itmklk  with 
the  mighty  maRB.  mrarcely  retain h  any 
property  of  a  spiritual  Hulmtancp,  and 
bears  too  near  an  affinity  to  the  prin- 
ciples which  the  impious  Spinoza  n^- 
vived  rather  than  invc'nto<l."  llv  ttd«l«, 
however,  that  "the  |N>verty  of  human 
language,  and  the  oI>scnrity  of  human 
ideas,  make  it  difficult  to  H])eak  worthily 
of  the  GREAT  FIK8T  CAUME ;  and  that  our 
most  religious  poets,  (particularly  PojMi 
and  Thomson,)  in  striving  to  express 
the  presence  and  enerp}-  of  the  Deity 
in  every  part  of  the  univcrne,  deviate 
unwarily  into  images  which  n»qnirc 
a  favourable  conHtruction.  Ihit  thoHO 
writers  (he  candidly  rcmarkN)  dcscrvo 
that  favour,  bv  the  sublime  manner  in 
which  thev  celebrate  the  (J rout  Father 
of  the  univerR«>  and  bv  tlumc  effusions 
of  love  ami  gratitude  which  are  incon- 
sistent with  the  materialist's  KyNtem." 
— MUc.  WorhSf  vol.  ii.  pp.  50*J,  .010. 

May  1  b<;  pcnnitteil  here  to  remark, 
that  it  is  not  only  difficult  but  im^tossibU 
to  speak  of  the  omnipresence  and  omni- 
potence of  Gwl,  without  deviating  into 
such  images  ? 

VOL.  I. 


AVith  the  do<;trine  of  the  Anima 
Mmull,  some  philoHOphers,  lioth  ancient 
antl  nuKlem,  have  connected  another 
theory,  according  to  which  the  souls  of 
men  are  jxirtions  of  the  Supreme  1^'ing, 
with  whom  they  are  n'-united  lit  death, 
and  in  whom  thev  are  finallv  alworl>ed 
and  loNt.  To  assist  the  imagination  in 
conci^iving  this  thcury,  death  has  been 
compared  to  the  breaking  of  a  phial  of 
water,  immersed  in  the  otrean.  It  is 
neeillcHH  to  say,  that  this  incom]»re- 
hcnsible  jargon  has  no  nrreMnnj  con- 
nexion with  the  d(K'trin(>  which  n*pre- 
sents  (tod  as  the  soul  of  the  world,  and 
that  it  would  have  \h^\\  loudly  dis- 
claimed,  not  only  by  Vo\)C  and  Thomstm, 
but  by  Kpictotus,  Antoninus,  and  all 
tin*  wisest  ami  soberest  of  the  Stoical 
sch(K>l  Whatever  objections,  therefore, 
may  be  made  to  this  doctrine,  let  not  its 
supposed  ron^equfinrejt  \to  charged  upon 
any  but  tbfise.  who  may  expn^ssly  avow 
them.  On  Huch  a  subject,  ns  (iiblion 
has  well  remarked,  "  wc  shoidd  l>e  sh>w 
t(»  susjK'ct,  and  still  slower  to  condemn." 
—Jbiil.  p.  r>io. 

Sir  William  Jones  mentions  a  very 
curious  mcNlification  of  this  theory  of 
absorption^  as  (me  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Vedanta  School.  "  The  Vedanta  School 
represent  Ehjsian  happiness  as  a  total 
absorption,  though  not  Much  as  to  destroy 
consciousness^  in  the  Divine  Essence." — 
Dissertation  on  the  Gods  of  Greece^ 
Italy,  and  India. 

U 


306  DISSERTATION.— PART  SECOND. 

about  Spinoza :  I  have  already  said^  that  it  seems  to  have  been 
the  aim  of  Collins  to  vindicate  the  doctrine  of  Necessity  from 
the  reproach  brought  on  it  by  its  supposed  alliance  with 
Spinozism ;  and  to  retort  upon  the  partisans  of  free-will  the 
charges  of  favouring  atheism  and  immorality.  In  proof  of 
this  I  have  only  to  quote  the  accoimt  given  by  the  author 
himself,  of  the  plan  of  his  work : — 

"  Too  much  care  cannot  be  taken  to  prevent  being  misunder- 
stood and  prejudged,  in  handling  questions  of  such  nice  specu- 
lation as  those  of  Liberty  and  Necessity;  and,  therefore, 
though  I  might  in  justice  expect  to  be  read  before  any  judg- 
ment be  passed  on  me,  I  think  it  proper  to  premise  the  follow- 
ing observations  :— 

"  1.  First  J  Though  I  deny  liberty  in  a  certain  meaning  of 
that  word,  yet  I  contend  for  liberty^  as  it  signifies  a  power  in 
man  to  do  as  he  tvills  or  pleases ;  [*  which  is  the  notion  of 
liberty  maintained  by  Aristotle,  Cicero,^  Mr.  Locke,  and  several 
other  philosophers,  ancient  and  modem.]  .  .  . 

"2.  Secondly y  When  I  aflSrm  necessity,  I  contend  only  for 
moral  necessity  ;  meaning  thereby,  that  man  who  is  an  intelli- 
gent and  sensible  being,  is  determined  by  his  reason  and  his 
senses ;  and  I  deny  man  to  be  subject  to  such  necessity  as  is  in 
clocks,  watches,  and  such  other  beings,  which,  for  want  of  sen- 
sation and  intelligence,  are  subject  to  an  absolute,  physical,  or 
mechanical  necessity. 

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

>  [*  How  far  this  is  a  just  account  of  ut  vdia.**    But  Cicero  is  here  speaking 

Cicero's  notion  of  liberty,  the  reader  of  that  2»&erf^  which  consists  in  exemp- 

may  judge  from  his  own  words.     "  Si  tion  from  external  restraint ;  in  which 

omnia  fato  fiunt  (sajs  Cicero)  omnia  sense  of  the  word,  it  has  nothing  in 

fiunt  causa  antecedente ;  et  si  causa  common  with  that  moral  liberty  which 

appetitus  non  est  sita  in  nobis,"  &c. —  has  been  so  long  the  subject  of  dispute 

J)e  Fato,  cap.  xvii.  among  metaphysicians.] 

Cicero,  indeed,  has  elsewhere  said,  ■  A  Philosophical  Inquiry  concerning 

"  Quid  est  Ubertasf    Ibte^tas  vivendi  Human  Liberty,  3d  edit.   Lend.  1736. 

*  Roitored.~£tf. 


1IRAPHT8IC8  DCRIKO  TU  BIGHTSESTTH  CE>'TrRT. 


3U7 


In  the  prosccation  of  his  argument  on  this  question,  Collins 
endeavours  to  show,  that  man  is  a  necesearr  agent :  1.  From 
our  experience.  (Br  erperieMce  he  means  our  own  conscious- 
ness that  we  are  necessary  airents.)  2.  From  the  impots^ibility 
of  liberty.'  3.  From  the  con^deration  of  the  Divine  prvscienee. 
4.  From  the  nature  and  use  of  rewards  and  punishments; 
andy  5.  From  the  nature  of  morality.' 

In  this  view  of  the  subject,  and,  indeed,  in  the  very  selection 
of  his  premises,  it  is  remiirkable  how  completely  Collins  has 
anticipated  Dr.  Jonathan  Etlwards.  the  most  celebrated  and 
indisputably  the  ablest  champion  of  the  scheme  of  Xecessity 
who  has  since  appeared.  The  coincidence  is  so  perfect,  that  the 
outline  given  by  the  former,  of  the  plan  of  his  work,  mi^ht  liavc 
served  with  equal  propriety  as  a  pivface  to  that  of  the  latter. 

From  the  above  summary,  and  still  more  from  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  Philosophical  Inquiry^  it  is  cndent  tliat  Collins 
(one  of  the  most  obnoxious  writers  of  his  day  to  dinnes  of  all 
denominations)  was  not  less  solicitous  than  his  successor 
Eldwards  to  reconcile  his  metaphysical  notions  with  man's 
accountableness  and  moral  agency.  The  remarks,  acconlingly, 
of  Clarke  upon  CoUins's  work,  arc  equally  applicable  to  that  of 
Edwards.  It  is  to  he  regrctto*!  that  they  seem  never  to  liave 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  this  very  acute  and  honest  reasoner. 
As  for  CoUiuB,  it  is  a  remarkable  circumstance,  that  he  at- 
tempted  no  reply  to  this  tract  of  Clarke's,  although  he  lived 
twelve  years  after  its  publication.*  The  reasoniiigH  contained 
in  it,  together  with  those  on  tlie  same  subject  in  his  corroHjH^u- 
dence  with  Leibnitz,  and  in  his  Demonstration  of  the  Being 


>  See  Note  M  M. 

•  Sec  Note  N  X. 

•  [Not  during  riark«»«  life.  But  in 
1729,  Collins  publiHliod  a  treatiRO  On 
Liberty  and  Xec^aaitt/^  being  a  vindica- 
tion of  hi«  LupUrif.  This  defence, 
which  seems  now  quite  unknown,  was, 
however,  answered  in  the  following  year 
by  two  Anglican  divines,  (Jackson  and 
Gretton.)  The  author  of  HejUctUmM 
vpon  Liberty  and  Neeeasity,  &»•.,  I/on«l. 


1759,  a  l)Ook  printed  but  never  pub- 
lishcil,  and  containing  *'  Cursory  Ko> 
marks  upon  Dr.  Clarke's  Answer  to 
Mr.  CoUins's  Inquiry  conct^niing  Human 
Lilierty," — this  nuth<^  says,  (pp  6,  7, 
61,  66,)  that  Ci>Hins  was  deterred  from 
answering  Clarke  "  by  a  fear  of  the 
Civil  Magistrate."  lUiylo's  I>ietionary 
in  English  (Art.  CoUin^)  makes  an  un- 
qualified assertion  cquivalrnt  to  Mr. 
Stewart's.— AV/J 


308 


DISSERTATION. — ^PART  SECOND. 


and  Attributes  o/Ood,  form,  in  my  hiimble  opinion,  the  most  im- 
portant as  well  as  powerful  of  all  his  metaphysical  arguments.^ 
The  adversaries  with  whom  he  had  to  contend  were,  both  of 
them,  eminently  distinguished  by  ingenuity  and  subtlety,  and 
he  seems  to  have  put  forth  to  the  utmost  his  logical  strength, 
in  contending  with  such  antagonists.  "  The  liberty  or  moral 
agency  of  man  (says  his  friend  Bishop  Hoadley)  was  a  darling 
point  to  him.  He  excelled  always,  and  showed  a  superiority 
to  all,  whenever  it  came  into  private  discourse  or  public  debate. 
But  he  never  more  excelled  than  when  he  was  pressed  with  the 
strength  Leibnitz  was  master  of;  which  made  him  exert  all  his 
talents  to  set  it  once  again  in  a  clear  light,  to  guard  it  against 
the  evil  of  metaphysical  obscurities,  and  to  give  the  finishing 
stroke  to  a  subject  which  must  ever  be  the  foundation  of 
morality  in  man,  and  is  the  ground  of  the  accountableness  of 
intelligent  creatures  for  all  their  actions."  ^ 

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

"  Thus  (says  a  very  learned  disciple  of  Leibnitz,  who  made 
his  first  appearance  as  an  author  about  thirty  years  after  the 
death  of  his  master^) — thus,  the  same  chain  embraces  the 


*  Voltaire,  who,  in  all  probability, 
never  read  either  Clarke  or  Collins,  has 
said  that  the  former  replied  to  the 
latter  only  by  Theological  reasonings: 
"  Clarke  iVa  ripondii  h  Collins  qu^en 
TMoloffleny — {Quest,   sxir    VEncycio- 

pfdie^  Art.  Libert^.)  Nothing  can  be 
more  remote  from  the  truth.  The  argu- 
ment of  Clarke  is  wholly  Metaphysical; 
whereas,  his  antagonist,  in  various 
instances,  has  attempted  to  wrest  to  his 
own  purposes  the  words  of  Scripture. 

*  Preface  to  the  folio  ed.  of  Clarke's 


Workft. — The  vital  importance  which 
Clarke  attached  to  this  question,  has 
given  to  the  concluding  paragraphs  of 
his  remarks  on  Collins,  an  earnestness 
and  a  solemnity  of  wliich  there  are  not 
many  instances  in  his  writings.  Theser 
paragraphs  cannot  be  too  strongly  re- 
commended to  the  attention  of  those 
well-meaning  persons,  who,  in  our  own 
times,  have  come  forward  as  the  apostles 
of  Dr.  Priestley's  "great  and  glorious 
Doctrine  of  Philosophical  Necessity." 
«  Charies  Bonnet,  bom  1720,  died  1793. 


MSTAFHTBICS  DURING  THE  EIOHTEKNTH  CENTURY.         309 

physical  and  moral  worlds,  binds  the  past  to  the  present,  the 
present  to  the  future,  the  future  to  eternity." 

'^  That  wisdom  which  has  ordained  tlic  existonee  of  tliis 
chain,  has  doubtless  willed  that  of  every  link  of  which  it  is 
com}X)Bed.  A  Caligula  in  one  of  those  links,  and  this  link  is 
of  iron:  a  Marcus  Aurelius  is  another  link,  an<l  this  link  is 
of  gold.  Both  are  necessary  jnirts  of  one  whole,  which  could 
not  but  exist  Sliall  God  then  l)e  un^y  at  the  sight  of  the 
iron  link?  What  absunlity!  Go<l  esteems  this  link  at  its 
proper  value:  He  sees  it  in  its  cause,  and  he  approves  this 
cause,  for  it  is  good.  God  beholtls  niond  monsters  as 
he  beholds  physical  monsters.  Happy  is  the  link  of  gold  I 
Still  more  hai)py  if  he  know  that  he  is  only  foHunate}  He 
has  attained  the  highest  degree  of  moral  iK^fwtion,  and  is 
nevertheless  without  pride,  knowing  that  what  he  is,  is  the 
necessary  result  of  the  place  which  he  must  occui)y  in  the 
chain." 

"  Tlie  gosj)el  is  the  allegorical  exjM^sition  of  this  systoni ;  the 
simile  of  the  jwtter  is  its  sumniary."^^ — Bonnet,  torn.  viii.  pp. 
237,  238. 

In  what  essential  resjK^ct  does  this  system  differ  from  that 
of  Spinoza  ?  Is  it  not  even  more  dangerous  in  its  practical 
tendency,  in  consequence  of  the  high  strain  of  mystical  devo- 
tion by  which  it  is  exalttH.1  ?3 


'  ITie  worda  in  the  original  nre, 
'*  Henreiix  lo  cliJiiiKm  d'or  I  phi.s  heur- 
eux  ent'ore,  H*il  8ait  ipril  nVni  qii'  heur- 
«iar.'*  The  douhle  moaning  of  hrureiix, 
if  it  render  the  ex])n'H8ii>n  1c8m  iDgically 
precise,  gives  it  at  h-ast  an  opigrani- 
matic  turn,  which  cannot  In*  pn'sor\Td 
in  our  language. 

•  See  Note  ( )  O. 

•  Among  tho  various  forms  whi<'h 
religious  enthusiiism  assuni^'s,  tluTo  is 
a  certain  prostration  of  the  mind,  whit-h, 
under  the  ^|)e<■ious  disgnihc  of  a  deep 
humility,  aims  at  exulting  the  I  Mviue  per- 
fections, by  annihilating  all  tho  powers 
which  belong  io  Human  Nature.    "  No- 


thing is  more  usual  for  fi-rvent  devotion, 
(savH  Sir  .lamen  Mackintofih,  in  sjK?ak- 
ing  r»f  Konie  theories  current  among  the 
Hind<HiN,;  than  to  dwell  h«)  long  and  so 
warndy  on  the  meanness  and  wortli- 
IcHsneMs  of  i-n-ati'd  things,  and  on  tho 
all-sufti<:ienry  of  the  Supn-nie  n«'ing, 
that  it  slid«>s  iimensihly  from  compara- 
tive lo  alisolutc  language,  and  in  tho 
eagerness  of  its  zeal  to  magnify  the 
I»eity  Hcems  to  uTinihilate  everything 
el«*«'." — Svoe  PhlUnnphii  of  the  J  finnan 
Mhitl,  vol.  ii.  p.  r)21>,  «M.  ed. 

This  excellent  observation  may  serve 
to  account  for  the  zeal  displayed  bv 
liimnet,  an<l  many  other  devout  men,  in 


310 


DI8SEBTATI0N. — ^PART  SECOND. 


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

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

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

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


favour  of  the  Scheme  of  Necessity. 
"  We  have  nothing  (they  frequently 
and  justly  remind  us)  but  what  we 
have  received." — But  the  question  here 
is  simply  a  matter  of  fact,  whether  we 
have  or  have  not  received  from  Chd  the 
gift  of  Free  Will ;  and  the  only  argu- 
ment, it  must  he  remembered,  which 
they  have  yet  been  able  to  advance  for 
the  negative  proposition,  is,  that  this 
gift  was  impossible^  even  for  the  power 
of  God ;  nay,  the  same  argument  which 
annihilates  the  power  of  Man,  annihi- 
lates that  of  God  also,  and  subjects  him, 
as  well  as  all  his  creatures,  to  the  con- 


trol of  causes  which  he  is  unable  to  re- 
sist. So  completely  does  this  scheme 
defeat  the  pious  views  in  which  it  has 
sometimes  originated. — I  say  sometimet; 
for  the  very  same  argument  against  the 
liberty  of  the  Will  is  employed  by  Spi- 
noza, according  to  whom  the  free-agency 
of  man  involves  the  absurd  supposition 
of  an  imperium  in  imperio  in  the  uni- 
verse.— T}raetcU.  Polii.  cap.  ii.  sect.  6. 

*  The  logical  inference  ought  un- 
doubtedly to  have  been,  "  as  long  as  we 
know  nothing  of  the  universe  apriori^ 
we  are  not  entitled  to  say  of  anything 
that  it  either  is,  or  is  not,  necessary." 


MSTAPHYaiCS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         311 

^  I  am  now,  my  dear  friend,  going  to  quit  the  tone  of  a 
preacher,  to  take,  if  I  can,  that  of  a  philosopher.  Examine  it 
narrowly,  and  you  will  see  that  the  word  Liberty  is  a  word 
devoid  of  meaning;^  that  there  are  not,  and  that  there  cannot 
be  free  beings ;  that  we  are  only  what  accords  witli  the  general 
order,  with  our  organization,  our  education,  and  the  chain  of 
eventa  These  dispose  of  us  invincibly.  We  can  no  more 
conceive  a  being  acting  without  a  motive,  than  we  can  one  of 
the  arms  of  a  balance  acting  without  a  weight  The  motive 
is  always  exterior  and  foreign,  fastened  upon  us  by  some  cause 
distinct  from  ourselves.  What  deceives  us,  is  the  prodigious 
variety  of  our  actions,  joined  to  the  habit  which  we  catch  at 
our  birth,  of  confounding  the  voluntary  and  the  free.  We 
have  been  so  often  praised  and  blamed,  and  have  so  often 
praised  and  blamed  others,  tliat  we  contract  an  inveterate  pre- 
judice of  believing  that  we  and  they  will  and  act  freely.  But 
if  there  is  no  liberty,  there  is  no  action  that  merits  either  praise 
or  blame ;  neither  vice  nor  virtue,  nothing  that  ought  either  to 
be  rewanled  or  punished.  What  then  is  the  dintinction  among 
men  ?  The  doing  of  good  and  the  doing  of  ill  I  The  doer  of 
ill  is  one  who  must  be  destroyed,  not  punished.  The  doer  of 
good  is  lucky,  not  virtuous.  But  though  neither  the  doer  of 
good  or  of  ill  be  free,  man  is  nevertheless  a  being  to  be  modi- 
fied ;  it  is  for  this  reason  the  doer  of  ill  shoidd  be  destroyed 
upon  the  scaffold.  From  thence  the  good  eflfects  of  education, 
of  pleasure,  of  grief,  of  grandeur,  of  poverty,  &c. ;  from  thence 
a  pliilosophy  fidl  of  pity,  strongly  attached  to  the  gocxl,  nor 
more  angry  with  the  wicked,  than  with  the  wliirlwiud  which 
fills  one's  eyes  with  dust.  Strictly  spetiking,  there  is  but  one 
sort  of  causes,  that  is,  physical  causes.  There  is  but  one  sort 
of  necessity,  wluch  is  the  same  for  all  beings.  This  is  what 
reconciles  me  to  humankind :  it  is  for  tliis  reason  I  exhorted 
you  to  philanthropy.  Adopt  these  principles  if  you  think 
them  good,  or  show  me  that  they  are  bad.  If  you  adopt  them, 
they  will  reconcile  you  too  with  others  and  with  yourself:  you 

'  Does  not  this  remark  of  Diderot      the  word  necessitif,  as  cmitlovoJ  in  tliin 
apply  with  infinitely  greater  furce  to      controversy? 


312 


DISSERTATION. — ^PART  SECOND. 


will  neither  be  pleased  nor  angry  with  yourself  for  being  what 
you  are.  Keproaeh  others  for  nothing,  and  repent  of  nothing ; 
this  is  the  first  step  to  wisdom.  Besides  this,  all  is  prejudice 
and  false  philosophy/'* 

The  prevalence  of  the  principles  here  so  earnestly  inculcated 
among  the  higher  orders  in  France,  at  a  period  somewhat 
later  in  the  history  of  the  monarchy,  may  be  judged  of  from 
the  occasional  allusions  to  them  in  the  dramatic  pieces  then 
chiefly  in  request  at  Paris.  In  the  Mariage  de  Figaro,  (the 
popularity  of  which  was  quite  imexampled,)  the  hero  of  the 
piece,  an  intriguing  valet  in  the  service  of  a  Spanish  courtier, 
is  introduced  as  thus  moralizing,  in  a  soliloquy  on  his  own  free- 
agency  and  personal  identity.  Such  an  exhibition  upon  the 
English  stage  would  have  been  universally  censured  as  out  of 
character  and  extravagant,  or  rather,  would  have  been  com- 
pletely unintelligible  to  the  crowds  by  which  our  theatres  are 
filled. 

"  Oh  bizarre  suite  d'evenemens  I  Comment  cela  m'a-t-il 
arrive  ?  Pourquoi  ces  choses  et  non  pas  d'autres  ?  Qui  les  a 
fix^s  sur  ma  t^te  ?  Force  de  parcourir  la  route  oil  je  suis 
entr^  sans  le  savoir,  comme  j  en  sortirai  sans  le  vouloir,  je  I'ai 
jonch^e  d'autant  de  fleurs  que  ma  gaiety  me  la  permet :  encore 
je  dis  ma  gaiety,  sans  savoir  si  elle  est  a  moi  plus  que  le  reste, 
ni  meme  qui  est  ce  moi  dont  je  m'occupe." 

That  this  soliloquy,  though  put  into  the  mouth  of  Figaro, 
was  meant  as  a  picture  of  the  pliilosophical  jargon  at  that  time 
aflFected  by  courtiers  and  men  of  the  world,  will  not  be  doubted 
by  those  who  have  attended  to  the  importance  of  the  roles 
commonly  assigned  to  confidential  valets  in  French  comedies, 
and  to  the  habits  of  familiarity  in  which  they  are  always  repre- 


*  Nearly  to  the  same  purpose,  we  are 
told  by  Mr.  Belsham,  that  "  the  falla- 
cious feeling  of  r&norse  is  superseded 
by  the  doctrine  of  necessity." — {Eleni. 
p.  284.)  And  again,  "  Remorse  sup- 
poses free  will.  It  is  of  little  or  no  use 
in  moral  discipline.  In  a  degree,  it  is 
even  pernicious." — Ihid.  p.  406. 

Nor  does  the  opinion  of  Hartley  seem 


to  have  been  different.  "  The  doctrine 
of  Necessity  has  a  tendency  to  abate  all 
resentment  against  men.  Since  all 
they  do  against  us  is  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  Ciod,  it  is  rebellion  against  him 
to  be  offended  with  them.'* 

For  the  originals  of  the  quotations 
from  Grimm  and  Diderot,  see  Note 
PP. 


1IETAPHT8ICS  DURING  THE  SIGHTSKNTH  CKNTUBT.        813 

aented  as  living  with  their  masters.  The  sentiments  which 
they  are  made  to  utter  may,  accordingly,  be  safely  considered 
as  but  an  echo  of  the  lessons  which  they  have  learned  from 
their  superiors.^ 

My  anxiety  to  state,  without  any  interruption,  my  remarks 
on  some  of  the  most  important  questions  to  which  the  attention 
of  the  public  was  called  by  the  8i)eculations  of  Locke,  of  Leib- 
nitz, of  Newton,  and  of  Clarke,  Iins  led  me,  in  various  instances, 
to  depart  from  the  strict  order  of  Chronology.  It  is  time  for 
me,  however,  now  to  pause,  and,  before  I  proceed  farther,  to 
supply  a  few  chasms  in  the  foregoing  sketch.' 


BECT.  rV.-^F  SOME  AUTHORS  WHO  RAVE  CONTRIBUTED,  BY  THEIR 
CRITICAL  OR  HISTORICAL  WRITINGS,  TO  DIFFUSE  A  TASTE  FOR 
IfET APHTSICAL  STUDIES  —  B A YLE  —  FON  TEN  ELLE  —  ADDISON. 
— METAPHYSICAL  WORKS  OF  BERKELEY. 


Among  the  many  eminent  jKirHons  wlio  were,  eitlicr  driven 
from  France,  or  who  went  into  vohmtarj'  exile,  in  consequence 
of  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantz,  the  most  illustrious  by 
far  was  Bayle;*  who,  fixing  his  residence  in  Holland,  and 
availing  himself,  to  the  utmost  extt»nt,  of  the  religious  tolera- 
tion then  enjoyed  in  that  country,  diffused  from  thence,  over 
Europe,  a  greater  mass  of  accurate  and  curiouF  information, 
accompanied  by  a  more  siJeudid  display  of  acute  and  lively 


*  A  reflection  of  Voltaire's  on  the 
writings  of  Spinoza  may,  I  think,  be 
here  quoted  without  inipn>priety.  "  Vons 
otes  tres  coufuK,  Baruc  Spinoza,  nuiiN 
etes  vous  ausni  (iaugercux  qu*on  le  (lit  ? 
Je  Boutiens  quo  non,  ct  nia  raison  c'est 
que  voiiH  r*t«*8  confus,  (jue  vous  avcz 
ecrit  en  luauvuiH  Latin,  et  (ju'il  n'y  a 
pas  dix  |)ors()nnc8  on  Europe  qui  vous 
lisent  d*un  iNMit  a  I'autro.  Quel  eHt 
Tauteur  dangereux?  CVht  celui  qui 
est  lu  par  leH  Oifiifa  do  la  (.'our,  et  par 
les  Dames." — Qurst.  hut  f  Encyclop. 
Art.  Diev. 


Had  Voltaire  kept  this  last  remark 
steadily  in  view  in  his  own  writings, 
how  many  of  tluwo  pages  would  lie  have 
wuictjlled  whirli  he  has  given  to  the 
world ! 

•  [If  any  of  my  nsaders  wish  for 
further  information  concerning  the  his- 
tory of  the  controverHy  alK)ut  Liberty 
ami  Necessity,  1  l)eg  leave  to  refer  them 
to  a  Huiall  work  entitletl  Theatrum  Fati, 
Notitia  scriptonmi  <le  Providentia,  For- 
tuna,  et  Fato;  auctore  I*etr.  Frid.  Arpe. 
HMtero<lami,  1712.] 

■Horn  in  1647,  died  1705. 


314 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


criticism,  than  had  ever  before  come  from  the  pen  of  a  single 
individual.^  Happy  I  if  he  had  been  able  to  restrain  within 
due  bounds  his  passion  for  sceptical  and  licentious  discussion, 
and  to  respect  the  feelings  of  the  wise  and  good,  on  topics  con- 
nected with  religion  and  morality.  But,  in  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances in  which  he  was  educated,  combined  with  the 
seducing  profession  of  a  literary  adventurer,  to  which  his  hard 
fortune  condemned  hhn,  such  a  spirit  of  moderation  was  rather 
to  be  wished  than  expected. 

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

In  the  midst  of  these  controversies,  Bayle,  keeping  aloof  as 
far  as  possible  from  all  the  parties,  indulged  his  sceptical  and 
ironical  hmnour  at  the  common  expense  of  the  various  com- 
batants. Unattached  himself  to  any  system,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  imfixed  in  his  opinions  on  the  most  fundamental 
questions,  he  did  not  prosecute  any  particular  study  with  suffi- 


*  The  erudition  of  Bayle  is  greatly 
undervalaed  by  his  aDtagonist  Le  Clerc. 
''  Toutes  les  lumi^res  philosophiques  de 
M.  Bayle  consistoient  en  quelque  pen 
de  Peripat^tisme,  qu^il  avoit  appris  des 
J^uites  de  Toulouse,  et  un  pen  de  Car- 
t^sianisme,  quil  n'ayoit  jamais  appro- 
fondi." — BiH,  Choistej  torn.  xii.  p.  106. 

[*  Mr.  Gibbon,  although  he  does  not 
go  80  far  on  this  point  as  his  favourite 
author,  Le  Clerc,  has  yet  carried  his  de- 
ference for  Le  Clerc*s  authority  to  an 
undue  length  in  the  following  judgment 
upon  Bayle's  erudition.] 

In  the  judgment  of  Gibbon,  "  Bayle's 
learning  was   chiefly  confined  to  the 


Latin  authors ;  and  he  had  more  of  a 
certain  multifarious  reading  than  of  real 
erudition.  Le  Clerc,  his  great  anta- 
gonist, was  as  superior  to  him  in  that 
respect  as  inferior  in  every  other." — Ex- 
traits  SaisonnSa  de  mes  Lecture$f  p.  62. 
[*  The  Btblioth^es  of  Le  Clerc  (his 
Bibliothlque  UniverseUe  and  his  BUfUo- 
thique  Choisie)  are  characterized  by 
Gibbon  as  "  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
amusement  and  instruction." — (Ifiae. 
Worksy  vol.  ii.  p.  65.)  Of  these  two, 
the  BitlUoihhjue  Choisie  is  elsewhere 
pronounced  by  the  same  excellent  judge 
to  be  "  by  far  the  better  work." — Vol.  i. 
p.  100.] 


*  Restored.— fd. 


1UETAPHYBIC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  315 

cient  perseverance  to  add  materially  to  the  stock  of  useful 
knowledge.  The  influence,  however,  of  his  writings  on  the 
taste  and  views  of  speculative  men  of  all  jiersuatdouH,  has  been 
so  great,  as  to  mark  him  out  as  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
characters  of  his  age ;  and  I  shall  accordingly  devote  to  him  a 
larger  s{)ace  than  may,  at  first  sight,  appear  due  to  an  author 
who  has  distinguislied  himself  only  by  the  extent  of  his  his- 
torical researches,  and  by  the  sagacity  and  subtlety  of  his  criti- 
cal disquisitions. 

We  are  informed  by  Bayle  himself,  that  his  favourite  authors, 
during  his  youth,  were  Plutarch  and  Montaigne ;  and  from 
theniy  it  has  been  alleged  by  some  of  his  biographers,  he  imbibed 
his  first  lessons  of  sc^e])tici8m.  In  what  manner  the  first  of 
these  writers  should  have  contributed  to  inspire  him  with  this 
temper  of  mind,  is  not  very  obvious.  There  is  certainly  no 
heathen  philosopher  or  historian  whose  morality  is  more  pure 
or  elevated ;  and  none  who  has  drawn  the  line  between  super- 
stition and  religion  with  a  nicer  hand.^  Po]:)e  has  with  jHjrfect 
truth  said  of  him,  that  "  he  abounds  more  in  strokes  of  good 
nature  than  any  other  author;"  to  which  it  may  be  added, 
that  he  abounds  also  in  touches  of  simple  and  exquisite  pathos^ 
seldom  to  be  met  with  among  the  greatest  painters  of  anti- 
quity. In  all  these  respects  what  a  contrast  does  Bayle  present 
to  Plufairch  I 

Considering  the  share  which  Bayle  ascriljes  to  Montaigne's 
Essays  in  forming  his  literary  taste,  it  is  curious,  tliat  there  is 
no  seimrate  article  allotted  to  Montaigne  in  the  Historical  and 

*  Sec,  in  particular,  his  account  of  the  papers  on  Cheerfulness.     "  An  eminent 

effects  produced  on  the   character  of  Paj^an  writer  ha8  made  a  discourse  to 

PericlcB    by    the    sublime    lessons    of  nhow,  that   the    atheist,  who  denies  a 

Anaxafi^oras.  Ciod,  does  him  Ichs  dinhonour  than  the 

Plutarch,  it  is  true,  had  said  before  man  who  owns  his  being,  but,  at  the 

Bayle,  that  atheism  is  less  peniicions  same  time,  believes  him  to  be  cruel, 

than  superstition  ;   but  how  wide  the  hard  to  please,  and  terrible  to  human 

difference  between  this  paradox,  as  ex-  nature.     For  my  own  part,  says  he,  I 

plained  and  qualified  by  the  Orock  phi-  would  rather  it  should  be  said  of  me, 

losopher,  and  as  interpreted  and  a))plied  that  there  was  never  any  such  man  as 

in  the  Be/lections  on  the  Comet !    Mr.  Plutarch,  than  that  Plutarch  was  ill- 

Addison  himself  RceuiK  to  give  his  sane-  naturcd,  capricious,   and   inhuman." — 

tion  to  Plutarch's  maxim  in  one  of  his  Spectator,  No.  494. 


318  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

Critical  Dictionary,  What  is  still  more  curious,  there  is  more 
than  one  reference  to  this  article,  as  if  it  actually  existed; 
without  any  explanation  of  the  omission  (as  far  as  I  recollect) 
from  the  author  or  the  publisher  of  the  work.  Some  very  in- 
teresting particulars,  however,  concerning  Montaigne's  life  and 
writings,  are  scattered  over  the  Dictionaiy,  in  the  notices  of 
other  persons,  with  whom  his  name  appeared  to  Bayle  to 
have  a  sufficient  connexion  to  furnish  an  apology  for  a  short 
episode. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  a  very  improbable  conjecture,  that 
Bayle  had  intended,  and  perhaps  attempted,  to  write  an  account 
of  Montaigne ;  and  that  he  had  experienced  greater  difficulties 
than  he  was  aware  of,  in  the  execution  of  his  design.  Not- 
withstanding their  common  tendency  to  scepticism,  no  two 
characters  were  ever  more  strongly  discriminated  in  their  most 
prominent  features ;  the  doubts  of  the  one  resulting  from  the 
singular  coldness  of  his  moral  temperament,  combined  with  a 
subtlety  and  over-refinement  in  his  habits  of  thinking,  which 
rendered  his  ingenuity,  acuteness,  and  erudition,  more  than  a 
match  for  his  good  sense  and  sagacity  ; — the  indecision  of  the 
other  partaking  more  of  the  shrewd  and  soldier-like  ^tourderie 
of  Henry  IV.  when  he  exclaimed,  after  hearing  two  lawyers 
plead  on  opposite  sides  of  the  same  question,  "  Ventre  St.  Chris  ! 
il  me  semble  que  tons  les  denx  ont  raison.*" 

Independently  of  Bayle's  constitutional  bias  towards  scepti- 
cism, some  other  motives,  it  is  probable,  conspired  to  induce 
him,  in  the  composition  of  his  Dictionary,  to  copy  the  spirit 
and  tone  of  the  old  Academic  school.  On  these  collateral 
motives  a  strong  and  not  very  favourable  light  is  thrown  by  his 
own  candid  avowal  in  one  of  his  letters.  "  In  truth,  (says  he 
to  his  correspondent  Minutoli,)  it  ought  not  to  be  thought 
strange,  that  so  many  persons  should  have  inclined  to  Pyrrhon- 
ism ;  for  of  all  things  in  the  world  it  is  the  most  convenient. 
You  may  dispute  with  impunity  against  everybody  you  meet, 
without  any  dread  of  that  vexatious  argument  which  is  ad- 
dressed ad  hominem.  You  are  never  afraid  of  a  retort ;  for  as 
you  announce  no  opinion  of  your  own,  you  are  always  ready  to 


METAPHT8IC8  DtJRINQ  THE  EIOHTEENTH  CENTURY.         317 

abandon  those  of  others  to  the  attacks  of  sophists  of  every  de- 
scription. In  a  word,  you  may  dispute  and  jest  on  all  subjects 
without  incurring  any  danger  from  the  lex  talionts"^  It  is 
amusing  to  think,  that  the  Pyrrhonism  which  Bayle  himself 
has  here  so  ingeniously  accounted  for,  from  motives  of  con- 
veniency  and  of  literary  cowardice,  sliould  have  been  mis- 
taken by  so  many  of  his  disciples  for  the  sportive  triumph  of  a 
superior  intellect  over  the  weaknesses  and  errors  of  human 
reason.* 

The  profession  of  Bayle,  which  made  it  an  object  to  him  to 
turn  to  account  even  the  sweepings  of  his  study,  aflFords  an  ad- 
ditional explanation  of  the  indigested  mass  of  heterogeneous 


'  "  En  veritc,  il  ne  fftut  piw  trouvcr 
Strange  qnc  tant  dcs  gens  aicnt  donne 
dans  le  P>Trhoni8mo.  Carc'est  la  chose 
da  iDonde  la  plus  cominodo.  Vous  pou- 
vez  impnm-ment  diflpiiter  contro  tous 
Tenans,  et  sans  craindre  ces  arguinens 
adhomtnemf  qui  font  quolquefoiH  taut  de 
peine.  Vous  no  craigncz  point  la  iv- 
toreion ;  puisquc  nc  soiitenant  ricn,  vous 
abandonncz  dc  bon  cwur  h  tons  Ics 
sophiNmes  et  h  tous  les  rnisouncmens  de 
la  terre  quelquc  opinion  que  co  soit. 
Vous  n'rtes  jamais  oMigr  d'en  vcnir  h 
la  defensive.  En  un  mot,  vous  contes- 
ted et  vous  daubez  sur  toutos  ehoscs  tout 
Totre  saoul,  sans  craindre  la  peine  du 
ialion. ''—(Euv.  JHv.tU  BmjU,  iv.p.537. 

■  Tlie  estimate  formed  bv  Warburton 
of  Hnvle's  character,  both  intellectual 
and  moral,  is  candid  and  temperate. 
"  A  writer  whose  strength  and  clearness 
of  reasoning  can  only  b4.>  equalled  by  the 
gaiety,  (easiness,  and  delicacy  of  his 
wit ;  who,  p(frviuling  human  nature  with 
a  glance,  struck  into  the  province  of 
parad(»x,  as  an  exercise  for  the  restless 
vigour  of  his  mind  :  who,  with  a  soul 
superior  to  the  sharpest  attacks  of  for- 
tune, and  a  heart  practised  to  the  best 
philosophy,  had  not  yet  enough  of  real 
greatness  to  overcome  that  last  foible  of 
superior   geniuses,    the   temptation    of 


honour,  which  the  academical  exercise 
of  wit  is  8up|)osed  to  bring  to  ita  pro- 
fessors."— IHvine  Ijfgatian. 

If  there  be  anything  objectionable  in 
this  panegyric,  it  is  the  unqualified 
praise  bestowed  on  Bayle*s  triV,  which, 
though  it  seldom  fails  in  copiousness, 
in  poignancy,  or  in  that  grave  argumen- 
tative irony,  by  which  it  is  still  more 
characteristically  marked,  is  commonly 
as  deficient  in  ffaiety  and  delicacy  as  that 
of  Warburton  himself. 

T/eibnitz  seems  perfectly  to  have  en- 
tered into  the  peculiar  temper  of  his  ad- 
versary Bayle,  when  he  said  of  him,  that 
**  the  only  way  to  make  Bayle  write  usc- 
fidly,  would  be  tu  attack  him  when  ho 
advances  propositions  that  are  sound 
and  true  ;  and  to  abstain  fioni  attacking 
him,  when  he  says  anything  false  or 
pernicious." 

"  \jo  vrai  moyen  de  faire  ecrire  utile- 
ment  M.  Bayle,  ce  siToit  de  Tattaquer, 
lorsqu'il  ecrit  des  bonnes  choses  et 
vraies,  car  ce  seroit  le  moyen  de  le  piquer 
pour  continucr.  Au  lieu  qu'il  ne  fau- 
droit  point  I'attaquer  quand  il  en  dit  iXe 
mauvaiscs,  car  cola  I'engagera  k  en  dire 
d'autres  aussi  mauvaises  pour  soutenir 
les  premieres." — Tom.  vi.  p.  273. 

Leibnitz  elsewhere  says  of  him  :— 
Uhi  bene,  nemo  melius. — Tom.  i.  p.  257. 


318 


DISBEBTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


and  inconsistent  materials  contained  in  his  Dictionary.  Had 
he  adopted  any  one  system  exclusively,  his  work  would  have 
shrunk  in  its  dimensions  into  a  comparatively  narrow  compass.^ 

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

It  furnishes  some  apology  for  the  unsettled  state  of  Bayle's 
opinions,  that  his  habits  of  thinking  were  formed  prior  to  the 
discoveries  of  the  Newtonian  School.  Neither  the  vortices  of 
Descartes,  nor  the  monads  and  pre-established  harmony  of 
Leibnitz,  were  well  calculated  to  inspire  him  with  confidence  in 
the  powers  of  the  human  understanding ;  nor  does  he  seem  to 
have  been  led,  either  by  taste  or  by  genius,  to  the  study  of  those 


*  "  The  inequality  of  Bayle's  volumi- 
nous works,  (says  Gribbon,)  is  explained 
by  his  alternately  writing  for  himself, 
for  the  bookseller,  and  for  posterity ;  and 
if  a  severe  critic  would  reduce  him  to  a 
single  folio,  that  relic,  like  the  books  of 
the  Sybils,  would  become  still  more 
valuable.*' — Qibbon's  Mem,  p.  60. 

Mr.  Gibbon  observes  in  another  place, 
that,  "  if  Bayle  wrote  his  Dictionary  to 
empty  the  various  collections  he  had 
made,  without  any  particular  design,  he 
could  not  have  chosen  a  better  plan.  It 
permitted  him  everything,  and  obliged 
him  to  nothing.  By  the  double  freedom 
of  a  Dictionary  and  of  Notes,  he  could 


pitch  on  w^hat  articles  he  pleased,  and 
say  what  he  pleased  on  those  articles." 
— Extraits  Baisonnis  de  mea  Lecturei, 
p.  64. 

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

For  a  long  and  interesting  passage 
with  respect  to  Bayle's  history  and  char- 
acter, see  Gibbon's  Memoirs^  &c.,  vol.  i. 
pp.  49,  50,  51. 


XETAPHTBICS  DURIKO  THE  KIQHTEENTH  CKNTURT. 


319 


exBcter  Bciences  in  which  Kepler,  Gkdileo,  and  others,  liad,  in 
the  preceding  age,  made  such  splendid  advances.  In  Qeometry 
he  never  proceeded  beyond  a  few  of  the  elementary  proposi- 
tions ;  and  it  is  even  said,  (although  I  apprehend  with  little 
probability,)  that  his  farther  progress  was  stop])cd  by  some  de- 
fect in  his  intellectual  powers,  which  disqualified  him  for  the 
mccessM  prosecution  of  the  study. 

It  IB  not  unworthy  of  notice,  that  Bayle  was  the  son  of  a  Cal- 
vinist  minister,  and  was  destined  by  his  father  for  his  own  pro- 
fession ;  that  during  the  course  of  his  education  in  a  college  of 
Jesuits,  he  was  converted  to  the  Boman  Catholic  persuasion  ;^ 
and  that  finally  he  went  to  Geneva,  where,  if  he  was  not  re- 
called to  the  Protestant  faith,  he  was  at  least  most  thoroughly 
reclaimed  from  the  errors  of  Popery.* 

To  these  early  fluctuations  in  his  religious  creed,  maybe 
ascribed  his  singularly  accurate  knowledge  of  controversial 
theology,  and  of  the  lives  and  tenets  of  the  most  distinguished 
divines  of  both  churches ; — a  knowledge  much  more  minute 

the  discovery  of  a  pht!o$oph!eal  argu' 
ment  a^cainst  the  doctrine  of  TVaiuufr- 
stantiation ;  that  the  text  of  Scriptare, 
which  seems  to  inculcate  the  real  pre- 
sence, is  attested  only  bj  a  single  sense 
— our  sight ;  while  the  real  presenot 
itself  iH  disproved  by  three  of  our  senses 
— the  sight,  the  touch,  and  the  taste.** 
— (75irf.  p.  58.)  Tliat  this  "pAOow- 
phical  argument**  should  have  had  any 
influence  on  the  mind  of  (libbon,  even 
at  the  early  period  of  life  when  he  made 
"the  discovery,**  would  appear  highly 
improbable,  if  the  fact  were  not  attested 
by  himself;  but  as  for  Bayle,  whose 
logical  acumen  was  of  a  far  hanler  and 
keener  edge,  it  seems  quite  impossible 
to  conceive,  "  that  the  study  of  physics** 
was  at  all  necessary  to  open  his  eyes  to 
the  absurdity  of  the  real  pretence ;  or 
that  he  would  not  at  once  have  perceived 
the  futility  of  appealing  to  our  senses  or 
to  our  reason,  against  an  article  of  faith 
which  professedly  disclaims  the  autho- 
rity of  both. 


*  "For  the  benefit  of  education,  the 
Protestants  were  tempted  to  risk  their 
children  in  the  Catholic  Universities ; 
and  in  the  twenty-second  year  of  his  age 
young  Bayle  was  seduced  by  the  arts 
and  arguments  of  the  Jesuits  of  Thou- 
louse.  He  remained  about  seventeen 
months  in  their  hands  a  voluntary  cap- 
tive."— Gibbon*s  Miae.  Worlc$^  vol.  i. 
p.  49. 

■  According  to  Oiblion,  "the  piety 
of  Bayle  was  offended  by  the  excessive 
worship  of  creatures  ;  and  the  study  of 
phyticB  convinced  him  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  transubstantiation,  which  is 
abundantly  refiited  by  the  testimony  of 
our  senses.'* — Ibid.  p.  49. 

The  same  author,  speaking  of  his  own 
conversion  from  Popery,  observes,  (after 
allowing  to  his  Preceptor  Mr.  Pavillard 
*'a  handsome  share"  of  the  honour,) 
*'  that  it  was  principally  effected  by  his 
private  reflections  ;**  adding  the  follow- 
ing very  curious  acknowledgment :  "  I 
still  remember  my  solitar)'  transport  at 


320 


DISSERTATION. — PART  HECONDi 


than  a  person  of  his  talents  could  well  be  supposed  to  accumu- 
late from  the  mere  impulse  of  literary  curiosity.  In  these 
respects  he  exhibits  a  strUring  resemblance  to  the  historian  of 
the  Decline  and  Fail  of  the  Roman  Empire :  Nor  is  the  par- 
allel between  them  less  exact  in  the  similar  eflfects  produced  on 
their  minds,  by  the  polemical  cast  of  their  juvenile  studies. 
Their  common  propensity  to  indulge  in  indecency  is  not  so 
easily  explicable.  In  neither  does  it  seem  to  have  originated 
in  the  habits  of  a  dissolute  youth,  but  in  the  wantonness  of  a 
polluted  and  distempered  imagination.  Bayle,  it  is  well  known, 
led  the  life  of  an  anchoret  ;i  and  the  licentiousness  of  his  pen 
is,  on  that  very  account,  the  more  reprehensible.  But  every- 
thing considered,  the  grossness  of  Gibbon  is  certainly  the  more 
unaccountable,  and  perhaps  the  more  unpardonable  of  the 
two.* 

On  the  mischievous  tendency  of  Bayle's  work  to  unsettle  the 
principles  of  superficial  readers,  and,  what  is  worse,  to  damp 
the  moral  enthusiasm  of  youth,  by  shaking  their  faith  in  the 
reality  of  virtue,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  enlarge.  The  fact 
is  indisputable,  and  is  admitted  even  by  his  most  partial  ad- 
mirers. It  may  not  be  equally  useless  to  remark  the  benefits 
which  (whether  foreseen  or  not  by  the  author,  is  of  little  con- 
sequence) have  actually  resulted  to  literature  from  his  indefati- 
gable labours.  One  thing  will,  I  apprehend,  be  very  generally 
granted  in  his  favour,  that,  if  he  has  taught  men  to  suspend 


^  "  Chaste  dans  ses  discours,  grave 
dans  868  discours,  sobre  dans  sesalimens, 
austere  dans  son  genre  de  vie." — Por- 
trait de  Bayle,  par  M.  Saurin,  dans  son 
Sermon  sur  Taccord  de  la  Religion  avec 
la  Politique. 

'  In  justice  to  Bayle,  and  also  to 
Gibbon,  it  should  be  remembered,  that 
over  the  most  offensive  passages  in  their 
works  they  have  drawn  the  veil  of  the 
learned  languages.  It  was  reserved  for 
the  translators  of  the  Historical  and 
Critical  Dictionary  to  tear  this  veil 
asunder,  and  to  expose  the  indelicacy  of 
their  author  to  every  curious  eye.    It  is 


impossible  to  observe  the  patient  indus- 
try and  fidelity  with  which  they  have 
executed  this  part  of  their  task  without 
feelings  of  indignation  and  disgust.  For 
such  an  outrage  on  taste  and  decorum, 
their  tedious  and  feeble  attacks  on  the 
Manicheism  of  Bayle  offer  but  a  poor 
compensation.  Of  all  Bayle's  suspected 
heresies,  it  was  perhaps  that  which 
stood  the  least  in  need  of  a  serious  refu- 
tation ;  and,  if  the  case  had  been  other- 
wise, their  incompetency  to  contend  with 
such  an  adversary  would  have  only  in- 
jured the  cause  which  they  professed  to 
defend. 


KKTAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIOUTEENTH  CENTUUY.         321 

their  jadgment^  he  has  taught  them  also  to  think  and  to  reason 
for  themselves ;  a  lesson  which  appeared  to  a  late  ])hilo8ophical 
divine  of  so  great  importance,  as  to  suggest  to  him  a  doubt 
whether  it  would  not  be  better  for  authors  to  state  nothing  but 
premiaeSj  and  to  leave  to  their  readers  the  task  of  forming  their 
own  conduaicna}  Nor  can  Bayle  be  auididly  aecuKcd  of  often 
discovering  a  partiality  for  any  particular  sect  of  philuHo])hers. 
He  opposes  Spinoza  and  Hobl)es  vrith  the  Raine  spirit  and  abi- 
lity, and  apparently  with  the  same  good  faith,  witli  winch  lie 
controverts  the  doctTines  of  Anaxagoras  and  of  Pinto.  Even 
the  ancient  Sceptics,  for  whose  mode  of  philosophizing  he  might 
be  supposed  to  have  felt  some  degree  of  tenderness,  are  treated 
with  as  little  ceremony  as  the  most  extravagant  of  the  dogma- 
tists. He  has  been  often  accused  of  a  leaning  to  the  most  absurd 
of  all  systems,  that  of  the  Manichcans;  and  it  muHt  l)e  owneil, 
that  there  is  none  in  defence  of  which  he  has  ho  often  and  so 
ably'  exerted  his  talents ;  but  it  is  etiHy  to  iKTci»ive  that,  when 
he  does  so,  it  is  not  from  any  serious  faith  which  he  attac^hes  to 
it,  (perhaps  the  contrary  supposition  would  Ikj  nearer  the  truth,) 
but  from  the  i)eculiarly  ample  field  whic^h  it  ojwued  for  the  din- 
play  of  his  controversial  subtlety,  andof  liiH  inexhaustible  stores 
of  miscellaneous  information.^  In  one  jwissage  he  has  pro- 
nounced, with  a  tone  of  decinion  which  he  seldom  assumes,  that 

'  See  the  Prefnro  ti)  Jti.shop  Butlcr*a  contro,  sann  rien  difwimulcr,  qn«  pour 

Sermons.  donuor  de  I'cxcrcicc  K  ccux  qui  entcn- 

'  Particularly  in  the  article  entitled  dent  les  maticrcii  qu'il  traite,  ct  non 

Pauliriatu.  pour  favonKi'r  coux  dont  il  cxpliqtie  \vs 

'  One  of  the  earlicnt  an  well  m  the  raiHouH/*  —  {Parrfuisiatia,   on  Penst'ea 

ablest  of  thoiie  who  undertook  a  ivply  to  IfhrrteHf  p.   .S0*2,    par   M.   Lo   CMorc. 

the  passages  in  Baylc  which  seem  to  Amst«'nliini,  ICO*.).)     [*  I'hc  tcHtimony 

favour  Manicheisni,    candidly    acquits  of  T^o  ( Merc  on  this  point  is  of  ]Mrculiar 

him  of  any  serious  design  to  recommend  value,  as  he  knew  Dayle  intimately.    It 

that  system  to  his  readers.     "En  re-  may  Iw  thought  triKing  to  aiM,  hut  I 

pendant  aux  objectionn  Manicln'cnnes,  cannot  help  mentioning  it  m  a  curious 

jc  ne  pretends  fairo  aucun  tort  a  M.  accident,  that  the  copy  of  the  I'arrha- 

IJayle :  que  je  ne  80Upi;onne  nullcnient  siana  now  lying  before  me  \h  mnik(>d 

de  les  favoriser.     Je  suis  per8ua<le  qu'il  with  the  name  of  John  Ijocke  in  hirt 

n'a  pris  la  liberte  philosophique  do  (lire,  own  handwriting,  and  appears  to  have 

en  bien  des  roncontroH,  lo  pour  et  lo  been  presented  io  him  by  the  author.] 

VOL.   I.  -X 


322 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


"  it  is  absurd,  indefensible,  and  inconsistent  with  the  regularity 
and  order  of  the  universe ;  that  the  arguments  in  favour  of  it 
are  liable  to  be  retorted ;  and  that,  granting  it  to  be  true,  it 
would  aflford  no  solution  of  the  difficulties  in  question."'  The 
apparent  zeal  with  which,  on  various  occasions,  he  has  taken  up 
its  defence,  may,  I  think,  be  reasonably  accounted  for,  by  the 
favourable  opportunity  it  afforded  him  of  measuring  his  logical 
powers  with  those  of  Leibnitz.* 

To  these  considerations  it  may  be  added,  that,  in  consequence 
of  the  progress  of  the  sciences  since  Bayle's  time,  the  unlimited 
scepticism  commonly,  and  perhaps  justly,  imputed  to  him,  is 
much  less  likely  to  mislead  than  it  was  a  century  ago ;  while 
the  value  of  his  researches,  and  of  his  critical  reflections,  be- 
comes every  day  more  conspicuous,  in  proportion  as  more 
enlarged  views  of  nature  and  of  human  affairs  enable  us  to 
combine,  together  that  mass  of  rich  but  indigested  materials,  in 
the  compilation  of  which  his  own  opinions  and  principles  seem 
to  have  been  totally  lost  Neither  comprehension,  indeed,  nor 
generalization,  nor  metaphysical  depth,^  are  to  be  numbered 


^  See  the  illuHtration  upon  the  Scep- 
tics at  the  end  of  the  Dictionary. 

'  This  supposition  may  be  thought 
inconsistent  with  the  well-known  fact, 
that  the  TheodicSe  of  Leibnitz  was  not 
published  till  after  the  death  of  Bayle. 
But  it  must  be  recollected,  that  Bayle 
had  preyiously  entered  the  lists  with 
Leibnitz  in  the  article  Borariua^  where 
he  had  urged  some  very  acute  and  for- 
cible objections  against  the  scheme  of 
pre-estabUsJied  harmony ;  a  scheme* 
which  leads  so  naturally  and  obviously 
to  that  of  Optimism,  that  it  was  not 
difficult  to  foresee  what  ground  Leibnitz 
was  likely  to  take  in  defending  his  prin- 
ciples. The  great  aim  of  Bayle  seems 
to  have  been  to  provoke  Leibnitz  to  im- 
fold  the  whole  of  his  system  and  of  its 
necessary  consequences  ;  well  knowing 
what  advantages,  in  the  management  of 


such  a  controversy,  would  be  on  the  side 
of  the  assailant. 

The  tribute  paid  by  Leibnitz  to  the 
memory  of  his  illustrious  antagonist  de- 
serves to  be  quoted.  "  Sperandum  est, 
Bcdium  luminibus  illis  nunc  circumdari, 
quod  terns  negatmn  est :  cum  credibile 
sit,  bonam  voluntatem  ei  nequaquam 
defuisse." 

"  Oandidua  insa^om  miratar  limen  Olympi, 
Bab   pedibuaque  Tidet  nub«B  e(  ddeim 
Daphnis." 

[*  "  Charite  rare  (adds  Fontenelle) 
parmi  les  Theologiens,  k  qui  il  est  fort 
familier  de  damner  leurs  adversaires."] 

*  I  speak  of  that  metaphysical  depth 
which  is  the  exclusive  result  of  what 
Newton  called  jDo^ien^  t^tnib'n^^.  In  logi- 
cal quickness  and  metaphysical  subtlety, 
Bayle  has  never  been  surpassed. 


•  lUaeored.— £». 


MXTAPHY8ICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         323 

among  the  characteristical  attributes  of  his  geniua  Far  less 
does  he  ever  anticipate,  by  the  moral  lights  of  the  soul,  the  slow 
and  hesitating  decisions  of  the  understanding,  or  touch  with  a 
privileged  hand  those  mysterious  chords  to  which  all  the  social 
sympathies  of  our  frame  are  responsive.  Had  Ids  ambition,  how- 
ever, been  more  exalted,  or  his  philanthropy  more  warm  and 
diffusive,  he  would  probably  have  attempted  less  than  he  actually 
accomplished ;  nor  would  he  have  stooped  to  enjoy  that  undis- 
puted pre-eminence,  which  the  public  voice  has  now  unanimously 
assigned  him,  among  those  inestimable  though  often  ill-requited 
authors,  whom  Johnson  has  called  **  the  pioneers  of  literature." 

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

Of  the  various  lessons  of  historical  scepticism  to  be  learned 
from  Bayle,  there  is  none  more  practically  valuable  (more  espe- 
cially in  such  revolutionary  times  as  we  have  witnessed)  than 
that  which  relates  to  the  biographical  portraits  of  distinguished 
persons,  when  drawn  by  their  theological  and  political  oppo- 
nents. In  illustration  of  tliis,  I  have  only  to  refer  to  the  copious 
and  instructive  extracts  which  he  has  produced  from  Roman 
Catholic  writers,  concerning  the  lives,  and  still  more  concerning 
the  deaths,  of  Luther,  Knox,^  Buchanan,  and  various  other 
leaders  or  partisans  of  the  Reformation.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible for  any  well-informed  Protestant  to  read  these  extracts 

*  Montesquieu  has  expressed  himself  ou  bien  k  Toccasion  des  vrais." — JPens4e$ 

on  this  subject  in  nearly  as  strong  terms  Diverset  de  Montesquieu,  torn.  v.  de  ses 

as  Fontenelle.    "Les  Histoires  sontdes  CEuvrcs.    Ed.  de  Paris,  1818. 

faits  faux  composes  sur  des  faits  vrais,  '  See  Note  Q  Q. 


324 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


without  iudulging  a  smile  at  their  incredible  absurdity,  if  every 
feeling  of  levity  were  not  lost  in  a  sentiment  of  deep  indignation 
at  the  effrontery  and  falsehood  of  their  authors.  In  stating 
this  observation,  I  have  taken  my  examples  from  Koman 
Catholic  libellers,  without  any  illiberal  prejudices  against  the 
members  of  that  church.  The  injustice  done  by  Protestants  to 
some  of  the  conscientious  defenders  of  the  old  faith  has  been,  in 
all  probability,  equally  great ;  but  this  we  have  no  opportunity 
of  ascertaining  here,  by  the  same  direct  evidence  to  which  we 
can  fortunately  appeal  in  vindication  of  the  three  characters 
mentioned  above.  With  the  history  of  two  of  them  every  per- 
son in  this  country  is  fully  acquainted ;  and  I  have  purposely 
selected  them  in  preference  to  others,  as  their  names  alone  are 
sufficient  to  cover  with  disgrace  the  memory  of  their  calum- 
niators.! 


A  few  years  before  the  death  of  Bayle,  Fontenelle  began  to 
attract  the  notice  of  Europe.*  I  class  them  together  on  account 
of  the  mighty  influence  of  both  on  the  literary  taste  of  their 
contemporaries ;  an  influence  in  neither  case  founded  on  any 
claims  to  original  genius,  or  to  important  improvements,  but 
on  the  attractions  which  they  possessed  in  common,  though  in 
very  different  ways,  as  popular  writers ;  and  on  the  easy  and 
agreeable  access  which  their  works  opened  to  the  opinions  and 
speculations  of  the  learned.  Nor  do  I  depart  so  far  as  might 
at  first  be  supposed  from  the  order  of  chronology,  in  passing 
from  the  one  to  the  other.  For  though  Fontenelle  survived 
ahnost  to  our  own  times,  (having  very  nearly  completed  a  cen- 


*  Of  all  Bayle 's  works,  "  the  most 
useful  and  the  least  sceptical/'  accord- 
ing to  Gibbon,  "  is  his  CommeiUaire 
Philoiophique  on  these  words  of  the 
Gospel,  Compel  them  to  come  tn." 

The  great  object  of  this  Commentary 
is  to  establish  the  general  principles  of 
Toleration,  and  to  remonstrate  with  the 
members  of  Protestant  churches  on  the 
inconsistency  of  their  refosiiig  to  those 
they  esteem  heretics,  the  same  indul- 


gence which  they  claim  for  themselves 
in  Catholic  countries.  The  work  is  dif- 
fuse and  rambling,  like  all  6ayle*s  com- 
positions ;  but  the  matter  is  exceUent, 
and  well  deserves  the  praise  which 
Gibbon  has  bestowed  on  it. 

•  Bayle  died  in  1706.  Fontenelle's 
first  work  in  prose  (the  Dialogues  of  the 
Dead)  was  published  as  early  as  1683, 
and  was  quickly  followed  by  his  Cbn- 
versatioM  on  Hie  Plurality  of  Worlds, 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


325 


tuiy  at  the  time  of  his  death,)  the  interval  between  his  birth 
and  that  of  Bayle  was  only  ten  years,  and  he  had  actually  pub- 
lished several  volumes,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  before  the 
Dictionary  of  Bayle  appeared. 

But  my  chief  reason  for  connecting  Fontenelle  rather  with 
the  contemporaries  of  his  youth  than  with  those  of  his  old  age, 
is,  that  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  was  left  far  behind 
in  his  philosophical  creed  (for  he  never  renounced  his  faith  as 
a  Cartesian*)  by  those  very  pupils  to  whose  minds  he  had 
given  so  powerful  an  impulse,  and  whom  he  had  so  long 
taught  by  his  example,  the  art  (till  then  unknown  in  modem 
times)  of  blending  the  truths  of  the  severer  sciences  with  the 
lights  and  graces  of  eloquence.  Even  this  eloquence^  once  so 
much  admired,  had  ceased  before  his  death  to  be  regarded  as  a 
model,  and  was  fast  giving  way  to  the  purer  and  more  manly 
taste  in  writing,  recommended  by  the  precepts,  and  exemplified 
in  the  historical  compositions  of  Voltaire. 

Fontenelle  was  a  nephew  of  the  great  Comeille;  but  his 
genius  was,  in  many  respects,  very  strongly  contrasted  with 
that  of  the  author  of  the  Cid,  Of  this  he  has  himself  enabled 
us  to  judge  by  the  feeble  and  unsuccessful  attempts  in  dramatic 
poetry,  by  which  he  was  first  known  to  the  world.  In  these, 
indeed,  as  in  all  his  productions,  there  is  an  abundance  of  in- 
genuity, of  elegance,  and  of  courtly  refinement ;  but  not  the 
faintest  vestige  of  the  mens  divinioTy  or  of  that  sympathy  with 
the  higher  and  nobler  passions  which  enabled  Comeille  to  re- 


'  Excepting  on  a  few  metaphyBical 
points.  The  chief  of  these  were,  the 
question  concerning  the  origin  of  our 
ideas,  and  that  relating  to  the  nature  of 
the  lower  animals.  On  the  former  of 
these  subjects  he  has  said  explicitly : 
"  L'Ancienne  Philosophic  n'a  pas  tou- 
jours  eu  tort.  Elle  a  soutcnu  que  tout 
ce  qui  etoit  dans  I'esprit  avoit  pasBi  par 
Us  tens,  ct  nous  n'aurions  pas  mal  fait 
do  conscrver  cela  d'elle." — {Fragment  of 
an  intended  Treatise  on  the  Hitman 
Mind.)  On  another  occasion,  he  states 
his  own  opinion  on  this  point,  in  Ian- 


guafre  coinciding  exactly  with  that  of 
Gassendi.  "  A  force  d*op^rer  sur  les 
premieres  idies  form6es  par  len  sens, d*y 
ly'outer,  d'en  retrancher,  de  les  rendre 
de  particulieres  universelles,  d'univer- 
selles  plus  universelles  encore,  Tesprit 
les  rend  si  differcntes  de  cc  qu*elles 
etoient  d'abord  qu'on  a  quclquefois  peine 
k  reconnoitre  lour  origiiic.  Ccpendant 
qui  voudra  prendre  lo  fil  et  le  suivre 
exactement,  rctounicra  toujours  de  l*id^e 
la  plus  sublime  et  la  plus  elevee,  h  quel- 
quo  idee  sensible  et  groBsicTo." 


3Ee6  DIHHERTATIOM. — PART  BBCOND. 

(inimate  and  to  reiiroJiice  on  the  etage  tlie  heroes 
Rome.      The  circumstance,  however,  which  more 
marks  and  distinguish^  his  writingH,  is  the  French  mould  in 
which  education  and  habit  seera  to  have  recast  all  the  original 
features  of  his  mind ; — identifjing,  nt  the  same  time,  bo  per- 
fectly the  impressions  of  art  with  the  workmanshi]}  of  nature, 
that  one  would  think  the  Parisian,  as  well  as  the  man,  had 
started  fresh  and  finished  from  her  creative  hand,     E' 
his  Conversations  on  the  Plurality  of  Worlds,  the  dry  disci 
Bions  with  the  Marchioneea  about  the  now  forgotten  vortices  of 
IJescartes,  are  enlivened  tlironghout  by  a  never-failing  spirit  of 
light  aud  national  gallantry,  which  will  for  ever  render  them 
an  amusing  picture  of  the  manners  of  the  times,  and  of  the 
character  of  the  author.     The  gallantrj-,  it  muht  be  owned, 
often  strained  and  affected ;  but  the  affectation  sits 
on  Fonteuelle,  that  lie  would  appear  less  ea*y  and  gracefi 
without  it. 

The  only  other  production  of  Fonfenelle's  youth  which 
serves  to  be  noticed  ig  his  History  ofOrades;  a  work  of  whi( 
the  aim  was  to  combat  the  popular  belief  that  the  oracles 
antiquity  were  uttered  by  evil  spirits,  and  that  all  these  t^iril 
liecajne  diunb  at  the  moment  of  the  Christian  era.     To  this 
work  Foutenelle  contributed  little  more  than  the  agreeable  and 
lively  form  in  which  he  gave  it  to  the  world  ;  the  cluef  mate- 
rials being  derived  from  a  dull  and  prolix  diinsertation  on  tho 
same  subject,  by  a  learned  Dutchman.     The  publication 
cited  a  keen  opposition  among  divines,  Inrth  Catholic  and  Pi 
tefitant ;  and,  in  particular,  gave  occasion  to  a  very  angry, 
it  is  said,  not  contemptible  criticism,  from  a  member  of  th( 
Hocicty  of  Jesuits.'     It  is  mentioned  by  La  Harpe,  as  an  illi 


'  Ti.  tliia  criticiam,  iho  only  te\Aj 
niado  by  Funtpnellu  wu  a  aiiiglo  iwa- 
ti-ni'e,  wliich  lie  nddnsBed  la  r  Juurnnl- 
itt  who  hoi  urged  him  to  take  up  anna 
in  hii  own  delenct!.  "  Je  laiBBenu  mon 
renwiir  jouir  rti  psix  de  »nn  Iriomphp  ; 
[c  con^eos  qne  U  diiible  Kit  M  pro- 
plielp,    piiis(|iie   le   .I''siiLl»   If  T"I1I,    t-x 


(|u'il  cruil  LoU  pluB  orlhodoxo.''- 
Alembert,  EktgedeLn3[olU.)—'Wet 
Icild  by  D'Alpmhurt,  thiit  the  silence  of  t 
Fontenelb,  on  this  occwuan,  vhs  owing 
to  Ihe  advioe  of  La  MotUi,   "  Fontenelle 
bien  lenlc  ds  l«mtsBer  son  adTeraaira 
pur  Id  fnfiliifi  qii'il  v  tronvoi 
p«r  W  Rvis  priulriis  ii»  U  MnHe ;  MtJ 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         327 

tratioQ  of  the  rapid  change  in  men's  opinions  which  took  place 
during  Foutenelle's  life,  that  a  book  which,  in  his  youth,  was 
censured  for  its  impiety,  was  regarded  before  his  death  as  a 
proof  of  his  respect  for  religion. 

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

The  chief  and  distinguishing  merit  of  Fontenelle,  as  the 
historian  of  the  Academy,  is  the  happy  facility  with  which  he 
adapts  the  most  abstruse  and  refined  speculations  to  the  com- 
prehension of  ordinary  readers.     Nor  is  this  excellence  pur- 


ami  lui  fit  craindra  de  s'aliener  par 
sa  r^ponse  nne  BOci^tS  qui  a'appeloit 
Liffion,  quand  on  avoit  affaire  au  der- 
nier de  sea  membres."  The  advice 
merits  the  attention  of  philoeophers  in 
all  countries,  for  the  spirit  of  Jesuit- 
ism is  not  confined  to  the  Church  of 
Rome. 

^  An  instance  of  this  which  happens 
at  present  to  recur  to  my  memory,  may 
serve  to  illustrate  and  to  confirm  the 
above  remark.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
point  out  its  coincidence  with  the  views 
which  gave  birth  to  the  new  nomencla- 
ture in  chemistr)*. 

"If  )angnAf:«»s  had  h<>en  th«  work  of 


philosophers,  they  might  certainly  be 
more  easily  learned.  Philosophers  would 
have  established  everywhere  a  syste- 
maticul  uniformity,  which  would  have 
proved  a  safe  and  infallible  guide ;  and 
the  manner  of  forming  a  derivative  word, 
would,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  have 
suggested  its  signification.  The  un- 
civilized nations,  who  are  the  first  au- 
thors of  languages,  fell  naturally  into 
that  notion  with  respect  to  certain  ter- 
minaiions,  all  of  which  have  some  com- 
mon property  or  virtue ;  but  that  ad- 
vantage, unknown  to  those  who  had  it 
in  their  hands,  was  not  carried  to  a 
Mifiicient  extent." 


chased  by  any  sacrifice  of  Bcienlifie  precision.  Wbat  lie  aims 
at  is  notliing  more  than  an  outline ;  but  tliis  outline  is  always 
executed  with  the  firm  and  exact  hand  of  a  master.  "  When 
employed  in  comjiositiwo,  (lie  has  somewhere  said,)  my  first 
concern  is  to  be  certain  that  I  myself  miderstand  what  I  am 
about  to  write  ;"  and  on  the  utihty  of  this  practice  every  page 
of  his  Historical  Memoire  may  serve  as  a  comment.^ 

As  a  writer  of  Eloges,  he  has  not  been  equalled  (if  I  may  be 
allowed  to  hazard  my  own  opinion)  by  any  of  his  comitrymen. 
Some  of  those,  indeed,  by  D'AJemhert  and  by  Condorcet,  mani- 
fest jxtwers  of  a  far  higher  order  than  belonged  to  Fontenelle ; 
but  neither  of  these  writers  possessed  Fontenelle's  incommuni- 
cable art  of  interesting  the  curiosity  and  the  feelings  of  lus 
readere  in  the  fortunes  of  every  individual  whom  he  honoured 
by  his  notice.  In  tins  art  it  is  not  improbable  that  they  might 
have  succeeded  better  bad  they  imitated  Fontenelle's  self-denial 
in  sacrificing  the  fleeting  praise  of  brilliant  eoloimng,  to  the 
fidelity  and  lasting  efiect  of  their  portraits ;  a  self-denial  which 
in  Ami  was  the  more  meritorious,  as  Ids  great  ambition  plainly 
was  to  unite  the  reputation  of  a  bel-esprit  with  that  of  a  philo- 
sopher. A  justly  celebrated  academician  of  the  present  times, 
(M.  Cuvier,)  who  has  evidently  adopted  Fontenelle  as  his  model, 
has  accordingly  given  an  interest  and  truth  to  his  Eloges, 
which  the  public  had  long  ceased  to  expect  in  that  species  of 
composition.* 


'  From  lhi>  praiec,  how<v*r,  must  bo 
excepted  the  myHterioUB Jargon  in  wbich 
(after  tbe  eTUnple  of  loroe  nf  his  con- 
tvmpararks)  he  luts  indulgnl  himielf  in 
spe&king  of  the  goometr}-  and  cnJcnluB 
of  iaflnilcB.  "  Kcnii  le  disonii  avec  peine, 
(mj'b  D'Alenibert.)  et  nans  vouloir  out- 
rager  Ub  DiADes  d'un  homnie  celibie  qoi 
n'est  plus,  il  n'y  a  pcnt-tlre  point  d'on- 
vrBge  oii  1'od  trouvo  dca  preuvos  plaa 
frfqupnles  de  I'abug  de  In  metnphjaiiiiie, 
que  dane  I'ouvrage  tr^s  connn  lie  M. 
Fontenelle,  qui  a  pour  litre  ElSntRi  de 
la  Qiomitrif  de  Flnfini ;  anrrage  dnnt 
la  lecture  ert  d'aulant  plus  dang^reuBe 


niii  jcunea  g&metren  que  l'ftnt«nr  7 
prf  lODte  les  Bophinnes  arec  una  Borte 
d'elrgaocB  et  de  grace,  dont  le  aujet  na 
pnroiuoit  pu  RUBcrplible." — Milanjitt, 
See.,  Una.  v.  p.  264. 

'  D'Alembert,  ic  bis  ingenioua  panl- 
Ul  of  Fontenelle  anci  La  Molte,  baa 
made  a  remark  on  Fontenelle's  at^rle 
when  bo  aimg  at  gtmplicitf,  of  tbe  juat- 
nesB  of  vhicti  Frttuh  criticB  alone  aye 
cumpotent  Judges,  "  L'un  et  I'autre  out 
ecrit  en  proae  aTsc  bcauconp  de  clartS, 
d'elegonce,  de  rimplicitS  meme ;  maia 
La  Motte  avca  une  Bimplicile  plus  natu- 
relic,  el  Fontinielle  nvec  uiic  EiDiplicitc 


METAFHYSIC8  DURING  THE  EIGUTEENTU  CEKTUKY. 


329 


Bat  the  principal  charm  of  Fontenelle's  Eloges  arises  from 
the  pleasing  pictures  which  they  everywhere  present  of  genius 
and  learning  in  the  scenes  of  domestic  life.  In  this  respect^  it 
has  been  justly  said  of  them  by  M.  Suard/  that  "  they  form  the 
noblest  monument  ever  raised  to  the  glory  of  the  sciences  and 
of  letters."  Fontenelle  himself,  in  his  Eloge  of  Varignony 
after  remarking,  that  in  him  the  simplicity  of  his  character 
was  only  equalled  by  the  superiority  of  his  talents,  finely  adds, 
"  I  have  already  bestowed  so  often  the  same  praise  on  other 
members  of  this  Academy,  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it  is 
not  less  due  to  the  individuals,  than  to  the  sciences  which  they 
cultivated  in  common."  What  a  proud  reply  does  this  reflec- 
tion afford  to  the  Machiavellian  calumniators  of  philosophy  I  > 

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


plus  etudioe :  car  la  simplicite  pent 
Tetre,  ct  des  lore  elle  devient  mani^rc, 
et  cesse  d'etre  module."  An  idea 
▼ery  similar  to  this  is  happily  ex- 
pressed by  Congreve,  in  his  portrait 
of  Anwret: — 

"  Coquet  and  coy  at  onc«  her  air. 

Both  ftudied,  though  both  teem  neglaetod : 
Careless  At  is  with  artful  rare, 
AJB^-^ing  lo  seem  unqfecUd." 


^  Notice  $ur  la  Vie  et  la  Ecriti  du 
Docteur  Rohertton,     Paris,  1817. 

'  [*  Gibbon,  whose  critical  opinions 
in  matters  of  taste,  when  ho  trusts  to 
his  own  judgment,  are  not  unfrequently 
erroneous,  praises  Fontenelle's  Hittory 
of  Grades,  and  even  his  Edogues,  but 
seems  to  have  been  quite  insensible  to 
the  merits  of  his  Eloges.  See  his  Misc. 
Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  55.1 


•  Rcntorc*!.— Kd. 


DllHSBTATIOtr. — FAST  SCOOSD, 

Nor  was  thia  cbaiige  of  manners  confined  to  oue  uf  the  sexes. 
The  other  sex,  to  whom  iiaturc  has  entrusted  the  first  develop- 
ment of  our  intellectual  and  moral  powetH,  and  who  may, 
therefore,  be  regarded  as  the  chief  medium  through  which  the 
progress  of  the  mind  is  continued  from  generation  fo  genera- 
tion, shared  also  largely  in  the  genera!  improvement.  Fon- 
t«nelle  asi»ired  above  all  things  to  be  the  pliiloBoplier  of  the 
ParisiaQ  circles;  and  certainly  contributecl  not  a  little  to 
dithise  a  taste  for  useftU  knowledge  among  women  of  all  con- 
ditions in  France,  by  bringing  it  into  vogue  among  the  higher 
classes.  A  reformation  so  great  and  so  sudden  could  not  jkm- 
eibly  take  place,  without  giving  birth  to  much  affectation, 
extravagance,  and  folly;  but  the  whole  analogy  of  human 
afifurs  encourages  us  tw  hope,  that  the  inconveniences  and 
evils  connected  with  it  will  be  partial  and  temporary,  and  ita 
beneficial  results  permanent  and  progressive.' 


P 


'  Among  tbe  nuioiu  other  reapccta 
in  vliich  Fontenelle  coatribaled  lo  the 
intellectURl  improvsmettt  of  his  coaotrf- 
men,  it  aught  to  U;  mentioned,  thnt  he 
was  one  of  the  finst  writcm  in  Franco 
who  diverted  the  alien tion  of  meUphyiu- 
ciuiB  from  the  old  topics  of  scholastiL-dia- 
cassion,  to  &  philosophicsl  iBTcaligatioa 
of  tbe  principles  of  tbe  fine  art^.  Vori- 
Diu  original  binla  upon  these  subjectK 
■re  scattered  over  his  works ;  but  the 
moat  bvourahle  specimens  of  liis  talents 
for  this  Ver;  delicate  species  of  Minl^'sis 
STB  lo  hu  found  in  his  Dititrtation  on 
BiUoraU,  and  in  his  Thforg  coruxrn- 
irvjlAelklightKiederireJram  Troffedy* 
His  speculatinna,  indeed,  lae  not  atwajs 
jnst  and  satisfuctoi?  ;  bat  Ihoy  an?  sel- 
dom deficient  in  noveltj  or  reEDemouC. 
Their  principal  fault,  perhaps,  arises 
(rom  the  ■nthor's  disposidun  lo  cari? 
hit  refinementa  too  far ;  in  consequence 
iif  vhii'h,  his  thearios  becumo  cbarge- 


nhla  with  that  sort  of  suUiinated  inge- 
nuity which  the  French  epithet  Alom- 
hiqui  expresiei  more  precinelj'  ind 
forcibly  than  any  word  in  our  Unguiga. 
Something  of  the  same  philoMphical 
spirit  may  be  traced  in  Fenelon's  Dia- 
loffuft  on  Eloqamx,  and  in  his  LftUr 
on  Bhetorie  atui  l\itlr!/.  Ths  former 
of  these  treatises,  heiides  Its  merits  h  • 

piBrticdl  hints,  well  enlitlcd  to  the  at- 
len^on  of  those  who  aspire  to  cinineacv 
as  public  speakers;  and  of  which  the 
most  apparently  trifling  claim  lome  re- 
gard, as  the  results  of  the  author's 
reflections  upon  an  art  which  few  ever 
practised  with  greater  suceeas. 

Lei  me  add,  that  both  of  these  emi- 
nent men  (who  may  be  regarded  as  Ihs 
fathers  of  pbilnsnphical  criticism  in 
Franco)  were  lealoua  partisans  and  nd- 
mirrrs  of  the  Carlesinn  melaphyiica. 
It  is  thisenVifoI  branch  of  metaphyseal 


M£TArHYUlC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


331 


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


scieDce  which,  in  my  opinioo,  has  been 
mo«t  Buccessfully  cultivated  by  French 
writers;  although  too  many  of  them 
have  been  infected  (after  the  example  of 
Fontenclle)  with  the  dincase  of  sickly 
and  of  hyper-mUaphyncal  subtlety. 

From  this  censure,  however,  mast  be 
excepted  the  Abb^  Dubos,  whose  Critt* 
cat  Befiecticna  on  Poetry  and  Painting 
is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  and  instruc- 
tive works  that  can  be  put  into  the 
hands  of  youth.  Few  books  are  better 
calculated  for  lemling  their  minds  gra- 
dually from  literature  to  philosophy. 
The  author's  theories,  if  not  always 
profound  or  just,  are  in  general  marked 
with  good  sense  as  well  as  with  in- 
genuity; and  the  subjects  to  which 
they  relate  are  so  peculiarly  attractive, 
as  to  fix  the  attention  even  of  those 
readers  who  have  but  little  relish  for  spe- 
culative discussions.  "  Ce  qui  fait  la 
bonte  de  cct  ouvrage  (says  Voltaire) 
c'est  qu'il  n'y  a  que  pen  d'erreurs,  et 
bcaucoup  de  reflexions  vraies,  nouvellcs, 
et  profondes.  11  manque  copendant 
d'ordre  el  sur-tout  do  precision  ;  il  an- 


roit  pu  rtre  Acrit  avec  plus  de  feu,  de 
grace,  et  d'^lcgance;  mait  PScrivmn 
pense  et  fait  pemer." — SihcU  de  Ixmie 
XIV. 

^  As  to  Voltaire  himself,  it  must  bo 
mentioned,  to  his  honour,  that  though 
there  seems  never  to  have  been  much 
cordiality  between  him  and  Fontenelle, 
he  had  yet  the  magnanimity  to  g^ve  a 
place  to  this  Nestor  of  French  literaturo 
in  his  catalogue  of  the  eminent  perBona 
who  adorned  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. ; 
a  tribute  of  respect  the  more  flattering, 
as  it  is  the  single  instance  in  which  he 
has  departed  from  his  general  rule  of 
excluding  from  his  list  the  names  of  all 
his  living  contcm)K>raries.  Even  Fon- 
tenelle's most  devoted  admirers  ought 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  liberality  of 
Voltaire's  eulogy,  in  which,  aflcr  pro- 
nouncing Funtenelle  "  the  most  uni- 
versal genius  which  the  age  uf  Louis 
XIV.  had  producciV  ho  thus  sums  up 
his  merits  as  an  author.  "  Knfin  on  Ta 
regarde  comme  le  premier  des  hommes 
dans  Tart  nouveaii  de  rcpandn*  de  la 
lumiere  et  de«  graces  snr  le.n  sciences 


332 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

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

It  is  a  circumstance  almost  singular  in  his  history,  that  since 
the  period  of  his  death,  his  reputation,  both  as  a  man  and  as  an 
author,  has  been  gradually  rising.     The  fact  has  been  as  re- 


al>8traite8,  et  il  a  en  du  merite  dans  tons 
les  autres  genres  qu'il  a  traites.  Tant 
de  talens  ont  etc  soutenas  par  la  con- 
noissance  des  langues  et  de  Thistoire, 
et  Haiti  sans  eontrtdit  au-dessus  de 
toug  les  t^va/M  qui  n^orUpas  eu  le  don 
de  PinvenHon.^* 

*  Condorcet  has  said  expressly,  that 
his  apathy  was  confined  entirely  to 
what  regarded  himself;  and  that  he  was 
always  an  active,  though  frequently  a 
concealed  friend,  where  his  good  offices 
could  he  usefiil  to  those  who  deserved 
them.  "  On  a  cru  Fontenelle  insensi- 
hle,  parce  que  sachant  maitriser  les 
mouvemens  de  son  ame  il  se  condnisoit 
d*apr^s  son  esprit,  toujours  juste  et 
to^jours  sage.  D*ailleurs,  il  avoit  con- 
senti  sans  peine  h  conserver  cette  repu- 
tation d'insensihilit^ ;  il  avoit  souffert 
les  plaisanteries  de  ses  soci6t^  sur  sa 


froideur,  sans  chercher  i  les  detromper, 
parce  que,  bien  sur  que  les  vraies  amis 
n'en  seroit  pas  la  dupe,  il  voyoit  dans 
cette  reputation  un  moyen  commode  de 
se  delivrer  des  indifferens  sans  blesser 
leur  amour-propre." — Eloffe  de  Fonie- 
neUtt  par  Condorcet. 

Many  of  Fontenelle's  sayings,  the 
import  of  which  must  have  depended 
entirely  on  circumstances  of  time  and 
place  unknown  to  us,  have  been  ab- 
surdly quoted  to  his  disadvantage,  in 
their  literal  and  most  obvious  accepta- 
tion. "  I  hate  war,  (said  he,}  for  it  spoils 
conversation."  Can  any  just  inference 
be  drawn  from  the  levity  of  this  con- 
vivial sally,  against  the  humanity  of  the 
person  who  uttered  it?  Or  rather, 
when  connected  with  the  characteris- 
tical  finesse  of  Fontenelle*s  wit,  does  it 
not  lead  to  a  conclusion  precisely  op- 
posite? 


METAPHYSICS  DURINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         333 

markably  the  reverse  with  most  of  those  who  have  calumniated 
his  memory. 

While  the  circle  of  mental  cultivation  was  thus  rapidly 
widening  in  Fmnce,  a  similar  progress  was  taking  place,  upon 
a  larger  scale,  and  under  still  more  favourable  circumstances, 
in  England      To  this  progress    notldng   contributed    more 
powerfully  than  the  periodical  papers  published  under  various 
titles  by  Addison^  and  his  associates.     The  effect  of  these  in 
reclaiming  the  public  taste  from  the  licentiousness  and  gross- 
ness  introduced  into  England  at  the  period  of  the  Bestoration  ; 
in  recommending  the  most  serious  and  important  truths  by  the 
united  attractions  of  wit,  humour,  imagination,  and  eloquence ; 
and,  above  all,  in  counteracting  those  superstitious  terrors  which 
the  weak  and  ignorant  are  so  apt  to  mistake  for  religious  and 
moral  impressions, — ^has  been  remarked  by  numberless  critics, 
and  is  acknowledged  even  by  those  who  felt  no  imdue  partiality 
in  favour  of  the  authors.'*     Some  of  the  papers  of  Addison, 
however,  are  of  an  order  still  higher,  and  bear  marks  of  a  mind 
which,  if  early  and  steadily  turned  to  philosophical  pursuits, 
might  have  accomplished  much  more  than  it  ventured  to 
imdertake.     His  frequent  references  to  the  Essay  on  Human 
Understanding  J  and  the  high  encomiiuns  with  which  they  are 
always  accompanied,  shew  how  successfully  he  had  entered 
into  the  spirit  of  that  work,  and  how  completely  he  was  aware 
of  the  importance  of  its  oV)ject.     The  popular  nature  of  his 
publications,  indeed,  which  rendered  it  necessary  for  him  to 
avoid  everything  that  might  savour  of  scholastic  or  of  meta- 
physical discussion,  has  left  us  no  means  of  estimating  his  phi- 
losophical depth,  but  what  are  afforded  by  the  restdts  of  his 
thoughts  on  the  particular  topics  which  he  has  occasion  to 
allude  to,  and  by  some  of  his  incidental  comments  on  the 
scientific  merits  of  preceding  authors.     But  these  means  are 
sufficiently  ample  to  justify  a  very  high  opinion  of  his  sound 
and  unprejudiced  judgment,  as  well   as   of  the  extent  and 

*  Born  in  1672,  died  in  1719.  book  ii.  epibtle  i.     "  Uuliappy  Drydon," 

■  Soe  Pope's   Imitations  of  Horace^       &c.  &c. 


334 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


correctness  of  his  literary  information.  Of  his  powers  as  a 
logical  reasoner  he  has  not  enabled  us  to  form  an  estimate  ;  but 
none  of  his  contemporaries  seem  to  have  been  more  completely 
tinctured  with  all  that  is  most  valuable  in  the  metaphysical 
and  ethical  systems  of  his  time.^ 

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

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


'  I  quote  the  following  passage  from 
Addison,  not  as  a  specimen  of  his  meta- 
physical acumen,  but  as  a  pooof  of  his 
good  sense  in  divining  and  obviating  a 
difficulty  which  I  believe  most  persons 
will  acknowledge  occurred  to  themselves 
when  they  first  entered  on  metaphysi- 
cal studies : — 

"  Although  we  divide  the  soul  into 
several  powers  and  faculties,  there  is  no 
such  division  in  the  soul  itself,  since  it 
is  the  whole  soul  that  remembers,  un- 
dei stands,  wills,  or  imagines.  Our 
manner  of  considering  the  memory, 
understanding,   will,   imagination,  and 


the  like  faculties,  is  for  the  better  en- 
abling us  to  express  ourselves  in  such 
abstracted  subjects  of  speculation,  not 
that  there  is  any  such  division  in  the 
soul  itself."  In  another  part  of  the 
same  paper,  Addison  observes,  that 
'*  what  we  call  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
are  only  the  different  ways  or  modes  in 
which  the  soul  can  exert  herself." — 
Spectator,  No.  600. 

For  some  important  remarks  on  the 
words  Powers  and  Faadties,  as  applied 
to  the  Mind,  see  Locke,  book  ii.  chap, 
xxi.  §  20. 


1I£TAPHY8I08  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         335 

made  bo  important  a  step  towards  their  solution,  as  the  original 
proposer. 

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

To  this  simplicity  and  perspicuity,  the  wide  circulation  which 
his  works  have  so  long  maintained  among  all  classes  of  readers, 
is  in  a  great  measure  to  be  ascribed.  His  periods  are  not  con- 
structed, like  those  of  Johnson,  to  "  elevate  and  surprise,"  by 
filling  the  ear  and  dazzling  the  fancy ;  but  we  close  his  volumes 
with  greater  reluctance,  and  return  to  the  perusal  of  them  with 
far  greater  alacrity.  Franklin,  whose  fugitive  publications  on 
political  topics  have  had  so  extraordinary  an  influence  on  public 
opinion,  both  in  the  Old  and  New  Worlds,  tells  us  that  his 
style  in  writing  was  formed  upon  the  model  of  Addison :  Nor 
do  I  know  anything  in  the  history  of  his  life  which  does  more 
honour  to  his  shrewdness  and  sagacity.  The  copyist,  indeed, 
did  not  possess  the  gifted  hand  of  his  master, — Museo  contin- 
gens  cuncta  lepore ;  but  such  is  the  eflect  of  his  plain  and 
seemingly  artless  manner,  that  the  most  profound  conclusions 
of  political  economy  assume,  in  his  hands,  the  appearance  of  in- 
disputable truths ;  and  some  of  them,  which  had  been  formerly 

»  See  Note  R  R. 


336 


DI88ERTATION, — ^FABT  SBOOHD. 


coufiuod  to  the  speculative  few,  are  already  current  in  e\erjr 
country  of  Euroi^,  aa  provcTbial  nrnxims.^ 

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

"  Among  other  excellent  argimients  for  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  there  is  one  drawn  from  the  perjietual  progress  of  the 
soul  to  its  perfection,  without  a  possibihty  of  ever  arriving  at 
it ;  which  is  a  hint  that  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seeji  opened 
and  improved  by  others  who  have  written  on  this  subject, 
though  it  seems  to  me  to  carry  a  great  weight  with  it.  A  brute 
arrives  at  a  jfoint  of  perfection  that  he  can  never  pass.     In  a 


*  The    expreisioDi    "LaUttg    nom 

fiiire,"    anil    "p<u    Irop    gt/nvemer," 


them 


.of 
t  importanl  leawne  of  Pti]illi>a3 
Wiadum,  are  inilebtcd  clikS}'  for  their 
eitensire  uircutatioa  to  the  sliort  and 
luminoiiB  coinnienta  of  Franklin. — See 
his  iWi'tuxfl  FrogmenH,  9  4. 

■  [Mr.  Stewart  in  bie  proof  had  here 
the  word* — "  and,  slmve  all,  aa  the  in- 
reulor  and  painter  of  Sir  Roger  de  Co- 
vBrlay."  To  ihia  the  following  note  was 
appended;  and  both  If  it  and  comment 
were  dvletrd  merely  in  pencil  aa  if 
doubtful  of  their  pmpnplj  — Editor 

In  calling  Addiaun  the  xncentor  of 
Sir  Roger  de  Cuierlev  I  am  perfectly 
aware,  that  the  second  number  of  the 
Spectator,  in  which  the  dlOerent  mem 
bcr*  of  hJB  Club  are  Er^t  introduced  to 
the  reader's  ocijuaintftnLe  la  marked 
with  the  signature  of  Steele  But  allow 
ing  In   Steele  the  uhole   merit  of  )lie 


original  iketchea,  there  jet  remaiuB  to 
AddiaoD  the  undiapuled  proiie  of  invent- 
ing as  well  as  of  punting,  hj  far  tbo 
finest  features  of  the  several  partraiti. 
lliis  BUppoKition,  however,  appean  to 
me  to  ascribe  to  Steele  a  great  deal  too 
much.    Is  it  DonceivabU,  that  Addison 
should  have  promised  his  poweribl  aid 
in  earrjing  on  so  great  au  undertaking, 
without  taking  a  vcrj  aniioua  charge  of 
Ihosp  prffatory  dimxmrsa,  on  the  happj 
execution  of  which  the  snceeii  of  tbo    I 
infant  work  was  pseentiall;  to  depend.    I 
That  Steele  held  the  pen  on  ihia  occa> 
sion  U  oBcertainpd  \iy  the  signature ;  but  .  I 
it  BCcmB  impossibto  to  doubt,  that  tbo    { 
great  outline  of  the  DramatU  Fenona    I 
would  be  furnished  by  the  writer,  who 
of   all   Steele's  associates,  was    i^one 
equal  to  the  task  of  iilUng  up  the  parts. 
In  the  cose  of  Sir  Roger,  mot«  porti- 
cuhtrlj,   this  coneluBion   seema   ol 
lo  amount  t"  o  eertaintj.] 


3JETAPHY8I<;8  DUKIXCi  THK  PJOHTEENTH  CENTURY.         337 

few  yearn  he  has  all  the  eiidowineuts  he  ih  capable  of;  aud 
were  he  to  live  ten  thousand  more,  would  be  the  same  thing  he 
is  at  present  Were  a  human  soul  thus  at  a  stand  in  her  ac- 
complishments, were  her  faculties  to  be  full-blown,  and  incap- 
able of  further  enlargement,  1  would  imagine  it  might  fall 
away  insensibly,  and  drop  at  once  into  a  state  of  annihilation. 
But  can  we  believe  a  thinking  being,  that  is  in  a  perpetual  pro- 
gress of  improvement,  and  travelling  on  from  |)erfection  to  per- 
fection, after  having  just  looked  abroad  into  the  works  of  its 
Creator,  and  made  a  few  discoveries  of  his  infinite  goodness, 
wisdom,  and  power,  must  perish  at  her  first  setting  out,  and  in 
the  very  ])eginning  of  her  inquiries  ?"» 

The  pliilosophy  of  the  other  ])assage  is  not  unworthy  of  the 
author  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  The  thought  may  be  traced 
to  earlier  writers,  but  certainly  it  was  never  before  presented 
with  the  same  fulness  and  liveliness  of  illustration ;  nor  do  1 
know,  in  all  Addison  s  works,  a  finer  instance  of  his  solicitude 
for  the  improvement  of  his  fair  readers,  than  the  address  with 
which  he  here  insinuates  one  of  the  sublimest  moral  lessons, 
while  apparently  aiming  only  to  amuse  them  with  the  geogra- 
pliical  liistory  of  the  muff  and  the  tippet. 

'^  Nature  seems  to  ha\^  taken  a  particular  care  to  disseminate 
her  blessings  among  the  different  regions  of  the  world,  with  an 
eye  to  the  mutual  intercourse  and  traffic  among  mankind ;  that 
the  natives  of  the  several  parts  of  the  glol)e  might  have  a  kind 
of  dependence  upon  one  another,  and  be  united  together  by  their 
conmion  interest.  Almost  every  degree  produces  something 
jHJCuliar  to  it  The  food  often  grows  in  one  coimtry,  and  the 
sauce  in  another.  The  fruits  of  Portugal  are  corrected  by  the 
products  of  Barbadoes ;  the  infusion  of  a  China  plant  sweet- 
ened with  the  pith  of  an  Indian  cane.  The  Philippine  Islands 
give  a  flavour  to  our  European  bowls.  The  single  dress  of  a 
woman  of  quality  is  often  the  product  of  a  hundred  climates. 

*  This  argument  has  liecn  prosecuted  sics,)  by  the  late  Dr.  James  Iluttou. — 

with  great  ingenuity  uiid  force  of  reafton-  Sec  his  InvesHfftition  of  the  Principles 

ing,  (blended,  however,  with  some  of  the  of  Knowledge,  vol.  iii.  p.  195,  et  $eq, 

jK.'culiantie8  of  his  IWrkeleian  nietnphy-  Kdin.  1794.  ^ 

VOL.  1.  Y 


338  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

The  muflf  and  the  fan  come  together  from  the  opposite  ends  of 
the  earth.  The  scarf  is  sent  from  the  torrid  zone,  and  the  tippet 
from  beneath  the  pole.  The  brocade  petticoat  rises  out  of  the 
mines  of  Peru,  and  the  diamond  necklace  out  of  the  bowels  of 
Indostan." 

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

"  II  murit,  h  Moka,  dans  le  sable  Arabique, 
Ce  Cafie  necessaire  aux  pays  des  frimata  ; 
II  met  la  Fi^vre  en  nos  climats, 
Et  le  remide  en  Am6rique.** — Epitre  an  Roi  de  PruMie^  1750. 

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

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

Notwithstanding,  however,  my  strong  partiality  for  the 
former  of  these  writers,  I  should  be  truly  sorry  to  think,  with 
Mr.  Hxmie,  that  "Addison  will  be  read  with  pleasure  when 
Locke  shall  be  entirely  forgotten!'''^Enay  on  ike  DifferefiU 
Species  of  Philosophy, 

A  few  years  before  the  commenoement  of  these  periodical 
works,  a  memorable  accession  was  made  to  metaphysical  science, 
by  the  publication  of  Berkeley's*  New  Theory  of  Vision,  and  of 
his  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,  Possessed  of  a  mind 
which,  however  inferior  to  that  of  Locke  in  depth  of  reflection 

♦  [Born  16S4 ;  died  1753— fiV/.] 


METAPHY8ICS  DURING  THE  £1GHTK£KTH  CENTURY. 


339 


and  in  soundness  of  judgment,  was  fully  its  equal  in  logical 
acuteness  and  invention,  and  in  learning,  fancy,  and  taste,  far 
its  superior, — Berkeley  was  singularly  fitted  to  promote  that 
reunion  of  Philosophy  and  of  the  Fine  Arts  which  is  so  essen- 
tial to  the  prosperity  of  both.  Locke,  we  are  told,  despised 
poetry ;  and  we  know  from  one  of  his  own  letters  that,  among 
our  English  i)oets,  his  favourite  author  was  Sir  Richard  Black- 
more.  Berkeley,  on  the  other  hand,  courted  the  society  of  all 
from  whose  conversation  and  manners  he  could  hope  to  add  to 
the  embellishments  of  his  genius  ;  and  although  himself  a  de- 
cided and  High  Church  Torj-^,^  lived  in  habits  of  friendship 
with  Steele  and  Addison,  as  well  as  with  Poi)e  and  Swift. 
Pope  8  admiration  of  him  seems  to  have  risen  to  a  sort  of  enthu- 
siasm. He  yielded  to  Berkeley's  decision  on  a  very  delicate 
question  relating  to  the  exordium  of  the  Essay  on  Man  ;  and 
(»n  his  moral  qualities  he  has  bestowed  the  highest  and  most 
unqualified  eulogy  to  l)e  found  in  his  writings. 


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

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


*  See  a  volume  of  Sermons,  preached 
in  the  chapel  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 
FSce  also  a  Discourse  addressed  to  Ma- 
gistrates, &c.,  printed  in  173C.  In  both 
of  these  publications,  the  author  carries 
his  Tory  principles  so  far,  as  to  repre- 
sent the  doctrine  of  passive  obeilience 


and  non-resistance  as  an  essential  article 
of  the  Christian  faith.  "  The  Christian 
religion  makes  every  legal  constitution 
sacred,  by  commanding  our  submission 
thert^to.  Let  every  aoul  be  subject  to  (he 
higher  jwtre^rn,  saith  St.  Paul,  for  the 
powers  that  be  ore  ordained  of  Gnd." 


340  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

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

That  this  doctrine,  with  rest)ect  to  the  acquired  perceptions  of 
sight,  was  quite  unknown  to  the  best  metaphysicians  of  antiquity, 
we  have  direct  evidence  in  a  passage  of  Aristotle's  Nicomachiari 


*  [*  See  Bayle,  Art.  Charron,]  losopbical  Analysis  that  is  to  be  found 

■  By  this  excellent  judge,  Berkeley's  in  our  own  or  any  other  language." — 

New  Theory  of  Vision  is  pronounced  to  Essays  on  Philosophical  Subjects.  Lond. 

be  "  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  Phi-  1795,  p.  215. 

*  Restored.— jffd. 


MfiTAPUYSICtt  DURING  THE  EIGHTKENTU  CENTURY. 


341 


Ethics^  where  he  states  the  distmction  between  those  endow- 
ments which  are  the  immediate  gift  of  nature,  and  those  which 
are  the  fniit  of  custom  and  habit.  In  the  former  class,  he  ranks 
the  perceptions  of  sense,  mentioning  particularly  the  senses  of 
seeing  and  of  hearing.  The  passage  (which  I  have  tran- 
scribed in  a  Note)  is  curious,  and  seems  to  me  decisive  on  the 
subject.^ 

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

It  is  difficult  to  suppose,  that  a  person  of  mature  years, 
who  had  read  and  studied  Locke  and  Berkeley  with  as  much 
care  and  attention  as  Condillac  appears  to  have  bestowed  on 
them,  should  have  revelled  to  this  ancient  and  vulgar  pre- 
judice, without  suspecting  that  his  metaphysical  depth  has 
been  somewhat  overrated  by  the  world.*    It  is  but  justice, 


'  Ov  7«^  l»  TV  tr^XXAxtt  tiitfj  fi  tr»X- 

X^neufAtft  tx*M*-  —  Ethic.  Nicomach. 
lib.  ii.  cap.  i. 

"  For  it  18  not  from  Bceinf;  often,  or 
from  hearing  often,  that  wc  get  tbeso 
Kcnscs  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  instead  of 
getting  them  by  using  thcra,  we  use 
thrm  because  wo  have  got  them.*' 

Had  Aristotle  been  at  all  aware  of  the 
distinction  so  finely  illustrated  by  Ber- 
keley, instead  of  appealing  to  the  per- 


ceptions of  these  two  senses  as  instances 
of  endowments  coeval  with  our  birth,  he 
would  have  quoted  them  as  the  most 
striking  of  all  examples  of  the  effects  of 
custom  in  apparently  identifying  our 
acquired  powers  with  our  original  facul- 
ties. 

•  Voltaire,  at  an  earlier  period,  had 
seized  completely  the  scope  of  Berkeley's 
theory,  and  had  explained  it  with  equal 
brevity  and  precision,  in  the  following 
passage  of  his  Elements  of  the  New- 
tonian Philosophy: — 


342 


DISSERTATION. — PAKT  SECOND. 


however,  to  Condillae  to  add,  that,  in  a  subsequent  work,  he 
had  the  candour  to  acknowledge  and  to  retract  his  error ; — a 
rare  example  of  that  disinterested  love  of  truth,  which  is  so 
becoming  in  a  philosopher.  I  quote  the  passage,  (in  a  literal, 
though  somewhat  abridged  version,)  not  only  to  show,  that,  in 
the  above  statement,  I  have  not  misrepresented  his  opinion, 
but  because  I  consider  this  remarkable  circumstance  in  his 
literary  history  as  a  peculiarly  amiable  and  honourable  trait  in 
his  character. 

"  We  cannot  recall  to  our  memory  the  ignorance  in  which 
we  were  bom.  It  is  a  state  which  leaves  no  trace  behind  it. 
We  only  recollect  our  ignorance  of  those  things,  the  knowledge 
of  which  we  recollect  to  have  acquired ;  and  to  remark  what 


**  II  faut  absoluinent  conclure,  que  lea 
distancea,  lea  grandeurs,  lea  Bituations 
ne  aont  pas,  ^  propremeut  parler,  des 
choses  visibles,  c*est  h  dire,  ue  sont  pas 
lea  objets  propres  et  immediats  de  la 
vue.  L'objet  propre  et  immediat  de  la 
vue  n'est  autre  chose  que  la  lumi^re 
coloree :  tout  le  reste,  nous  ne  le  sentons 
qn'ft  la  longue  et  par  experience.  Nous 
apprenons  ^  voir,  precisement  conune 
nous  apprenons  k  parler  et  a  lire.  La 
difference  est,  que  Tart  de  voir  est  plus 
£hcile,  et  que  la  nature  est  egalement  & 
tous  notre  maitre. 

"  Les  jugeniens  soudains,  presque 
imiformes,  que  toutes  nos  Rmes  k  uo 
certain  age  portent  des  distances,  des 
grandeurs,  des  situations,  nous  font 
penser,  qu'il  n*y  k  qu'^  ouvrir  les  yeux 
pour  voir  la  maniere  dont  nous  voyons. 
On  se  trompe,  il  y  faut  le  secours  des 
aatres  sens.  8i  les  hommes  n'avoient 
que  le  sens  de  la  vue,  ils  n*auroient 
aucun  moyen  pour  connoitre  Tetendue 
en  longueur,  largeur  et  profondeur,  et 
un  pur  esprit  ne  la  connoitroit  peut-ctre, 
k  moins  que  Dicu  ne  la  lui  revelat. 
[*  II  est  tree  difficile  de  scparer  dans 
notre  entendcnicnt  I'ext^^nsion  d'uu  objet 

♦  R«9tored 


d'avec  les  couleurs  de  cet  objet.  Nous 
ne  voyons  jamais  rien  que  d'etendu,  et 
de-]k  nous  sommes  tous  port^s  k  croire 
que  nous  voyons  en  effet  I'etendue." — 
Phya.  Newton,  Par.  ii.  ch.  6. 

An  attempt  was  made  some  years  ago 
in  a  memoir  published  in  the  PhUodo- 
phical  TransactiotiSj  to  discredit  the 
Theory  of  Berkeley,  in  consequence  of 
some  hasty  observations  on  the  case  of  a 
boy  blind  from  his  birth,  upon  whom  the 
operation  of  depressing  the  cataract  had 
been  successfully  performed.  From 
these  observations  it  was  concluded,  that 
the  patient  was  not  only  able  imme- 
diately to  judge  of  distances,  magnitudes, 
and  figures,  but  even  to  apply  the  names 
of  cohurSf  and  of  the  different  objects 
around  him,  with  the  most  exact  pro- 
priety ;  a  conclusion,  which,  by  being 
pushed  a  little  too  far,  defeats  com- 
pletely the  author^s  purpose  ;  and  which 
is  indeed  not  less  incredible,  (as  was  re- 
marked to  me  by  an  ingenious  fnend 
when  this  memoir  first  appeared,)  than 
if  it  had  been  alleged  that  a  child  had 
come  into  the  world  repeating  the 
Atlianasian  creed.*'] 

.—Ed. 


METAPHYSICS  DUKINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         343 

we  acquire,  some  previous  knowledge  is  necessary.  That 
memory  which  now  renders  us  so  sensible  of  the  step  from 
one  acquisition  to  another,-  cannot  remount  to  the  first  steps  of 
the  prepress ;  on  the  contrary,  it  supposes  them  already  made ; 
and  hence  the  origin  of  our  disposition  to  believe  them  connate 
with  ourselves.  To  say  that  wc  have  learnt  to  see,  to  hear,  to 
taste,  to  smell,  to  touch,  appears  a  most  extraordinary  paradox. 
It  seems  to  us  that  nature  gave  us  the  complete  use  of  our 
senses  the  moment  she  formed  them,  and  that  we  have  always 
made  use  of  them  without  study,  because  we  are  no  longer 
obliged  to  study  in  order  to  use  them.  I  retained  these  pre^ 
judices  at  the  time  I  published  my  Essay  on  the  Origin  of 
Human  Knoxoledge  ;  the  reasonings  of  Locke  on  a  man  bom 
blind,  to  whom  the  sense  of  sight  was  afterwards  given,  did 
not  undeceive  me :  and  /  maintained  against  this  philosopher 
that  the  eyejvdges  naturally  of  figures^  of  sizeSy  of  situations^ 
and  of  distances^ — Nothing  short  of  his  own  explicit  avowal 
could  have  convinced  me,  that  a  writer  of  so  high  pretensions 
and  of  such  imquestionable  ingenuity  as  Condillac,  had  really 
commenced  his  metaphysical  career  under  so  gross  and  imac- 
countable  a  delusion. 

In  bestowing  the  praise  of  originality  on  Berkeley's  Theory 
of  Vision^  I  do  not  mean  to  say,  that  the  whole  merit  of  this 
Theory  is  exclusively  his  own.  In  this,  as  in  most  other  cases, 
it  may  be  presumed,  that  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  has 
been  gradual :  And,  in  point  of  fact,  it  will,  on  examination, 
be  found,  that  Berkeley  only  took  up  the  inquiry  where  Locke 
dropped  it ;  following  out  his  principles  to  their  remoter  con- 
sequences, and  placing  them  in  so  great  a  variety  of  strong 
and  happy  lights,  as  to  bring  a  doctrine  till  then  understood 
but  by  a  few,  within  the  reach  of  every  intelligent  and  attentive 
reader.  For  my  own  part,  on  comparing  these  two  philo- 
sophers together,  I  am  at  a  loss  whether  most  to  admire  the 
powerful  and  penetrating  sagacity  of  the  one,  or  the  fertility 
of  invention  displayed  in  the  illustrations  of  the  other.  What 
can  l)e  more  clear  and  forcible  than  the  statement  of  Locke 
quoU*fl  in  the  Nolo  below ;  nnd  what  an  iden  docs  it  convoV 


344 


DiaSEHTATION. — PABT  SECOND. 


of  his  superiority  to  Condillac,  when  it  is  considered,  that  he 
anticipated  d  priori  the  same  doctrine  which  was  afterwards 
confirmed  by  the  fine  analysis  of  Berkeley,  and  demonstrated 
by  the  judicious  experiments  of  Cheselden ;  while  the  French 
metaphysician,  with  all  this  accumulation  of  evidence  before 
him,  relapsed  into  a  prejudice  transmitted  to  modern  times, 
from  the  very  infancy  of  optical  science  I  ^ 


*  "  We  are  farther  to  consider,"  says 
Locke,  "  concerning  perception,  that 
the  ideas  we  receive  by  sensation  are 
often  in  grown  people  altered  by  the 
judgment,  without  our  taking  notice  of 
it.  When  we  set  before  our  eyes  a 
round  globe,  of  any  uniform  colour,  e.  g. 
gold,  alabaster,  or  jet,  it  is  certain  that 
the  idea  thereby  imprinted  in  our  mind 
is  of  a  flat  circle,  variously  shadowed, 
with  several  degrees  of  light  and  bright- 
ness coming  to  our  eyes.  But  we  hav- 
ing by  use  been  accustomed  to  perceive 
what  kind  of  appearance  convex  bodies 
are  wont  to  make  in  us,  what  alterations 
are  made  in  the  reflections  of  light  by 
the  difiercnce  of  the  sensible  figure  of 
bodies ;  the  judgment  presently,  by  an 
habitual  custom,  alters  the  appearances 
into  their  causes,  so  that,  from  what 
truly  is  variety  of  shadow  or  colour,  col- 
lecting the  figure  it  makes  it  pass  for  a 
mark  of  figure,  and  fi-ames  to  itself  the 
perception  of  a  convex  figure,  and  a 
uniform  colour ;  when  the  idea  we  re- 
ceive from  thence  is  only  a  plane 
variously  coloured,  as  is  evident  in 
painting.     .... 

"  But  this  is  not,  I  think,  usual  in 
any  of  our  ideas  but  those  received  by 
sight;*  because  sight,  the  most  com- 
prehensive of  all  our  senses,  conveying 


to  our  minds  the  ideas  of  lights  and 
colours,  which  are  peculiar  only  to  that 
sense ;  and  also  the  far  difierent  ideas 
of  space,  figure,  or  motion,  the  several 
varieties  whereof  change  the  appear- 
ances of  its  proper  objects,  viz.,  light 
and  colours,  we  bring  ourselves  by  use 
to  judge  of  the  one  by  the  other.  This, 
in  many  cases,  by  a  settled  habit  in 
things  whereof  we  have  fipequent  ex- 
perience, is  performed  so  constantly  and 
so  quick,  that  we  take  that  for  the  per- 
ception of  our  sensation,  which  is  an 
idea  formed  by  our  judgment ;  so  that 
one,  viz.,  that  of  sensation,  serves  only 
to  excite  the  other,  and  is  scarce  taken 
notice  of  itself;  as  a  man  who  reads  or 
hears  with  attention  or  understanding, 
takes  little  notice  of  the  characters  or 
soimds,  but  of  the  ideas  that  are  excit- 
ed in  him  by  them. 

"  Nor  need  we  wonder  that  it  is  don© 
with  so  little  notice,  if  we  consider  how 
very  quick  the  actions  of  the  mind  are 
performed ;  for  as  itself  is  thought  to 
take  up  no  space,  to  have  no  extension, 
so  its  actions  seem  to  require  no  time, 
but  many  of  them  seem  to  be  crowded 
into  an  instant.  I  speak  this  in  com- 
parison to  the  actions  of  the  body.  Any 
one  may  easily  observe  this  in  his  own 
thoughts,  who  will  take  the  pains  to  re- 


*  Mr.  Locke  might,  howerer,  hare  remariced  something  reiy  Hmilar  to  it  in  the  perceptions  of 
the  ear ;  a  rery  large  proportion  of  its  appropriate  objects  being  rather  Judged  of  than  acloally 
pererivtd.  In  the  rapidity  (for  example)  of  common  conTeraation,  how  many  syllables,  and  even 
words,  escape  the  notice  of  the  most  attentire  hearer ;  wliich  syllables  and  words  are  so  quickly 
supplied  from  the  rd&tion  which  they  bear  to  the  rest  of  the  sentence,  that  it  is  quite  impoeible 
to  distinguish  between  the  audible  and  the  inaudible  sounds  !  A  very  palpable  instance  of  this 
ocfurs  in  the  difficulty  experienced  by  the  most  acute  ear  in  catching  proper  namet  or  arithme- 
tical rams,  or  words  borrowed  flrom  unknown  tongues,  the  first  time  they  are  pronounced. 


METAPHYSICS  DUillNU  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUllY. 


345 


I  believe  it  would  l)e  difficult  to  produce  from  any  writer 
prior  to  Locke,  an  equal  number  of  im{)ortant  facts  relating 
to  the  intellectual  phenomena,  as  well  observed,  and  as  unex- 
ceptionably  described,  as  those  which  I  have  here  brought 
imder  my  reader's  eye.  It  must  appear  evident,  besides,  to 
all  who  have  studied  the  subject,  that  Locke  has,  in  this 
passage,  enunciated,  in  terms  the  most  precise  and  decided, 
the  same  general  conclusion  concerning  the  effect  of  constant 
and  early  habits,  which  it  was  the  great  object  of  Berkele/s 
Theory  of  Vision  to  establish,  and  which,  indeed,  gives  to  that 
work  its  chief  value,  when  considered  in  connexion  with  the 
Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind. 

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


fleet  on  them.  How,  as  it  were  in  an 
iiiHtnnt,  (lu  our  minds  with  one  glance 
see  all  the  parts  of  a  demonstration, 
which  may  very  well  be  called  a  long 
one,  if  we  consider  the  time  it  will  re- 
quire to  put  it  into  words,  and  step  by 
step  shew  it  to  another?  Secondly,  we 
shall  not  be  so  much  surprised  that  this 
is  done  in  us  with  so  little  notice,  if  we 
consider  how  the  facility  which  we  get 
of  doing  things  by  a  custom  of  doing 
makes  them  often  pass  in  us  without 
our  notice.  Habits,  esjN'cially  such  as 
are  liogun  very  early,  come  at  last  to 
piKKluce    actions    in    us,    which   often 


escape  our  obsenrations.  How  fre- 
quently do  we  in  a  day  cover  our  eyes 
with  our  eye-lids,  without  perceiving 
that  we  are  at  all  in  the  dark  ?  Men 
that  have  by  custom  got  the  use  of  a 
by-word,  do  almost  in  every  sentence 
pronounce  sounds,  which,  though  taken 
notice  of  by  others,  they  themselves 
neither  hear  nor  observe;  and,  there- 
fore, it  is  not  so  strange,  that  our  mind 
should  oflen  change  the  idea  of  its  »en- 
aation  into  that  of  its  jvdgmmt,  and 
make  one  serve  only  to  excite  the  other, 
without  our  taking  notice  of  it." — 
Ixx:ke*s  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  123,  rt  neq. 


346  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

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

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

These  (according  to  Berkeley)  are  the  "  common  and  current 
accounts"  given  by  mathematicians  of  our  perceiving  near  dis- 
tances by  sight.  He  then  proceeds  to  shew,  that  they  are  un- 
satisfactory ;  and  that  it  is  necessary,  for  the  solution  of  this 
problem,  to  avail  ourselves  of  principles  borrowed  from  a  higher 
philosophy :  After  which,  he  explains,  in  detail,  his  own  theory 
concerning  the  ideas  (sensations)  which,  by  experience,  become 
signs  of  distance  ;^  or  (to  use  his  own  phraseology)  "  by  which 

*  For  assisting  persons  nnaccustomed  the  best  illustration  I  know  of  is  fur- 
to  metaphysical  studies  to  enter  into  the  nished  by  the  phenomena  of  the  Pkan- 
fipirit  and  scope  of  Berkeley's   Theory,       tmmoQoria.     It  is  sufficient  to  hint  at 


METAPHYSICS  DUBINQ  TH£  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUUV. 


347 


distance  is  miggested^  to  the  mind."  The  result  of  the  whole 
is,  that  '^  a  man  bom  blind,  being  made  to  see,  would  not  at 
first  have  any  idea  of  distance  by  sight.  The  sun  and  atars^ 
the  remotest  objects  as  well  as  the  nearest^  would  all  seem  to  he 
in  his  Eye  J  or  raiher  in  his  Mind."^ 

From  this  quotation  it  appears,  that,  before  Berkcle/s  time, 
philosophers  had  advanced  greatly  beyond  the  point  at  which 
Aristotle  stopped,  and  towards  wliich  Condillac,  in  his  first  pub- 
lication, made  a  retrograde  movement.  Of  tliis  progress  some 
of  the  chief  steps  may  be  traced  as  early  as  the  twelfth  cen- 


this  application  of  these  phenomena,  to 
those  who  know  anything  of  the  subject. 

*  The  word  suggest  is  much  used  by 
Berkeley,  in  this  appropriate  and  tech- 
nical sense,  not  only  in  his  Theory  of 
Vision,  but  in  his  Principles  of  Human 
Knowiedgef  and  in  his  Minute  Philoso- 
pher. It  expresses,  indeed,  the  cardinal 
principle  on  which  his  Theory  of  Vision 
hinges ;  and  it  is  now  so  incorporated 
with  some  of  our  best  metaphysical 
speculations,  thnt  one  cannot  easily  con- 
ceive how  the  use  of  it  was  so  long  din- 
pensed  with.  Lo(.*kc  (in  the  passage 
quoted  in  the  Note,  p.  344)  uses  the 
word  excite  for  the  same  purpose ;  but 
it  seems  to  imply  an  hypothesis  c«>n- 
cemingthe  mechanism  of  the  mind,  and 
by  no  means  expresses  the  fact  in  ques- 
tion with  the  same  force  and  precision. 

It  is  remarkable,  that  Dr.  Reid  should 
have  thought  it  incimibent  on  him  to 
apologize  for  introducing  into  philosophy 
a  word  so  familiar  to  every  person  con- 
versant with  Berkeley's  works.  "I 
beg  leave  to  make  use  of  the  word 
suggestion^  because  I  know  not  one 
more  proper  to  express  a  power  of  tho 
mind,  which  seems  entirely  to  have 
escaped  the  notice  of  philosophers,  and 
to  which  we  owe  many  of  our  simple 
notions  which  are  neither  impressions 
nor  ideas,  as  well  as  many  original  prin- 
ciples of  belief.  I  shall  endeavour  to 
explain,  bv  m\  example,  whst  I  under- 


stand by  this  word.  We  all  know  that 
a  certain  kind  of  sound  sitggests  imme- 
diately to  the  mind  a  coach  passing  in 
the  street ;  and  not  only  produces  the 
imagination,  but  the  belief,  that  a  coach 
is  passing.  Yet  there  is  no  comparing 
of  ideas,  no  perception  of  agreements  or 
disagreements  to  prodnco  this  belief; 
nor  is  there  the  least  similitude  between 
the  sound  we  hear,  and  the  coach  we 
imogine  and  believe  to  be  passing.** 

So  far  Dr.  Ueid's  use  of  the  word  co- 
incides exactly  with  that  of  Berkeley ; 
but  tho  former  will  be  found  to  annex 
to  it  a  meaning  mor^  extensive  than  the 
latter,  by  employing  it  to  comprehend 
not  oiUy  those  intimations  which  are 
the  result  of  experience  and  habit,  bat 
another  class  of  intimations,  (quite  over^ 
looked  by  Berkeley,)  those  which  result 
from  the  original  frame  of  tho  human 
mind.  See  Keid's  Inquiry,  chap.  ii. 
sect.  7. 

*  I  request  the  attention  of  my  read- 
ers to  this  last  sentence,  as  I  have  little 
doubt  that  the  fact  here  stated  gave  rise 
to  the  theory  which  Berkeley  afterwards 
adopted,  concerning  the  non-existence 
of  the  material  world.  It  is  not,  indeed, 
surprising  that  n  conclusion,  so  very 
curious  with  respect  to  tho  (»bjectB  of 
sight,  should  have  been,  in  the  first 
ardour  of  discovery,  too  hastily  extended 
to  those  qualities  also  whirli  are  th(* 
sppn>priate  objects  of  tourli. 


348  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

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

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

Next  in  point  of  importance  to  Berkele/s  New  Theory  of 

*  Albazen,  lib.  ii.  NN.  10,  12,  39.  when  he  was  only  twenty-five  ;  an  age 

■  See  the  end  of  Prop.  28.  when  it  can  scarcely  be  supposed  that 

his  metaphysical  reading  had  been  very 

■  Berkeley's    Theory  was  published      extensive.* 

*  [It  tru  flrrt  published  in  1709,  a^d  in  regard  to  what  had  preriouiljr  been  done  on  the  theory 
of  the  Tision  of  distances,  see  Oharleton's  Phytiologia,  book  iiL  chap.  3.  p.  164  ;  Oassendi  Opera, 
torn.  iU.  p.  i5S,  ieq.  In  1733  Berkeley  published  The  Theory  of  Vition.  ^c..  Vindicated  and  Ex- 
plained, pp.  64,  8to.  An  important  tract,  wholly  unknown  to  his  collectors,  editors,  and  biogra- 
phers ;  nay,  as  fiu*  as  I  am  aware,  to  all  historians  of  philosophy,  physics,  and  psychology.  This, 
as  we  hare  seen,  is  not  a  singular  case  of  oblirion  m  English  philosophy. — £tf .] 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIQHTERNTH  CENTURY. 


349 


Vision,  which  I  regard  a«  by  far  the  most  solid  basis  of  Ids 
philosophical  fame,  may  be  ranked  his  speculations  concerning 
the  Objects  of  General  Terms,  and  his  celebrated  argument 
against  the  existence  of  the  Material  World.  On  both  of  these 
questions  T  have  elsewhere  explained  my  own  idoas  so  folly, 
that  it  would  be  quite  superfluous  for  me  to  resume  tlie  con- 
sideration of  them  here.i  In  neither  instance  are  his  reason- 
ings so  entirely  original  as  lias  been  conmionly  supposed.  In 
the  former  they  coincide  in  substance,  although  with  inmiense 
improvements  in  the  form,  with  those  of  the  scholastic  nomi- 
nalists, as  revived  and  modified  by  Hobbes  and  Leibnitz.  In 
the  latter  instance,  they  amount  to  little  more  than  an  in- 
genious and  elegant  development  of  some  principles  of  Male 
branche,  pushed  to  certain  paradoxical  but  obvious  conse- 
quences, of  which  Malebranche,  though  unwilling  to  avow 
them,  appears  to  have  been  fully  aware.  These  consequences, 
too,  had  been  previously  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Norris,  a  very 
learned  divine  of  the  Church  of  England,  whose  name  has  un- 
accountably failed  in  obtaining  that  distinction  to  which  his 
acutencss  as  a  logician,  and  his  boldness  as  a  theorist,  justly 
entitled  him  I* 

The  great  object  of  Berkeley,  in  maintaining  his  system  of 


'  See  PhUoaophical  Esaai/a. 

*  Another  very  acute  metaphysician 
of  the  same  church  (Arthur  Collier, 
author  of  a  Demonstration  of  the  Non- 
existence  and  Imposnihility  of  an  Exter- 
nal World)  has  met  with  still  greater 
injustice.  His  name  is  not  to  lie  foimd 
in  any  of  our  Biographical  Dictionaries. 
In  point  of  date,  his  publication  is  some 
years  posterior  to  that  of  Norris,  and 
therefore  it  does  not  possess  the  same 
claims  to  originality ;  but  it  is  far  supe- 
rior to  it  in  logical  closeness  and  preci- 
sion, and  is  not  obscured  to  the  same 
degree  with  the  mystical  theology  which 
Norris  (after  the  example  of  Male- 
branche) connected  with  the  scheme  of 
Idealism.  Indeed,  when  compared  with 
the   writings  of   Berkeley  himself,    it 


yields  to  them  less  in  force  of  argument, 
than  in  composition  and  variety  of  illus- 
tration. The  title  of  Collier's  book  is 
"  Clavis  Universalis,  or  a  New  Inquiry 
after  Truth,  being  a  Demonstration,  &c. 
&c.  By  Arthur  Collier,  Rector  of  Lang- 
ford  Magna,  near  Sarum.  (I/ond.  printed 
for  Robert  Gosling,  at  the  Mitre  and 
(Vown,  against  8t.  Dunstan*s  C'hurch, 
Fleet  Street,  1713.")  The  motto  pre- 
fixed by  Collier  to  his  work  is  from  Male- 
branche, and  is  strongly  characteristi- 
cal  both  of  the  English  and  French 
Inquirer  after  Truth,  "  Vulgi  assensus 
et  approbatio  circa  materiam  difficilem 
est  certum  argumentum  falsitatis  istius 
opiniouis  cui  asseiititur." — Mahh.  De 
Inquir,  Verit.  lib.  iii.  p.  194.  See 
Note  SS. 


350 


DISSERTATFOK. — PART  SECOND. 


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

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

The  impression  produced  in  England  by  Berkeley's  Idealism 
was  not  so  great  as  might  have  been  expected ;  but  the  novelty 
of  his  paradoxes  attracted  very  powerfully  the  attention  of  a 
set  of  young  men  who  were  then  prosecuting  their  studies  at 
Edinburgh,  and  who  formed  themselves  into  a  society  for  the 
express  purpose  of  soliciting  from  the  author  an  explanation  of 


'  I  allude  here  chiefly  to  Alciphron, 
or  the  Minute  Philosopher;  for  as  to 
the  dialogues  between  Hylas  and  Phil- 
onouBj  th«y  aspire  to  no  higher  merit 
than  that  of  the  common  dialogues  be- 
tween A  and  B ;  being  merely  a  com- 
pendious way  of  stating  and  of  obviat- 
ing the  principal  objections  which  the 
author  anticipated  to  his  opinions. 

•  Dr.  Warton,  after  bestowing  high 
praise  on  the  AfiniUe  Philosopher,  ex- 


cepts from  his  encomium  "  those  pas- 
sages in  the  fourth  dialogue,  where  the 
author  has  introduced  his  fanciful  and 
whimsical  opinions  about  vision." — 
{Essay  on  the  Writings  and  Oeniue  of 
Pope,  vol.  ii.  p.  264.)  If  I  were  called 
on  to  point  out  the  most  ingenious  and 
original  part  of  the  whole  work,  it  would 
be  the  argument  contained  in  the  pas- 
sages here  so  contemptuously  alluded  to 
by  this  learned  and  (on  all  questions  of 
taste)  most  respectable  critic. 


METAPHYSICS  DURINQ  THE  EIOHTBKNTH  CEMTURT.  351 

some  parts  of  his  theory  which  seemed  to  them  obscurely  or 
equivocally  expressed.  To  this  correspondence  the  amiable 
and  excellent  prelate  appears  to  have  given  every  encourage- 
ment ;  and  I  have  been  told  by  the  best  authority,  that  he  was 
accustomed  to  say,  that  his  reasonings  had  been  nowhere  better 
imderstood  than  by  this  club  of  young  Scotsmen.^  The  ingeni- 
ous Dr.  Wallace,  author  of  the  Discourse  on  the  Numbers  of 
Mankind^  Mras  one  of  the  leading  members ;  and  with  him  were 
associated  several  other  individuals  whose  names  are  now  well 
known  and  honourably  distinguished  in  the  learned  world. 
Mr.  Hume's  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  which  was  published 
in  1739,  affords  suiBcient  evidence  of  the  deep  impression 
which  Berkele/s  writings  had  left  upon  his  mind  ;  and  to  this 
juvenile  essay  of  Mr.  Hume's  may  be  traced  the  origin  of  the 
most  important  metaphysical  works  which  Scotland  has  since 
produced. 

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

'  The  authority  I  here  allude  to  ia  who  waa  accustomed  for  many  yean  to 

that  of  my  old  friend  and  preceptor,  Dr.  mention   this  fact  in  his   Academical 

John  Steyenaon,  who  was  himself  a  Preleetumt. 
member  of  the  Bankenian  Club,  and 


352 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


SECT.  V. — HARTLEIAN  SCHOOL. 

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

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


*  King's  argument  in  proof  of  the  pre- 
valence in  this  world,  both  of  Natural 
and  Moral  Good,  over  the  corresponding 
Evils,  has  been  much  and  deservedly 
admired ;  nor  arc  Law's  Notes  ui)on 
this  head  entitled  to  less  praise.  In- 
deed, it  is  in  this  part  of  the  work  that 
both  the  author  and  his  commentator 
appear,  in  my  opinion,  to  the  greatest 
advantage. 

'As  instances  of  this  I  need  only  refer 
to  the^ir^^  and  third  of  his  Notes  on  King ; 
the  former  of  which  relates  to  the  word 
avhstance,  and  the  latter  to  the  dispute 
between  Clarke  and  Leibnitz  concern- 
ing apace.    His  reasonings  on  both  sub- 


jects are  obscured  by  an  afifected  use  of 
hard  and  unmeaning  words,  ill  becom- 
ing so  devoted  an  admirer  of  Locke. 
The  same  remark  may  bo  extended  to 
an  Inquiry  into  the  Ideas  of  Space  and 
Time,  publishetl  by  Dr.  Ijaw  in  1734. 

The  result  of  Law's  speculations  ou 
Space  and  Time  is  thus  stated  by  him- 
self: "That  our  ideas  of  them  do  not 
imply  any  external  ideatum  or  objective 
reality;  that  these  ideas  (as  well  as 
those  of  infinity  and  number)  are  univfer- 
8cd  or  abstract  ideas,  existing  under 
ih^X  fonnality  nowhere  but  in  the  mind ; 
nor  affording  a  proof  of  anything,  but  of 
the  power  which  the  mind  has  to  form 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


353 


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

To  this  translation,  Dr.  Law  prefixed  a  Dissertation  concern- 
ing the  Fundamental  Principle  of  Virtue,  by  the  Reverend  Mr. 
(Jay ;  a  performance  of  considerable  ingenuity,  but  which  would 
now  be  entitled  to  little  notice,  were  it  not  for  the  influence  it 
appears  to  have  had  in  suggesting  to  Dr.  Hartley  the  possi- 
bility of  accounting  for  all  our  intellectual  pleasures  and  pains, 
by  the  single  principle  of  the  Associ»tion  of  Ideas.  We  are 
informed  by  Dr.  Hartley  himself,  that  it  was  in  consequence  of 
hearing  some  account  of  the  contents  of  this  dissertation,  he 
was  first  led  to  engage  in  those  inquiries  which  produced  his 
celebrate<l  llieory  of  Human  Nature, 

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

Very  nearly  about  the  time  when  Hartley's  Theory  appeareil, 
Charles  Bonnet  of  Geneva  published  some  speculations  of  his 
own,  proceeding  almost  exactly  on  the  same  assumptions. 
Both  writers  speak  of  vibrations  (dbranlemens)  in  the  nerves ; 


them." — (Law's  Trarm.  of  King,  p.  7, 
4th  e<1it.)  Tliis  language,  as  wc  shall 
aftcrwarclB  sec,  approorlies  very  nearly 
to  tliat  lately  introduced  by  Kant. 
Dr.  Law's  favourite  author  might  have 
cautioned  him  against  surh  jargon.— 
See  Ehuoi/  on  tht  Human  UndentUmd- 
ifufy  book  ii.  chap.  xiii.  sect.  17,  18. 

The  absurd  application  of  the  scholas- 
tic word  atibstance  to  empty  space ;  an 
absurdity  in  which  the  jiowerful  mind 
of  Oravesande  acquiesced  many  years 
after  the  publication  of  the  Kfisny  on 
Ifumnn  Undfrstanrlintj,    has   probably 

VOL.  L 


contributed  not  a  little  to  force  some 
authors  into  the  opposite  extreme  of 
maintaining,  with  Ijeibnitzand  Dr.  I^aw, 
that  our  idea  of  space  does  not  imply 
any  cxti*rnal  idealum  or  objective  reality. 
Gravesande's  words  are  these :  "  Sub^ 
stantiro  sunt  aut  cogitantos,  aut  non  cogi- 
tantes ;  cogitantos  duas  nnvimus,  Deum 
et  Mentem  nostram :  prfotcr  has  et  lUias 
dan  in  dubium  non  revocamus.  Dusp 
etiam  substantia*,  quw  non  cogitant, 
nobis  notae  sunt  Spatiuni  et  Corpus." — 
Oravesande,  Tntrod.  nd  Philoaophinm, 
sect.  19. 

Z 


354 


DISSERTATION. — ^PABT  SECOND. 


and  both  of  them  have  recourse  to  a  subtle  and  elastic  etlier, 
co-operatiiig  with  the  nerves  in  canyiog  on  the  communica- 
tion between  soul  OD'I  Imdv.'  This  fluid  Bonnet  conceived  to 
be  contained  in  the  nen'es,  in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  iii 
which  the  electric  fluid  is  contained  in  the  solid  bodies  which 
conduct  it;  differing  in  this  respect  from  tlie  Cartesians  as 
well  as  from  the  ancient  physiologists,  wiio  considered  tlie 
nerves  as  hollow  tubes  or  pipes,  within  which  the  animal 
spirits  were  included.  It  is  to  this  elastic  ether  that  Bonnet 
(wcribes  tlie  vibrations  of  which  he  supposes  the  nerves  to  be 
Biisceptible ;  for  the  nerves  themselvefi,  (he  justly  oliserves,) 
have  no  resemblance  in  the  stretched  cords  of  a  musical  instru- 
ment.*    Hartley's  Theory  differs  in  one  respect  from  this,  aa 


'  Ruui  Avalytiipte  de  VAme,  chap. 
T.  See  bIso  tbe  aJditiomil  antet  un  tlie 
firat  chapter  of  tbo  somnlh  ]>ar(  of  tlie 
CinUenptation  de  la  Xature, 

*  Mais  lea  nerfi  cant  moas,  iU  nu  eont 
pmnt  tendtiB  comme  les  cordca  d'un  in- 
atnuuent ;  lei  ubjeta  y  c»cit^J^oion^il» 
done  les  Tibmtions  onalogDeB  ft  celle 
d'une  cordo  pinisee  ?  Ccb  vibrationii  sc 
commDniquBrotent-Glloa  i,  ['ioHlnnt  ail 
aiga  de  I'Srae?  Ln  chose  parol t  diffi- 
cile ft  conoCToir.  Moiii  si  I'un  admct 
dans  Ib9  norfs  un  fluide  Jout  la  Bubti- 
lit£  et  ]'£taallL'it€  approche  ds  cello  Je  ]a 
ItnniiTe  ou  de  I'cther,  on  eipliiiuem  fa- 
ailement  par  Te  sucoun  de  oe  llaide,  et 
la  ccleril6  nvec  Uqnelle  Us  imiiressiona 
■e  comninniqaent  ft  VAme,  et  cellc  bvfc 
laqnulte  Viae  fx^cuto  taut  d'operatinns 
diHerenteB." — Emtii  Anal,  chap  r. 

"  Au  roate,  lea  physiologinteB  qui  avii- 
enC  cni  que  los  tileta  nerveiii  etviont 
ai>lid«a.  avoient  cEdJ  ft  ien  appaniDcea 
tmmpeiuea.  Us  vouloient  d'aiUeure 
fail*  oBCtller  Ibb  tiprfa  poor  tondre  rajson 
ilea  aanaatioTiB,  et  les  nerfa  ne  pnuvcnt 
nsrgller.  Hh  aont  nmu,  et  nullemeDt 
flastiqtiPB.  tin  nerf  conpfi  ne  ee  rptire 
point.  CVst  le  Qnide  inviaible  que  Ira 
norfe  penfermcnt,  qui  eat  dime  de  celte 
elaaticilt'  qunn  lenr  nttribiiiiil,  el  d'uup 


pluB  grande  fila*ricit*  encore." — Om- 
iemp,  df  la  NtUiire,  vii.  partie,  chap  l. 
Note  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

M.  Qiimuai,  the  celebrated  aathor  uf 
the  £bononucaI  Si/Mem,  hafl  expreaaed 
himself  to  the  aaino  pnrpuBo  oonooming 
tbu  Biippoaed  vibntiona  of  the  nerrca : 
"  Flnsisnrn  phjsicleju  ont  puoa£  qua  le 
seal  iibranlement  dca  nerfa,  caus£  par 
loB  ubjeta  qni  tonchent  les  orgnnes  dc* 
corpa,  snffit  ponr  occasiouer  le  mon™- 
ment  et  le  aeiitiment  dani  les  parties  oQ 
lea  nerfs  sent  ebranleB.  lis  Be  repri- 
aentent  tea  nerfa  comme  dea  cordea  fort 
tindoB,  qu'nn  tegor  contact  wet  on  vi- 
bratjou  dona  tante  lenr  ftendne.  Dea 
philoBoplies,  pea  instruita  en  anatomte, 
ont  pu  PC  former  nne  telle  idfe. . . .  Haii 
cetle  lenaioD  qu'an  auppoao  dans  les 
nerfa,  et  qui  lea  rend  ai  BUacepdblea 
d'ebranloment  et  ite  vibirtliDa,  est  d 
groasicrement  imaginac  qtl'il  aeroit  ridi- 
ciale  de  s'accnpor  Herieuaemenl  &  Is  r& 
filter." — Earn.  Ammale,  aect.  3,  c,  18. 

Ab  tbia  paaaage  from  Qnosnai  is  quot- 
ed by  CondiUac,  and  sanctioned  by  bia 
authority,  {TraM  da  AiUmaox,  chap. 
iii..)  it  would  appear  that  the  hypoCltcds 
which  aupposca  the  nerrea  Id  peribrni 
ihoir  fuDcLions  lij  incana  uf  vibraCiona 
was    eoing    foxl    iuto    dia«retltt,    biilh 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


355 


he  speaks  of  vibrations  and  nbmtiuncles  in  the  medullary 
substance  of  the  brain  and  nerves.  He  agrees,  however,  with 
Bonnet  in  thinking,  that  to  these  vibrations  in  the  nerves  the 
co-operation  of  the  ether  is  essentially  necessary ;  and,  there- 
fore, at  bottom  the  two  hypotheses  may  be  regarded  as  in  sub- 
stance the  same.  As  to  the  trifling  shade  of  diflference  between 
them,  the  advantage  seems  to  me  to  be  in  favour  of  Bonnet 

Nor  was  it  only  in  their  Physiological  Theories  concerning 
the  nature  of  the  union  between  soul  and  body,  that  these  two 
philosophers  agreed.  On  all  the  great  articles  of  metaphysical 
theology,  the  coincidence  between  their  conclusions  is  truly  asto- 
nishing. Both  held  the  doctrine  of  Necessity  in  its  fullest 
extent ;  and  both  combined  with  it  a  vein  of  mystical  devotion, 
setting  at  defiance  the  creeds  of  all  established  churches.  The 
intentions  of  both  are  allowed,  by  those  who  best  knew  them, 
to  have  been  eminently  pure  and  worthy ;  but  it  caimot  be  said 
of  eitlier,  that  his  metaphysical  writings  have  contributed  much 
to  the  instruction  or  to  the  improvement  of  the  public.  On 
the  contrary,  they  have  been  instrumental  in  spreading  a  set  of 
8i>eculative  tenets  very  nearly  allied  to  that  sentimental  and 
fanatical  modification  of  Spinozism  which,  for  many  years  past, 
has  prevailed  so  much,  and  produced  such  mischievous  efiects  in 
some  parts  of  Germany.* 


among  the  motaphysicians  and  the  phy- 
siologiste  of  France,  at  the  very  time 
when  it  was  beginning  to  attract  notice 
in  England,  in  consequence  of  the  vi- 
sionary Bpeculations  of  Hartley. 

'  In  a  letter  which  I  received  from 
Dr.  Parr,  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  trea- 
tise I  had  never  before  heart!.  "You 
will  bo  astonished  to  hear,"  says  Dr. 
Parr,  "  that  in  this  book,  instead  of  the 
doctrine   of  necessity,  Uartley   openly 


declares  for  the  indifference  of  the  will, 
as  maintained  by  Archbishop  King." 
We  arc  told  by  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  on  so  very  essential  a 
point  should  have  undergone  a  complete 
change. 

[*  Of  this  first  work  of  Hartley's,  as 
previously  stated,  I  had  never  heanl 
before  ;  and  from  the  manner  in  which 
Dr.  Parr  writes  of  it,  I  presume  it  is 
very   little   known    even   in    Enghiiid. 


*  Restored. — I  may  rLbo  mention,  that  the  collection  here  referred  to,  and  which  wat*  printed 
prcTioa«ly  to  Dr.  Parr's  death,  has  since  been  publiithed  by  Mr.  Lumley.  -  /s'</. 


856  DISBSRTATlOJf. — PART  SECOND. 

But  it  is  chiefly  hy  his  apjilicatioQ  of  the  associating  principle 
to  account  for  all  the  mental  phenomena,  that  Hartley  is  known 
to  the  world ;  and  upon  this  I  have  nothing  to  add  to  what  I 
have  already  stated  in  another  work. — (Phil.  Essays,  Essay  IV.) 
His  theory  seems  to  be  already  fast  pasfung  into  oblivion ;  the 
temporary  popularity  which  it  enjoyed  in  this  country  having, 
in  a  great  measure,  ceased  with  the  life  of  ita  zealous  and  inde- 
fatigable apostle,  Dr.  Priestley.' 

It  would  be  unfair,  however,  to  the  translator  of  Archbishop 
King,  to  identify  his  opinions  with  those  of  Hartley  and  Priest- 
ley. The  zeal  with  which  he  contends  for  man's  free  agency  ia 
sufficient^  of  itself,  to  draw  a  strong  line  of  distinction  between 
his  Ethical  System  and  theirs.  (See  his  Notes  on  Kmg,  paaaim.) 
But  I  must  be  allowed  to  say  of  liim,  that  the  general  scope  of 
his  imtings  tends,  in  common  with  that  of  the  two  other  meta- 
physicians, to  depreciate  the  evidences  of  Natural  Rehgion,  and 
more  especially  to  depreciate  the  evidences  which  the  light  of 
nature  affords  of  a  life  to  come ; — "  a  doctrine  equally  necessary 
to  comfort  the  weakness,  and  to  support  our  loflj  ideas  of  the 
grandeur  of  human  nature  ;"*  and  of  which  it  seems  hard  to 
confine  exclusively  the  knowledge  to  that  portion  of  mankind 
who  have  been  favoured  with  tlie  light  of  Revelation.  The 
influence  of  the  same  fundamental  error,  arirang,  too,  from  the 


(June  18S0.)  I  am  glad  to  add  thut  a 
repnlilication  of  it,  and  of  some  other 
rare  tracts  on  molsplijaical  silbjecla, 
may  soon  he  eipected  from  this  illns- 
trious  BCbolur  onit  philosopher.  Among 
these  tracts  it  gives  mo  particulnr  plos- 
■Dre  to  mention  the  CUivti  Uruvenalu 
of  Arthur  Collier,  of  wliioh  I  had  pre- 
viooslj  occaaioD  to  take  notice  in  »peak> 
ing  of  the  Idealiem  ofBiahop  Berkeley. 
See  p.  349  of  this  DissertatioD.] 

'  Dr  Priestley's  opinion  of  the  iDeritg 
of  Hartley's  work  is  thuii  stated  by  him- 
self:— "  Something  was  done  iu  this 
field  of  knowtod^  by  DsBcartes,  very 
much  by  Mr,  Liicko,  but  tnort  of  all  by 
Dr.  Hartlpy,  who  has  ihrown  more  use- 


ful light  upon  the  theory  of  the  mind, 
than  Newton  did  upon  the  theory  of  the 
natural  world."  —  Bemarki  on  Rnd, 
Jienltie,  and  Otvmid.  p.  2.  London, 
1774. 

*  Smiiit'a  7%eori/ of  SforalSentimmU, 
Gth  ed.  vol.  i.  pp.  336,  326. 

Dr.  Law's  doctrine  of  the  sleep  of  the 
soul,  to  which  bis  high  slation  in  the 
eharfh  could  not  fail  (o  add  ninch  weight 
in  the  jud^enl  o{  many,  is,  I  believe, 
now  universally  adopted  by  the  fnllawcrs 
of  Hartley  and  Priertley ;  the  theoiy  of 
vibralions  being  evidently  inconsistent 
with  the  snppoaition  of  the  soul'i  beii^ 
able  lo  GXerciite  her  powers  in  a  leparale 
eUte  from  the  body. 


METAPHYSICS  DUBINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         357 

same  mistaken  idea,  of  thus  strengthening  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tianity, may  be  traced  in  various  passages  of  the  posthumous 
work  of  the  late  Bishop  of  Llandaff.  It  is  wonderful  that  the 
reasonings  of  Clarke  and  of  Butler  did  not  teach  these  eminent 
men  a  sounder  and  more  consistent  logic ;  or,  at  least,  open 
their  eyes  to  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the  rash  concessions 
which  they  made  to  their  adversaries.* 

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


'  Without  entering  at  all  into  the 
argument  with  Dr.  Law  or  his  followers, 
it  is  sufficient  here  to  mention,  as  a  his- 
torical fiict,  their  wide  departure  from 
the  older  lights  of  the  English  Church, 
from  Hooker  downwards.  ''  All  reli- 
gion,"  says  Archbishop  Tillotson,  whom 
I  select  as  an  unexceptionable  organ  of 
their  common  sentiments,  "  is  founded 
on  right  notions  of  Ood  and  his  perfec- 
tions, insomuch  that  Divine  Revelation 
itself  does  suppose  these  for  its  foimda- 
tions;  and  can  signify  nothing  to  us 
unless  they  be  first  known  and  believed ; 
so  that  the  principles  of  natural  religion 
are  the  foundation  of  that  which  is  re- 
vealed.'*— (Sermon  41.)  "There  is  an 
intrinsical  good  and  evil  in  things,  and 
the  reasons  and  respects  of  moral  g^ood 
and  evil  are  fixed  and  immutable,  eter- 
nal and  indispensable.  Nor  do  they 
speak  safely  who  make  the  Divine  will 
the  rule  of  moral  good  and  evil,  as  if 
there  were  nothing  good  or  evil  in  its 


own  nature  antecedently  to  the  will  of 
God ;  but,  that  all  things  are  therefore 
good  and  evil  because  God  wills  them 
to  be  so."— (Sermon  SS.)  "Natural 
religion  is  obedience  to  the  natural  law, 
and  the  performance  of  such  duties  aa 
natural  light,  without  any  express  and 
supernatural  revelation,  doth  dictate  to 
men.  These  lie  at  the  bottom  of  all 
religion,  and  are  the  great  fundamental 
duties  which  God  requires  of  all  man- 
kind.  These  are  the  surest  and  most 
sacred  of  all  other  laws ;  those  which 
God  hath  rivetted  in  our  souls  and  writ- 
ten upon  our  hearts ;  and  these  are  what 
we  call  moral  duties,  and  moat  valued 
by  God,  which  are  of  eternal  and  perp^ 
tual  obligation,  because  they  do  natu- 
rally oblige,  without  any  particular  and 
express  revelation  from  God ;  and  these 
are  the  foundation  of  revealed  and  insti- 
tuted religion;  and  all  revealed  reli- 
gion does  suppoae  them  and  build  upon 
them.'* — Sermons  48,  49. 


DISSERTATION, — PART  SECOND. 


SECT.  VI. — CONDILLAC,  AND  OTQBR  FRENCH    METAPHYSICIANS  OF 
A  LATER  DATE. 

While  Hartley  aud  Bonnet  were  indulfi^iig  their  iniagmatiOQ 
in  theoriziiig  concerning  the  nature  of  the  uiiiuii  between  soul 
and  body,  Condillac  was  attempting  to  draw  the  attention  of 
liis  countrymen  to  the  method  of  studying  the  iihenomena  of 
Mind  recommended  and  exemplified  by  Locke.'  Of  the  vanity 
of  expecting  t<>  illuBtrate,  by  physiolo^cal  conjectures,  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  intercourse  between  the  thinking  principle  and 


'  It  maj  appear  to  e 
able  tliM  no  cotlco  ahonlil  Iwve  been 
tAkCD,  in  this  Diaeertation,  of  SDj  French 
niclaplijnciaa  during  tlic  long  iuturvol 
bctwtteu  Mululjranclif  and  Cimdillaa. 
Aa  an  apolog;  for  thin  apparent  uniig- 
siun.  1  beg  IcBTo  to  quote  the  wurds  nf 
oil  author  iDtimaU.>lj  ocqaainCeil  with 
the  Uigtory  of  French  literature  and  phi- 
liwophy,  and  eminently  qunlifled  to  ap- 
prooiate  the  merits  of  those  vho  have 
cuntrihutvd  to  their  progrcBB.  "  If  we 
except,"  Bnjs  Mr.  Ailam  Smith,  in  a 
Memoir  piihhHhtid  in  IT55,  "the  Minlt- 
latione  of  UuBcartes,  I  know  of  ooihing 
in  the  works  of  French  writers  which 
aspires  at  originality  in  morals  or  meta- 
phyaicB ;  for  the  philoaoph;  of  B«gia 
and  that  of  Hnlcbranchc  ore  nothing 
more  than  the  meditutionB  of  DescBrtes 
nnfoldeit  with  more  art  and  reSuomeut. 
But  HohbcB,  Locke,  Dr.  Mamlaviile,  Lord 
ShafleBbury,  Dr.  Botler,  Dr.  Clilrke,  and 
Mr.Hutcheson,  eocli  in  h  is  own  sy utem,  nil 
different  and  all  incompatlhlu,  have  tried 
to  he  origiaal,  at  least  in  Bomo  points. 
Thoy  have  attempted  to  add  lumething 
to  the  fiind  of  obsorvationB  collected  by 
their  predecessors,  and  already  the  com- 
mon property  of  mankind.  This  branch 
of  science,  which  the  English  IhemBclven 


■*  «'  P"''"' 


.      IdiB- 


t  traccB  of  it  not  only  in  the 
lit  in  the  TAeers  t^ 
AgreerAU  SentaUoTU,  by  M.da  Pooiily  ; 
and  much  more  in  the  late  diacovrae  of 
M.  lioDsaeau,  On  Ae  Origin  and  Fbun- 
ilation  of  Ihe  IneipuU^i/  of  Banki 
among  Men." 

Although  1  perfectly  agree  with  Mr. 
Bmilh  in  his  general  remark  on  the 
Bterility  nf  invention  among  the  Frooch 
metaphyeieiaus  posterior  to  Deseaiies, 
when  compared  to  those  of  England,  I 
cannot  pass  over  lie  foregoing  quotit 
tion  without  expresuiiig  my  surprise,  Iff, 
To  find  the  name  of  Mahihrauche  (one 
of  the  highest  m  modem  phila«ophy) 
degrtuled  to  ■  level  with  that  nf  Begis ; 
and,  idly.  To  observe  Mr.  Smith's 
silence  with  reapect  to  Huffier  and  Con- 
dilluc,  while  he  oieulions  the  wilhur  of 
the  Theory  of  Agreeable  Sentatitmi  as 
a  metHphysieian  of  original  genina.  Of 
the  mBrils  of  CundiUae,  whoso  most  im- 
portant works  were  pulliahed  Bevend 
years  before  this  pajier  of  Mr.  Smith'i, 
I  am  about  to  speak  in  the  text;  and 
those  of  BufScr  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
mention  in  a  subaeqaent  part  of  this 
Discourse.  In  the  meantime,  I  shall 
only  say  of  him,  that  I  ragard  him  m 
one  of  the  most  original  as  well  as  sonnd 
philosophei's  of  whom  the  eighteenth 
C('[L(i)ry  has  to  booat. 


M1STAPHY8ICS  DURING  TH£  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


359 


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


*  Condillac*!  earliest  work  [which 
was  published  in  1746]  appeared  three 
years  before  the  publication  of  Hartley's 
Theory,  li  ib  entitled,  "Eataisurr  Ori- 
gine  des  ConnoUsancea  Hummnea.  Ou- 
vrage  oU  Von  rSduU  d  un  seul  principe 
tout  ce  qui  conceme  VeiUendement  hw- 
main"  This  $eul  principe  is  the  asso- 
ciation of  ideas.  The  account  which 
lioth  authors  give  of  the  transformation 
of  sensations  into  ideas  is  substantially 
the  same.  [*  A  still  more  curious  co- 
incidence may  be  remarked  between  the 


speculations  of  Condillac  and  of  Bonnet, 
in  their  firndful  hypothesis  of  an  ani- 
mated statue,  to  illustrate  the  progrest 
of  the  mind  in  acquiring  its  ideas  through 
the  medium  of  the  different  senses.  The 
hypothesis  is  plausiblci  and  does  honour 
to  the  ingenuity  of  its  authors ;  but,  in 
my  opinion,  it  throws  additional  dark- 
ness on  the  difficulties  it  was  intended 
to  elucidate.  At  any  rate,  it  is  of  too 
little  moment  to  dcserTe  particular  no- 
tice here.] 


♦  Reftored— /?'!. 


360  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

origin  of  our  knowledge,  I  am  persuaded,  from  his  known  can- 
dour and  love  of  truth,  that  he  would  have  been  eager  to 
acknowledge  and  to  retract  his  error. 

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

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

On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Condillac  has, 
in  many  instances,  been  eminently  successful,  both  in  observing 
and  describing  the  mental  phenomena ;  but,  in  such  cases,  he 

'  "  En  Franco,  on  ne  lit  gu^re  un  mark,  I  am  much  afraid,  is  becoming 
ouvrage  que  pour  en  parler." — (AUe-  daily  more  and  more  applicable  to  our 
magnet  torn.  i.  p.  292.)    The  same  re-      own  island. 


METAPHYSICS  DUKINO  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  361 

commonly  follows  Locke  as  his  guide ;  and,  wherever  he  trusts 
to  his  own  judgment,  he  seldom  fails  to  wander  from  his  way. 
The  best  part  of  his  works  relates  to  the  action  and  reaction  of 
thought  and  language  on  each  other,  a  subject  which  had  been 
previously  very  profoundly  treated  by  Locke,  but  which  Con- 
dillac  has  had  the  merit  of  placing  in  many  new  and  happy 
points  of  view.  In  various  cases,  his  conclusions  are  pushed 
too  far,  and  in  others  are  expressed  without  due  precision ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  they  form  a  most  valuable  accession  to  this  im- 
portant branch  of  logic ;  and  (what  not  a  Uttle  enhances  their 
value)  they  have  been  instrumental  in  reconmiending  the  sub- 
ject to  the  attention  of  other  inquirers,  still  better  qualified 
than  their  author  to  do  it  justice. 

In  the  speculation,  too,  concerning  the  origin  and  the  theore- 
tical history  of  language,  Condillac  was  one  of  the  first  who 
made  any  considerable  advances ;  nor  does  it  rcfiect  any  dis- 
credit on  his  ingenuity,  that  he  has  left  some  of  the  principal 
difficulties  connected  with  the  inquiry  very  imperfectly  ex- 
plained. The  same  subject  was  soon  after  taken  up  by  Mr. 
Smith,^  who,  I  think,  it  must  be  owned,  has  rather  slurred  over 
these  difficulties,  than  attempted  to  remove  them ;  an  omission 
on  his  part  the  more  remarkable,  as  a  very  specious  and  puz- 
zling objection  had  been  recently  stated  by  Rousseau,  not  only 
to  the  theory  of  Condillac,  but  to  all  speculations  which  have 
for  their  object  the  solution  of  the  same  problem.  ^^  If  lan- 
guage,*' says  Rousseau,  ^^  be  the  result  of  human  convention, 
and  if  words  be  essential  to  the  exercise  of  thought,  language 
would  appear  to  be  necessary  for  the  invention  of  language."* 
"  But,"  continues  the  same  author,  "  when,  by  means  which 

'  [*  Dissertation  on  the    Origin  of  which  gives  to  RoasBeau's  remark  that 

Langvoffe;  annexed  to  the  Theory  of  imposing    plausibility,  which,  at  first 

Moral  Sentiments.]  sight,  dazzles  and  perplexes  the  judg- 

'  That  men  never  could  have  invent-  ment.     I  by  no  means  say,  that  the 

ed  an  artificial  language,  if  they  had  former  proposition  affords  a  key  to  all 

not  possessed  a  natural   language,   is  the  difi^ulties  suggested  by  the  latter ; 

an  observation  of  Dr.  Reid's  ;  and  it  is  but  it  advances  us  at  least  one  import- 

this  indisputable  and  self-evident  truth  nnt  step  towards  their  solution. 

*  Re»t<*r«d.  ~tkl. 


362  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

I  cannot  conceive,  oiir  new  grammarians  began  to  extend  their 
ideas,  and  to  generalize  their  words,  their  ignorance  must  have 

confined  them  within  very  narrow  bounds How, 

for  example,  could  they  imagine  or  comprehend  such  words 
as  matter,  mind,  substance,  mode,  figure,  motion,  since  our 
philosophers,  who  have  so  long  made  use  of  them,  scarcely 
understand  them,  and  since  the  ideas  attached  to  them,  being 
purely  metaphysical,  can  have  no  model  in  nature  ?" 

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

Of  the  various  difficulties  here  enumerated,  thai  mentioned 
by  Rousseau,  in  the  last  sentence,  was  plainly  considered  by 
him  as  the  greatest  of  all ;  or  rather  as  comprehending  under 
it  all  the  rest.  But  this  difficulty  arises  merely  from  his  own 
peculiar  and  paradoxical  theory  about  the  artificial  origin  of 
society ;  a  theory  which  needs  no  refutation,  but  the  short  and 
luminous  aphorism  of  Montesquieu,  that  "  man  is  bom  in 
society,  and  there  he  remains."  The  other  difficulties  touched 
upon  by  Rousseau,  in  the  former  part  of  this  quotation,  are 
much  more  serious,  and  have  never  yet  been  removed  in  a 
manner  completely  satisfactory :  And  hence  some  very  inge- 
nious writers  have  been  led  to  conclude,  that  language  could 

^  Discours  sur  VOrigine  et  let  Fondemena  de  Vlnigalit^ panni  Ui  Hommes. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         363 


not  possibly  have  been  the  work  of  human  invention.  This 
argument  has  been  lately  urged  with  much  acuteness  and  plau- 
sibility by  Dr.  Magee  of  Dublin,  and  by  M.  de  Bonald  of 
Paris.^  It  may,  however,  be  reasonably  questioned,  if  these 
philosophers  would  not  have  reasoned  more  logically,  had  they 
contented  themselves  with  merely  affirming,  that  the  problem 
has  not  yet  been  solved,  without  going  so  far  as  to  pronounce 
it  to  be  absolutely  insolvable.  For  my  own  part,  when  I  con- 
sider its  extreme  difficulty,  and  the  short  space  of  time  during 
which  it  has  engaged  the  attention  of  the  learned,  I  am  more 
disposed  to  wonder  at  the  steps  which  have  been  already  gained 
in  the  research,  than  at  the  number  of  desiderata  which  remain 
to  employ  the  ingenuity  of  our  successors.  It  is  justly  re- 
marked by  Dr.  Ferguson,  that  "  when  language  has  attained 
to  that  perfection  to  which  it  arrives  in  the  progress  of  society, 
the  speculative  mind,  in  comparing  the  first  and  the  last  stages 
of  the  progress,  feels  the  same  sort  of  amazement  with  a  tra- 
veller, who,  after  rising  insensibly  on  the  slope  of  a  hill,  comes 
to  look  down  from  a  precipice,  to  the  summit  of  which  he 
scarcely  believes  he  could  have  ascended  without  supernatural 


aid."  a 

*  Tho  same  theory  has  been  extended 
to  the  art  of  writing  ;  but  if  this  art  was 
first  taught  to  man  by  an  express  reve- 
lation from  Heaven,  what  account  can 
be  given  of  its  present  state  in  the  great 
empire  of  Cliina?  Is  the  mode  of 
writing  practised  there  of  divine  or  of 
human  origin? 

[*  As  to  oral  language  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  conceive  how  the  doctrine  maintain- 
e<i  by  Dr.  Magee  and  M.  de  Bonald  can 
be  reconciled  with  the  Scripture  account 
of  the  tower  of  Babel,  or  even  with  what 
we  are  told  of  the  arbitrary  names  as- 
signed by  Adam  to  the  beasts  of  the 
field  and  the  fowls  of  the  air.] 

■  Priiiciples  of  Moral  and  Political 
Science,  vol.  i.  p.  43.  Edin.  1792.  To 
ihis  observation  may  be  added,  by  way 


of  comment,  the  following  reflections  of 
one  of  the  most  learned  prelates  of  the 
Ehiglish  Church : — "  Man,  we  are  told, 
had  a  language  from  the  beginning; 
for  he  conversed  with  God,  and  gave  to 
every  animal  its  particular  name.  But 
how  came  man  by  language  ?  He  must 
either  have  had  it  from  inspiration^ 
ready  formed  from  his  Creator,  or  have 
derived  it  by  the  exertion  of  those  facul- 
ties of  the  mind,  which  were  implanted 
in  him  as  a  rational  creature,  from  na- 
tural and  external  objects  with  which 
he  was  surrounded.  Scripture  is  silent 
on  the  means  by  wliich  it  was  acquired. 
We  are  not,  therefore,  warranted  to 
affirm,  that  it  was  received  by  infqnra- 
tion,  and  there  is  no  iiitenial  evidence 
in  language  to  lead  us  to  such  a  suppo- 


*  Re»torcd.— £d. 


With  respect  to  some  of  tlie  difficulties  pointed  out  by  Rous- 
seau and  his  commentators,  it  may  be  bitre  remarketl  in  pass- 
ing, (and  the  obsiTvation  is  equally  applicable  to  various  jjasBageB 
in  Mr.  Smitli'a  dissertation  on  the  same  subject,)  that  the  diffi- 
culty of  osplaiuing  the  theory  of  any  of  our  intellectual  opera- 
tions aflFords  no  proof  of  any  difficulty  in  applying  that  operation 
to  its  proper  practical  purpose ;  nor  is  the  difficulty  of  explain- 
ing the  metaphyBical  imture  of  any  part  of  speech  a  proof,  that, 
in  its  first  origin,  it  implied  any  extraordinary  effort  of  iutfillec- 
tual  capacity.  How  many  metaphysical  difficulties  might  be 
raised  about  the  mathematical  notion  of  a  Hne  ?  And  j-et  this 
notion  is  perfectly  comprehended  by  every  peasant,  when  lie 
speaks  of  the  distance  between  two  places ;  or  of  the  length, 
breadth,  or  height  of  his  cottage.  In  like  manner,  although  it 
may  be  difficult  to  give  a  satisfactory  accoimt  of  the  origin  and 
import  of  such  words  as  of  or  by,  we  ought  not  to  conclude, 
that  the  invention  of  them  implied  any  metaphyfiical  knowledge 
in  the  individual  who  first  employed  them.'    Their  import,  we 


utton.  On  this  side,  Ihea,  of  the  ques- 
tion, wc  bave  nothing  but  unccrtuuty  ; 
but  on  a  subject,  tho  cuuies  of  which 
are  BO  remolo,  nothing  is  more  couve- 
nient  thui  to  refer  them  to  inipiraliim, 
and  to  recur  to  tbat  unay  and  compro' 
heuinTo  argument, 

timt  is,  mac  cigoycil  the  great  privHcgo 
of  speech,  which  distinguished  him  at 
Gret,  and  stiU  coDtinuca  to  dietingnish 
him  as  a  ratumat  QTcalan.  la  eminently 
from  tho  brute  creation,  without  exert.- 
ing  thou  remoning  taculdes,  bj  whii:b 
he  WM  inotWreapeats  enabled  to  roiie 
himself  so  muob  above  Iheir  level.  In- 
spiration, then,  BHeroB  to  Lave  bcea  ao 
argument  adopted  and  made  QecesMuj 
bj  tho  difficulty  of  accounting  for  it 
otherwise  ;  and  the  name  of  inspiration 
carries  with  it  an  avfidness,  which  for 
bids  the  unhallowed  apprnach  of  inqui- 
Bitive  diflcuaaion."' — Elian  ""  '^  Stnily 


of  AiOiqiiititi,  bj  Br.  Burgess,  2d  edit. 
Oiford,  1782.    Pp.  65,  8C. 

It  is  farther  remarked  very  BHgaci- 
ously,  and  I  thinli  very  dedaivelj,  by 
the  same  author,  that  "  the  euppoaition 
of  man  having  roccived  a  langMgo 
rendy  formed  from  his  Creator,  is 
adaaUi/  iDconsiBtcnt  with  the  evidtnco 
of  the  origin  of  our  ideas,  whicb  eiiata 
in  language.  For,  oa  the  origin  of  onr 
ideas  is  to  bo  [mc«d  iu  tho  vrords 
through  which  the  ideas  are  cODveyed, 
so  the  origin  of  language  is  referable  U 
the  source  from  whence  our  (firit)  idea* 
are  derived,  namely,  natural  and  exter- 
nal objects." — HimI.  pp.  83,  84. 

'  In  this  remark  I  had  an  eye  to  the 
following  passage  in  Mr.  Smith's  dlBSer- 
mtion :—"  It  is  wortb  while  to  obserre, 
tbat  those  prepositiuns,  wbich,  in  modvn 
languages,  hold  the  place  of  the  ancient 
cabes,ara,  of  nil  others,  the  most  giweral, 
and  abetrai't,  and  laetapliysital ;  and,  of 
conifi/uencr,  icould  probuW'l  be  the  latl 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


365 


see,  is  fully  understood  by  children  of  three  or  four  years 
of  age. 

In  this  view  of  the  History  of  Language  I  have  been  anti- 
cipated by  Dr.  Ferguson.  "  Parts  of  speech,"  says  this  pro- 
found and  original  writer,  "  which,  in  speculation,  cost  the  gram- 
marian so  much  study,  are,  in  practice,  familiar  to  the  vulgar. 
The  rudest  tribes,  even  the  idiot  and  the  insane,  are  possessed 
of  them.  They  are  soonest  learned  in  childhood,  insomuch 
that  we  must  suppose  human  nature,  in  its  lowest  state,  com- 
petent to  the  use  of  them ;  and,  without  the  intervention  of  un- 
common genius,  mankind,  in  a  succession  of  ages,  qualified  to 
accomplish  in  detail  tliis  amazing  fabric  of  language,  which, 
when  raised  to  its  height,  appears  so  much  above  what  could  be 
ascribed  to  any  simultaneous  efibrt  of  the  most  sublime  and 
comprehensive  abilities.'*^ 


invented.  Ask  any  man  of  common 
acatcneas,  what  relation  is  expressed  by 
the  preposition  above  f  Ho  will  readily 
answer,  that  of  superiority.  By  the 
preposition  below  f  He  will  as  quickly 
reply,  that  of  inferiority.  But  ask  him 
what  relation  is  expressed  by  the  prepo- 
sition off  and,  if  he  has  not  beforehand 
employed  his  thoughts  a  good  deal 
upon  these  subjects,  you  may  safely 
allow  him  a  week  to  consider  of  his 
answer." 

*  The  following  judicious  reflections, 
^•ith  which  M.  Ra>*nouard  concludes  the 
introduction  to  his  ElSmens  de  la  Lan- 
gue  Romanty  may  serve  to  illustrate 
some  of  the  above  observations.  The 
modification  of  an  existing  language  is,  I 
acknowle<ige,  a  thing  much  less  wonder- 
ful than  the  formation  of  a  language  en- 
tirely new;  but  the  processes  of  thought, 
it  is  reasonable  to  think,  are,  in  both 
cases,  of  the  same  kind  ;  and  the  consi- 
deration of  the  one  is  at  least  a  step 
gained  towards  the  elucidation  (»f  the 
other. 

"  La  langue  Komanc  est  peut-etre  la 
seule  k  la  formation  de  laquelle  il  soit 


permis  de  remonter  ainsi,  pour  d^uvrir 
et  expliquer  le  secret  de  son  industrieux 
mecanisme.  .  .  .  J'ose  dire  que  Tesprit 
philosophiqne,  consult^  sur  le  choix  des 
moyens  qui  devraient  epargner  &  IHgnor- 
ance  beaucoup  d'etudes  penibles  et  fas* 
tidieux,  n^eut  pas  (tie  aussi  heureux  que 
I'ignorance  elle-meme  ;  il  est  vrai  qa*el]e 
avoit  deux  grands  maitres ;  la  Neoesbitk 
et  lo  Tbms. 

"  En  consid6rant  A  quelle  ^'poque 
dignorance  et  de  barbaric  s'est  form6  et 
perfectionn6  ce  nouvel  idi5me,  d'apr^ 
des  prindpes  indiques  seulement  par 
I'analogie  et  Teuphonie,  on  se  dira  peut- 
etre  comme  je  mo  le  suis  dit ;  I'homme 
porte  en  soi-mcme  les  principes  d*ane 
logique  naturclle,  d*un  instinct  r6gnla- 
tcur,  que  nous  admirons  quelqucfois  dans 
les  enfans.  Qui,  la  IVovidence  nous  a 
dote  de  la  faculty  indestructible  et  des 
moyens  ingenicux  d'exprim*^,  de  com- 
mnniquer,  d'ctemiser  par  la  parole,  et 
par  les  signes  permanons  ou  elle  se  re 
prodnit,  cette  ])onBee  qui  est  Tun  dc  nos 
plus  beaux  attributs,  et  qui  nous  dis- 
tingue si  eniinemmciit  et  si  avant/igense- 
niont  dans   I'ordre   dc   la  creation." — 


366  niSBSBTATION. — FART  SBCOKD. 

It  is,  howover,  less  iii  tracing  the  first  rudiments  of  speech, 
than  in  some  collateral  inquiries  concerning  the  genius  of  ditfor- 
ent  languages,  that  Condillac'fl  ingenuity  appears  to  advantage. 
8ome  of  liis  observations,  in  particular,  on  the  connexion  of 
natural  signs  with  the  growth  of  a  systematical  prosody,  and  J 
on  the  iraitativii  ivrts  of  the  Greeks  and   Romans,  as  diatin- 
guiahed  from  those  of  the  uiodfrns,  are  new  and  curious ;  and  1 
are  enlivened  with  a  mixtiu^  of  historical  iltustration,  and  of  ■ 
critical  discussion,  seldom  to  be  met  with  among  metaphysical  I 
writers. 

But  through  aO  his  researches,  the  radical  error  may,  more 
or  less,  be  traced,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  his  system ;'  and  I 


£limeits  de  hi  Orainmiiire  lie  Ui  Liat- 
gueSomaTieaeaiitraaiOOO.  Pp.  104, 
105,    A  Paris.  1810. 

In  tiie  ihuorclkol  liistoiy  uf  luigiiuge, 
it  IB  mure  thnn  pntbablp,  that  Eome  steps 
will  nnniun  tu  cierciso  tlio  inf^umty  of 
Dor  lal«it  poBtcrily.  Nor  will  tbis  &p- 
[icar  HurjiriHtng,  whsn  we  ctmidifer  huw 
impiisiible  it  Lb  fur  us  to  judge,  fruia  our 
□WD  expurience,  of  tLe  intellwtUBl  pni- 
cesKB  wliioh  pHBa  in  the  mindi  of 
BnvogfH,  Suiue  inetinctB,  we  know, 
pnaseaseJ  both  by  them  Bud  by  iufnnta, 
[lliat  uf  imiCatiun,  for  exiimplii,  and  the 
use  of  Dttturai  aigna,)  diBappeftr  in  liy 
for  the  greater  n amber  of  individuals, 
slmoat  ontinily  in  the  maturity  of  tbtir 
peagon.  It  docs  not  teem  at  all  impro- 
bable, that  other  inalintts  connected 
with  the  invention  uf  speech,  may  be 
confined  to  that  stato  of  the  intelleetaal 
powers  which  requirts  their  guidnnae ; 
uor  is  it  quite  impoanblc,  thut  some 
Utent  capacities  of  ihe  nndorstandliig 
mty  be  ovolTcii  hy  the  prtsaure  of  necps- 
■ity.  Thi)  tat^ty  with  which  infaatg 
anrmnunt  so  many  grammatical  and 
metaphysical  dilGcaltieH,  leems  to  me  to 
add  much  weight  lo  these  cunjecturea. 

In  tracing  the  Hrst  atepa  of  the  invon- 
tioD  of  huigvi^e,  it  oiiglit  never  lo  In 
r.irgollon,  ihfti  wi'  iiii.liTlHk''  a  laik  mun- 


ainiilor  lliun  might  ilL  Grit  be  lUppoaed,    I 
to  that  of  tracing  the  Gnt  operations  «r  I 
the  iiifaut  mind.     In  lK>th  caaei,  we  a 
apt  to  alt*>iDpt  an  explanation  from  n 
son  alone,  of  what  requirvB  the  «<Mip«Ta-  J 
tion  of  Tury  diSereut  priuciplea. 
tracD  the  theoretical  history  of  geom»-   I 
Uy,  in  which  wc  know  Ibr  certain,  that  j 
oil  the   transitions  hare  depended  o 
Tftaoning  alone,  la  a  pniblBDi  which  hat    ■ 
not  yet  been  oompleltly  solved.    Nor   i 
has  GTaa  any  satisfactory  account  b 
hitherto  given  of  the  experimental  si 
by  which  men  were  grsdoally  hid  to  the    | 
UHe  of  iron.    And  yet  how  shnple  art  I 
Ihuse  problems,  when  compared  will)  4 
thai  relating  to  the  origin  and  progreavV 
of  langnagu! 

I  A  remarkable  instance  of  this  oc 
In  that  part  of  Condillac's  C 
rPEbulf,  where  he  treats  of  the  art  nf 
writing:  "Voua  aavei,  Honaoigneur, 
comment  les  memos  noms  ont  et6  trui»- 
portes  dea  olgets  qui  tombent  sou 
sena  i  ceux  qui  lea  kh^pent.  Tow  | 
avez  remarqne,  qnll  y  en  a  qui  BOnt  cl 
core  uu  usage  ilans  Van  et  I'antre  acce) 
tation,  et  ciu'il  y  en  a  qni  sent  derenii 
\es  noma  proprea  dcs  cboaes,  dont  ib'.l 
avoiPiit  d'abord  ftc  Ics  signes  figuris. 

"  Lea  pmnlers,  lei  que  lo  mmtvfmfn. 
Aiy    VhnK,  BUD  peiichtnl,    ea  rfjleriim. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


367 


hence  it  is  tliat,  with  all  his  skill  as  a  writer,  he  never  elevates 
the  imagination,  or  touches  the  heart.  That  he  wrote  with  the 
best  intentions,  we  have  satisfactory  evidence  ;  and  yet  hardly  a 
philosopher  can  be  named,  whose  theories  have  had  more  in- 
fluence in  misleading  the  opinions  of  his  contemporaries.'     In 


donnent  un  corps  h  dee  choses  qui  n*en 
ont  pas.  Les  seconds,  tels  que  la  pen- 
«^,  la  PolonUf  le  cUnr,  ne  pcignent  plus 
rien,  et  laissent  aux  idees  abstraitcs 
cette  spi ritual! te  qui  les  derobe  aux  sens. 
Mais  si  le  langage  doit  etre  l*image  de 
nos  pens^yOn  a  perdu  beaucoup,  lorsqu' 
oubliant  la  premi5re  signification  des 
mots,  on  a  efface  jusqu^aux  traits  qu'ils 
donnoient  aux  idees.  Toutcs  les  langues 
sont  en  ccla  plus  ou  moins  defectueuses, 
toutes  aussi  ont  des  tableaux  plus  ou 
moins  conserves." — Cours  d* Etude,  torn, 
ii.  p.212,  aParme,  1775. 

Condillac  enlarges  on  this  point  at  con- 
siderable length  ;  endeavouring  to  shew, 
that  whenever  we  lose  sight  of  the  analo- 
gical origin  of  a  figurative  word,  we  be- 
come insensible  to  one  of  the  chief  beau- 
ties of  language.  "  In  the  word  exatnen, 
for  example,  a  Frenchman  perceives  only 
the  proper  name  of  one  of  our  mental 
operations.  A  Roman  attached  to  it  the 
same  idea,  and  received  over  and  above 
the  image  of  weighing  and  balancing. 
The  case  is  the  same  with  the  words  dme 
and  anima ;  penaie  and  cogitath. 

In  this  view  of  the  subject,  Condillac 
plainly  proceeded  on  his  favourite  prin- 
ciple, that  all  our  notions  of  our  mental 
operations  are  compounded  of  sensible 
images.  Whereas  the  fact  is,  that  the 
only  just  notions  we  can  form  of  the 
powers  of  the  mind  are  obtained  by  ab- 
stracting from  the  qualities  and  laws  of 
the  material  worid.  In  proportion,  there- 
fore, as  the  analogical  origin  of  a  figura- 
tive word  disappears,  it  becomes  a  fitter 
instrument  of  metaphysical  thought  and 
reasoning. — See  Philosophical  Essays, 
Part  i.  Essay  v.  chap.  iii. 

*  A  late  writer,  (M.  de  Bon  aid,)  whose 


philosophical  opinions,  in  general,  agree 
neariy  with  those  of  La  Harpe,  has, 
however,  appreciated  very  differently, 
and,  in  my  judgment,  much  more  saga- 
ciously, the  merits  of  Condillac :  **  Con- 
dillac a  eu  sur  I'esprit  philosophique  du 
dernier  si^cle,  I'influenco  que  Voltaira  it 
prise  sur  I'esprit  religieux,  et  J.  J. 
Rousseau  sur  les  opinions  politiques. 
Condillac  a  mis  de  la  secheresse  et  de  la 
minutie  dans  les  esprits;  Voltaire  du 
penchant  k  la  raillerie  et  Ik  la  frivolity  ; 
Rousseau  les  a  rendus  chagrins  et  m$- 
contens.  .  .  .  Condillac  a  encore  plus 
fausse  Pesprit  de  la  nation,  parce  que  sa 
doctrine  t'toit  enseignee  dans  les  pre- 
mi5res  etudes  h  des  jeunes  gens  qui 
n*avoient  encore  lu  Ai  Rousseau  ni 
Voltaire,  ct  que  la  manidre  de  raisonner 
et  la  direction  philosophique  de  Vesprit 
s'etendent  k  tout." — JRecherehes  Phil. 
torn.  i.  pp.  187,  188. 

The  following  criticism  ou  the  sup- 
posed perspicuity  of  Condillac's  style  is 
so  just  and  philosophical,  that  I  cannot 
refrain  firom  giving  it  a  place  here: 
"  Condillac  est,  ou  paroit  etre,  clair  et 
methodique ;  mais  il  faut  prendre  garde 
que  la  clarte  des  pensi>es,  conime  la 
transparence  des  objets  physiques,  peut 
tenir  d'un  defaut  de  profondeur,  et  que 
la  mcthode  dans  les  Merits,  qui  suppose 
la  patience  de  Pesprit,  n'en  prouve  pas 
toiy'onrs  la  justesse ;  ct  moins  encore  la 
f<§condite.  11  y  a  aussi  une  clarte  de 
style  en  quelque  sorte  toute  raaterielle, 
qui  n'est  pas  incompatible  avec  Tobecu- 
rite  dans  les  idi'es.  Rien  de  plus  facile 
k  entendre  que  les  mots  de  sensations 
transformies  dont  C/Ondillac  s'est  servi, 
parce  que  ces  mots  ne  pnrlent  qu*k 
rimagination,  qui  so  figure   h   volonte 


368  DfSBKBTATION. — PART  SaEOOND. 

France,  he  very  early  attained  to  a  rank  and  authority  not  in- 
ferior  to  tho«e  which  have  been  so  long  and  m  deservedly  as- 
signed to  Locke  in  England  ;  and  even  in  this  country,  his 
works  have  been  more  generaUy  read  and  admired,  than  those 
of  any  foreign  metaphysician  of  an  equaUy  recent  date. 

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

des  traDsformations  et  dee  changemens.  apper^us  que  dans  see  demonstrations  : 

Mais  cctte  transformation,  appliquee  aux  I^a  rout«  de  la  verite  semble  quclqiiefois 

operations  de  I'esprit,  n^est  qu'un  mot  8*oiivrir  devant  lui,  mais  retenu  par  la 

vide   do  sons ;   et   Condillac  lui-meme  circonspection  naturelle  h  im  esprit  sans 

auroit  ^te  bien  embarrass^  d^en  donner  chaleur,  et  intimide  par  la  faiblesse  de 

une  explication  satisfaisante.    Ce  philo-  son  propre  syst^me,  il  n'ose  s  y  engager." 

Bophe  me  paroit  plus  hcureux  dans  ses  — Ibid.  tom.  i.  pp.  33,  34. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THK  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         369 

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

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

Nor  are  these  the  only  instances  in  which  Bufibn  has  dis- 
covered the  powers  of  a  metaphysician.  His  thoughts  on 
probabilities  (a  subject  widely  removed  from  his  favourite 
studies)  afibrd  a  proof  how  strongly  some  metaphysical  ques- 
tions had  laid  hold  of  his  curiosity,  and  what  new  lights  he 
was  qualified  to  throw  on  them,  if  he  had  allowed  them  to 
occupy  more  of  his  attention.*  In  his  observations,  too,  on  the 
peculiar  nature  of  mathematical  evidence,  he  has  struck  into  a 
train  of  the  soundest  thinking,  in  which  he  has  been  very 
generally  followed  by  our  later  logicians.*  Some  particular 
expressions  in  tlie  passage  I  refer  to  are  exceptionable;  but 
his  remarks  on  what  he  calls  V4rit^  de  Definition  are  just  and 
important ;  nor  do  I  remember  any  modem  writer  of  an  earlier 
date  who  has  touched  on  the  same  argument.  Plato,  indeed, 
and  after  him  Proclus,  had  called  the  definitions  of  geometry 
Hypotheses;  an  expression  which  may  be  considered  as  in- 
volving the  doctrine  which  Buffon  and  his  successors  have 
more  fully  unfolded. 


*    See    his     Esmi    ri^Arithiupfifpie  *  See  the  First  DiHcoursc  prefixed  to 

^fornlf.  his  Xaliiml  HiMtory,  towardfl  the  end. 

VOL.  I.  2  A 


370  DtSBCBTATIOX. — ^PAST  SBCOSD, 

What  the  opmiona  of  Buffun  were  on  tliose  essential  qiiea- 
tiona,  which  were  then  in  dispute  among  the  French  philoso- 
phefB,  his  writings  do  not  fiirnisli  the  menus  of  judging  with 
certainty.  In  his  theory  of  Organic  Molecules,  and  of  Interned 
Moulds,  he  has  been  acciiseJ  of  entertaining  views  not  very 
different  from  those  of  the  ancient  atotoists ;  nor  would  it 
perhaps  be  easy  to  repel  the  charge,  if  we  were  not  able  to 
oppose  to  this  wild  and  unintelligible  hypotheflis  the  noble  and 
elevating  strain,  which  in  general  so  peculiarly  characterizes 
his  descriptions  of  nature.  The  eloquence  of  some  of  the  finest 
passages  in  his  works  has  manifestly  been  inspired  by  the  same 
sentiment  which  diclate<.l  to  one  of  his  favourite  authors  the 
following  just  and  pathetic  reflection: — "  Le  spectacle  de  la 
nature,  si  vivant,  si  anime  pour  ceux  qui  reeonnoissent  un 
Dieu,  est  mort  aux  yeux  de  I'atht^e,  et  dans  cette  grande  har- 
monic des  fifres  oii  tout  parle  de  Dieu  d'une  voix  si  douce,  il 
n'aperpoit  qii'un  silence  eternel."' 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  strong  bias  towards  material- 
ism which  the  authors  of  the  Eticylopidie  derived  from  Gondii- 
lac's  comments  iifion  Locke.  These  comments  they  seem  to 
have  received  entirely  u]K)u  credit,  without  ever  being  at  pains 
to  compare  them  with  the  original  Had  D'Alembert  exercised 
freely  his  own  judgment,  no  person  was  more  likely  to  have 
perceived  their  comjilete  futility ;  and,  in  fact,  he  has  thrown 
out  various  observations  which  strike  at  their  very  root.  Not- 
withstanding, however,  these  occaeional  glimpses  of  hglit,  he 


u. — In  a  work  by  H^rault 
de  SMhellea,  (antillBd  Votiagta  a  Mont- 
har,  ecmtenant  den  ditaUi  trhi  inliret- 
imu  lur  le  earactire,  la  pertonnc,  tt  let 
ieriU  de  Bvffon.  Paris,  1801,)  a  Tcry 
differpnt  idea  of  his  religious  creed  is 
given  from  that  nhich  I  have  iiacn)».'d 
to  him  ;  but,  io  direct  oppositioiL  (n  tiiia 
■tntemsnt,  we  have  a  letter,  die1atL-d  by 
Buffon,  OQ  Vit  dcfith-bed,  lo  Modnmo 
Necker,  in  return  for  a,  preBent  of  her 
hniband'a  book.  On  the  Importiiaef.  of 
Jtflipiovi  Opinient.    The  iMler  (n'e  an. 


a  hr>1d  tl 


df4  ManuKfrili   dt   Madame 
Nechtr.    3  vols,,  I'nriB,  1788. 

The  Bublime  address  to  the  Supreme 
Beinp,  with  which  BuBbn  closei  hia 
reRcctioDs  on  ibe  cnkniitiea  or  war, 
seemi  to  breathe  the  very  houI  of  F£d&- 
lou.  "  Grand  Dieu  I  dont  la  seule  pi*- 
aenre  aoutiont  la  nature  et  maintient 
I'harmnnie  des  loin   de   I'unii-erB,"  iie. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


371 


invariably  reverts  to  the  same  error,  and  has  once  and  again 
repeated  it  in  terms  as  strong  as  Condillac  or  Gassendi. 

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

According  to  Helvetius,  as  all  our  ideas  are  derived  from 
the  external  senses,^  the  causes  of  the  inferiority  of  the  souls 


*  In  combating  the  philosophy  of  Hel- 
vetius, La  Ilarpe  (whose  philosopliical 
opinions  seem,  on  many  occasions,  to 
have  been  not  a  little  influenced  bv  his 
private  partialities  and  dislikes)  ex- 
claims loudly  against  the  same  prin- 
ciples to  which  he  had  tacitly  given  his 
unqualified  approbation  in  speaking  of 
Condillac.  On  this  occasion  he  is  at 
pains  to  distinguish  between  the  doc- 
trines of  the  two  writers ;  asserting  that 
Condillac  considered  onr  senses  as  only 
the  occasional  causes  of  our  ideas,  while 
Helvetius  represented  the  ft)rmer  as  the 
productive  causes  of  the  latter. — ( Coura 
de  LitUraturCf  tome  xv.  pp.  348,  349.) 
But  that  this  is  by  no  means  reconcil- 
able with  ihc  general  spirit  of  Condillac 's 
works,  (although  perhaps  some  detached 
expressions  may  be  selected  from  them 
admitting  of  such  an  interpretation,) 
appears  sufficiently  from  the  passages 
formerly  quoted.  In  addition  to  these, 
I  beg  leave  to  transcribe  the  following : 
— "  Dans  le  syst^me  que  toutes  nos  con- 
noissances  viennent  des  sens,  rien  n'est 
plus  aise  que  de  se  faire  une  notion 
exacte  des  idi  cs.  Car  elles  ne  sont  que 
des  sensations  ou  des  portions  extraites 
de  qnelque  sensation  pour  etre  consi- 
d^r^et   i  part ;    ce   qui    prodnit   deux 


sortes  d'idees,  les  sensibles  ct  les  ab- 
straites." — {Traits  des  Si/st^mes,  chap, 
vi.)  "  Puisque  nous  avons  vu  que  le 
souvenir  n'est  qu'une  maniere  de  sentir, 
c^est  une  consequence,  que  les  id6e8  in- 
tellectuelles  ne  difierent  pas  essentielle- 
mcnt  des  sensations  meraes." — {Traiti 
dea  SensatioM,  chap.  viii.  §  33.)  Is  not 
this  precisely  the  doctrine  and  even  the 
language  of  Helvetius  ? 

In  the  same  passage  of  the  Lyeie, 
from  which  the  above  quotation  is  taken 
from  La  Harpe,  there  is  a  swecpmg 
judgment  pronounced  on  the  merits  of 
Locke,  which  may  serve  as  a  specimen 
of  the  author's  competency  to  decide 
on  metaphysical  questions :  "  Locke  a 
prouve  autant  qu'il  est  possible  h  I'hom- 
me,  que  T&me  est  une  substance  simple 
et  indivisible,  et  par  consequent  imma- 
tcriclle.  Ccpendant,  il  lyoute,  qu*il 
n'oseroit  affirmer  que  Dieu  ne  puisse 
douer  la  matiere  de  penscc.  Condillac 
est  de  son  avis  sur  le  premier  article,  et 
le  combat  sur  le  second.  Je  siiis  en- 
ti^rement  de  I'avis  de  Condillac,  et  tons 
Ua  bona  mHaphyaicieiia  conviennent  qu€ 
c^ext  la  aexde  inexactitude  qu^on  puiaae 
relever  dans  Vouvrage  de  Locke.'' — 
Coura  de  Litt^rature,  tome  xv.  p. 
149. 


H 

»  /if  Vin 


mSHERTATIlW. — rART  S 


of  brutes  to  tliose  of  ineu,  are  to  lie  eoiiglit  for  in  the  difference 
between  them  with  reapeut  to  bodily  orgiiuiziitioii.  Li  ilhtstra- 
tioD  of  this  remark  he  retiBons  as  follows ; — 

"  1.  The  feet  of  all  (jiiadrupeds  tei-miiiate  either  iu  horn,  as 
those  of  the  ox  ami  the  deer ;  or  in  naib,  as  those  of  the  dog 
and  the  wolf;  or  in  claws,  as  those  of  the  lion  and  the  tat 
This  peculiar  organization  of  the  feet  of  these  animals  dcprivea 
them  not  only  of  the  sense  of  touch,  considered  as  a  channel  of 
information  with  respect  to  external  objects,  but  also  of  the 
dexterity  requisite  for  the  practice  of  tlie  mechanical  arts. 

"  2,  Tlie  life  of  animals,  in  general,  being  of  a  shorter  dura- 
tion than  that  of  man,  does  not  permit  them  to  make  so  many 
observations,  or  to  acquire  so  many  ideas. 

"  3,  Animals  being  better  aimed  and  better  clothed  by 
nutm'e  than  the  human  ajtecies,  have  fewer  wants,  and  conse- 
quently fewer  motives  to  stimulate  or  to  exercise  their  inven- 
tion. If  the  voracious  animals  are  more  cunning  than  others, 
it  is  because  hunger,  ever  inventive,  inspires  them  with  the  art 
of  stratagems  to  snrjjrise  their  prey, 

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

"  5.  Man  is  the  most  prolific  and  versatile  animal  upon 
earth.  He  ia  born  and  lives  in  every  climat* ;  while  many  of 
the  other  animals,  as  the  lion,  the  elephant,  and  the  rhinoceros, 
are  found  only  in  a  certain  latitude.  And  the  more  any  sjieciea 
of  animals  cajiable  of  making  observations  is  multiplied,  the 
more  ideas  and  the  greater  ingi'uuity  is  it  litely  to  possess. 

"  But  some  may  ask,  (continues  Hclvetius,)  why  monkeys, 
whoso  paws  are  nearly  as  dexterous  as  our  hands,  do  not  make 
a  progress  equal  to  that  of  man  ?  A  variety  of  causes  (lie 
observes)  conspire  to  fix  them  in  that  stale  of  inferiority  in 
which  we  find  them: — 1.  Men  arc  more  multiplied  upon  the 
earth.  2.  Among  the  different  B[)ecie8  of  monkeys,  there  are 
few  whose  strength  can  be  compared  with  that  of  man  ;  and, 
accordingly,  they  form  only  a  fugitive  society  i)cfore  the  hmnan 
race.     3.  Monkeys  l»eing  frugivoroiis,  have  fewer  wnntSj  and, 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         373 


therefore,  less  invention  tlian  man.  Their  life  is  shorter. 
And,  finally,  the  orgauical  structure  of  their  bodies  keeping 
them,  like  children,  in  perpetual  motion,  even  after  their  desires 
are  satisfied,  they  are  not  susceptible  of  lassitude,  (ennui,)  which 
ought  to  be  considered  (as  I  shall  prove  afterwards)  as  one  of 
the  principles  to  which  the  human  mind  owes  its  improvement. 

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

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

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

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


^  It  is  not  a  little  surpriBing  that,  in 
the  above  enumeration,  Helvctius  takes 
no  notice  of  the  want  of  hnigiuige  in 
tlie  lower  animals;  a  faculty  without 
which,  the  multiplication  of  individuals 
could  contribute  nothing  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  species.  Nor  is  this  want 
of  language  in  the  brtitos  owing  to  any 


defect  in  the  organs  of  speech,  as  suf- 
ficiently appears  from  those  tril)cs  which 
are  possessed  of  the  power  of  articular 
tion  in  no  inconsiderable  degree.  It 
plainly  indicates,  therefore,  some  defect 
in  those  higher  principles  which  are 
connected  with  the  use  of  artificial 
signs. 


874  DISSERTATION. — ^PART  6BC0ND. 

except  man,  hatit  the  power  of  makiug  liia  thoughts  inUfUigible 
to  others  ? 

"  Nor  is  it  with  resiiect  to  the  body  alone  tliat  the  gods  have 
BhowQ  themselves  boimtifal  to  mFin.  Who  a^eth  not  that  he  is 
as  it  were  a  god  in  the  midst  of  this  visible  ereiition  ?  So  far 
doth  he  suq)a«B  all  animals  whatever  in  the  endowments  of  his 
body  and  hiB  mind.  For  if  the  body  of  the  ox  had  been  joined 
to  the  mind  of  man,  the  invention  of  the  latter  would  have 
been  of  little  avail,  while  unuble  to  execute  bis  purposes  with 
facility.  Nor  would  the  humiin  form  have  been  of  more  use 
to  the  brute,  so  long  as  he  remained  destitute  of  understand- 
ing. But  in  tbee,  Aristodemus,  hath  l>een  joined  to  a  wonderful 
eoul,  a  body  no  less  wonderful ;  and  sayat  thou,  after  this,  the 
goda  take  no  care  of  me  ?  Wliat  wouldst  thou  then  more  to 
convince  thee  of  their  care  ?"' 

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

The  contrast,  in  point  of  elevation,  lietween  the  tone  of 
French  philosophy,  and  that  of  the  best  heathen  moralistfi, 
was  long  ago  remarked  by  Addison ;  and  of  this  contrast  it 
would  be  difficult  to  lind  a  better  illustration  tlian  the  passages 
which  have  just  been  (piotcd. 

The  disposition  of  ingenious  men  to  paes  suddenly  from  one 
extreme  to  another  in  matters  of  controversy,  has,  in  no  in- 
stance, been  more  strikingly  exemplified  than  in  the  opposite 
theories  concerning  the  nature  of  the  brutes,  which  successively 
became  fasliionable  in  France  during  the  last  century.  While 
the  prevailing  creed  of  French  materialists  leads  to  the  rejec- 

I  Mro.  S»r*h  Fi-I.img>  Ttunel^Hmi,  '  flnl-n,  f-  T-.i  P.Tt .  1,  1.  c  3. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         375 

tion  of  every  theory  wliich  professes  to  discriminate  the  rational 
mind  from  the  animal  principle  of  action,  it  is  well  known  that, 
but  a  few  years  before,  the  disciples  of  Descartes  allowed  no 
one  faculty  to  belong  to  man  and  brutes  in  common,  and 
even  went  so  far  as  to  consider  the  latter  in  the  light  of  mere 
machines.  To  this  paradox  the  author  was  probably  led, 
partly  by  his  anxiety  to  elude  the  objection  which  the  faculties 
of  the  lower  animals  have  been  supposed  to  present  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  partly  by  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  their  sufferings  with  the  Divine 
Goodness. 

Absurd  as  this  idea  may  now  appear,  none  of  the  tenets  of 
Descartes  were  once  adopted  with  more  implicit  faith  by  some 
of  the  profoundest  thinkers  in  Europe.  The  great  Pascal  ad- 
mired it  as  the  finest  and  most  valuable  article  of  the  Cartesian 
sj'stem ;  and  of  the  deep  impression  it  made  on  the  mind  of 
Malebranche,  a  most  decisive  proof  was  exhibited  by  himself  in 
the  presence  of  Fontenelle.  "  M.  de  Fontenelle  contoit,"  says 
one  of  his  intimate  friends,*  "  qu'un  jour  etant  alle  voir  Male- 
branche aux  PP.  de  TOratoire  de  la  Kue  St.  Honor^,  une 
grosse  chienne  de  la  maison,  ct  qui  etoit  pleine,  entra  dans  la 
salle  ou  ils  se  promenoient,  vint  caresser  le  P.  Malebranche,  et 
se  rouler  a  ses  pieds.  Apr^s  quelques  mouvemens  inutiles  pour 
la  chasser,  le  philosophe  lui  donna  un  grand  coup  de  pied,  qui 
fit  jetter  a  la  cliienne  un  cri  de  douleur,  et  k  M.  de  Fontenelle 
un  cri  de  compassion.  Eh  quoi  (lui  dit  froidement  le  P.  Male- 
branche) ne  s^avez  vous  pas  bien  que  cela  ne  se  sent  point  ?" 

On  this  point  Fontenelle,  though  a  zealous  Cartesian,  had 
the  good  sense  to  dissent  openly  from  his  master,  and  even  to 
express  his  approbation  of  the  sarcastic  remark  of  La  Motte, 
que  cette  opinion  sur  les  anhnaux  ^oit  une  d4bauche  de  raison- 
nement.  Is  not  the  same  expression  equally  applicable  to  the 
opposite  theory  quoted  from  Helvetius  ?^ 

>  The  Abbe  Trublet  in  the  Mercure  dame  de  la  Sabli^re,  (liv.  x.  Fable  i.) 

de  JaiUet,  1757. — See  (Euvres  de  Fon.'  the  good  sense  with  which  he  points 

tenelle,  torn.  ii.   p.   137.    Amsterdam,  out  the  extravagance  of  both  these  ex- 

1764.  tremes  is  truly  admirable.     His  argu- 

•  In  La  Fontaine's  Disrours  h  Ma-  ment  (in  spite  of  the  fetters  of  rhyme) 


376 


DmBSRTATIOH. — ^PABT  BZCOHD. 


Fnmi  those  reiiredeDtations  of  human  nttturo  whicli  tenJ  1 
(i«Buiiilfib-'  to  each  other  the  facnlties  of  man  and  of  tlie  brute 
the  tranfiitiou  to  atheism  is  not  very  widu.  In  the  present  i 
sbtnce,  both  conclusions  ecera  to  lie  the  necvssary  corollaries  a 
the  tamo  fundamental  maxim.  For  if  all  the  sources  of  ( 
knowledge  are  to  be  found  in  the  extornal  senses,  how  is  tn 
possible  for  the  human  mind  to  rise  to  a  conception  of  t 
Supreme  Being,  or  to  that  of  any  other  truth  either  o; 
or  of  revealed  religion  ? 

To  tliis   quc^on   Gasaendi   and   CondiUac,   it   cannot 
doubted,  were  Ixith  able  to  retiu'n  an  answer,  which  seemed 
themselves  abimdantly  satisfactoiy.     But  how  few  of  the  mul-^ 
titude  are  competent  to  enter  into  these  rctinerl  explanations  ? 
And  how  much  is  it  to  be  dreaded,  that  the  majority  wOLfl 
embraci',  with  the  general  principle,  all  the  more  obvious  cott 
sequences  which  to  their  own  gross  conceptions  it  ficcnis  a©*  I 
eessarily  to  involve  ?      Something  of  the   saiiio  sort  may  be 
remarked  in  the  controversy  about  the  freetloni  of  the  human 
will.      Among  the  multitmlea  whom  licilmit^  aud  Edwanlfl  . 
have  made  converts  to  the  scheme  of  necessity,  how  compara^J 
lively  inconsiderable  is  the  number  who  Iiave  acquiesced  i 
their  subtle  and  ingenious  attempts  to  reconcile  this  scbeio 
with  man's  accouutablenesa  and  moral  agency  ? 

Of  the  prevalence  of  atheism  at  Paris,   among  the  highe^fl 
cltisses,  at  the  periwl  of  which  we   are   now   ii[)eaking, 
Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  the  Baron  dc  Grimm  affor 
the  most  unquestionable  proofs.''     His  friend  Diderot  seems  ft 

vanceil  age  in  1760.  (He  vm  cliiefl; 
known  as  thu  Aotlior  of  verj  indifierBnl 
tranfllationt  of  Tagm  ani  Ariotto.)  It 
is  now,  liuwever,  univpnallj  adniitttd 
tliiil  Mirsbaud  had  no  than  vhaUTCC 
in  the  compcuiiiian  of  llie  Si/rtivie  de  Ir|| 
A7ilUre,  It  lins  hvea  ancribed 
Dua  authors ;  nor  am  I  quite  certaii^ 
tliat,  among  thuiH'  who  are 
pc(«nt  to  fonn  a  jiiiljiTnGDt  upon  tbi* 
point,  tlie™  is  jpt  a  i^Tlect  nnnniniily. 
In  onp  nf  llip  InlPSi  norU  wliich  " 
rf!nbe<l  thii  ("viniry  from  Fnmtp,  [th< 


ia  Blntcil,  not  only  witli  hie  unuitl  g^iue, 
but  with  nngulAr  clcdnicM  anU  preci- 
ainn;  and  rnrindcring  the  periml  wliFn 
he  wroto,  roflei-la  much  lionoar  On  his 
philosophical  aagacily. 

<  The  Sattioie  rfir  la  Xatnn  (the 
holiicnt,  if  not  the  ablest,  publicatiDii  of 
ihc  Pnrisinn  alheiulu) appeared  in  ITTO. 
It  bore  un  the  title-page  the  name  of 
Miraliund,  a  rmpsTtablB  hnl  not  very 
eminent  wrilr,  who,  after  long  Slliaf; 
till-  iifKc-p  nf  pfrpetiia!  BOfretiiry  In  the 
FiTnch   Ai-Bdrniy,   dird  .it  ,i    very   sri 


M 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


377 


have  been  one  of  its  most  zealous  abettors;  who,  it  appears 
from  various  accounts,  contributed  to  render  it  fashionable,  still 
more  by  the  extraordinary  powers  of  his  conversation,  than  by 
the  odd  combination  of  eloquence  and  of  obscurity  displayed  in 
all  his  metaphysical  productions.^ 

In  order,  however,  to  prevent  misapprehension  of  my  mean- 
ing, it  is  proper  for  me  to  caution  my  readers  against  suppos- 
ing that  all  the  eminent  French  philosophers  of  this  period 
were  of  the  same  school  with  Grimm  and  Diderot.  On  this 
subject  many  of  our  English  writers  liave  been  misled  by 
taking  for  granted,  that  to  speak  lightly  of  final  causes  is,  of 
itself,  sufficient  proof  of  atheism.  That  this  is  a  very  rash  as 
well  as  uncharitable  conclusion,  no  other  proof  is  necessary 
than  the  manner  in  which  final  causes  are  spoken  of  by  Des- 
cartes himself,  the  great  object  of  whose  metaphysical  writings 


(Wretpantlance  incite  de  Galtant, 
1818,)  it  seems  to  be  assumed  by  the 
editors,  ns  nn  acknowledged  fact,  that  it 
proceeded  from  the  pen  of  the  Baron 
d'Holbach.  ITie  Abbe  Galiani  having 
remarked,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Ma- 
dame Kpinay,  that  it  appeared  to  him 
to  come  from  the  same  hand  with  the 
Christiam'ame  DivoU^  and  the  MUitaire 
Philosopher  the  editors  remark  in  a  note, 
'*  On  pent  rendre  homage  k  la  sagacite 
de  I'Abbe  Galiani.  Le  ChrUtianisme 
DivoUi  est  en  effet  le  premier  ouvrage 
philosophique  du  Baron  d'Holbach. 
C''cst  en  vain  que  la  Biographie  Uni- 
verselU  nous  ai^sure,  d'apres  le  temoig- 
nage  de  Voltaire,  qne  cet  ouvrage  est 
de  Damilaville." 

Having  mentioned  the  name  of  Da- 
milaville,  I  am  tempted  to  add,  that  the 
article  relating  to  him  in  the  Biographie 
UniveraeUe,  notwithstanding  the  in(ror- 
rcctness  with  wliieh  it  is  charged  in  the 
foregoing  passage,  is  not  unworthy  of 
the  rea<ler'8  attention,  as  it  contains 
some  ver}'  remarkable  marginal  notes 
on  the  (^hristian'mne  DivoU^^  copied 
from  Voltaire's  own  handwriting. 


Since  writing  the  above  note,  I  have 
seen  the  Memoirs  of  M.  Suard,  by  M. 
Garat,  (Paris,  1820,)  in  which  the  bio- 
grapher, whose  authority  on  this  point 
is  perfectly  decisive,  ascribes  with  con- 
fidence to  Baron  d'Holbach  the  Systhne 
de  la  Nature f  and  also  a  work  entitled 
Zm  Morale  et  La  Lighlation  Univer^ 
seUe,  vol.  i.  pp.  210,211. 

According  to  the  same  author,  tlie 
Baron  d'Holbach  was  one  of  Diderot's 
proselytes.  {Ibid.  p.  208.)  His  former 
creed,  it  would  appear,  had  been  very 
different. 

[Baron  Grimm,  anxious  for  the  honour 
of  his  friend  Diderot,  seems  disposed 
to  recogni8e  hi$  hand  in  all  the  finest 
passages — "  Quel  est  I'homme  de  lettres 
qui  ne  reconnait  faciiement,  ct  dans  le 
livre  de  I'Esprit  et  dans  le  systeme  do 
la  Nature,  toutes  les  belles  pages  qui 
sont,  qui  ne  jjeuvent  etre  que  de 
Diderot." — Corre^pondanre  du  Baron 
Grimm.] 

*  And  yet  Diderot,  in  some  of  his 
lucid  intervals,  seems  to  have  thought 
and  felt  very  differently.  See  Note 
T  i'. 


378  DISSBIITATIOJT.— PAST  8EC0NT). 

plainly  was,  to  eetablisli  by  demonetration  the  existence  of 
Grod.  The  following  vindication  of  this  part  of  the  Cartedan 
philosophy  has  been  lately  offered  by  a  French  divine,  and  it 
may  be  extended  witli  equal  justice  to  Buffon  and  many  others 
of  Descartes'e  successors :  "  Qnelques  auteurs,  et  particuhere- 
ment  Leibnitz,  ont  critiqn^  cette  partie  de  la  doctrine  de  Des- 
cartes ;  mais  nous  la  croyons  irreprochable,  si  on  veut  bieo 
I'entendre,  et  remarquer  que  Descartes  ne  parle  que  dea  Fins 
totalea  de  Dien.  Suns  douto,  le  soleil  par  exeiniile,  et  les 
^toiles,  ont  ^t^  faits  pour  rhomme,  dans  ce  sens,  que  Dieu,  en 
les  errant,  a  eu  en  vue  I'utilite  de  I'homnie ;  et  cette  utility 
a  ^t^  sa  fin.  Mais  cette  utilite  a-t-elle  ete  I'unique  fin  de 
Dieii  ?  Croit-on  qii'en  lui  attribuant  d'autres  fins,  on  affoibli- 
roit  la  reconuoissance  de  ritomme,  et  I'obligation  ou  11  est  de 
louer  et  de  benir  Dieu  dans  toutcs  ses  ceuvTes  ?  Les  auteurs 
de  la  vie  spirituelle,  les  plus  mystiques  meme,  et  les  phis 
Bccredites,  ne  I'ont  pas  cru." — M.  I'Abbe  Emery,  Editor  of  the 
Thoughts  of  Descartes  upon  Religion  and  Morale,  Paris,  1811, 
p.  79. 

As  to  the  unqualified  charge  of  atheism,  which  has  been 
brought  by  some  French  ecclesiastics  against  all  of  their 
countrymen  that  have  presumed  to  differ  from  the  tenets  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  it  will  be  admitted,  with  large  allowances,  by 
every  candid  Presbyterian,  when  it  is  nvoUected  that  some- 
thing of  the  same  ilhberality  formerly  existed  under  the  com- 
paratively enlightened  establishment  of  England.  In  the  pre- 
sent times,  the  follo*ving  anecdote  would  apjwar  incredible,  if 
it  did  not  rest  on  the  unquestionable  testimony  of  Dr.  Jortia : 
"  I  heard  Dr.  B.  say  in  a  sermon,  if  any  one  denies  the  unin- 
ternipted  succession  of  bishops,  I  shall  not  scruple  to  call  him 
a  downright  atheist.  This,  when  I  was  young  (Jortin  adds) 
was  sound,  orthodox,  and  fashionable  doctrine," — Tracts,  vol.  L 
p.  436.' 

'  See  Note  D  U.  Athci  Delteir,  by  t  veiy  learned  Jeiuit, 

Oftha  levitjnnd  eitraTagiinco  with  Father    Hardouin:    (see     his     Opera 

vhich  Buch  chnrges  have    samctimea  Varia  Ruthuma,  Anuterdsm,  1733,  in 

b«en  brought  forward,   we  hsva  a  re-  f.it,)  where,  among  s  nuiober  of  other 

Biiirkahle  instnn™  in  n    trart    fntitkd  nvxff,    re   to   be  found   ihoM  ef  J»n- 


HETAPHTSIC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUBT. 


379 


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

A  prediction,  which  Bishop  Butler  hazarded  many  years 
before,  does  honour  to  his  political  sagacity,  as  well  as  to  his 
knowledge  of  human  nature ;  that  the  spirit  of  irreligion  would 
produce,  some  time  or  other,  political  disorders,  similar  to 
those  which  arose  from  religious  fanaticism  in  the  seventeenth 
century.^ 


senius,  Descartes,  Malebranche,  Ar- 
nauld,  Nicole,  and  Pascal.  Large  addi- 
tions, on  grounds  equally  frivolous,  have 
been  made  in  later  times,  to  this  list,  by 
authors  who,  having  themselves  made 
profession  of  Atheism,  were  anxious, 
out  of  vanity,  to  swell  the  number  of 
their  sect.  Of  this  kind  was  a  book 
published  at  Paris,  under  some  of  the 
revolutionary  governments,  by  Pierre 
Sylvain  Marichal,  entitled  Dictiannaire 
des  AthitS'  Here  we  meet  with  the 
names  of  St.  Chrysostom,  St.  Augustin, 
Pascal,  Bossuet,  F^nelon,  Beliarroin, 
Labruy^re,  Leibnitz,  and  many  others 
not  less  unexpected.  This  book  he  is 
said  to  have  published  at  the  suggestion 
of  the  celebrated  astronomer  Lalande, 
who  afterwards  pubh'shed  a  supplement 
to  the  Dictionary,  supplying  the  omis- 
sions of  the  author.    See  the  Biogra- 


phie  VniverteUe,  Articles  MarSehaif 
Lalande. 

[*  In  the  article  Lalande,  (subscribed 
by  the  respectable  name  of  DeUifnbre,) 
the  following  characteristical  trait  is 
mentioned :  "  Dans  ses  demi5res  anueei, 
et  d^s  1789,  Lalande  affectaitde  manger 
avec  d61ices  des  arraign^es  ct  des  che- 
nilles, n  s'en  vantait  comme  d'un 
trait  philosophiqne.*'] 

^  "  Is  there  no  danger  that  all  this 
may  raise  somewhat  like  that  levelling 
spirit,  upon  atheistical  principles,  which, 
in  the  last  age,  prevailed  upon  enthusi- 
astic ones  ?  Not  to  speak  of  the  possi- 
bility, that  different  sorts  of  people  may 
unite  in  it  upon  these  contrary  princi- 
ples."—  Sermon  preached  before  the 
House  of  Lords,  January  30,  1741. 

As  the  fatal  effects  of  both  these  ex- 
tremes have,  in  the  course  of  the  two 


*  EMtored— JTd. 


380  rUBSEBTATION. — ^PART  BECOND. 

Nearly  alwut  the  time  that  the  Encyclopedic  wiis  undertaken, 
anotber  set  of  philoBophers,  since  known  by  the  naiae  of  Econo- 
viista,  formed  tbeiuBcIves  into  an  asBociation  for  the  [lurpoee  of 
enlightening  tlie  public  on  questions  of  pohtical  economy.  The 
object  of  their  studies  seemed  widely  removed  from  all  abstract 
discuBBion ;  but  tliey  had,  nevertheless,  a  metaphysical  system  of 
their  own,  which,  if  it  had  been  brought  forward  with  less  en- 
thusiasm and  exaggeration,  might  have  been  useful  in  counter- 
acting the  gloomy  ideas  then  so  generally  prevalent  about  the 
order  of  the  universe.  Tlie  whole  of  their  theory  proceeds  on 
tlie  supposition  that  the  arrangements  of  nature  are  wise  and 
benevolent,  and  that  it  is  the  busmeifs  of  the  legislator  to  study 
and  eo-opcnite  with  her  plans  iu  all  his  own  regidations.  With 
tliis  principle,  another  was  combined,  tliat  of  the  indefinite  im- 
jirovement  of  which  the  human  mind  and  character  are  suscep- 
tible ;  an  improvement  which  was  represented  as  a  natural  and 
iiecessaiy  consequence  of  wise  laws,  and  which  was  pointed  out 
to  legislators  as  the  most  important  advantage  to  be  gained  from 
their  institutions, 

Tliese  siteculations,  whatever  opinion  may  Ite  formed  of  tbeir 
Bolitlity,  are  certainly  as  remote  as  possible  from  any  tendency 
to  atheism,  and  still  less  do  they  partake  of  the  spirit  of  that 
philosophy  which  would  level  man  with  the  brute  creation. 
With  their  practical  tendency  in  a  political  view  we  are  not  at 
present  concerned  ;  hut  it  woidd  be  an  unpardonable  omission, 
after  what  has  been  just  said  of  the  metaphysical  theories  of  the 
same  period,  not  to  mention  the  abstract  princijiles  involved  in 
the  Economical  System,  as  a  remarkable  exco])tion  to  the  gen- 
eral observation.  It  may  be  questioned,  too,  if  the  authors  of 
this  system,  by  incorporating  theii'  ethical  views  witli  their  poU- 


I,  been  excmpiifled  on  so 
^gmitic  a  sCBle  in  lliu  tira  most  uivilizcJ 
cnunlriea  of  Europe,  it  ia  to  be  hoped 
IhHl  inoiilimd  may  in  tutnre  ilcriTo  some 
ealnliry  udmonitiona  froni  the  expcri- 
ente  of  tlieir  predpcenaorB.  In  the  moon- 
time,  rnim  Ihatilinpunitlnn  common  both 
111  ihc  higher  mill  bmor  ordem  In  ]msB 


Buddenl;  from  one  extremo  to  nnotlier, 
it  w  nt  ieiu>t  poEsibto  that  the  strong  re- 
action prodneed  by  the  flpiril  of  implBtf 
during  the  Frcnvb  Rerolutioa  may,  in 
Iho  fint  inatBUoe,  impel  the  multitudo 
lo  something  npiiroai'hing  to  the  piiri- 
lanieal  fannliciBm  and  fren»y  of  Iha 
Cram  well  ian  Ciimm..nne»llh. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


381 


tical  disquisitions,  did  not  take  a  more  eflfectual  step  towards 
discountenancing  the  opinions  to  which  they  were  opposed,  than 
if  they  had  attacked  them  in  the  way  of  direct  argimient.^ 

On  the  metaphysical  theories  which  issued  from  the  French 
press  during  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century,  I  do  not  think 
it  necessary  for  me  to  enlarge,  after  what  I  have  so  fully  stated 
in  some  of  my  former  publications.  To  enter  into  details  with 
respect  to  particular  works  would  be  superfluous,  as  the  remarks 
made  upon  any  one  of  them  are  nearly  applicable  to  them  alL 

The  excellent  writings  of  M.  Prevost  and  of  M.  Degerando, 
will,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  gradually  introduce  into  France  a  sounder 
taste  in  this  branch  of  philosophy.*  At  present,  so  far  as  I  am 
acquainted  with  the  state  of  what  is  called  Ideologic  in  that 
country,  it  does  not  appear  to  me  to  furnish  much  matter  either 
for  the  instruction  or  amusement  of  my  readers. 


>  For  some  other  obsenrations  on  the 
Ethical  principles  assumed  in  the  Eco- 
nomical System,  see  Elements  of  the 
Philosophy  of  ilte  Human  Mind,  vol.  ii. 
chap,  iv,  sect.  6,  f  1,  towards  the  end. 

'  Some  symptoms  of  such  a  reforma- 
tion are  admitted  already  to  exist,  by  an 
author  decidedly  hostile  to  all  philosophi- 
cal systems.  **  Bacon,  Locke,  Condillac, 
cherchoient  dans  nos  sens  I'origine  do 
nos  idees ;  Helvetius  y  a  trouve  nos  idt'es 
elles-mr-racs.  Jiu/er,  selon,  ce  philosophe, 
n^est  outre  chose  que  scjitir*  Ai\jour- 
d'hui  les  bons  esprits,  ^claires  par  les 
evenemcns  sur  la  secrete  tendance  de 
toutes  ces  opinions,  les  ont  soumises  k 
un  cxamen  plus  severe.  La  tranrforma- 
tion  des  sensations  en  idces  ne  paroit 
plus  qu'un  mot  vide  de  sens.  On  trouve 
que  Vhomme  «tatue  ressemblc  un  |)eu 


trop  k  Vhomme  machine,  et  Condillac  est 
modific  ou  mome  combattu  sur  quclqnei 
points,  par  tons  ceux  qui  s'cn  servent 
encore  dans  I'enseignement  philosophi- 
que." — lieclierches  Philosophiques,  &c., 
par  M.  de  Bonald,  torn.  i.  pp.  34,  35. 

[f  To  the  same  author  we  are  indebted 
for  the  following  anecdote  : — "  Vous  pro- 
tendez  que  penser  est  aentir,^*  disoit  M. 
le  Comte  de  Segur,  President  de  I'ln- 
stitut,  repondant  k  M.  Destutt  Tracy 
(I'arai  de  M.  Cabanis  etl'analyste  de  son 
ouvrage)  c'est  \h  votre  principe,  et  la 
base  de  votre  systdme.  Mais  un  senti- 
ment qui  resists  k  tous  les  raisonne- 
mens  ne  consentira  pas  facilement  k  vous 
l»accorder."— (/Wrf.  p.  337.)  The  ob- 
jection to  the  definition  is  decisive,  and 
is  indeed  the  only  one  which  Locke  or 
Kcid  could  have  stated.] 


*  I  WM  somewhat  lorprlted,  fai  looking  orer  rery  lately  the  PrincipUt  of  Deacarteii.  (o  find  (what 
had  formerly  escaped  me)  that  the  mode  of  npeaklng  objected  to  in  the  above  paragraph  may 
pleoU  in  iu  favour  the  authority  of  that  philosopher:  "  Cogitationii  nomine,  intelligo  ilia  omnia, 
quw  nobis  cuiisdis  in  nobis  fiunt,  quatenus  eorum  in  nobis  consdentia  est :  Atque  ita  non  modo 
intellicere.  Telle,  imagiuari,  sed  etiam  sentire,  idem  est  hie  quod  oofritare."— (/*HnH/).  Phil.  p.  2.) 
Dr.  Reid,  t4)0,  has  mid  that  "  the  senmtion  of  colour  is  a  sort  of  thought. '  [Imiuiry,  chap.  ri.  §  4  ;> 
but  no  naraefi.  how  great  soever,  can  Auction  so  grosH  an  abuse  of  language. 

After  all.  there  is  some  difference  between  sayir.g,  that  wnmtiou  is  a  sort  of  thought,  and  that 
th<»ught  is  a  sort  of  sensation. 

t  Restored.— £d. 


382 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


1  have, 


.  general, 


The  works  of  Rousseau  I 
nexioii  with  metaphysical  science,  to  come  under  review  in  thia 
part  of  my  discourse.  But  to  his  Emile,  which  has  been  re- 
garded OA  a  supplement  to  Locke's  Treatise  on  Education,  some 
attention  is  justly  due,  on  account  of  various  original  and  Bound 
suggestions  on  the  management  of  the  infant  mind,  which, 
among  many  extravagances,  savouring  strongly  both  of  i 
tellectual  and  moral  insanity,  may  be  gathered  by  a  sober  £ 
discriminating  imiuirer.  The  estimate  of  the  merits  of  1 
work,  formed  by  Mr.  Gray,  appears  to  me  so  just  and  impi 
tial,  that  I  sliall  adopt  it  here  without  a  comment. 

"  I  doubt,"  says  he,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  "  you  have  not  j 
read  Rousseau's  Emile.     Everybody  that  has  children  sboul 
read  it  more  than  once ;  for  though  it  abounds  with  hie  i 
glorious  absurdity,  though  his  general  scheme  of  education  1 
an  impracticable  chimera,  yet  there  are  a  thousand  lighta  struck 
out,  a  thousand  important  truths  better  expressed  than  evei 
they  were  before,  that  may  be  of  service  to  the  wisest  i 
Particularly,  I  think  he  has  observed  children  with  more  atten-J 
tion,  knows  their  meaning,  and  the  working  of  their  little  p 
sions,  better  than  any  other  writer.     As  to  his  rehgious  disctu 
sions,  wliich  have  alarmed  the  world,  and  engaged  their  thoughts 
more  than  any  other  parts  of  his  book,  I  set  them  all  at  nought^ 
and  wish  they  had  been  omitted." — Gray's   Works  by  Mason, 
Letter  49. 

The  most  valuable  additions  made  by  French  writers  to  t 
Philosophy  of  tlie  Human  Mind  are  to  be  found,  not  in  theiri 
sj'stematical  treatises  on  metaphysics,  but  in  tliose  more  popiilarl 
compositions,  which,  professing  to  paint  the  prevailing  mannei 
of  the  times,  touch  occasionally  on  the  varieties  of  int«UectualJ 
character.  In  this  most  interesting  and  important  study,  whichl 
has  been  liitherto  almost  entirely  neglected  in  Great  Britain,*! 


i>  hints  oonnetiled  with 
cullecled  frnm  tlie 
writinga  of  Lord  Bacon,  and  a  few  rrom 
those  of  Mr.  Locke.  It  does  not  seem 
to  ^ave  eng;agBd  the  cnrioflit}'  of  Mr. 
Hume  in    «o  grtU  ■  d*preo  ns  mieht 


htvt  b«pn  expwtcd  from  hi*  habits  ol 
□bservMtiim  nnd  (^xtpntivt;  intorcoiiTM 
with  the  world.  The  otyect*  of  Dr. 
Beid'fi  inquiries  M  him  iuto  a  totally 
dilTerent  Irsrk. 


CfifTI 


.,  I,ei 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


383 


France  must  be  allowed  not  only  to  have  led  the  way,  but  to 
remain  still  unrivalled.  It  would  be  endless  to  enumerate 
names;  but  I  must  not  pass  over  those  of  Vauvenargues^  and 
Duclos.*    Nor  can  I  forbear  to  remark,  in  justice  to  an  author 


occasionally  glanced  with  a  penetrating 
eye  at  the  varieties  of  genius ;  and  it 
were  to  be  wished  that  he  had  done  so 
more  frequently.  How  far  his  example 
has  been  followed  by  his  countrymen  in 
later  times,  I  am  unable  to  judge,  from 
my  ignorance  of  their  language. 

A  work  expressly  on  this  subject  was 
published  by  a  Spanish  physician  (Hu- 
arte)  in  the  seventeenth  century.  A 
French  translation  of  it,  printed  at  Am- 
sterdam in  1672,  is  now  lying  before  me. 
It  is  entitled,  Examen  des  Esprits  pour 
lea  Sciences;  oh  se  montrent  les  differ- 
ences des  Etprits,  qui  $e  trouvent parmi 
les  hommes,  et  h  quel  genre  de  Science 
chacun  esipropre  en  particulier.  The 
execution  of  this  work  certainly  falls  far 
short  of  the  expectations  raised  by  the 
title ;  but,  allowances  being  made  for 
the  period  when  it  was  written,  it  is  by 
no  means  destitute  of  merit,  nor  un- 
worthy of  the  attention  of  those  who 
may  speculate  on  the  subject  of  Educa- 
tion. For  some  particulars  about  its 
contents,  and  also  about  the  author,  see 
Bayle's  Dictionary,  Art.  Huarte;  and 
The  Spectator,  No.  30. 

*  The  Marquis  de  Vauvenargues, 
author  of  a  small  volume,  entitled  In- 
troduction a  la  Connoissance  de  V  Esprit 
Humain.  He  entered  into  the  army  at 
the  age  of  eighteen,  and  continued  to 
serve  for  nine  years ;  when,  having  lost 
his  health  irrecoverably,  in  consequence 
of  the  fatigues  he  underwent  in  the 
memorable  retreat  from  Prague,  in  De- 
cember 1742,  he  resolved  to  quit  his  pro- 
fession, in  the  hope  of  obtaining  some 
diplomatic  employment  better  suited  to 
his  broken  constitution.  8oon  after,  he 
was  attacked  by  the  pmall-pox,  which 
unfortunately  turned  out  of  so  malignant 


a  kind,  as  to  disfigure  his  countenance, 
and  deprive  him  almost  totally  of  sight. 
He  died  in  1747,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
two.  The  small  volume  above  mentioned 
was  published  the  year  before  his  death. 
It  bears  everywhere  the  marks  of  a 
powerful,  original,  and  elevated  mind ; 
and  the  imperfect  education  which  the 
author  appears  to  have  received  gives  it 
an  additional  charm,  as  the  genuine  re- 
sult ofhisown  unsophisticated  reflection!. 

Marmontel  has  given  a  most  interest- 
ing picture  of  his  social  character :  "  En 
le  lisant,  je  crois  encore  I'entendre,  et  je 
ne  sais  si  sa  conversation  n'avait  pas 
meme  qnelque  chose  de  plus  anim6,  de 
plus  delicat  que  ses  divins  ecrits.'*  And, 
on  a  different  occasion,  he  speaks  of  him 
thus  :  "  Doux,  sensible,  compatissant,  il 
tenait  nos  ames  dans  ses  mains.  Une 
s^ronite  inalterable  dcrobait  ses  douleurs 
aux  yeux  de  I'amitie.  Pour  soutenir 
Tadversite,  on  n*avoit  besoin  que  de  son 
excmplo  ;  et  temoin  de  l'egalit6  de  son 
ame,  on  u'osait  etre  malheureux  avec 
lui."  See  also  an  eloquent  and  pathetic 
tribute  to  the  genius  and  worth  of  Vau- 
venargues, in  Voltaire  *s  Eloge  FunXbre 
de-s  Officiers  qui  soni  marts  dans  la 
Chterre  de  1741. 

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

■  The  work  of  Duclos,  here  referred 


DISBKUTATION. — FART  8EC0HD. 

whom   I  linve  alruady  very  fively  cenBurctL  tliat  a  variety 
acute  anil  refined  observations  on  the  different  modifii-iitions  ol 
geniuR  may  be  collected  from  the  writings  of  Helvetitis.     Tlie 
somidnefls  of  some  <if  liis  distiiictioDi?  may  perliajiB  l»e  ques- 
tioned ;  but  even  !iis  attempts  at  elassification  mity  serve  a« 
useful  guides  to  fiitm-e  oliwrvere,  and  may  fiU}>ply  them  with  a 
convenient  nomenclature,  to  which  it  is  not  always  easy  to  find 
Corresponding  terms  in  other  languages.     As  examples  of  tbij 
it  is  sufficient  to  mention  the  following  phrases :  Espril  jt 
Eapril  borne.  Esprit  ete/tt/u,  Esprit  Jin,  Esjnit  dUie.,  Esprit 
lumtire.     The  jieculiar  ricliness  of  the  French  tongue  in  such 
appropriaf*  expressions,  (a  circumstance,  by  the  way,  wldch  not 
nnfreqiiently  leads  foreigners  to  oveiTate  the  depth  of  a  talkative 
Frenchman,)  is  itself  a  proof  of  the  degree  of  attention  whi  ^ 
the  ideas  theyai'o  meant  to  convey  have  attracted  in  that  coi 
try  among  tlie  higlier  and  more  cultivated  classes.' 

The  influence,  however,  of  the  pliilosophical  spirit  on  the 
general  habit*!  of  thinking  among  men  of  letters  in  France, 
was  in  no  instance  displayed  to  greater  advantage,  than  in 
numerous  examples  of  theoreticai  or  conjecturtd  history,  whi< 
npjieared  about  the  middle  of  last  century.  I  have  al 
mentioned  the  atU;mpts  of  Condillac  and  others,  to  trace  u] 
this  plan  the  first  steps  of  the  human  mind  in  the  invention 
of  language.  The  same  sort  of  si>ecnluti(>n  lias  t)een  ap[ilietl 
with  greater  success  to  the  mechanical  and  other  necessary 
arts  of  civilized  life;'  and  still  more  ingeniously  and  happily 

to,  biu  Tor  ]U  title,  ComiJeralioM  lur 
IfMiruriileixSiiclc.  Gibbon's  upininn 
of  this  work  is,  I  tbiuk,  out  btjonil  its 
merits:  "L'auvrogc  DngCtiBralcst  Imii. 
QuettillcB  cbntntroB  (le  mpport  dc  resprit 
et  iln  cftroclSro)  mc  paroiBscnt  excel- 
loiw." — Ejirait  du  JounUif. 

I  have  said  DoChing  of  La  Bochefall- 
cauM  and  La  Bnij<'re,  an  their  Ut«ntioii 
WM  uhisfl;  caafined  to  mannerB,  and  (o 
lUnral  qiuUilira.  Yet  niauy  of  Iheir  re- 
matka  sbtnr,  that  thfy  hod  not  whollir 
Dvoriooked  the  d!Teniitii>BBiuonRiui?ii  in 


puint  af  iiildlcct.    An  obaerveroriiaga- 
cit7  e(]ual   to  theii's   inig;hl,  1     ' 
think,  Bnil  a  rich  flcid  of  gindy 
part  orhuman  itntiin:,  as  well  as  In 

'  [*Fn;nch  Encvi'lop'dic  On 
Bul{jei.-I  uunBuIt  In  Hurpv,  torn, 
p.  90.  et  tuq.] 

'  ParlicuUrlj"  bj  the  PrBsidon 
Oiiguot,  in  his  Icsmed  work,  eiitilleiV 
"lie  tOrighedet  Lou,  duArlt.ttdrt 
Scieneei,  el  ile  Iran  Progr^  cAe:  le* 
^.iwVh.RV"-"    P-™,  1768- 


I 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         385 

to  the  different  branches  of  pure  and  mixed  mathematics.  To 
a  philosophical  mind,  no  study  certainly  can  be  more  delight- 
ful than  this  species  of  history ;  but  as  an  organ  of  instruction, 
I  am  not  disposed  to  estimate  its  practical  utility  so  highly  as 
UAlembert.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  at  all  adapted  to  interest 
the  curiosity  of  novices :  nor  is  it  so  well  calculated  to  engage 
the  attention  of  those  who  wish  to  enlarge  their  scientific  know- 
ledge, as  of  persons  accustomed  to  reflect  on  the  phenomena 
and  laws  of  the  intellectual  world. 

Of  the  application  of  theoretical  history,  to  account  for  the 
diversities  of  laws  and  modes  of  government  among  men,  1 
shall  have  occasion  afterwards  to  speak.  At  i)resent  I  shall 
only  remark  the  conunon  relation  in  which  all  such  researches 
stand  to  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  and  their  common 
tendency  to  expand  and  to  liberalize  the  views  of  those  who 
are  occupied  in  the  more  confined  pursuits  of  the  subordinate 
sciences. 

After  what  has  been  already  said  of  the  general  tone  of 
French  philosophy,  it  will  not  appear  surprising,  that  a  system 
so  mystical  and  spiritual  as  that  of  Leibnitz  never  struck  its 
roots  deeply  in  that  country.  A  masterly  outline  of  its  prin- 
ciples was  published  by  Madame  du  Chatelet,  at  a  period  of 
her  life  when  she  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  author ; 
and  a  work  on  such  a  subject,  composed  by  a  lady  of  her  rank 
and  genius,  could  not  fail  to  produce  at  first  a  very  strong  sen- 
sation at  Paris ;  but  not  long  after,  she  herself  abandoned  the 
German  philosophy,  and  became  a  zealous  partisan  of  the  New- 
tonian School.  She  even  translated  into  French,  and  enriched 
with  a  commentary,  the  Principia  of  Newton ;  and  by  thus 
renouncing  her  first  faith,  contributed  more  to  discredit  it, 
than  she  had  previously  done  to  bring  it  into  fashion.  Since 
that  time,  Leibnitz  has  had  few,  if  any,  disciples  in  France, 
although  some  of  his  peculiar  tenets  have  occasionally  found 
advocates  there,  among  those  who  have  rejected  the  great  and 
leading  doctrines,  by  which  his  system  is  more  peculiarly 
characterized.  His  opinions  and  reasonings  in  particular,  on 
the  necessary  concatenation  of  all  events,  both  physical  and 

VOL.  I.  2  b 


see 


DI88KBTATION. — PART  BKCOKD, 


moral,  (wliich  accortled  but  too  well  witli  tlie  pliilo&:.pliy  prt 
fesscd  by  Grimm  and  Diderot,")  have  been  long  incorporated 
with  the  doctrines  of  the  French  materialists,  and  tliey  have 
been  lately  adopted  and  sanctioned,  in  all  their  extent,  by  an 
author,  the  unrivalled  splendour  of  whose  mathematical  gcnine 
may  be  justly  Buapecteti,  iu  the  case  of  8ome  of  his  admirers, 
to  throw  a  false  lustre  on  the  djirk  sliades  of  his  philoHopbical 
creed.' 


'  "  Lo8  £vfiieniena  nclaols  ont  nvRt 
lea  prfcfdens  uni.'  liaison  fbndte  but  Ic 
principa  Evident,  qn'nDe  chose  ne  pent 
pw  comroencer  d'etre,  goni  unc  cause 
qni  la  produise.  Cet  oninnie,  connu 
aoiTa  h  nom  de  principe  de  !a  raieon 
fH^nnld.  t'^lend  am  octiona  mfino 
qne  rpajugs  indifi^rentoB.  La  vcilontf 
1b  plus  libra  ne  pent,  sans  un  mutif  dc- 
tenuinuit,  Icur  donncr  untSBanco ;  car 
ii,  Umtea  lee  circonaljuiceB  dc  doui  posi- 
tjona  £lant  exactement  nembUblcB,  elle 
BgiHRoit  daw  I'nno  et  a'abetonoit  d'agir 
dana  I'aatre,  son  phoix  aennt  un  tffet 
tone  cauBe ;«  elle  semit  alurs,  dit  Lolb- 
nibt,  lo  htaard  avea^  dcs  Epicuriona. 
L'npinian  oontraire  oat  uno  illuuDii  do 
I'espnt  qui  perdant  do  rue  lea  nusonn 
TugitivcB  du  choix  da  In  voionU  dana  lea 
olioaes  iudiilereiiteB,  ae  pennadit  qu'clte 
a'cst  dulcrminee  d'elle  memo  et  sans 
motifs. 
"NolU  ileiona  done  envuagor  I'i'Ut 


pn^BB 


f   l-uni 


decelni  qui  vi 
i^ui  pour 


0.    Uno  inlcUigonoe 

s  forcoH  doiLt  la  nature  est  nni- 
mix,  ot  la  utuation  reeptirlive  doe  ftiva 
qui  la  compomnt,  ai  d'uilleuTB  flic  ctnit 
laMX  Taste  pour  soumettrc  oes  donntCB 
H  I'onalyae,  embrasBorott  djina  la  mi-ine 
fonnulo,  lee  mouvemons  dcs  pins  graude 


coqta  di 


I'uiiivHrs  et  ceux  du  pliu  li'ger 
BiBn  DC  soroit  incertain  [Hinr 

pnl'sent  K  bcs  youx." — Euai  Plaltt*o- 
phiipte  SOT  !a  ProbabtUlit,  par  Laplace. 

la  not  this  tho  very  spirit 
Theodieaa  uf  Leibnitz,  and,  vlie 
lined  with  the  other  reoBomiie* 
.Baay  on  Pro/xibOilief,  llie  yorj  > 
ofSpiQDziBm? 

This,  indeed,  is  studioualj  kept 
the  author  uul  of  ihe  reader' 
and  heocD  tlu!  bcilit;  with  which 
of  his  propOBitions  have  been  odmill 
by  mniiT  ti  Ub  malhcBuilieai  disciples, 
whu,  it  IB  highly  probaUe,  wore  not 
attATo  of  Ihu  conMqu«oce9  which  thoy 
ncceaiarily  inrolve, 

I  cannot  conclude  this  nol« 
rcuumng  (a  an  ohfcrvation  awribed 
(be  above  quotntion   from 
I^ibnitz,  "that  the  blind 
Epicureans  involves  the  suppantioai 
an  effect  taking  pUct 
This,  1  apprehend,  i 
stjktement  of  the  philuaophy  taught  ij 
Lncrelina,    which  nowhere  gives   tbe 
slightest  countenance  to  such  a  snppo- 
Bltion.    file  diatinguiahing 
sect  was,  that  the  order  of  the  uni' 
does  not  imply  tbe  existence  of 
gent  CSUBGB,  but  may  be 
by  tlic  active  powers  bclnnp'ng 


>uch  a  snppo- 
l  tenet  of  CuV^^k 
'the  uniTsn^^^^l 
[ice  of  Mlrfj^^^H 
ucooD&ted  i^^^^^l 
inring  lo  tJwi^^^^ 


rd  eBeet.    KTar:r  elaa  acamKiny  gmnfiposu  ■ 


B :  eOon  1>ain|  s  rels(lr«  U 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY. 


387 


Notwithstanding,  however,  this  imjiortant  and  unfoilunate 
coincidence,  no  two  systems  can  well  be  imagined  more  strongly 
contrasted  on  the  whole,  than  the  lofty  metaphysics  of  Leib- 
nitz, and  that  degrading  theory  concerning  the  origin  of  our 
ideas,  which  hfis  been  fashionable  in  France  since  the  time  of 
Condillac.  In  proof  of  this,  I  have  only  to  refer  to  the  account 
of  both,  which  has  been  ahready  given.  The  same  contrast,  it 
would  appear,  still  continues  to  exist  between  the  favourite 
doctrines  of  the  German  and  of  the  French  schoola  "  In  the 
French  empiricism,  (says  a  most  impartial,  as  well  as  compe- 
tent judge,  M.  Ancillon,)  the  faculty  of  feeling,  and  the  faculty 
of  knowing,  are  one  and  the  same.  In  the  new  pliilosophy  of 
Germany,  there  is  no  faculty  of  knowing,  but  reason.  In  the 
former,  taking  our  departure  from  individuals,  we  rise  by 
degrees  to  ideas,  to  general  notions,  to  principles.  In  the 
latter,  beginning  with  what  is  most  general,  or  rather  with 
w^hat  is  universal,  we  descend  to  individual  existences,  and  to 
])articular  casea  In  the  one,  what  we  see,  what  we  touch, 
what  we  feel,  are  the  only  realities.  In  the  other,  nothing  is 
real  but  what  is  invisible  and  purely  intellectual.*' 

"  Both  these  systems  (continues  M.  Ancillon)  result  from  the 


ntoniH  of  matter ;  which  active  powers, 
being  exerted  through  an  indefinitely 
long  period  of  time,  mujhi  produce,  nay, 
must  have  produceii,  exactly  such  a 
combination  of  things,  as  that  with 
which  we  are  Hurrounded.  This,  it  is 
evident,  does  not  call  in  question  the 
necessity  of  a  cause  to  produce  every 
effect,  but,  on  the  contrary,  virtually 
assumes  the  truth  of  that  axiom.  It 
only  excludes  from  these  causes  the 
attribute  of  intelligence.  It  is  in  the 
same  way  when  I  apply  the  words 
blind  chance  (hazard  avevgU)  to  the 
throw  of  a  die,  I  do  not  mean  to 
deny  that  I  am  ultimately  the  cause  of 
the  particular  event  that  is  to  take 
place;  but  only  to  intimate  that  I  do 
not  here  act  as  a  deigning  cause,  in 
c<mReqnence  of  my  ignorance  of  the  va- 
rious accidents  to  which  the  die  is  sub- 


jected, while  shaken  in  the  box.  If  I 
am  not  mistaken,  this  Epicurean  TVteory 
approaches  very  nearly  to  the  schcifie, 
which  it  is  the  main  object  of  the  Ensay 
on  Probabilities  to  inculcate ;  and,  there- 
fore, it  was  not  quite  fair  in  Ijaplacc  to 
object  to  the  supposition  of  man's  free 
agency,  as  favouring  those  principles 
which  he  himself  was  laliouring  indirect- 
ly to  insinuate. 

From  a  passage  in  Plato's  Sopftist,  it 
is  very  justly  inferred  by  Mr.  Gray,  that, 
according  to  the  common  opinion  then 
entertained,  "  the  creation  of  things 
was  the  work  of  blind  unintelligent 
matter;  whereas  the  contrary  was  the 
result  of  philosophical  reflection  and  dis- 
qnisition  believed  by  a  few  people  only." 
— (Orap's  Works  by  Matthias,  vol.  ii.  p 
414.)  On  the  same  subjoct,  sec  Smith's 
Posthumotts  Essays,  p.  106. 


388  DISSERTATION.— PART  SECOXD. 

exag^ratiou  of  a  bouikI  priuciijle.     Tliey  are 
both  false  in  i«irt ;  true  in  what  they  ndmit,  false  in  what  they 
reject.     All  our  knowledge  begins,  or  appears  to  begin,  in  sen- 
sation ;  hut  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  it  is  all  derived 
from  sensation,  or  that  sensation  constitutes  its  whole  amoi 
The  proper  and  innate  activity  of  tlie  mind  has  a  large  si 
in  the  origin  of  onr  representations,  our  sentiments,  our  id( 
Reason  involvfs  principles  which  she  does  not  borrow 
without,  wliich  she  owes  only  to  herself,  which  the  impresfiii 
of  the  senses  call  forth  from  their  obscuritj',  but  which,  far 
owing  their  origin  to  sensations,  serve  to  appreciate  them,  to 
judge  of  them,  to  employ  thom  as  instruments.     It  would  be 
rash,  however,  to  conclude  from  hence,  that  there  is  no  certainty 
but  in  reason,  that  reason  alone  can  seize  the  mysteiy  of  exif 
ences  and  the  intimate  natrn^  of  beings,  and  that  experience 
nothing  but  a  vain  appearance,  destitute  of  every  species 
reaUty."' 

With  this  short  and  comprehensive  estimate  of  the 
German  philosophy,  pronounced  by  one  of  the  moat  diBtin^ 
f^iished  members  of  the  Berlin  Academy,  I  might  perhaps  be 
[lardoned  for  dismissing  a  subject  with  which  I  have,  in  some 
of  my  former  publications,  acknowledged  mj^self  (from  my  to1 
ignorance  of  the  German  language)  to  Iw  very  imiwrfeotly 

'  MiUmgfx  lie.  LiUfratarc  rt  rfe  fhi- 
bMophif,  par  F.  Ancillon,  Preface.  (iL 
Pnria,  1809.)  'ITiB  inlimivcy  of  M.  An- 
cilton'g  literar;  connExions  bolli  wilh 
France  uid  with  Germanj,  en^tles  bin 
opitiionB  on  the  respoctive  mprits  of  tlieir 
philmopMcii]  sf  eteius  lo  pn'uliar  weight- 
If  he  nnjirhere  discovers  a  partiiilily 
for  oilhor,  tho  modaat  accoant  wliii;h  ho 
giTSB  of  himaelf  would  lead  ub  to  eippFt 
hit  leaning  lo  bo  io  farmir  of  hia  cuun- 
Kymen.  "  Placf  enlre  U  Franco  et 
rAllanmgnc,  spportenimt  h  la  premiiru 
par  U  languc  dans  laqiiclli'  je  bssarde 
ci'wrire,  i  la  lecoude  par  niA  oaiEBaiico, 
9  prineipea, 


'  m&linU-ur  lii 
j>hiloBuphii]ite 


In  tranalating  Irom  M.  Ancillon 
passage  quoled  in  the  text,  I  hare 
bcred  a»  010161;  an  possible  to  the  words 
oT  the  original ;  atthoagh  I  cannot  belp 
iiDHgiDing  that  I  could  have  readored  it 
still  mare  intelligible  to  tbe  Enj^tiib 
reader  b;  lajing  asiile  some  of  tha  pe- 
euliatities  of  his  Gorman  phraceologj. 
My  chief  reason  for  retaining  these,  wis 
lo  add  weight  lo  (he  strictures  which  A 
critic,  so  deeply  tinctured  with  the  Gef 
mnti  habits  of  thinking  and  of  writiiig. 


rived 

shaS^H 

froB^^H 
1,  to 
i  be 

ce  ^^^H 

'M 

9  be 
ome 

I 


of  tho 


flTered  (>ti  the  most  prominent  bults 


which  h 


bad  been-  | 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


389 


quainted ;  but  the  impression  which  it  produced  for  a  few  years 
in  England,  (more  particularly  while  our  intercourse  with  the 
Continent  was  interrupted,)  makes  it  proper  for  me  to  bestow 
on  it  a  little  more  notice  in  this  Dissertation  tlian  I  should 
otherwise  have  judged  necessary  or  useful. 


SECT.  VII.- 


■KANT  AND  OTHER   METAPHYSICIANS  OF  THE   NEW 
GERMAN  SCHOOL.^ 


The  long  reign  of  the  Leibnitzian  Philosophy  in  Germany 
was  owing,  in  no  inconsiderable  degree,  to  the  zeal  and  ability 
with  which  it  was  taught  in  that  part  of  Europe,  for  nearly  half 
a  century,  by  his  disciple  Wolfius,*  a  man  of  little  genius,  ori- 
ginality, or  taste,  but  whose  extensive  and  various  learning, 
seconded  by  a  methodical  head,'  and  by  an  incredible  industry 


*  My  ignorance  of  German  would 
have  prevented  me  from  Ba3ring  an}-- 
thing  of  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  if  the 
extraordinary  pretensions  with  which  it 
was  at  first  brought  forward  in  this 
iHland,  contrasted  with  the  total  oblivion 
into  which  it  soon  after  very  suddenly 
fell,  had  not  seemed  to  demand  some 
attention  to  so  wonderful  a  phenomenon 
in  the  literary  history  of  fhe  eighteenth 
century.  My  readers  will  perceive  that 
I  have  taken  some  pains  to  atone  for 
my  inability  to  read  Kant's  works  in  the 
original,  not  only  by  availing  myself  of 
the  Latin  version  of  Bom,  but  by  con- 
Hulting  various  comments  on  them  which 
have  appeared  in  the  English,  French, 
and  Latin  languages.  As  commenta- 
tors, however,  and  even  translators,  are 
not  always  to  be  trusted  to  as  unexcep- 
tionable interpreters  of  their  authors* 
opinions,  my  chief  reliance  has  been 
placed  on  one  of  Kant's  own  composi- 
tions in  Latin ;  his  Dissertation  De 
Mundi  Setvith'dia  alque  InicUiyihlUs 
Forma  ei  Princlpiin,  which  he  printed 
as  llic  subject  of  a  public  disputation, 


when  he  was  candidate  for  a  Professor- 
ship in  the  University  of  Konigsberg. 
It  is  far  from  being  improbable,  after  all, 
that  I  may,  in  some  instances,  have  mis- 
apprehended his  meaning,  but  I  hope  I 
shall  not  be  accused  of  wilfully  misre- 
presenting it.  Where  my  remarks  are 
borrowed  from  other  writers,  I  have 
been  careful  in  referring  to  my  autho- 
rities, that  my  reader  may  judge  for 
himself  of  the  fidelity  of  my  statements. 
If  no  other  purpose,  therefore,  should  be 
answered  by  this  part  of  my  work,  it 
may  at  least  be  of  use  by  calling  forth 
some  person  properly  qualified  to  correct 
any  mistakes  into  which  I  may  involun- 
tarily have  fallen ;  and,  in  the  mean- 
time, may  serve  to  direct  those  who  are 
strangers  to  Grerman  literature,  to  sonn? 
of  the  comments  on  this  philosophy 
which  have  appeared  in  languages  more 
generally  understood  in  this  country. 

■  Bom  1679 ;  died  1754. 

■  The  display  of  method,  however,  so 
conspicuous  in  all  the  works  of  WolfiuB, 
will  often  be  f(»uiul  to  amount  to  littlt; 
more  than  an  awkward  af!ectatiun  of  the 


Sftll  DISefflBTATlON. — ^PART  8EC0NI1. 

au(i  iierBCverance,  etit-ms  to  bave  been  jieculiiirly  filttnl  to  com^ 
raand  the  admiriitiou  of  liie  countrymeo.'  WolfiuK,  inileetl,  did 
not  profess  to  follow  implicitly  the  opinions  of  Mb  mafitcr,  and 
on  sonic  jroints  laid  claim  to  peculiar  ideas  of  his  own ;  but  the 
spirit  of  his  philosophy  is  essentially  the  same  with  that  < 
Leibnitz,'  and  the  particulars  in  which  he  diaseuttnl  from  liii 


p1ir«stta1<igf  and  fomiB  ofnuitluiiDaticB,  iu 
HCienccB  irhere  tlicj  coDtribiite  nolhiog 
lu  the  clearucHB  of  our  ideas,  or  tliu  uor- 
reotnesB  of  onr  reaBonuigB.  Tbis  affec- 
tdliuQ,  wliich  sccniB  to  liate  beun  well 
adapted  Iu  tbu  tiute  of  Q«rmaaj  at  tlio 
lima  vhaa  he  wrato,  ia  nuw  anu  of  tLu 
chief  cauBeB  of  the  neglect  into  which 
Ilia  writioga  have  fallea.  Some  of  tlicm 
niHj  Btjll  be  msRiUy  consallad  ua  dic- 
tiunoriea,  but  to  read  tliein  ii  impoBaible, 

III  liiB  Dwu  countr;  the  reputation  of 
WoIfiuB  IK  not  yat  at  aa  end.  In  tlic 
prdaoi:  to  Kanfa  Critique  of  Fare  Sea- 
rou,  he  ia  caOci  "  Smnnimi  onuiiuin 
dogmaticorani  FhikBophua."  —  (Konlii 
Opera  ad  PlabaapKiam  Critkam,  vul.  i, 
I'lef.  Auctorie  Pooterior,  p.  xxxvi.  La- 
lino  vertiL  Fred.  Bom.  LipBiw,  1796.) 
And  by  UDnafEant'abcBlcomiiieolsturs 
Ilia  nnmo  in  odviLnlugcuuBlj'  tontrosled 
with  ttiat  of  David  Uume :  "EBtauCem 
BuieutiGca  muthodua  uut  dogma^cn,  aat 
nceplicR.  Frimi  gcncria  autoTem  cele- 
burrimum  Wolfiuni,  alteriua  Davidnm 
Ilumluoi  DOBiinaasa  eat  cat." — Ecpmi- 
tio  FhUo4.  CritioB.  Aiiluro  Conrodo  Fri- 
derioo  a  Sclunidt-Pbiseldck.  Haliiiie. 
1796. 

To  the  mliermt'rilaofWolfiua  it  niny 
he  ailded,  tbat  ho  vras  one  of  the  Urat 
who  contributed  to  diSitae  nmung  bia 
countrjmrn  a  taatu  fur  pliiloBophical 
ini|uirieB,  hj  writing  on  sctenliflc  anb- 
jecta  in  thu  German  buigiiago.  "  Wure 
oil  Baron  Wolfe  other  ncrilB  disputed, 
(here  ia  one  (aajs  Micluiiilia}  which 
inual  incoDtcBtably  be  alloTcd  him,  hia 
liBving  nddwliincwdcgrep  ofpprfccliim 


to  tbo  German  tungnu,  b;  applying  l| 
to  pldloaophy."  —  DUsertathn  wi  (" 
Infiumce  of  Opiaiotii  on  Lta^piage,  3 
Eaglbb  Tronalation,  p.  1\ 

*  [*  "  Id  philoet^uc  (aajra  Dog) 
ntndo]  n'a  point  cu  d'eurivain  pllfl 
fScond  que  Wolf.  Sea  £crUa  1  ' 
funnont  h.  eux  leida,  73  vola.  4to.  < 
en  loiigue  AUenuuidc  aont  presque  «i 
DOBibreui.  On  pent  m£n 
Wolf  n  beaucoup  trop  & 
propre  avanlage  et  pour  cehiidu  ante 
—3al.  Comp.  lorn.  ii.  pp.  116,  116.] 

■  On  Ibe  great  quostioii  of  Free  WiD, 
Wolfiua  adopted  implidtlj  |he  piindplM 
of  tile  Thtodiaxa ;  coiuidering  t 
merely  in  the  light  of  a  n 
(with  the  author  of  Uiut  work)  d 
ing  this  machine  bj  the  einlhet  tpirii 
Thin  laoguago,  which  ia  aliU  vutj  pt 
valont  among  Gorman  phjlooopher^  mi 
be  regarded  aa  a  relic  of  the  doctrinoi  tj 
Leibnitz  and  of  WoJIiuB;  i 
additiotnl  proof  of  the  diflicalty  uf  ot»- 
dioating  enora  aancKunod  b;  iUoBttioua 
and  popular  names. 

When  thti  ayskm  of  Pre^staUuhed 
ILmnnnj  was  firat  iutiodiKwd  Iq 
Hub  into  the  ITniveraity  ofHoUe,  it  « 
ciKd  Bii  alarm  which  had  very  ni 
been  attended  with  GiLal  c 
to  the  profcaaor.  Tho  IbllowLig  a 
doto  on  the  aubject  u*  told  bj  Euler : — 
"  Loraqae  du  lempa  du  feu  Boi  &e 
Fruaae,  M.  Wolf  onaeignoic  k  HoUe  to 
ayBtimc  de  rHonnonio  PrG-ftabHe,  li  ~ 
Kot  a'intbnuH  du  cette  doctrine,  ' 
fuiaoit  grand  bruit  alors ;  el  ui 
rfpondil  a  tn  Mnjeili',  ciue  tout  lea  M 


METAPHYSICS  DUfilNQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


391 


are  too  trifling  to  deserve  any  notice  in  the  history  of  litera- 
ture.' 

The  high  reputation  so  long  maintained  by  Wolflus  in  (Ger- 
many suggested  at  different  times,  to  the  bookmakers  at  Paris, 
the  idea  of  introducing  into  France  the  philosophy  which  he 
taught  Hence  a  number  of  French  abridgments  of  his  logical 
and  metaphysical  writinga  But  an  attempt  which  had  failed 
in  the  hands  of  Madame  de  Chatelet,  was  not  likely  to  succeed 
with  the  admirers  and  abridgers  of  Wolfius.* 


dats,  Belon  cette  doctrine,  n'^toient  que 
des  machines ;  que  quand  il  en  deser- 
toit,  c'etoit  une  suite  necessaire  de  leur 
structure,  et  qu'on  ayoit  tort  par  cons^ 
quent  de  lea  punir,  comme  on  I'auroit 
si  on  punissoit  une  machine  pour  avoir 
produit  tel  ou  tei  mouvement  Lo  Roi 
se  facha  si  fort  sur  ce  rapport,  qn'il 
donna  ordre  de  chasser  M.  Wolf  de 
Halle,  sous  peine  d'etre  pendu  s'il  s*y 
trouvoit  au  bout  de  24  heures.  Le  phi- 
loflophe  se  r^fugia  alors  ^  Marbourg,  o^ 
je  lui  ai  parle  peu  de  temps  aprds." — 
(Lettrea  h  une  Princesse  d^Attemoffne, 
Lettre  84me.)  We  are  informed  by 
Condorcet,  that  some  reparation  vas 
afterwards  made  for  this  injustice  by 
Frederic  the  Great.  "  Le  Roi  de  Prusse, 
qui  ne  croit  pas  pourtant  k  THarmonie 
Pr^tablie,  s*est  empress^  de  rendre 
justice  &  Wolf  d^s  le  premier  jour  de 
son  r&gne." 

*  Among  other  novelties  affected  by 
Wolfius,  was  a  new  modification  of  the 
Theory  of  the  Monads.  A  slight  out- 
line of  it,  but  quite  su£5cient,  I  should 
suppose,  to  gratify  the  curiosity  of  most 
readers,  may  be  found  in  Eulcr's  Letteri 
to  a  Oerman  Princes. 

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


"  L'ecole  AUemande  reconnoit  Leib- 
nitz pour  chef.  Son  fameux  disciple 
Wolf  regna  dans  les  universitcs  pendant 
pr^s  d*un  dcmi  si^cle  avec  une  autorit6 
non  oontest^e.  On  connoit  en  France 
cette  philosophic  par  un  grand  nombre 
d^abreg^s  dont  quelques-nns  sont  faits 
par  des  auteurs  qui  seuls  auroient  snffi 
pour  lui  donner  de  la  c£16brit6. 

"  Malgr^  Tappui  de  tous  ces  noms, 
jetmais  en  France  cette  phUoBophie  ne 
8'est  Boutenue  mSme  quelques  inHafu. 
La  profondeur  apparcnto  des  id6es,  I'air 
d'ensemble  et  de  syst^e,  n'ont  jamais 
pu  y  suppler  &  ce  qui  a  pam  lui  manquer 
pour  en  faire  une  doctrine  solide  et  digne 
d'etre  accueillie.    Outre  quelque  defimt 
de  clart^,  qui  probablement  en  a  £cart6 
des  esprits  pour  qui  cette  quality  de  style 
et  de  la  pensee  est  devenue  un  heureoz 
besoin,  la  forme  sous  laquelle  elle  se 
pr6sente  a  rebuts  bien  des   lecteurs. 
Quoiqu'aient  pu  {aire  les  interpretes,  il 
a  toi\jours  perc4  quelque  chose  de  Pap- 
pareil  incommode  qui  Pentoure  fi  son 
origine.     Condillac  toume  plus  d*une 
fois  en  ridicule  ces  formes  et  co  jargon 
scientifique,  et  il  s^appliquc  h  montrcr 
qu*ils  ne  sont  pas  plus  propres  &  natis- 
faire  la  raison  que  le  goiit.    II  est  au 
moina  certain^  que  te  lecteur  Frati^ais 
let  repousse  par  instinct,  et  qu^il  y  trouve 
un  obstacle  tr^s  difficile  li  surmonter** — 
Reflexions  sur  les  (Kuvres  Posthumes 
d^Adfim  Smith,  par  M.  Pn'vdst  de  Cm- 
neve  ;  h  Paris,  1794. 


392  niBSKHTATION. — PAHT  BECONP, 

From  tlie  time  of  WuUiiiB  till  the  philosophy  of  Kant  bej 
to  attract  general  notice,  1  know  of  no  German  tnetaphysicma 
whasc  speculations  seem  to  have  acqnired  much  celebrity  in 
the  learned  world.'     Lambert'  is  perhaps  the  most  illustrious 
name  which  occurs  during  this  interval     As  a  mathematici 
and  natural  philosopher,  his  great  merits  are  universally  knoi 
and  acknowleged,  but  the  language  in  which  his  metaphysii 
and  logical  works  were  written,  liae  confined  their  reputation 
within  a  comparatively  narrow  circle.    I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot 
speak  of  these  from  my  own  knowledge;   but  I  have  heard 
them  mentioned  in  terms  of  the  highest  praise,  by  some  vt 
competent  judges,  to  whose  testimony  I  am  disposed  to  gii 
the  greater  credit,  from  the  singular  vein  of  ori^nalily  whii 
rune  through  all  his  mathematical  and  physical  publications.* 


LOUS 

:iu^^H 

icaS^^^ 
ion  I 


'  MadBine  de  Stalil  nienUuns  Letinag, 
Kern«terhiiia,  and  JacuLi,  aa  preounorB 
i>r  Kant  in  liia  jiliiloBopbifal  saner, 
tihe  adds,  howovor,  tllttt  they  Imd  no 
School,  since  none  of  them  ntlempted  to 
Fuund  any  syetein ;  but  tbej' began  lhc«ar 
Bgainil  Lhe  doclrineB  oi'  the  Mttterudista, 
— (AUtmoffnt,  tome  iii.  p.  98.)  I  am 
not  acquainted  witli  the  inetapliyBical 
works  of  luij  (pf  the  three.  Those  of 
Hentstcrhniii,  who  wrote  wholly  in 
FroncU,  were,  I  undentand,  first  pub- 
liehud  in  a  ciillected  form  at  Paris,  in 
1792.  He  was  son  of  the  rclcbratcd 
Greek  icholnr  and  criti(i,  Tiberius  Hem- 
Biurhusiui,  Profeeaor  of  Latin  Litaraturn 

*  Bom  at  Mulhanseu  in  Alaace  in 
1728  :  died  at  Berlin  in  1 777. 

'  The  folWing  porticulan,  with  re- 
spect to  Lambert's  lilerarj  history,  are 
I'KtTBcleil  froia  a  Meoioir  annexed  by 
M.  PreToat  to  liis  IranaUlion  of  Mr. 
Umith's  iWAum*™  IForfa.-— "  Get  in- 
gfiuieuK  et  puisiiaat  Lambert,  dunt  lea 
malhi'uiBtiques,  tjui  lui  doiveut  leau- 
coiip,  no  putcut  iiiaiser  les  forces,  et 
qui  ne  touch*  autuu  lujct  d*  physique 


on   de  phiJosopliie  ratiouelle,  i 

couvrir  de  lumi^re.     Bca  U(trt*  a 

logiqua,  qu*]]  ecrivit  par  Ibnne  de  d 

InBHoment,  sontploines  d'id^  n~  " 

ealtes  aiir  la  pbiloKophie  la  plus 

et  la  plus  savanto  tout-S-la-fbii.   II  ftvtj 

auBfu   dressf  sous   le  litre 

tomfae  un   tableau  dea  prinuipea  a 

lesquels  se   funJent  Icl  t> 

humaiaeB.    Cet  ouvrago  an  jugeaned 

dos  hommcB  les  plus  versus  di 

do  lear  laiiguu,  n'est  pas  exempt  d'al| 

suurilj.    Ello  peat  tenir  en  pulja  k  li 

nature  du  sitjoL  U  cstaregratterqneai 

logiqiie,intitul£  Ori;atuin,neHiittrBdlnl 

ni  en  Latin,  ni  en  Fran^nis,  ni 

en  aucune  languo.      L'n  extra! 

do  eel  ouTragB.  duquel  on  6carterut«j 

qui  ropugno  su  gofit  national  exdleroT 

I'attention  des  philosophes,  *    '  

leroit  sur  una  multitude  d'ulgeta  qn'ilk 
se  soDt  DccoutumEs  ii  regarder  arec  io' 
difKreuco." — [PrlvoBt,  tOJne  ii.  pp.  i67, 
868.)  [•  M.  Provost  (krtjiw  infbmu 
us,  thnt  an  abridgment  of  the  AnUt^ 
ItdfuaJc  of  Lanibeit  was  pnUuihed  by 
M.  i.  Trcmbley.  I  presume  thotthia  ia 
the  worlt  referred  to  I j  & 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


393 


The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  (the  most  celebrated  of  Kant's 
metaphysical  works)  appeared  in  1781.^  The  idea  annexed  to 
the  title  by  the  author,  is  thus  explained  by  himself:  "  Criticam 
rationis  purse  non  dico  censuram  librorum  et  Systematum,  sed 
facultatis  rationalis  in  universum,  respectu  cognitionum  om- 
nium, ad  quas,  ab  omni  experientia  libera,  possit  anniti,  proinde 
dijudicationem  possibilitatis  aut  impossibilitatis  metaphysices 
in  genere,  constitutionemque  tum  fontium,  tum  ambitus  atque 
compagis,  tum  vero  terminorum  illius,  sed  cuncta  haec  ex 
principiis." — (Kantii  Opera  ad  Philosophiam  Criticam^  vol  i. 


following  passage  of  his  Eaaai  Analy- 
tique.  "  Ceux  do  mes  lecteurs  qui  ne 
poBsedent  pas  la  langue  Allemande, 
trouveront  un  precis  ti^s  bien  raisonnd 
de  la  Theorie  des  Forces  de  M.  Lam- 
bert dans  un  petit  ouvrage  public  en 
Fran9ais  k  La  Haye  en  1780,  sous  le 
titre  d*Expo9UUm  (ie  qudqucB  points 
de  la  Doctrine  dea  Principe$  de  M. 
Lambert.'* — Ess.  Anal.  chap,  xiv.] 

In  the  article  Lambertf  inserted  in 
the  tweuty-tliird  volume  of  the  Bio- 
graphie  UniverseXle^  (Paris,  1819,)  the 
following  account  is  given  of  Lambert's 
logic : — "  Wolf,  d'apriis  quelques  indica- 
tions de  Leibnitz,  avoit  retir^  de  Poubli 
la  syllogistique  d'Aristote,  science  que 
les  Bcholastiques  avoicnt  tcllement  avilie 
que  ni  Bacon  ni  Locke  n*avoient  os^  lui 
accorder  un  regard  d'interet.  H  6toit  re- 
serve ^  Lambert  de  la  montrer  sous  le 
plus  beau  jour  et  dans  la  plus  richo 
parure.  C'est  ce  qu'il  a  fait  dans  son 
Novum  Organonj  ouvrage  qui  est  un 
des  principaux  titres  do  gloiro  de  son 
autcur."  From  the  writer  of  this 
article,  (M.  Servois,)  wo  farther  learn, 
that  the  Novum  Organon  of  Lambert 
was  translated  into  Latin  from  the  Ger- 
man original  by  a  person  of  the  name  of 
Pfieidcrcr,  and  that  this  translation  was 
in  the  hands  of  an  English  nobleman 
(the  late  Earl  of  Stanhope)  as  lately  as 
1782.     I  quote  the  words  of  M.  Servois, 


in  the  hope  that  they  may  attract  some 
attention  to  the  manuscript,  if  it  be  still 
in  existence.  The  publication  of  it 
would  certainly  be  a  most  acceptable 
present  to  the  learned  world.  "  D'apr^ 
le  conseil  de  Le  Sage  de  Geneve,  I'ou- 
vrage  fut  traduit  en  I^atin  par  Pfleiderer, 
aux  frais  d'un  savant  Italien :  cette  tra- 
duction passa,  on  ne  sait  comment,  entre 
les  mains  de  Milford  Mahon,  qui  la 
possedoit  encore  en  1782 ;  on  ignore 
quel  est  son  sort  ult^rieur." 

^  [*  In  a  periodical  work  published  in 
London,  (Monthly  Magazine  for  May 
1805,)  there  is  a  short  but  interesting 
Memoir  vrith  respect  to  Kant's  life  and 
writings,  from  which  it  would  appear 
tluit  his  family  was  originally  from  Scot- 
land. "  He  was  bom  "  (we  are  told) 
"  in  1724,  at  Konigsberg  in  Prussia. 
Uis  father,  John  George  Kant,  though 
bom  at  Memol,  descended  from  a  Scotch 
family,  who  spelt  their  name  with  a  C, 
which  our  philosopher  (and  his  brother) 
in  early  life  converted  into  a  K^  as  more 
conformable  to  German  orthography/' 
The  Scottish  origin  of  Kant's  family  is 
also  mentioned  by  M.  Staffer,  author  of 
the  article  Kant  in  the  Biographic  Um- 
vereeUe.  "  Sa  famillc  ctait  originaire 
d'EcossCy  circonstance  assez  curieuse  si 
nous  consid^rons  que  c'est  aux  ecrits  do 
David  Hume  que  nous  dovons  le  svstcme 
de  Kant."]     Kant  died  in  1H04. ' 


*  Restored.— -Erf. 


394 


OI88EBTATIDN. — PABT  SBOOND. 


Piwfatio  Auctoria  Prior,  pp.  11,  12.)     To  render  tliis  some- 
what more  intelligible,  I  bIuiU  subjoin  the  comment  of  one  ( 
his  intimate  friends,'  whose  work,  we  are  informed  by  DrJ 
Willich,  had  received  the  sanction  of  Kant  liimself,     "  Tbi 
aim  of  Kant's  Critique  is  no  less  than  to  lead  Reason  to  the 
true  knowledge  of  itself;  to  examine  the  titles  upon  whicb  it 
founds  the  supposed  possession  of  its  metapbydcal  knowledge ; 
and  by  moans  of  this  examination,  to  mark  the  true  limits 
beyond  which  it  cannot  venture  to  speculate,  without  wander-J 
ing  into  the  empty  region  of  jmre  fiincy,"     The  same  autboi 
adds,    "  Tim  whole  Criiiquc  of  Fare  Reason  is  establifhf 
upon  this  principle,  that  there  w  a  free  reason,  tJidepetideia  o^ 
all  experiettce  and  sensation." 

When  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  first  came  out,  it  dot 
not  seem  to  have  attracted  much  notice  ■  hut  such  has  been  i1 


'  Mr.  John  Schiilze,  an  eminent  diviau 
st  Kiinii^bc^,  Bttthor  uf  tlio  Sifnoptu 
of  the  Oriikfa  FhOotophy,  tranalaltd  by 
Ur.  Willicb.  and  iiiMrted  \a  his  Ele- 

menUiTij  View  of  Kaiii't  Works Suu 

pp.  49.' 13, 

'  "  II  sc  paesB  quulqao  luma  aptte  U 
promiJre  publicntion  dc  lo  Crilii/ue  de 
lit  Pure  Balaon,  sani  qii'oii  Gl  bvnuooup 
d^ltenlion  i  ue  livru,  ut  Bans  quo  lit 
plupart  de  philuanphcB,  pusirmfg  pour 
I'jalMtiHuui,  Boup^nttstwnl  Huuluioeut  U 
gmnilo  revolution  que  cet  oni^nige  et 
Ua  productiouit  Buivantca  dc  son  aulour 
devoientopfireriliuiB  lasciooco." — Buhlo, 
Sitl  de  l-t  Phil.  Mod.  (am.  vi.  p.  573. 

Paris,  lein. 

An  early,  Lowever,  bb  Ilia  yuar  1783, 
the  Pliiloaopliy  nf  Kiuit  appears  bi  baic 
been  adoptul  in  tome  o!  the  dcmiau 
soliooln.  The  ingeoioua  M.  Tiomhluy, 
in  B  memoir  tlieu  rend  before  the  Aca- 
demy of  Berlin,  thus  spcatfl  of  it: — 
"  La  pMloeophio  de  Kant,  qni,  H  la 
AonW  il*  Vitprit  hiimaiit,  parail  avoir 
(icqiuB  tant  dp  favcHr  daui  certninoH 
i^coks." — Eiiai  nir  lei  PrfJHii^  Ri'- 
pi'inlcd  al  Nciifcliatel  in  lT!>n 


Wc  are  further  luM  by  Buhls, 
the  attention  of  the  public  lo   K 
Critique  of  Pure  Retaon  vas  drat 
Crauteil  by  an  excellent  analyn*  df  the 
work,  which  appeal^  in  the  OdwmJ 
Otaeile   of  Lileratu'f, -oad    by 
LeOert   on  K-mt'i    PhOotophu,   wUdi 
ItvinhoiJ  inserted  in  the  Oerman  Jft 
citi7/. — (Buhle,  tool,  vi,  p.  573.) 
lbi«  laal  philosopher,  who  appear 
the  first  instoDco,  to  have  entered 
enthuiusm  into  Kant's  viawR,  and 
afterwards  contributed  much  to  open 
tho  eyas  of  his  oountrymen  to  the  radical 
duft.'cta  ofluB  aystem,  I  ehall  have  oodft- 
Huu  to  speak  hereafter.    Degerando,  aa 
well  as  Buhle,  boBtowa  high  praiia  not 
only  on  hie  cleumoBS,  bat  no  his  cto- 
quence,  as  a  writer  in  his 
"Ha  traduit  les  aractes  Kantiena 
nne  lan^e   Sleganlo,  luirmotiiaUBe, 
pure.    .     .     .     B  a  su  eiprimer  avoo  i 
Inngi^  eloqnent,  dca  iJ£es  josqu'  ' 
inintolligibles,"    4c. — [IJittoirt 
parie,  tu.,  torn.  ii.  p.  S7I.)     ThtX 
proiie  is  not  nndeaerved  I  am  vbi^ 
lo  believe,  baring  Inlely  bod  an 
(unilj   (ibmiigh   thi'    kindness 


tha 

Uk  1 


METAPHTSICB  DUBINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


395 


subsequent  success,  that  it  may  regarded,  according  to  Madame 
de  Stael,^  '^  as  having  given  the  impuLse  to  all  that  has  been 
since  done  in  Germany,  both  in  literature  and  in  philosophy/' 
— AUemagne,  vol.  iii.  pp.  68,  69. 

"  At  the  epoch  when  this  work  was  published,  (continues  the 
same  writer,)  there  existed  among  thinking  men  only  two 
systems  concerning  the  human  understanding :   The  one,  that 


learned  and  revered  friend  Dr.  Parr) 
of  reading,  in  the  Latin  version  of 
Frodericus  Qottlob  Bom,  Reinhold's 
principal  work,  entitled  Periddum  Novce 
TheoruB  FctculksUa  BeprcBiefUativa  Hu- 
maruB.  In  point  of  perspicuity,  he  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  greatly  superior  to 
Kant ;  and  of  this  I  conceive  myself  to 
be  not  altogether  incompetent  to  judge, 
as  the  Latin  versions  of  both  authors 
are  by  the  same  hand. 

^  The  following  quotation,  from  the 
advertisement  prefixed  to  Madame  de 
Stael's  posthumous  work,  (Conndirch 
HoHs  9ur  la  JRivoltUion  Fran^ieei)  will 
at  once  account  to  my  readers  for  the 
confidence  with  which  I  appeal  to  h^r 
historical  statements  on  the  subject  of 
German  philosophy.  Uer  own  know- 
lodge  of  the  language  was  probably  not 
so  critically  exact,  as  to  enable  her  to 
enter  into  the  more  refined  details  of 
the  different  systems  which  she  has  de- 
scribed ;  but  her  extraordinary  penetra- 
tion, joined  to  tlie  opportunities  she  en- 
joyed of  conversing  with  all  that  was 
then  most  illustrious  in  Germany,  qua- 
lified her  in  an  eminent  degree  to  seize 
and  to  delineate  their  great  outlines. 
And  if,  in  executing  this  task,  any  con- 
siderable mistakes  could  have  been  sup- 
posed to  escape  her,  we  may  be  fully 
assured,  that  the  very  aGcompliuhed  per- 
son, to  whose  revision  we  learn  that  her 
literary  labours  at  this  period  of  her 
life  were  submitted,  would  prevent  them 
from  ever  meeting  the  public  eye.  I 
except,  of  course,  thone  mistakes  into 


which  she  was  betrayed  by  her  adnmu- 
tion  of  the  German  School.  Of  some 
of  the  most  important  of  these,  I  shall 
take  notice  as  I  proceed ;  a  task  which 
I  feel  incumbent  on  me,  as  it  is  through 
the  medium  of  her  book  that  the  great 
m^ority  of  English  readers  have  ac- 
quired all  their  knowledge  of  the  new 
German  philosophy,  and  as  her  name 
and  talents  have  given  it  a  temporary 
consequence  in  this  countiy  which  it 
could  not  otherwise  have  acquired. 

"  Le  travail  des  ^diteurs  s'est  borne 
uniquement  ^  la  revision  des  ^preuves, 
et  ^  la  correction  de  cos  legeres  inexac- 
titudes de  style,  qui  echappent  k  la  vue 
daus  lo  manuscrit  lo  plus  soign6.  Ce 
travail  c'est  fait  sous  les  yeux  de  M.A. 
W.  de  Schlegd^  dant  la  rare  ntpSriar" 
U4d*  esprit  et  de  savoir  juatifie  la  am- 
fiance  avec  laquelle  Madame  de  JStaHl  le 
coHBtdtoU  dans  tous  sea  travattx  liUSr" 
aires f  autant  que  son  honorable  carac- 
t^re  merite  I'estime  et  I'amitie  qu*elle 
n'a  pas  cesse  d*avoir  pour  lui  pendant 
une  liaison  de  ireize  annies'^ 

If  any  further  apology  be  necessary 
for  quoting  a  French  lady  as  an  autho- 
rity on  German  metaphysics,  an  obvious 
one  is  suggested  by  the  extraordinary 
and  well-merited  popuhuity  of  her  AUe- 
magne  in  this  country.  I  do  not  know, 
if,  in  any  part  of  her  works,  her  match- 
less powers  have  been  displayed  to 
greater  advantage.  Of  this  no  stronger 
proof  can  be  given  than  the  lively  in- 
terest she  inspires,  even  when  discus- 
sing such  HVHteniB  as  those  of  Kant  and 
of  Fichtc. 


396 


TtlReKaTATION. — ^PART  SECOSP. 


of  Locke,  ascribed  all  our  ideas  to  our  seneatiouii ; '  the  otiief 
that  of  Descartes  and  of  Leibnitz,  had  for  its  chief  objects  to 
demonstrate  the  spiritimlity  and  activity  of  the  soul,  the  firee- 
dom  of  tiie  will,*  and,  in  short,  the  whole  doctrines  of  the 


'  That  tiliK  ia  a  vci?  incorrect  account 
or  Locke'i  plifluBophy,  hue  beeii  already 
shown  at  great  longtli ;  bat  id  t1ii»  tnis- 
Ittke  Uadmne  de  Stnel  baa  on);  followed 
Leibnibt,  and  a  leij  birgu  )iropurtion  of 
tliB  GDrmiin  philosaphen  of  the  present 
ihy.  "  The  philosophy  of  aeniation," 
says  Froilvrick  Bohloge],  "  which  was 
iinconiciouBly  beqaeHthed  to  tlie  vorld 
by  Buoon,  and  reduced  to  a  nietliodicnl 
almpe  by  Locke,  firat  displayed  iu  France 
the  true  iiumorality  and  deBtniclivc- 
ncss  of  which  it  in  the  parent,  and  ns- 
sumed  the  appaarance  of  a  peritsrt  aya- 
ti^m  of  Alhoiam."  —  {LvA-art*  on  the 
Hitlory  irf  LkertOim,  froro  the  Gennnii 
of  Fred.  Schlegel.  Edin.  1818,  »ol.  ii. 
p,  2S.)  It  is  evident,  that  the  syBltni 
of  ].ockc  ia  here  confounded  with  that 
of  CondilUc,  Hay  not  the  former  ho 
called  the  philoaophy  of  rejleciian,  with 
aa  grent  propriety  aa  the  philoaopliy  of 


reaaoniDgs  i 


'  In  considering  Leibnitz  its  a  parti- 
san of  the  freeilom  of  the  will,  Mnilanie 
de  Staiil  haa  also  followed  the  views  of 
many  Ocnnan  writers,  who  make  do 
distinction  between  Materinhata  and  No- 
cesaitarians.  imagining  that  to  aascrt 
the  spiritualty  of  the  sou!,' is  to  assert 
it*  free  agency,  On  the  inaccuracy  of 
Ilieae  conceptions  it  wonid  be  auperfla- 
DUa  lo  enlarge,  a^r  what  was  formerly 
said  in  treating  nf  the  mctaphyaical 
upbiuDB  of  Leihniti.  (Comp.  p.''365.) 
In  con«ei[uence  of  this  misapprehen- 
siou,  Madnmo  cie  Stacl,  and  many  other 
late  wrilora  on  tlio  Continent,  havu 
been  led  to  employ,  witli  a  very  excep- 
tionable latitude,  the  won!  IdealUt,  to 
comprehend  not  ouly  the  advocnlea  fur 
llie  immatcrialilj  of  the  mind,  but  Iboar 
nls"  whn  mnintiiin  the  Fn^tdyni  I'f  Ihc 


llumsn  Will,    Bettvocn  these 
inna,   there   ia  certainly   no 
conneiion ;  Leibnitz,  and  many 
German  metapbyaidana,  denying 
latter  with  no  lesa  conGdcnoe  than 
with  which  they  assort  the  fonner- 
In  England,  the  word  Idraiitl  is 
commonly  restricted  tu  sneh  h  (i 
Berkeley)  ngecl  the  existence  of  ■ 
teriul  world.    Of  late,  its  meaning 
been  aomelimea  extended  (partJi 
since  the  puhlicatSons  of  Keid)  lo 
those  who  retM'n   the  theory  of  " 
carteH  and  Locke,  concerning  the 
modiste  objecta  of  our  perceptions 
thoughts,  whether  they  admit  or  r^eet 
the   cunseqnenceg    deduced    from    this 
theory  by  the  Berkeleiana.     In  the  pre- 
aeut  stato  of  the  science, 
tribnle  much  to  the  diatiuctnesi  of 
'cre  it  to  be  used 
dnsivEly. 
There  ia  another  word 
dame  du  Stael  and  other 
German  philosophy  uune: 
L-uliar  to  themsQlvos;  1  ni 
eiperitn^Ual  or  trnplricoL  This  epitliat 
is  often  oaed  by  them  to  diatingoisb 
what  they  call  the  philoaophy  of  Sen- 
aalions,  from  that  of  Plato  uid  of  Leib- 
nifz.    It  18  acconliugly  gooeraUy,  if  not 
nlwuya,  employed  by  them  in  an   un- 
favourable lonao.     In  thij  country,  on 
the  contrary,  the  eupcrimenta]  or  in- 
diictive  philosophy  of  the 
Jenotes   Ihoao  speculatioua  aonMTiiii 
mind,  which,  rejecting  all 
theories,  rcat  aolely 
which  we  have  the   evidence  of 
sdousness.     It  is  applied 
9<^hy  of  Beid,  and  tu  all 
valuable  in  tho  iDetuphj-aicBl  worln 
l>ca<«ilea,  L-n^kc,  n<.rkel..y.  nni|  Hni 


d    from   this 

In  the  pre-  ■ 

t  wunU  CRf^^^^J 
stnesi  of  o^l^^^^l 
usedinlU^^H 

o  which  Mi-'^^^^^ 


n  the  word 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


397 


idealists.  .  .  .  Between  these  extremes  reason  continued  to 
wander,  till  Kant  undertook  to  trace  the  limits  of  the  two  em- 
pires ;  of  the  senses  and  of  the  soul ;  of  the  external  and  of  the 
internal  worlda  The  force  of  meditation  and  of  sagacity,  with 
which  he  marked  these  limits,  had  not  perhaps  any  example 
among  his  predecessors." — AUemagne^  vol.  iii.  pp.  70,  72. 

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

"  Kant  discovered  that  the  intuitive  faculty  of  man  is  a 
compound  of  very  dissimilar  ingredients ;  or,  in  other  words, 
that  it  consists  of  parts  wevy  different  in  their  nature,  each  of 
which  jierforms  functions  i)eculiar  to  itself;  namely,  the  sensi- 
tive faculty^  and  the   understanding}  .  .  .  Leibnitz,   indeed, 


Nor  arc  tlie  words,  experimental  and 
empirical,  by  any  means  Hynonyroous  in 
our  language.  The  latter  word  is  now 
almost  exclusively  appnipriatod  to  the 
practice  of  Medicine ;  and  when  so  un- 
derstood always  implies  a  rash  and  un- 
philosophical  use  of  Experience.  *'  The 
appellation  Empiric,"  says  the  late  Dr. 
John  Gregory,  **  is  generally  applied  to 
one  who,  from  observing  the  effects  of 
a  remedy  in  one  case  of  a  disease,  ap- 
plies it  to  all  the  various  cases  of  that 
distemper."  The  same  remark  may  be 
extended  to  the  woni  Empirique  in  the 
French  language,  which  is  very  nearly 
sjrnonymoas  with  Charlatan.  In  con- 
sequence of  this  abuse  of  terms,  the 
epithet  experimental,  as  well  as  empiri- 
cal, is  seldom  applied  by  foreign  writers 
to  the  pliilosophy  of  Locke,  without 
being  intended  to  convey  a  censure. 


*  [*  In  answer  to  the  question,  what 
is  meant  by  the  term  unArtiandingf 
we  are  told  by  Mr.  Nitsch,  that,  ac- 
cording to  Kant,  "  it  is  the  faculty 
which  enables  a  man  to  perceive  the 
agreement  or  disagreement  of  two  ideas 
immediately,  in  distinction  from  reason, 
which  makes  him  perceive  the  same 
agreement  or  disagreement  of  ideas  only 
mediately,  that  is  to  say,  by  means  of 
comparing  them  with  a  third.'' — Nitsch^ 
p.  40. 

To  the  English  reader  it  is  unneces- 
sary to  observe,  that  this  account  of  the 
understanding  is  an  exact  transcript  of 
Ixxjkc's  account  of  Intuition :  which, 
however,  it  may  not  be  suiM^rfluous  to 
add,  has  long  been  rejected  by  Ijocke's 
most  intelligent  followers,  as  one  of  the 
weakest  parts  of  his  work.  This  has 
l)een  shown  in  a  most  patisfactor\'  man- 


*  Reiitored.— £d. 


398 


mSBKBTATION. — PAHT  BEOOWD. 


Imd   likewia-    remai'ketl    the   distinction    subsisting    betwe* 
the  sensitive  faculty  and  tho  underatanding ;  hut  lie  c 
overlooked  tho  essential  difference  between  their  functions,  n 
was  of  ojiiuion  that  the  faculties  differed  from  on  _ 

only  in  degree.  ,  ,  ,  In  the  works  of  the  English  and  French 
philofiojihers,  we  find  this  essential  distinction  between  the 
seuffltive  and  the  intellectual  faculties,  and  their  conibiuation  _ 
towards  producing  one  Bynthetical  intuition,  scarcely  : 
tioned.  Locke  only  alludes  to  the  accidental  limitations  i 
both  faculties ;  but  to  inquitL'  info  the  essential  different^ 
between  them  does  not  at  all  occur  to  liim.  .  .  .  This  i 
tinction,  then,  between  the  sensitive  and  the  intelliK^ual  facul 
ties,  forms  an  essential  feature  in  the  [.ihilosophy  of  Kant,  a 
is,  indeed,  the  basis  ui>on  which  most  of  his  suhspquent  isi 
quiries  are  established." — Elements  of  the  Oii't.  PhiL  by  A.  F 
M.  Willich,  M.D.,  pp.  (J8-70. 

It  is  a  circumstance  not  easily  explicable,  that,  in  the  for 
going  historical  sketch,  no  mention  is  made  of  the  name  < 
Otidworth,  author  of  the  treatise  on  Eternal  and  Immm 
MoralUy;  a  book  which  could  scarcely  fail  t«  be  known,  bofop 
the  period  in  question,  to  every  German  schohir,  by  the  ad-fl 
inirable  Latin  version  of  it  published  by  Dr.  Mosheini.' 


nor  by  lt«iJ,  jii  liia  Khshjh  on  tlio  In- 
ttllectnal  powerti.  Nor  vroa  Bukl  tUo 
Hntl  (lu  hv  Boenu  k>  liavo  inmgined)  bf 
whom  iU  unHOunclncsH  wiu  exposml. 
On  Imiking  uvur  Lnvkc'B  tjorrcspondotice, 
I  GdJ  a  letter  aililrcsacd  to  Mj-,  Uolj- 
npux  by  nn  Iriah  bishop,  in  wbioh  tho 
IQoat  importaDt  of  Iteid's  olgcctinna  uro 
cumptotulj  imtlcipated ;  a  eoincidunce 
which  I  reiawk  chiefly,  an  it  aSbniii  a 
veiy  Btrong  presnmptiun,  that  Iheso  oU- 
jeclipns  arc  well  founciwl.] 

'  Tho  Gret  edition  uf  this  trnnslation 
n-Bs  prinbHl  ae  early  as  1732,  From 
Butilc'a  JTintor!/ of  Modem  ^hilotophi/, 
(a  wrn'k  which  dii)  not  full  into  my  hands 
litl  loag  after  Ibis  section  wna  writlcn,] 
1  find  Ihnt  CHdwortb'a  TrctiK  of  tm- 
miilnhk  Aturi'lit!/  is  now    nil   only  wtU 


known  lo  thi.'  >cUoliiiTi  of  Guruuuij,  I 
that  some  of  them  have  remarked  tte] 
identity  nf  llt«  ductrineii  contained  in  H 
nith  thoHC  of  Kant.     "  MeiDun,  dao« 
aon  histoire  gvnfrele  de  I'EthiiiiH^  ate 
que  lo  systSmo  moral  de  Cudwwth  toi^^ 
identique  avec  cclui  de  PUtoo,  et  p  '' 
Icni  an  contraire,  '  que  lea  p 
uonaidtres  commc  apparlettMU 
manicrc  la  plus  sp£ciale  il  la  iDonle  i 
Eant,  ctaioDt  enacignfs  il  y  a  d^l  ptdj 
doors  gienerationa  par  I'i-culo  da  pi  " 
siiphe  Anglais,  "--(f iff.   de   la   .' 
Modene,  tom>  iii-  p.  577.)    In  oppa 
Lion  to  this,  Buhle  xtntea  bis  own  di 
od  csnTicliim,  "  <\a'  ancune  dea  iilrai  d 
Cudworih  ae  se  rapproche  de  mIIob  d 
Kajit."—(Tb!d.)     How  far  Ibis 
lion  iit  »dl  fi-iindp.!.  iIip  pti-.aj 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


399 


this  treatise,  Cudworth  is  at  much  pains  to  illustrate  the  Pla- 
tonic doctrine  concerning  the  diflference  between  sensation  and 
intellection ;  asserting  that  '^  some  ideas  of  the  mind  proceed 
not  from  outward  sensible  objects,  but  arise  from  the  inward 
activity  of  the  mind  itself ;"  that  "  even  simple  corporeal 
things,  passively  perceived  by  sense,  are  known  and  understood 
only  by  the  active  power  of  the  mind;"  and  that,  besides 
AlaOi^fjLaTa  and  ^avraafiaTCh  there  must  be  Noi^fAara  or  intel- 
ligible ideas,  the  source  of  which  can  be  traced  to  the  under- 
standing alone.^ 


Cudworth,  quoted  jn  the  text,  will  en- 
able my  readers  to  judge  for  them- 
selves. 

That  Cudworth  has  blended  with  his 
principles  a  vein  of  Platonic  mysticism, 
which  is  not  to  be  foand  in  Kant,  is  un- 
deniable ;  but  it  docs  not  follow  from 
this,  that  none  of  Kant*8  leading  ideas 
are  borrowed  from  the  writings  of  Cud- 
worth. 

The  assertion  of  Buhle,  just  mention- 
ed,  is  the  more  surprising,  as  he  himself 
acknowledges  that  "  La  philosophie 
morale  de  Price  prt'sente  en  effet  nne 
analogic  frappante  avec  celle  de  Kant ;" 
and  in  another  part  of  his  work,  he  ex- 
preases  himself  thus  on  the  same  sub- 
ject :  "  Lc  plus  remarquable  de  tous  Us 
morulistes  modemes  de  1' Angleterre  est, 

sans  contredit,  Richard  Price 

On  remarque  Tanalogie  la  plus  frap- 
pante entre  ses  idees  snr  les  bases  de  la 
moralite,  et  celles  que  la  philosophic 
critique  a  fait  naitro  en  Allemagne, 
qnoiquHl  ne  soit  cependant  pas  possi- 
ble d'elever  le  plus  petit  doute  sur 
I'entiere  originalit6  de  cos  demieres." — 
(Tom.  V.  p.  303.)  Is  there  any  thing 
of  importance  in  the  system  of  Price, 
whicn  is  not  borrowed  from  the  Treatise 
of  Immutable  Morality^  Tlie  distin- 
guishing merit  of  this  learned  and  most 
respectable  writer  is  the  good  sense 
with  which  he  has  applied  the  doctrines 


of  Cudworth  to  the  sceptical  theories  of 
his  own  times. 

In  the  sequel  of  Buhlo^  reflections  on 
Cudworth *s  philosophy,  we  are  told, 
that,  according  to  him,  "  the  will  of 
Ood  is  only  a  simple  blind  power,  acting 
mechanically  or  accidentally."  ("  Chea 
Cudworth  la  volonte  memo  en  Dieu, 
n'est  qu'un  simple  pouvoir  aveugle, 
agissant  m^niquement  oa  acciden- 
tellement.")  If  this  were  true,  Cud- 
worth ought  to  be  ranked  among  the 
disciples,  not  of  Plato,  but  of  Spinoza. 

'  In  this  instance,  a  striking  resem- 
blance is  observable  between  the  lan- 
guage of  Cudworth  and  that  of  Kant ; 
both  of  them  having  followed  the  dis- 
tinctions of  the  Socratio  School,  as 
explained  in  the  Tliecetelua  of  Plato. 
They  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with 
Kant^s  Critiquet  will  immediately  re- 
cognise his  phraseology  in  the  passage 
quoted  above. 

[*  In  the  Philosophy  of  Kant  the 
name  yEsthetic  is  given  to  the  science 
which  treats  of  the  Laws  of  Sensation, 
in  contradistinction  to  Logic,  or  the 
doctrine  of  the  Understanding.  Noou- 
menon  denotes  an  object  or  thing  in 
itself,  in  opposition  to  the  term  pitamo- 
menon,  which  expresses  the  representa- 
tion of  an  object,  as  it  appears  to  our 
senses. —  WiUich^  pp.  139,  170.] 


*  Rentored— Eti. 


400 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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


English  literature.2 

*  See  a  review  of  the  Principal 
Qttestions  and  Difficulties  relating  to 
Morals  J  by  Richard  Price,  D.D.  Lon- 
don, 1758. 

•  I  have  mentioned  here  only  those 
works  of  a  modem  date,  which  may  be 
reasonably  presumed  to  be  still  in  ge- 
neral circulation  among  the  learned. 
But  many  very  valuable  illustrations  of 
the  Platonic  distinction  between  the 
senses  and  the  understanding,  may  be 
collected  from  the  English  writers  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Among  these  it 
is  sufficient  to  mention  at  present  the 
names  of  John  Smith  and  Henry  More 


of  Cambridge,  and  of  Joseph  Glanvill, 
the  author  of  Scepsis  ScienHfica. 

Cudworth's  Treatise  of  Eternal  and 
ImmtUable  Morality,  although  it  ap- 
pears, from  intrinsic  evidence,  to  have 
been  composed  during  the  lifetime  of 
Hobbes,  was  not  published  till  1731, 
when  the  author's  manuscript  came 
into  the  hands  of  his  grandson,  Francis 
Cudworth  Masham,  one  of  the  Masters 
in  Chancery.  This  work,  therefore, 
could  not  have  been  known  to  Leibnitz, 
who  died  seventeen  years  before  ;  a  cir- 
cumstance which  may  help  to  account 
for  its  having  attracted  so  much  less 


METAPHYSICS  DUillNQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUUY. 


401 


In  order,  however,  to  Htrike  at  the  root  of  wliat  tlie  Germans 
call  the  phtla80}?hi/  o/soiscifion,  it  was  ncKjessary  to  trace,  with 
some  degree  of  systematical  detail,  the  origin  of  our  most  im- 
portant simple  notions  ;  and  for  this  puri)08e  it  seemed  reason- 
able to  lx?gin  with  an  analytical  view  of  those  faculties  and 
powers,  to  the  exercise  of  which  the  development  of  these 
notions  is  necessarily  subsequent.  It  is  thus  that  the  simple 
notions  of  ti^ne  and  inotixm  pre8Uj)pose  the  exercise  of  the 
faculty  of  memory ;  and  that  the  simple  notions  of  truth^  of 
belief y  of  douht^  and  many  others  of  the  same  kind,  nccessiirily 
presupjiose  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  reasoning.  I  do  not 
know  that,  in  this  anatomy  of  the  mind,  much  progress  has 
hitherto  been  made  by  the  Grerman  metaphysicians.  A  great 
deal  certainly  has  been  accomplished  by  the  late  Dr.  Reid ; 
and  something,  perhaps,  has  been  added  to  his  labours  by  those 
of  liis  successors. 

According  to  Kant  liimself,  his  metaphysical  doctrines  first 
occurred  to  liim  while  employed  in  the  examination  of  Mr. 
Hmne's  Theory  of  Causation,  The  train  of  thought  by  which 
he  was  led  to  them  will  be  best  stated  in  his  own  words ;  for 
it  is  in  this  way  alone  that  I  can  hojie  to  escajx}  the  charge  of 
misrepresentation  from  his  followers.  Some  of  his  details 
would  perhaps  have  l)een  more  intelligible  to  my  reatlcrs,  had 


attcntiun  in  Cicriimnv  than  liis  LtttiVec- 
tiuil  SjittUm,  whirli  i'h  r('iH;ato<lly  nion- 
tioncd  by  T^ibnitz  in  t<tnu(i  of  tlio  high- 
ttX  praise. 

From  an  artit-le  in  the  Kdlnhmih 
Review  J  (vol.  xxvii.  p.  191,)  wo  leani 
that  larfj^c  uupublirthcd  inanQflcriptg  of 
Dr.  Cudwortli  arc  dcpiHited  in  the  Bri- 
tish MuRoum.  It  in  much  to  be  regretted, 
(as  the  author  of  the  article  obsoi-vt-H,) 
that  tlioy  .sh(»uld  have  been  so  long  with- 
hold from  the  public.  "The  prt'ss  of 
the  two  Universities,  (he  adds,)  would 
bo  properly  employed  in  works  which  a 
commercial  pubhshcr  could  not  prudently 
undertake.* '  May  we  not  indulge  a 
hope  that  this  suggestion  will,  sooner 
or  later,  liave  its  due  effect  ? 

VOL.  I. 


In  the  preface  of  Mosheim  to  his  I^atin 
versinn  of  the  Intellectual  iSifstemt  there 
is  a  catalogue  of  Cudworth's  unpublished 
remains,  communicati'd  to  Mosheim  by 
Dr.  Chandler,  then  liinhop  of  Durham. 
Among  these  are  two  distinct  works  on 
the  Controversy  concerning  Iiil)erty  and 
Necessity,  of  each  of  which  works  Mo- 
sheim has  given  us  the  general  contents. 
One  of  the  chaj)terH  is  entitled,  **  Answer 
to  the  ( )bjection  against  Lilterly,  fAnlit 
AvatTft.^^  It  is  not  pmbable  that  it  con- 
tains any  thing  very  new  or  important ; 
but  it  would  certainly  be  worth  while  to 
know  the  reply  made  by  Cudwortli  to  nn 
objection  whi<:h  both  Ijcibnitz  and  La 
Place  have  fixed  upon  as  decisive  of  the 
point  in  dispute.  [Pee  Note  D  D  D. — Ed.] 

2C 


I 


402  DIB8EBTAT10N. — ?ART  SECOND. 

my  plan  allowed  mc  to  prefix  to  them  a  slight  outline  < 
Hume's  philosophy.  But  this  the  general  arrangement  of  to 
discouTBe  rendered  impossible ;  nor  can  any  material  incoi 
venience  reaidt,  in  this  instance,  from  the  order  which  I  hav 
adopted,  inasmuch  as  Hume's  Theory  o/Catuation,  how  nei 
soever  it  may  have  appeared  to  Kant,  is  fundamentally  th 
same  with  that  of  Malebranche,  and  of  a  variety  of  other  ol 
writers,  both  French  and  English. 

"  Since  tlie  Essays  (says  Kant)'  of  Locke  and  of  Leibnita 
or  rather  since  the  origin  of  metaphysics,  as  far  as  their  hiator 
extends,  no  circumstance  has  occurred,  which  might  have  beei 
more  decisive  of  the  fate  of  this  science  than  the  attack  madi 
upon  it  by  David  Hume.'  He  proceeded  upon  a  single  bu 
important  idea  in  metaphysics,  the  connexion  of  cause  bu< 
effect,  and  the  concomitant  notions  of  power  and  action.  Hi 
challenged  reason  to  answer  liim  what  title  she  hod  to  imagin< 
that  anything  may  be  so  constituted  as  that,  if  it  be  ^ven 
something  else  is  also  thereby  inferred ;  for  the  idea  of  causi 
denotes  this.  He  proved  beyond  contradiction,  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  reason  to  tliink  of  such  a  connexion  a  priori,  for  il 
contains  jiecessity ;  but  it  is  not  possible  to  perceive  how. 
because  something  is,  something  else  must  necessarily  be ;  doi 
how  the  idea  of  such  a  connexion  can  be  introduced  a  priori, 

"  Hence,  he  concluded,  that  reason  entirely  deceives  hersell 
with  this  idea,  and  that  she  erroneously  considers  it  as  her  own 
child,  when  it  is  only  the  spurious  offspring  of  imagmation. 
impregnated  by  experience ;  a  svhjective  necessity,  arising 
from  habit  and  the  association  of  ideas,  being  thus  substituted 

'  Sec  the  Preface  oT  Kant  to  one  of  the  Latin  trantUtion.— £iein,  of  Criti 

hU  Treaties,  entitled  ProUgomena  ad  eal  PkHoiophy,  by  A.  F.  M.  Willicb, 

Metaphytaam  qaamqve  fvturam  ipue  M.D,,  p,  JO,  et  teq.    London,  1798, 
t/ua  Scimlia  polerii  prodirr.    1  hate 

availed  myaelfiii  tbeteit  of  the  Engl  ieh  '"Humivi, — Qui  quidem  nullom  bait 

TetsioD  of  Dr.  Willicli,  from  tlie  Ger-  cognitionia  parti  luocm  adfiidit,  sed  ta 

man  original,  which  I  haie  carefully  men  excitarit  scintillani,  de  qua  sane 

compared   with  the   Latin   Teraioa   of  lumen  potuisaet  accendi,  si  ca  incidiaset 

Bom.      A  few  sentences,  omitted  by  in  fomitem,  facile  accipienlem,  cojua- 

Williuh,  I  hft*«  thought  it  worth  while  que  stintillntio  dillgenler  alia  fiieHt  el 

to  qnole,  at  the  foot  of  tbp  p*g«,  finm  ancta." 


METAPHYSICS  DrillNG  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


4()3 


tor  an  ohjective  one  derived  from  i)ercei)tion.  .  .  .  IIowevtT 
liOHty  and  unwarrantable  Hume's  conclusion  might  ap|)ear,  yet 
it  was  founded  upon  investigation ;  and  this  investigation  well 
deservwl  that  some  of  the  philosophers  of  his  time  should  have 
united  to  solve,  more  happily  if  possible,  the  problem  in  the 
sense  in  which  he  delivenxl  it:  A  complete  reform  of  the 
science  might  have  resulted  from  this  solution.  But  it  is  a 
mortifying  reflection,  that  his  op|X)nent8,  Reid,  Beattie,  Osi^'ald, 
and  lastly,  Priestley  himself,  totally  misunderstood  the  tendency 
of  his  problem.^  The  question  was  not,  whether  the  idea  of 
cause  be  in  itself  proper  and  indisi^enstible  to  the  illustration  of 
all  natural  knowledge,  for  this  Hume  liad  never  doubted ;  but 
whether  this  idea  l)e  an  object  of  thought  through  reasoning  a 
priori  ;  and  whether,  in  this  manner,  it  possesses  internal  evi- 
dence, independently  of  all  experience ;  consequently,  whether 
its  utility  be  not  limited  to  objects  of  sense  alone.  It  was 
upon  this  point  that  Hume  exjiected  an  explanation.* 

"  I  freely  own  it  was  these  suggestions  of  Hume's  which  first, 
many  years  ago,  roused  me  from  my  dogmatical  slimil)er,  and 
gave  to  my  inquiries  quite  a  different  direction  in  the  field  of 
speculative  philosophy.  I  was  far  from  being  carrietl  away  by 
his  conclusions,  the  fallacy  of  which  chiefly  an>se  from  his  not 
forming  to  himself  an  idea  of  the  tvhofe  of  his  problem^  but 
merely  investigating  a  part,  of  it,  the  solution  of  which  was 
impossible  without  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  whole.  Wlien 
we  proceed  on  a  well  founded,  though  not  thoroughly  digested 
thought,  we  may  exiHXJt,  by  patient  and  continued  reflection, 
to  prosecute  it  farther  than  the  acute  genius  had  done  to  whom 


'  "  Non  potest  Hino  ccrto  qiUHlain  mo- 
Ie8ti«>  BcnHU  i>ercipi,  (pmntopore  ejus 
adverwirii,  i?<»iV/iiM,  Oetcahhis,  Benttiun, 
ct  tiiiulem  PriesVeittn^  a  Bcopoqiiiestioni'n 
aberrarent,  ct  pn>ptoroa  quod  ra  Bompcr 
arciperent  pro  conrcssis,  qiiH?  ipso  in 
(luHuin  vocarct,  contra  vero  cum  vehe- 
mcntia,  ct  maximam  partem  cum  in- 
f^^cnti  immodcRtia  ea  proliarc  gcstircnt, 
quae  illi  nunquam  in  mcntem  vcnisnct 
lUibitaro,  tttttum  ejuR  ad  cmcndationcm 


ita  nogligcrcnt,  ut  omnia  in  fltatu  pri?- 
tino  manerct,  quasi  nihil  quidquum  fai*- 
tum  vidcretur." 

•  Although  nothing  can  W  more  un 
just  than  these  remarks,  in  the  muiuah'- 
ficd  form  in  vfh'ich  tliey  are  stated  hy 
Kant,  it  must,  I  think,  be  acknowledg- 
ed, that  some  groimds  for  them  have 
l>e«'n  furnished  by  occasional  passages 
which  dn>pped  from  the  pens  of  most 
of  Mr.  Hume's  Scottish  opponents. 


404 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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


*  [*  The  foregoing  remarks  and  ex- 
tracts may  enable  my  readers  to  enter 
more  easily  into  the  idea  which  led 
Kant  to  entitle  his  book  the  Critique  of 
Pure  Beason.  The  fundamental  prin- 
ciple on  which  he  proceeds  is,  that 
there  are  various  notions  and  truths, 
the  knowledge  of  which  is  altogether 


independent  of  experience,  and  is  con- 
sequently obtained  by  the  exercise  of 
our  rational  faculties,  unaided  by  any 
information  derived  from  without.  A 
systematical  exposition  of  these  notions 
and  truths  forms  (according  to  him) 
what  is  properly  called  the  Science  of 
Metaphysics,  t    To  that  power  of  the 


•  Restored.— £!ci. 

t  [The  object  of  metaphysics  (aoeording  to  D'Alembert)  is  precisely  the  reverse  of  this :  "  La 
rndtaphysique  a  pour  but  d'examiner  la  g^n^tion  de  nos  id^s,  et  de  proaver  qu'elles  viennent 
iouUi  de  nos  sensations.*— (i?i<'/N.  de  Philot.  p.  143,  M<ilangos,  toI.  It.)  So  diametrically  oppodte 
io  each  other  are  the  logical  views  of  German  and  of  French  philosophers.] 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THB  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


405 


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

"  That  there  are  some  ideas  of  the  mind,  (says  Dr.  Cud- 
worth,)  which  were  not  stamped  or  imprinted  upon  it  from 
the  sensible  objects  without,  and  therefore  must  needs  arise 
from  the  innate  vigour  and  activity  of  the  mind  it«elf,  is  evi- 
dent in  that  there  are,  First^  Ideas  of  such  things  as  are 
neither  affections  of  bodies,  nor  could  l)e  imprinted  or  conveyed 
by  any  local  motions,  nor  can  be  pictured  at  all  by  the  fancy 
in  any  sensible  colours ;  such  as  are  the  ideas  of  wisdom,  folly, 
prudence,  impnidence,  knowledge,  ignorance,  verity,  falsity, 
virtue,  vice,  honesty,  dishonesty,  justice,  injustice,  volition, 
cogitation,  nay,  of  sense  itwlf,  which  is  a  species  of  cogitation, 
and  which  is  not  pere(>i)tible  by  any  sense ;  and  many  other 


iinilerBtandiiif;^,  which  enables  us  to  form 
notions  and  to  pronounce  judgments  a 
priorif  without  any  a<lveiititiouH  lights 
furnished  by  experience,  Kant  gives  the 
name  of  Pure  Season ;  and  the  aim  of 
his  Critique  is  to  assist  us  in  examin- 
ing the  titles  which  particular  supposed 
truths  have  to  a  place  in  this  metaphy- 
sical system ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  ex- 
hibit the  extent  and  to  define  the  limits 
of  that  province   which  Pure  Heaton 


claims  as  exclusively  her  own.  See  Wil- 
lioh,  p.  38,  et  seq.  See  also  the  Preface 
prefixed  to  a  work  entitled,  Prclegomena 
ad  Metaphifticam  quamquefuturam  qum 
qua  Scientia  poterit  prodire.  Kantii 
Opera,  ex  versione  Bomii.  Lips.  1787. 
Vol.  ii.  p.  6,  ei  seq!\ 

*  Hcinew  of  tlie  Principal  Questioru 
ami  IHfficultiea  in  Morals ,  chap.  i.  sect. 
2.  The  first  edition  of  this  book  wa» 
printed  in  1758. 


406 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


siich  like  notions  as  include  something  of  cogitation  in  them, 
or  refer  to  cogitative  beings  only;  which  ideas  must  needs 
spring  from  the  active  power  and  innate  fecundity  of  the  mind 
itself,^  because  the  corporeal  objects  of  sense  can  imprint  no 
such  things  upon  it.  Secondly^  In  that  there  are  many  rela- 
tive notions  and  ideas,  attributed  as  well  to  corporeal  as  incor- 
poreal things,  that  proceed  wholly  from  the  activity  of  the 
mind  comparing  one  thing  with  another.  Such  as  are  Cause, 
Effect,  means,  end,  order,  proportion,  similitude,  dissimili- 
tude, equality,  inequality,  aptitude,  inaptitude,  synunetry,  asym- 
metry, whole  and  part,  genus  and  species,  and  the  like." — 
Immutable  Moi^cUity,  pp.  148,  149. 

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

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

"  If  there  wei'e  no  other  perceptive  power  or  faculty  distinct 
from  external  sense,  all  oiu:  perceptions  would  be  merely  rela- 
tive, seeming,  and  fantastical,  and  not  reach  to  the  absolute  and 


*  This  18  precisely  the  language  of 
the  German  School :  "  Les  vcrites  ne- 
cessaires,"  says  Leibnitz,  "  sont  le  pro- 
diiit  immcdiat  dc  Taclivite  intcrieiire." 
—Tom.  i.  p.  6S6 ;  torn.  ii.  pp.  42,  325. 
See  Degcrando,  Hist.  Comp.  torn.  ii. 
pp.  96. 

^  In  the  attempt,  indeed,  which  Kant 


has  made  to  enumerate  all  the  general 
ideas  which  are  not  derived  from  expe- 
rience, but  arise  out  of  the  pure  under- 
standing, he  may  well  lay  claim  to  the 
praise  of  originality.  On  this  sub- 
ject I  shall  only  refer  my  readers  to 
Note  X  X  at  the  end  of  this  Disser- 
tation. 


METAPHT8IC8  DUBING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUBY.        407 


certain  truth  of  anything ;  and  every  one  would  but,  as  Pro- 
tagoras expounds,  ^  think  his  own  private  and  relative  thoughts 
truths,'  and  all  our  cogitations  being  nothing  but  appearances, 
would  be  indifferently  alike  true  phantasms,  and  one  as  another. 

"  But  we  have  since  also  demonstrated,  that  there  is  another 
perceptive  power  in  the  soul  8Uj)erior  to  outward  sense,  and  of 
a  distinct  nature  from  it,  which  is  the  power  of  knowing  or 
understanding,  that  is,  an  active  exertion  from  the  mind  itself ; 
and,  therefore,  has  this  grand  eminence  above  sense,  tliat  it  is 
no  idiopathy,  not  a  mere  private,  relative,  seeming,  and  fantas- 
tical thing,  but  the  comprehension  of  that  which  absolutely  is 
and  is  not" ' 

After  enltu*ging  on  the  distuiction  between  the  sensitive 
faculty  and  the  understanding,  Kant  proceeds  to  investigate 
certain  essential  conditions,  without  which  neither  tlie  sensitive 
faculty  nor  its  object*  are  conceivable.     These  conditions  are 


*  InunutahU  Mondity^  p.  264,  et  ieq. 
\*  A  great  part  of  the  controversy  be- 
tween the  Dogmatistfi  and  the  Sceptics 
of  (Germany  with  respect  to  gubjeclive 
and  objective  truths,  resolves  into  the 
old  (.^artesian  diupute  about  the  veracity 
of  our  faculties ;  a  dispute  which,  as  it 
necessarily  appeals  to  the  decision  of 
those  very  faculties  whose  authority  is 
called  in  question,  cannot  be  subjected 
to  logical  discussion  without  the  most 
manifest  inconsistency  and  absurdity ; 
and  which,  after  being  so  long  agitated 
in  the  Cartesian  schools,  one  would 
scarcely  have  expected  to  see  revived, 
as  a  new  metaphysical  problem,  in  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  order 
to  prove  that  our  faculties  do  not  deceive 
us,  Descartes,  as  my  readers  will  recol- 
lect, appealed  to  the  jwrfect  veracity  of 
our  Maker ;  but  in  this  argument  it  was 
early  and  justly  objected  to  him  that  he 
reasoned  in  a  rircle.  On  the  otluT  hand, 
ho  gave  much  more  countenance  than 
he  was  aware  of  to  the  Scepticn,  by  rc- 
pn'seuting  even  necessary  truths  as  cn- 

•  Re»l«red 


tirely  de])endent  upon  the  Divine  Will ; 
affirming  that  Qod,  if  he  pleased,  could 
alter  the  whole  theorems  of  Geometry, 
and  could  even  make  two  contradictory 
propositions  to  be  both  true.    In  a  letter 
to  Gasscndi,  ho  endeavoured  to  obviate 
the  sceptical  consequences  which  this 
doctrine  seems   to  threaten ;    but  the 
evasion  he  had  recourse  to  was  so  piti- 
ful, that  ('udworth,  forgettuig  for  a  mo- 
ment his  usual  liberality,  expresses  his 
doubts  "  whether  he  was  more  in  ear- 
nest in  proposing  it,  than  where  he  else- 
where attempted   to  defend  Transub- 
Htantiation  by  the  principles  of  his  new 
philosophy.*' — "  As  the  poets  feign  (said 
Descartes)  that  the  Fates  were  indeed 
fixed  by  Jui)iter,  but  that,  when  they 
were  fixed,  ho  had  obliged  himself  to 
the  preserving  of  them  ;  so  I  do  not 
think  that  the  eHscnces  of  tliingH,  and 
those  mathematical  truths  which  can  be 
know  n  of  them,  art-  iii(U']>endcnt  on  Ciwl ; 
but  1  think,  nev('rth(*lcHH,  that  because 
(iod  so  wille<l  and  ho  ordcrrd,  tlu'n*fore 
they  are  iniujntnbk'  and  ot^'inal."] 


408  DISSERTATION.— PART  SECOND. 

time  and  »pace,  which,  in  the  language  of  Kant,  are  the  forms 
of  all  phenomena.  What  his  peculiar  ideas  are  concerning  their 
nature  and  attributes,  my  readers  will  find  stated  in  his  own 
words  at  the  end  of  this  Discourse,  in  an  extract  from  one  of 
his  Latin  publications.*  From  that  extract  I  cannot  promise 
them  much  instruction ;  but  it  will  at  least  enable  them  to 
judge  for  themselves  of  the  peculiar  character  of  Kant's  meta- 
physical phraseology.  In  the  meantime,  it  will  be  sufficient  to 
mention  here,  for  the  sake  of  connexion,  that  he  denies  tlie 
objective  reality  both  of  time  and  of  space.  The  former  he 
considers  merely  as  a  mihjective  condition,  inseparably  connected 
with  the  frame  of  the  human  mind,  in  consequence  of  which,  it 
arranges  sensible  phenomena  according  to  a  certain  law,  in  the 
order  of  succession.  As  to  the  latter,  he  asserts  that  it  is  no- 
thing ohjective  or  7'eal,  inasmuch  as  it  is  neither  a  substance, 
nor  an  accident,  nor  a  relation  ;  that  its  existence,  therefore,  is 
only  auhjective  and  ideal,  depending  on  a  fixed  law,  inseparable 
from  the  frame  of  the  human  mind.  In  consequence  of  this 
law,  we  are  led  to  conceive  all  external  tilings  as  placed  in 
space  j  or,  as  Kant  expresses  it,  we  are  led  to  consider  space  as 
the  fundamental  form  of  every  external  sensation. 

In  selecting  Kant's  speculations  concerning  timje  and  space 
as  a  specimen  of  his  mode  of  writing,  I  was  partly  influenced 
by  the  consideration  that  it  furnishes,  at  the  same  time,  a  re- 
markable example  of  the  coiicatenatiou  which  exists  between 
the  most  remote  and  seemingly  the  most  unconnected  parts  of 
his  system.  Wlio  could  suppose  that  his  opinions  on  these 
subjects,  the  most  abstract  and  the  most  controverted  of  any  in 
the  whole  compass  of  metaphysics,  bore  on  the  great  practical 
question  of  the  freedom  of  the  Human  Will  ?  The  combina- 
tion appears,  at  first  sight,  so  very  extraordinary,  that  I  have 
no  doubt  I  shall  gratify  the  curiosity  of  some  of  my  readers  \>y 
mentioning  a  few  of  the  intermediate  steps  which,  in  tliis  argu- 
ment, lead  from  the  premises  to  the  conclusion. 

That  Kant  conceived  the  free  agency  of  man  to  be  necessarily 
implied  in  his  moral  nature,  (or.  at  least,  that  be  was  anxious 

'  See  Note  Y  V. 


METArHYWCS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


409 


to  offer  no  violence  to  the  common  language  of  the  world  on 
this  i)oint3)  api)ear8  from  his  own  explicit  declnrations  in  various 
|>art8  of  his  works.  "  Voluntas  libera  (says  he  in  one  instance) 
eadem  est  cum  voluntate  legibus  moralibus  obnoxia."^ 

In  all  the  accounts  of  Kant's  philosophy  which  have  yet  ap- 
peared from  the  pens  of  his  admirers  in  this  country,  particular 
stress  is  laid  on  the  ingenuity  with  which  he  has  unloosed  this 
knot,  which  had  baffled  the  wisdom  of  all  his  predecessors.  The 
following  are  the  wortls  of  one  of  liis  o>\ti  pupils,  to  whom  we 
are  indebted  for  the  first,  and,  I  think,  not  the  least  intelli- 
gible, view  of  his  principles,  which  has  been  publishe<l  in  our 
language.  2 

"  Professor  Kant  is  deeidcMlly  of  opinion,  that  although  many 
strong  and  ingenious  arguments  have  l>een  brought  forward  in 
favour  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  they  are  yet  very  far  from 
being  decisive.  Nor  have  they  refuted  the  nrgunients  urged  by 
the  Necessitarians,  but  by  an  apjwal  to  mere  feeling,  which,  on 
such  a  question,  is  of  no  avail.  For  this  purjwsi*,  it  is  indis- 
lK?n.sably  necessary  to  call  to  om-  assistance  the  principles  of 
Kant/'3 

"  In  treating  this  subject,  (continues  the  same  author,)  Kant 
begins  with  shewing  that  the  notion  of  a  Free  Will  is  not  con- 
tnidic^tor}'.  In  i)roof  of  this  he  observes,  that  although  every 
human  action,  as  an  event  in  time,  must  have  a  cause,  and  so 
on  ad  wjiuitum  ;  yet  it  is  certain,  tliat  the  laws  of  cause  and 


*  Sec  lloni'M  r.atin  Traiihlation  of 
Knnt'H  W'orkH,  rolutinj?  to  tlio  Critical 
PhUmopJnf^  vol.  ii.  p.  ,'{25,  et  sr.q.  Sec 
bIbo  the  Preface  to  vol.  iii. 

•  A  Genend  and  Iiitrotluctori/  lletr 
of  ProfhtMor  Kaut^nf  Prinrij.U's  nnirern- 
inft  Man^  the  Wttritl,  and  the  I^fity, 
fiihmittfd  to  thr  consideration  of  tlie 
lAiarned^  by  F.  A.  NitKili,  late  Lecturer 
ou  tlie  Ijtitin  Lanpriiaf^c  and  Mat1i<Mim- 
tics  in  the  lloyal  Frr«IorI<ian  Collejro  at 
K(»nig8l»erp,  and  piij)il  of  Pruft'SKor  Kant. 
I^ndon,  17%. 

This  Kniall  perfin-niancv  i*<  .-[lokcMi  '»[" 
ill  iMiii^  hichU  Uv'uraM^  li\  thf  •■thor 


writers  wlio  have  attenipt<-d  to  intn>diice 
Kant'n  philosopliy  into  England.  It  in 
called  hy  Dr.  Willich  an  cjrrtUetU publi- 
cation, {E'emenia  of  the  Critiod  Phdo- 
fftphy,  p.  i)l :)  and  iH  pn>nounccd  by  the 
author  of  the  elaborate  articloK  on  that 
Bubject  in  the  Enciidajwdia  lAmdin- 
ensin  to  lie  a  sterlinfj  icork.  "  I'hough 
at  present  very  little  known,  I  may  ven- 
ture," miys  this  writer,  "  to  ])rediet  that, 
ns  time  rolln  ou  and  prejudices  tnonlder 
a\vay,  thin  work,  like  Xhi:  Kvmcuts  ofhJu- 
r'id,  will  stand  forth  as  a  hiHtini;  monu- 
nHiit  of  iTiiK  Titrni." — See  \"t(  Z  Z. 
'  NitMJi.  Ctr.  pp.  172,  17:1. 


410  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

eflfect  can  have  a  place  there  only  wliere  time  is,  for  the  effect 
must  be  consequent  on  the  cause.  But  neither  time  nor  ^xice 
are  properties  of  things ;  they  are  only  the  general  forms  under 
which  man  is  allowed  to  view  himself  and  the  world.  It  fol- 
lows, therefore,  that  man  is  not  in  time  nor  in  space,  although 
the  forms  of  his  intuitive  ideas  are  time  and  space.  But  if  man 
exist  not  in  time  and  space,  he  is  not  influenced  by  the  laws  of 
time  and  space,  among  which  those  of  cause  and  effect  hold  a 
distinguished  rank ;  it  is,  therefore,  no  contradiction  to  conceive 
that,  in  such  an  order  of  things,  man  may  be  free."^ 

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

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

*  Nitscli,  &c.  pp.  174,  175.  taut  qii'elle  CHt   dt'teniiince  pur  la  loi 

•  The  account  of  this  part  of  Kant's  morale  seiile.  Si  Ton  considere  cctte 
dwtrine  given  by  M.  Buhle  agrees  in  disi^sition  conime  phinom^ne  dans  la 
substance  with  that  of  Mr.  Nitsch  :  conscience  ;  c'est  un  evenemcnt  naturel, 
"  Toute  nioralite  des  actions  repose  uni-  elle  obeit  n  hi  loi  de  la  causalitc,  elle  rc- 
(|uoniont  sur  la  dispo.sition  praclique,  en  pose  sur  cc  (jue  I'lionime  a  eprouve  an- 


METAPHTSICH  DUBING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


411 


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


paravont  dans  Ic  terns,  et  die  fait  partie 
du  caractjirc  enipirique  do  I'liomme. 
Mais  on  pent  aiissi  la  considerer  comme 
un  actc  do  la  liberto  raisonnablo  :  Alors 
elle  n'est  plus  soumisc  k  la  loi  do  la 
causalito ;  elle  est  indi'pendaute  de  la 
condition  du  temps,  cllo  so  rapporte  k 
une  cause  intelligible,  la  liberty,  ct  elle 
fait  partie  du  caractere  intelligible  de 
I'homme.  On  no  peut,  k  la  verite,  point 
acquerir  la  moindro  connoissancc  des 
objets  intelligiblcs ;  mais  la  liberte  n'est 
pas  moins  un  fait  de  la  conscience. 
Done  les  actions  exterieurcs  sent  indif- 
ferentes  pour  la  moralitu  do  I'homme. 
La  bonte  morale  de  riiommc  consiste 
uniquement  dans  sa  volonte  moralement 
bonne,  et  celle>ci  consisto  en  ce  que  la 
volonte  Boit  determinee  par  la  loi  morale 
seulc." — Hitt.  de  la  PhUosophUModeme^ 
par  J.  G.  Buhle,  torn.  vi.  pp.  504,  505. 

Very  nearly  to  the  sumo  purpose  is 
the  following  Htatement  by  the  ingenious 
author  of  the  article  Ijeihnitz  in  tho 
Jiioffraphie  Universelle  : — "  Comment 
accorder  \cfaium  et  la  liberte,  I'imputa- 
tion  morale  et  la  depeudance  des  ctres 
finies  ?  Kant  croit  ochappor  a  cot  ecueil 
en  no  soumettant  h  la  loi  de  causnlite 
(au  d^terminUine  de  Ix'ibnitz)  que  Ic 
moude  phunominique,  et  en  alfranchiH- 
saut  do  cc  princijK;  I'aiuc  comme  nou- 


ftthie  ou  chose  en  soi,  envisageant  ainsi 
chaquo  action  comme  appartenant  ^  un 
double  serie  k  la  fois  ;  k  I'ordre  physique 
o^  olio  est  enchain^e  ^  ce  qui  precede 
et  ^  ce  qui  suit  par  les  liens  communs 
de  la  nature,  et  k  Tordre  morale,  oti  une 
determination  produit  un  effet,  sans  que 
pour  expliquer  cette  volition  et  son  r6- 
sultat,  on  soit  renvoy6  h  un  etat  ante- 
cedent." 

Tho  author  of  the  above  passage  is 
M.  Staffer,*  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for 
the  article  KarU  in  tho  same  work.  For 
Kant's  own  view  of  the  subject  consult 
his  Critique  of  Pure  Rea$on^  poMtim^ 
particularly  p.  99,  el  »eq,  of  Bom's 
Translation,  vol.  iii. 

^  The  idea  of  Kant  (according  to  his 
own  explicit  avowal)  was,  that  every 
being,  which  conceives  itself  to  be  free, 
whether  it  be  in  reality  so  or  not,  is 
rendered  by  its  own  belief  a  moral  and 
accountable  agent.  "  Jam  equidem  dico : 
quffique  natura,  quK  non  potest  nisi  sub 
idea  liherUitis  agere,  propter  id  ipsum, 
re8j)ectu  practico,  reipsa  libera  est ;  hoc 
est,  ad  eam  valent  cunctffi  leges,  cum 
libertate  arctissime  coiyuncta;  perinde, 
ac  voluntas  ejus  etiam  |)cr  se  ip8am,  et  in 
])hiloHopliia  tlieoreticu  probata,  libera  de- 
clarutur." — Kantii  Opera,  vol.  ii.  p.  320. 

This  Ih  also  tho  creed  professed  by 


*  [M.  Maine  de  Birun  ?  At  leaBt  RUiong  hii  remaiiu  we  han*.  "  KxpuMtitm  dc  la  Dcictrine  Philo- 
Fophiqne  de  Leibniu.— Com/'oxr  pour  Ut  liioin'aiihu-  t'/i/ir#-«t7/;"— and  thnf  artick  lis  attributed 
t*.  him  by  M.  O.unin. -/•;«/] 


412 


DISSEBTATION, — PAHT  SECOND. 


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

"  Nunquam  aliud  natura,  aliud  sapientia  dicit," 

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

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

That  it  was  Kant's  original  aim  to  establish  a  system  of 
scepticism,  I  am  far  from  being  disposed  to  think.  ^     The  pro- 


tbe  Abbe  Gallani,  a  miicb  more  danger- 
ous moralist  than  Kant,  because  be  is 
always  intelligible,  and  often  extremely 
lively  and  amusing.  "  L'homme  est 
done  libre,  puisquHl  est  intimement  per 
suadc  de  Tetro,  et  que  cela  vaut  tout  au- 
tant  que  la  liberte.  Voila  done  le  vicca- 
nUme  de  Vunivers  exjiluj^U  clair  comme 
de  Veau  de  rochet  The  same  author 
farther  remarks,  '*  La  persuasion  de  la 
liberte  constitue  I'esscucc  de  rhnnim4'. 
On  pourroit  ni»*me  dcfiuir  rhomme  rn\ 


animal  qui  se  croit  libre^  et  ce  seroit 
une  definition  complete." — Correspond" 
ancede,  V  Ahhfi,  Ofrh'ani,  tom.  i.  pp.  330, 
340.     A  Paris,  1818. 

*  On  the  contrary,  be  declares  expli- 
citly, (and  I  give  him  full  credit  for  the 
sincerity  of  bis  words,)  that  he  con- 
sidered bis  Critifjue  of  Pare  lieoRon 
as  the  only  effectual  antidote  against  the 
oppobite  extremes  of  scepticism  and  of 
superstition,  as  well  as  against  various 
heretical  doctrines  which  at  present  in- 


MKTAPHYaiCS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         413 

l)ability  is,  that  he  began  with  a  serious  wish  to  refute  the  doc- 
trines of  Hume ;  and  that,  in  the  progress  of  his  inqumes,  he 
met  with  obstacles  of  which  he  was  not  aware.  It  was  to  re- 
move these  obstacles  tliat  he  had  recourse  to  practical  reason ; 
an  idea  which  has  every  appearance  of  being  an  after-thoughty 
very  remote  from  liis  views  when  he  first  undertook  his  work. 
This,  too,  would  seem,  from  the  following  passage,  (wliich  I 
translate  from  Degerando,)  to  have  been  the  opinion  of  one  of 
Kant's  ablest  Grerman commentators,  M.  Reinhold:  ^'Practical 
Reason  (as  Reinhold  ingeniously  observes)  is  a  wing  which 
Kant  has  prudently  added  to  his  edifice,  from  a  sense  of  the  in- 
adequacy of  the  original  design  to  answer  the  intended  purpose. 
It  bears  a  manifest  resemblance  to  wliat  some  pliilosophers  call 
an  appeal  to  sentiment^  founding  belief  on  the  necessity  of  act- 
ing. Whatever  contempt  Kant  may  affect  for  popular  systems 
of  philosophy,  this  manner  of  considering  the  subject  is  not  un- 
like the  disposition  of  those  who,  filling  their  inability  to  ob- 
tain, by  the  exercise  of  their  reason,  a  direct  conviction  of  their 
religious  creed,  cling  to  it  nevertheless  with  a  blind  eagerness, 
as  a  sui)port  essential  to  their  morals  and  their  happiness.'* 
— Hist.  ComjpareCy  vol.  ii.  pp.  243,  244. 

The  extraordinary  impression  produced  for  a  considerable 
time  in  Grermany,  by  the  Critiqiie  of  Pure  Reason^  is  very 
shrewdly,  and  I  suspect  justly,  accounted  for  by  the  writer  last 
quoted  :  "  The  system  of  Kant  was  well  adapted  to  flatter  the 
weaknesses  of  the  human  mind.  Curiosity  was  excited,  by  see- 
ing paths  o]wned  which  liad  never  lieen  trodden  before.  The 
love  of  mystery  found  a  secret  charm  in  the  obscurity  which 
enveloped  the  doctrine.  The  long  and  troublesome  i)eriod  of 
initiation  was  calculated  to  rouse  the  ambition  of  bold  and 
adventurous  spirits.  Their  love  of  singularity  w^aa  gratified  by 
the  new  nomenclature ;  while  their  vanity  exulted  in  the  idea 
of  being  admitted  into  a  privileged  sect,  exercising,  and  entitled 

feet  the  BchoolH  of  pliilosopby.     "  Hac  potest   i)cnetraro,   tandemqne  ctiam  ot 

igitur  sola  {Philo8oj)hia  Critica)  et  ma-  idcalisnu    ct    scepticiHini,    qui    magis 

terialismi,  et  fatalismi,  et  Athcismi,  ct  BcholiH  sunt  pcKtifcri,  radices  ipsie  poB- 

diffidentise  profanae,  ct  fanatiRnii,  et  su-  sunt  pnecidi." — Kant,  Prfrf.  PotterU^^ 

perstitionis,  quorum  virus  ad  universos  p.  35. 


414  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

to  exercise,  the  supreme  censorship  in  philosophy.  Even  men 
of  the  most  ordinary  parts,  on  finding  themselves  called  to  so 
high  functions,  lost  sight  of  their  real  mediocrity,  and  conceived 
themselves  transformed  into  geniuses  destined  to  form  a  new 
era  in  the  history  of  reason. 

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

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


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        415 

to  cavil  about  restrictioas  and  conditions  even  in  favour  of  its 
own  independence." 

With  these  causes  of  Kant's  success  another  seems  to  have 
powerfully  conspired ;  the  indissoluble  coherence  and  concate- 
nation of  all  the  different  parts  of  his  philosophy.  "  It  is  on 
this  concatenation  (says  M.  Provost)  tliat  the  admiration  of 
Kanf  s  followers  is  chiefly  foimded."  Grant  only  (they  boast) 
the  first  principUa  of  the  Critical  PhUoaophy^  and  you  must 
grant  the  whole  system.  The  passage  quoted  on  this  occasion 
by  M.  Prevost  is  so  forcibly  expressed,  that  I  cannot  do  it 
justice  in  an  English  version :  ^^  Ab  hinc  enim  capitibus  fluere 
necesse  est  omnem  philosophisB  criticie  rationis  puree  vim  atque 
virtutem ;  namque  in  ea  contextus  rerum  prorsus  mirabilis  est, 
ita  ut  extrema  primis,  media  utrisque,  omnia  omnibus  respon- 
deant ;  si  prima  dederis  danda  sunt  omnia."  ^  No  worse  ac- 
count could  well  have  been  given  of  a  philosophical  work  on 
such  a  subject ;  nor  could  any  of  its  characteristical  features 
have  been  pointed  out  more  symptomatic  of  its  ephemeral 
reputation.  Supposing  the  praise  to  be  just,  it  represented 
the  system,  however  fair  and  imposing  in  its  first  aspect,  as 
vitally  and  mortally  vulnerable  (if  at  all  vulnerable)  in  every 
point ;  and,  accordingly,  it  was  fast  approaching  to  its  disso- 
lution before  the  death  of  its  author.  In  Germany,  at  present, 
we  are  told,  that  a  pure  Kantian  is  scarcely  to  be  found.*  But 
there  are  many  Semi-Kantians  and  Anti-Kantians,  as  well  as 
partisans  of  other  schemes  built  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  Kantian 
philosophy.'  "  In  fine,  (says  a  late  author,)  the  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason^  announced  with  pomp,  received  with  fanaticism, 
disputed  about  with  fury,  after  having  accomplished  the  over- 
throw of  the  doctrines  taught  by  Leibnitz  and  Wolff,  could  no 
longer  support  itself  upon  its  own  foundations,  and  has  pro- 
duced no  permanent  result,  but  divisions  and  enmities,  and  a 

*  Seo  some  very  valuable  BtrictureB  on  phy  is  quoted  from  a  work  witli  which  I 

Kant,  in  the  learnwl  an<i  elegant  Bketch  am  unacquainted,  Fred.  Oottlob  llomii 

of  the  present  state  of  philosophy,  sub-  De  Scientia  et  Conjectura. 

joined  to  M.  PrevoBt's  French  translation  ■  On  this  subject,  see  Dcgcrando,  tom. 

of  Mr.  Smith's  posthumous  works.   The  ii.  p.  333. 

Latin  panegyric  on  the  critical  philoso-  •  See  Degorando  and  De  Bonald. 


416 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


general  disgust  at  all  systematical  creeds.''^  If  this  last  effect 
has  really  resulted  from  it,  (of  wliich  some  doubts  may  perhaps 
be  entertained,)  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  favourable  sjonptom 
of  a  sounder  taste  in  matters  of  abstract  science,  than  has  ever 
yet  prevailed  in  that  country.* 

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


»  The  words  in  the  original  are,  "  Un 
deguut  generale  de  toute  doctrine.'* 
Bat  as  the  same  word  doctrine  is,  in  a 
former  part  of  the  same  sentence,  ap- 
plied to  the  systems  of  Leibnitz  and  of 
Wolff,  I  have  little  doubt,  that,  in  sub- 
stituting for  doctrine  the  phrase  syste- 
matical creeds,  I  have  faithfully  ren- 
dered the  meaning  of  my  author. — See 
Bechercftes  Philosophiques,  par  M.  De 
Bonald,  torn.  i.  pp.  43,  44. 

*  The  passion  of  the  Germans  for 
systems  is  a  striking  feature  in  their 
literary  taste,  and  is  sufficient  of  itself 
to  show,  that  they  have  not  yet  passed 
their  novitiate  in  philosophy.  "  To  all 
such  (says  Mr.  Maclaurin)  as  have  just 
notions  of  the  Great  Author  of  the  Uni- 
verse, and  of  his  admirable  workman- 
ship, all  complete  and  finished  systems 
must  appear  very  suspicious."  At  the 
time  when  he  wrote,  such  systems  had 
not  wholly  lost  their  partisans  in  England ; 
and  the  name  of  System  continued  to  be 
a  favourite  title  for  a  book  even  among 
writers  of  the  highest  reputation.  Hence 


the  System  of  Moral  Philosophy  by 
llutchcson,  and  the  Complete  System  of 
Optics  by  Smith,  titles  which,  when 
compared  with  the  subsequent  progress 
of  these  two  sciences,  reflect  some  de- 
gree of  ridicule  upon  their  authors. 

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


*  Restored.— JETr/. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  C'KNTUUT. 


417 


acquainted  with  Homc  very  iiigenioiis  as  well  an  zealous  Kan- 
tians ;  but  I  have  never  yet  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with 
two  who  agreed  in  giving  the  same  account  of  their  system ; 
nor  with  any  one  who  would  allow  any  of  the  attempts  to 
explain  it  which  liave  hitherto  apixaired,  either  in  Latin, 
French,  or  our  own  hmguage,  to  be  a  genuine  exposition  of 
Kant's  real  principles.^ 

After  all,  the  metaphysics  of  Kant  is  well  entitled  to  atten- 
tion as  an  article  of  Philosophical  History.  If  it  lias  thrown 
no  new  light  on  the  laws  of  the  intellectual  world,  the  un- 
bounded popularity  which  it  enjoyed  for  some  years  in  Grcr- 
many  has  placed  in  a  new  and  striking  point  of  view  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  varieties  of  national  character  which 
Europe  has  exhibiteil  in  the  eighteentli  century ;  and,  while 
it  is  kept  in  remembrance,  will  preserve  to  i)Osterity  a  more 
I)erfect  idea  of  the  heads  of  its  mlmirers  than  all  the  cranio- 
logical  researches  of  Gall  and  SpurzlieiuL^J 


'  [A  rierman  philosoplior,  of  tlirlii^rh- 
ORt  rank  in  his  own  countn*,  (IU*inhi»M.) 
whose  intimate  acquAinlAiicc  with  the 
doc'trinod  of  Kant  will  not  b<»  (liKputetl, 
has  exprcs8«Ml  hinmolf  on  tho  unhjeet  c»f 
Kant*H  obAcurity  in  terniH  not  Icm  ntronp: 
than  those  employed  by  Degrrando: 
"  Qiicrt'lanim  omninm,  hue  UMpie  flt> 
rritica  mtionis  prolatunmi,  maxime  trita 
TulgariHque  n>prehendit  in  ea  obm'uri- 
tatcm.  Qnac  qiiideui  qn;eKtio  ex  iis 
quoqae  auditur,  qui  HyHtema  Kantianum 
»c  putant  confntasHe,  et  qui  ol>  <>am 
ipsom  caiiRam  cn'dcre  debcrent,  hckc 
illud  intellcxiflse.  NihiloniinuH  in  eopi- 
0818  adverKariis  illius  niilliiH  hue  UKquo 
pro<liit,  qui  adsen'n>t,  8e  sensum  illiuN 
uhivirt  |)ereepi8jM»,  nuIhiHqne,  <|uin  rcrt** 
mbi  ipHo  fntrri  del»eut,  ne  multis  in  locin 
obKouritatem  invincibilem  invcniKhe. 
Plerirt(|ue  ista  oWuritas  conpequenj*  ne- 
ec^Ksarium  vidctur  ai>ortariun  ]mgnannn, 
qnaH  in  lori.s  Nibi  {HTHpicuiK  senc  dopre- 
hendiHHo  arbitrantnr :  rum  i*  contrnrio 
novi  RVHtematiH  s«'«latores  fontiMu  intar- 

VOL.   I. 


um  pngnanim  in  obflcuritatc  ilia  scso 
apeniisHC  exist imant,  qurc  sibi  Haltem 
hand  invineibilis  fuifise  dieitur,  ut  difH- 
eillini«»  vinci  earn  potuisw  fateantnr. 
I{eH]K)nsiones  illorum  ad  onines,  qnio 
hue  \\9i{\\v  pn)latif  sunt  objcctioncs, 
|M>rinde  atqui'  deolarationes,  qiuu  Kan- 
tiuH  ijHte  dc  nonnuUis  earum  protulit, 
nihil  qnidquam  aliud  volunt.  quam  ut 
adversarios  dc  sciisu  eriliees  rationis 
])rove  intelleeto  meliora  edoccant ;  quo 
quuleni  profecto  rcpndienHioncm  magia 
eonfitentur,  quam  depreeantur,  libram, 
a  tot  vin's  subtilissimis  aliasque  judiei- 
buH  juHtiH  male  intelleetum,  tiimnm  la- 
ftorare  iihsnmtnU  ojwrtere." — S<»e  Rein- 
hold'H  Disnertation  de.  Fatis  qua  hvr 
uMpie  cj^M'rta  e*t  PhiJonophia  KantiaHa^ 
prefixcil  to  bis  IWiadum  uortr  T)uio- 
rur  FaculUiiis  K^jmufenttitirfc  IIu- 
tmnur.    Liphiie,  1797.] 

■  fl'liose  who  wish  for  further  infor- 
mation on  thip  Hubjcct  may  conhult  the 
Heveral  artirlen  relativt;  to  it  in  the 
Journal  ih'*  Sclent^*,  or  Maffuzin  £*«- 

2  J) 


418  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

Among  the  various  schools  which  have  emanated  from  that 
of  Kant,  those  of  Fichte  and  Schelling  seem  to  have  attracted 
among  their  comitrymen  the  greatest  number  of  proselytea 
Of  neither  am  I  able  to  speak  from  my  own  knowledge ;  nor 
can  I  annex  any  distinct  idea  to  the  accounts  which  are  given 
of  their  opinions  by  others.  Of  Fichte's  speculations  about 
the  philosophical  import  of  the  pronoun  7,  {Qu'est-ce  que  le 
mot?  as  Degerando  translates  the  question,)  I  cannot  make 
anything.  In  some  of  his  remarks,  he  approaches  to  the 
language  of  those  Cartesians  who,  in  the  progress  of  their 
doubts,  ended  in  absolute  egoism:  but  the  ego^  of  Fichte  has 
a  creative  power.  It  creates  existence,  and  it  creates  science  ; 
two  things  (by  the  way)  which,  according  to  liim,  are  one  and 
the  same.  Even  my  oum  existence,  he  tells  me,  commences 
only  with  the  reflex  act,  by  which  I  think  of  the  pure  and 
primitive  ego.  On  this  identity  of  the  intelligent  ego  and  the 
existing  ego,  (which  Fichte  expresses  by  the  formula  ego = ego,) 
all  science  ultimately  rests. — But  on  this  part  of  his  meta- 
physics it  would  be  idle  to  enlarge,  as  the  author  acknowledges, 
that  it  is  not  to  be  understood  without  the  aid  of  a  certain 
transcendental  sense^  the  want  of  which  is  wholly  irreparable ; 
a  singular  admission  enough  (as  Degerando  observes)  on  the 
part  of  those  critical  philosophers  who  have  treated  with  so 
much  contempt  the  appeal  to  Common  Sense  in  the  writings 
of  some  of  their  predecessors.^ 

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

eydop^tquet  Redig6  par  A.  L.  Millin,  '  Hist  Comparie^  &c.  torn.  u.  pp.  300, 

torn.  i.  p.  281 ;  torn.  iii.  p.  159  ;  torn.  iv.  301.    See  also  the  article  Fichte  in  the 

p.  145  ;  torn.  v.  p.  409.]  Encydopccdia  Britannica. 

*  In  order  lo  avoid  the  intolerable  •  Hist.  Comparie^  &c.  torn.  ii.  p.  314. 

awkwardness  of  such  a  phrase  as  £/te  /,  The  doctrine  here  ascribed  to  Fichte  by 

I  have  substituted  on  this  occasion  the  Degerando,   although  its  unparalleled 

Latin  pronoun  for  the  English  one.  absurdity  might  well  excite  some  doubts 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         419 

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

The  system  of  Schelling  is,  in  the  opinion  of  Degerando,  but 
an  extension  of  that  of  Fichte ;  connecting  with  it  a  sort  of 
Spinozism  grafted  on  IdeaUsm.  In  considering  the  primitive 
ego  as  the  source  of  all  reali^  as  well  as  of  all  science,  and  in 
thus  transporting  the  mind  into  an  intellectual  region,  inacces- 
sible to  men  possessed  only  of  the  ordinary  number  of  senses, 
both  agree ;  and  to  this  vein  of  transcendental  mysticism  may 
probably  be  ascribed  the  extraordinary  enthusiasm  with  which 
their  doctrines  appear  to  have  been  received  by  the  German 
youth.  Since  the  time  when  Degerando  wrote,  a  now  and  very 
unexpected  revolution   is  said  to  have  taken  place  among 


about  the  correctness  of  the  historian, 
is  not  altogether  a  novelty  in  the  history 
of  philosophy.  It  is,  in  point  of  fact, 
nothing  more  than  a  return  to  those 
gross  conceptions  of  the  mind  in  the 
infancy  of  human  reason,  which  Mr. 
Smith  has  so  well  described  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage : — "  In  the  first  ages  of 
the  world,  the  seeming  incoherence  of 
the  appearances  of  nature  so  confounded 
mankind,  that  they  despaired  of  dis- 
covering in  her  operations  any  regular 
system.  .  .  .  Their  gods,  though  they 
were  apprehended  to  interpose  upon 
some  particular  occasions,  were  so  far 
from  being  regarded  as  the  creators  of 
the  world,  that  their  origin  was  appre- 
hended to  be  posterior  to  that  of  the 
world.  The  earth  (according  to  Hesiod) 
was  the  first  production  of  the  chaos. 
The  heavens  arose  out  of  the  earth,  and 
from   both   together  all  the  gods  who 


ailerwards  inhabited  them.  Nor  was 
this  notion  confined  to  the  vulgar,  and  to 
those  poets  who  seem  to  have  recorded 
the  vulgar  theology.  .  .  .  The  same 
notion  of  the  spontaneous  origin  of  the 
world  was  embraced  (as  Aristotle  tells 
us)  by  the  early  Pythagoreans.  .  • 
Mind,  and  understanding,  and  conse- 
quently Deity,  being  the  most  perfect, 
were  necessarily,  according  to  them,  the 
last  productions  of  nature.  For,  in  all 
other  things,  what  was  most  perfect, 
they  observed,  always  came  last :  As  in 
plants  and  animals,  it  is  not  the  seed 
that  is  most  perfect,  but  the  complete 
animal,  with  all  its  members  in  the  one  ; 
and  the  complete  pUnt,  with  all  its 
branches,  leaves,  flowers,  and  fruits,  in 
tlie  other." — Smith's  JPoit  Eisayt  on 
Philosophical  SubjeOt^  pp.  106,  107. 

^  De   VAUmiagne^  tom.  iii.  p.  107. 
Londren,  1813. 


420 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


Schelling's  disciples ;  many  of  them,  originally  educated  in  the 
Protestant  faith,  having  thrown  themselves  into  the  bosom  of 
the  Catholic  Church.^  ..."  The  union  of  the  faithful  of 
this  school  forms  an  invisible  church,  which  has  adopted  for  its 
symbol  and  watchword,  the  Virgin  Mary :  and  hence  rosaries 
are  sometimes  to  be  seen  in  the  hands  of  those  who  reckon 
Spinoza  among  the  greatest  prophets."  It  is  added,  however, 
with  respect  to  this  invisible  church,  that  "  its  members  have 
embraced  the  Catholic  religion,  not  as  the  true  religion,  but  afl 
the  most  poetical;*'  a  thing  not  improbable  among  a  people 
who  have  so  strong  a  disposition  to  mingle  together  poetry  and 
metaphysics  in  the  same  compositions.*  But  it  is  painful  to 
contemplate  these  sad  aberrations  of  human  reason ;  nor  would 
I  have  dwelt  on  them  so  long  as  I  have  done,  had  I  not  been 
anxious  to  convey  to  my  readers  a  general,  but  I  trust  not  un- 
faithftd,  idea  of  the  style  and  spirit  of  a  philosophy,  which, 
within  the  short  period  of  our  recollection,  rose,  flourished,  and 
fell ;  and  which,  in  every  stage  of  its  history,  furnished  employ- 
ment to  the  talents  of  some  of  the  most  learned  and  able  of  our 
contcmporaries.3 


*  See  a  paper  by  M.  G.  Schweig- 
hauser  in  tbe  London  Montldy  Magazine 
for  1804,  p.  207. 

•  "  Anssi  lea  Allemands  nielent  ils 
trop  souvent  la  Metapliysique  K  la 
Poesie." — {AUemagne^  vol.  iii.  p.  133.) 
"  Nothing  (says  Mr.  Hume)  is  more 
dangerous  to  reason  than  the  flights  of 
imagination,  and  nothing  has  been  the 
occasion  of  more  mistakes  among  philo- 
sophers. Men  of  bright  fancies  may,  in 
this  respect,  be  compared  to  those 
angels  whom  the  scripture  represents  as 
covering  their  eyes  with  their  wings." — 
Treatise  ofHwman  Nature^  vol.  i.  p.  464. 

•  According  to  a  French  writer,  who 
appears  to  have  resided  many  years  in 
Germany,  and  who  has  enlivened  a 
short  Essay  on  the  Elements  ofPhilo- 
sophy  with  many  curious  historical  de- 
tails concerning  Kant  and  his  succes- 


sors, both  Fichte  and  Schelling  owed 
much  of  their  reputation  to  the  uncom- 
mon eloquence  displayed  in  their  aca- 
demical lectures  :  —  "  Cette  doctrine 
sortait  de  la  bouche  de  Fichte,  revetu 
de  ces  ornemcnsqui  donnentlajeunesse, 
la  beaute,  et  la  force  au  discours.  On 
ne  se  lassait  point  en  I'ecoutant." 

Of  Schelling  he  expresses  himself 
thus  : — "  Schelling,  appele  a  Tuniver- 
fiite  de  Wirabourg,  y  attira  par  sa 
reputation  nn  concours  nombreux  d'au- 
diteurs,  qu'il  enchainait  K  scs  lemons  par 
la  richesse  de  sa  diction  et  par  I'ctendue 
de  ses  connoissances.  De  IS,,  il  est 
venu  &  Mimich,  ou  je  le  revis  en  1813. 
On  dit  qu'il  a  embrassc  la  religion  Ca- 
tholique." — Essai  snr  les  El^mens  de 
la  Philosophies  par  G.  Gley,  Principal 
au  College  d'Alenfon.  Paris,  1817, 
pp.  138,  152. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  KIlJHTEENTH  CENTUllY. 


421 


The  space  which  I  luive  allotted  to  Kant  lias  so  far  excecnled 
wliat  I  intended  he  should  occupy,  that  I  must  pass  over  the 
names  of  many  of  his  countrymen  much  more  worthy  of  jmblic 
attention.  In  the  account  given  by  Uegerando  of  the  op- 
ponents of  the  Kantian  system,  some  remarks  are  quoted  from 
different  writers,  which  convey  a  very  favourable  idea  of  the 
works  from  which  they  are  borrowed.  Among  these  I  would 
more  particularly  distinguish  those  ascribed  to  Jacobi  and  to 
Reinhold.  In  the  Memoirs,  too,  of  the  Berlin  Academy,  where, 
as  Degerando  justly  observes,  the  philosophy  of  Locke  found 
an  asylimi,  wliile  banished  from  the  rest  of  Germany,  there  is 
a  considerable  number  of  metaphysical  articles  of  the  liighest 
merit.^  Nor  must  I  omit  to  mention  the  contributions  to  this 
science  by  the  University  of  Gottingen ;  more  especially  [those 
of  Michaelis]  on  questions  connected  with  the  pliilosophy  of 
language,  [wliich  are  in  an  uncommon  degree  origintd  and 
instructive.]  I  have  great  jJeasure,  also,  in  acknowledging  the 
entertainment  I  have  received,  and  the  lights  I  have  borrowed 
from  the  learned  hibours  of  Meiners  and  of  Herder ;  but  none 
of  these  are  so  closely  connected  with  the  history  of  meta- 
physics  as  to  justify  me  in  entering  into  j)articular  dettiils  with 
respect  to  them.  I  am  ashamed  to  say  that,  in  Great  Britain, 
the  only  one  of  these  names  which  has  been  much  talked  of  is 
that  of  Kant ;  a  circumstance  which,  I  trust,  will  apologize 
for  the  length  to  which  the  foregoing  observations  have  ex- 
tended.2 


^  In  a  volume  of  this  cullectiou  (fur 
the  year  1797)  which  happoiiH  to  be 
now  lying  before  mo,  [I  cannot  help 
pointing  out  two  ingenious  and  intercHt- 
ing  articles  by  M.  Aneillon  (lo  pen*.) 
ITic  fifBt  of  thcflc  is  a  DlnJorjue  between, 
Hume  and  Berkeley.  The  other  is  en- 
titled, Esial  Ontohffiqtte  sur  VAme.] 
'i'lic  eamc  volume  (Mtntains  three  pro- 
found and  important  Memoirs  <»n  Pro- 
hfihilitieSj  by  M.  Prevont  and  M.  I'Huil- 
lier.  None  of  those  authors,  I  am 
aware,  is  of  (lerman  oripn,  but  as  the 


Aeademv  of  Derlin  hnH  had  the  merit  to 
bring  their  papers  before  the  public,  I 
could  not  omit  this  opportunity  of  re- 
commending them  to  the  attention  of 
my  readers.  To  a  very  important  ob- 
servation made  by  MM.  Pn'vost  and 
I'lluillicr,  which  has  been  the  subject 
of  some  dispute,  I  am  hapi)y  to  avail 
myself  of  the  same  opportunity  to  ex- 
press my  unqualified  assent. — See  ]»p. 
15  and  31  of  tho  Memoirs  l)olonging  to 
the  OloMc  de  Phihsophie  ^Speculative. 
•  See  Note  A  A  A. 


422 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


The  only  other  country  of  Europe  from  which  any  contribu- 
tions to  metaphysical  philosophy  could  be  reasonably  looked 
for,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  is  Italy ;  and  to  this  parti- 
cular branch  of  science  I  do  not  know  that  any  Italian  of  much 
celebrity  has,  in  these  later  times,  turned  his  attention.  The 
metaphysical  works  of  Cardinal  Gterdil  (a  native  of  Savoy)  are 
extolled  by  some  French  writers ;  but  none  of  them  have  ever 
happened  to  fall  in  my  way.i  At  a  more  recent  period, 
Genovesi,  a  Neapolitan  philosopher,^  (best  known  as  a  political 
economist,)  has  attracted  a  good  deal  of  notice  by  some  meta- 
physical publications.  Their  chief  object  is  said  to  be  to  re- 
concile, as  far  as  possible,  the  opinions  of  Leibnitz  with  those 
of  Locke.  "  Pendant  que  Condillac  donnait  inutilement  des 
leyons  k  un  Prince  d'ltalie,  Qenovesi  en  donnait  avec  plus  de 
succes  k  ses  eleves  Napolitains :  il  combinait  le  mieux  qu'il  lui 
-^toit  possible  les  theories  de  Leibnitz,  pour  lequel  il  eut  tou- 
jours  une  prevention  favorable,  avec  celle  de  Locke,  qu'il  ac- 
crcdita  le  premier  en  Italic."^    Various  other  works  of  greater 


'  His  two  first  publications,  which 
were  ilirected  ftgainst  the  philosophy  of 
Ix)cke,  (if  we  may  judge  from  their 
titles,)  are  not  likely,  in  the  present 
times,  to  excite  any  cmioaity.  1.  The 
IminaieriaUty  of  the.  Soul  Demonstrat- 
ed against  Mr.  IxKhiy  on  the,  same. 
Principles  on  which  this  Philosopher 
lias  Demonstrated  the  Existence  and  the 
TmmateriaHti/  of  God.  Turin,  1747. 
2.  Defence  of  the  Opinion  of  Male- 
brunche,  on  tlie  Nature  and  Origin  of 
our  Ideas,  against  tJte  examination  of 
Mr.  lAKke,  Turin,  1748.  The  only 
other  works  of  Gerdil  which  1  have  seen 
referred  to  are,  A  Dissertation  on  the 
IncompatibilUy  of  the  Principles  of  Des- 
cartes tcith  those  of  Spinoza;  and  A 
JReJutation  of  some  Principles  main- 
tained in  the  Emile  of  Rousseau. 

Of  this  last  performance,  Rousseau  is 
reported  to  have  said,  "  VoUh  Vunifpie 
frrit  pnhli6  eoutre  moi  que  fai  trouv^ 
digne  d^etre  lu  en  entier*''     (Noureau 


Diet,  Hist,  article  Gerdil.)  In  the 
same  article,  a  reference  is  made  to  a 
public  discourse  of  the  celebrated  M. 
Mairan,  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  in 
which  he  pronounces  the  following 
judgment  on  Gerdil's  metaphysical 
powers :  "  Gerdil  parte  avec  lui  dans 
to  us  ces  discovrs  nn  esprit  giomitrique, 
qui  manque  trap  souvent  avx  gfomHres 
memes.^ 

•Born  1712;  died  1769. 

'  Revue  Encyclop^dique,  ou  Ana- 
Igse  Raisonnie  des  Productions  lesplvs 
Remarquahles  dans  la  Litt^rature,  les 
Sciences,  et  les  Arts.  1  vol.  3me  liv- 
raison,  p.  615.  Paris,  Mars  1819. 
(The  writer  of  the  article  quoted  in  the 
text  is  M.  Sarpi,  an  Italian  by  birth, 
who,  after  ha>ing  distinguished  himself 
by  various  publications  in  his  own  coun- 
try, has  now  (if  I  am  not  mistaken) 
fixed  his  residence  at  Paris.  In  his 
own  philuHophi(  al  opinions,  he  seems  to 
be   a  follower    of   Condillac's   School, 


METAPHYSICS  DUBINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


423 


or  less  celebrity,  from  Italian  authors,  seem  to  announce  a 
growing  taste  in  tlrnt  part  of  Europe  for  these  abstract  re* 
searches.  The  names  of  Francisco  Soave,  of  Biagioli,  and  of 
Mariano  Gigli,  are  advantageously  mentioned  by  their  country- 
men ;  but  none  of  their  works,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  have  yet 
reached  Scotland.  Indeed,  with  the  single  exception  of  Bos- 
covich,  I  recollect  no  writer  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps, 
whose  metaphysical  speculations  have  been  heard  of  in  this 
island.  This  is  the  more  to  be  regretted,  as  the  specimens  he 
has  given,  both  of  originality  and  soundness  in  some  of  his 
abstract  discussions,  convey  a  very  favourable  idea  of  the 
schools  in  which  he  received  his  education.  The  authority  to 
which  he  seems  most  inclined  to  lean  is  that  of  Leibnitz ;  but, 
on  all  important  questions  he  exercises  his  own  judgment^  and 
often  combats  Leibnitz  with  equal  freedom  and  success.  Be- 
markable  instances  of  this  occur  in  his  strictures  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  sufficient  reason^  and  in  the  limitations  with  which 
he  has  admitted  the  law  of  continuity. 

The  vigour,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  versatility  of  talents, 
displayed  in  the  voluminous  works  of  this  extraordinaiy  man. 


otberwiso  ho  would  scarcely  havo  spoken 
80  highly  as  he  has  done  of  the  French 
Ideologists :  "  LUdeologie  qui,  d'apres 
sa  denomination  rocento  pourrait  etre 
consideree  comme  speciiUcment  due  aux 
Fran^ais,  mais  qui  est  aussi  ancienno 
que  la  philoHr>phie,  puisqu'ellc  a  pour 
objet  la  generation  des  idues  ct  I'analyse 
dc8  facultes  qui  concourcnt  j\  Icur  for- 
mation, n'cst  pas  etrangere  aux  Italiens, 
comme  on  pourrait  lo  croire.") 

Genovewi  is  considered  by  an  Iiih- 
torian  of  high  reputation,  as  the  refor- 
mer of  Italian  philosophy.  If  the 
execution  of  his  Treati9e  an  IxHfic  cor- 
responds at  all  to  the  enlightened  views 
with  whicli  the  design  seems  to  havo 
been  conceived,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  a 
work  of  much  practical  utility.  "  Ma 
chi  puo  vcranicnte  dirsi  il  riformatore 
deir  Italiana  filosofia,  chi  la  fece  tosto 
conoscerc,   e  rcspcttare   da'    pifi   dotti 


filosofi  dello  altre  nazioni,  chi  seppe  ar- 
ricchirc  di  nuovi  pregi  la  logica,  la  me- 
tafiHica,  e  la  morale,  fu  il  celcbre  Geno- 
vesi.  Tuttoche  molti  fossero  stati  i 
filosofi  chc  cercarono  con  sottili  rifles- 
sioni,  e  giusti  procetti  d*%jutare  la  mento 
a  pensare  ed  a  ragionare  con  esattezza 
c  verity  e  Bacono,  Malebranche,  Loke, 
Wolfio,  e  molt*  altri  sembrassero  avere 
esaurito  quanto  v'era  da  scrivero  su  tale 
arte,  seppe  nondimeno  il  Genovesi  tro- 
vare  nuovc  osservazioni,  e  nuovi  awerti- 
menti  dti  pre])orre,  e  dare  una  logica  pid 
piena  e  compiuta,  e  piu  utile  non  solo 
alio  studio  della  filosofia,  e  genonU- 
mente  ad  ogni  studio  scientifico,  ma 
eziandio  alia  condotta  morale,  ed  alia 
civile  society." — DeW  Origine^  de  Pro- 
gres8i\  e  deUo  Sinto  attunle  tVOgni  Let- 
teratura  dell'  Abate  D.  Giovanni  An- 
dres. Tomo.  XV.  pp.  260,  261.  Venezia, 
1800. 


424  DISSERTATION. — PAKT  SECOND. 

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

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

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

'  See  a  most  intercBtin^  account  of      teraire  d'lUiUe,  toiii.  v.  pi>.  381,  et  seq. 
(lalileo's    taste   for  poetry  and    polite       a  Paris,  1812. 
literature   in  Ginguene,  Histoirc   Lit- 


METAPHYSIl'H  DURING  THE  EIGUTKENTU  CENTURT.         426 

polemical  vigilance  constantly  on  the  alert,  may  bo  tracod  in 
every  step  of  his  argument.^ 

In  the  meantime,  a  new  and  unexpected  mine  of  intellectual 
wealth  has  been  opened  to  the  learned  of  Europe,  in  those 
regions  of  the  East,  which,  although  in  all  probability  the  cradle 
of  civilisation  and  science,  were,  till  very  lately,  better  known 
in  the  annals  of  commerce  than  of  philosophy.  The  metaphy- 
sical and  ethical  remains  of  the  Indian  sages  are,  in  a  peculiar 
degree,  interesting  and  instructive ;  inasmuch  as  they  seem  to 
have  furnished  the  germs  of  the  chief  systems  taught  in  the 
Grecian  schools.  The  favourite  theories,  however,  of  the  Hin- 
doos will,  all  of  them,  be  found,  more  or  less,  tinctured  with 


*  While  tliis  DUsertaiion  wius  in  the 
prcHfi,  I  received  a  new  Anicriciui  pub- 
lication, entitled,  "  Transiictiona  of  the 
Hittorical  attd  Lit^rari/  Committee  of 
tlie    American    Philmoj)hicnl   Society ^ 
hfld  at  PhiladeJphUi,  for   Promoting 
Useful  Ktimcledffe,''  vol.  i.     I'hiladel- 
phia,    1819.     Fn)m   an    advertisement 
prefixed  to  this  volume,  it  appears  that, 
at  u  meeting  of  this  h'amed  body  in 
1816,   it  was  resolved,   "  That  a  new 
committee  be  added  to  those   already 
established,  to  be  denominated  the  Com- 
mittee of  History,  M()ral  Science,  and 
General  Liteniture."     It  was  with  great 
pleasure  I  observed,  that  one  of  the  first 
objects  to   which  the    committee    has 
directed  its  attention  is  to  investigate 
and  a.scertain,  as  much  as  possible,  the 
structure  ami  grammatical  forms  of  the 
languages  of  the   aboriginal  nations  of 
America.      The   Report  of  the   corre- 
sponding  secretary,   (M.    Duiwnceau,) 
dated  January  1819,  with  respect  to  the 
pn)gre88  then  made  in  this  investigation, 
is  highly  curious  and  interesting,  and 
<lisplay8  not  only  enlarged  and  {philoso- 
phical views,  but  an  intimate  ac^quaint- 
ance  with  the  philological  researches  of 
Adelung,  Vater,  Huniluildt,  and  other 
CieiTuan  scholars.     All  this  evinces  an 


enlightened  curiosity,  and  an  extent  of 
litcrar)'  information,  which  could  scarce- 
ly have  been  ex])ected  in  these  rising 
states  for  manv  vears  to  come. 

1'hc  rapid  progn^ss  which  the  Ameri- 
cans have  lately  made  in  the  art  of  writ- 
ing, has  been  remarked  by  various  cri- 
tics, and  it  is  certainly  a  very  important 
fact  in  the  history  of  their  literature. 
Their  state  pajiers  were,  indeed,  always 
distingtiished  by  a  strain  of  animated 
and  vigorous  eloquence  ;  but  as  most  of 
them  were  composed  on  the  spur  of  the 
occasion,  their  authors  had  little  time  to 
bestow  on  the  niceties,  or  even  upon  the 
purity  of  diction.  An  attention  to  these 
is  the  slow  offspring  of  learned  leisure, 
and  of  the  diligent  study  of  the  best 
models.  This  1  presume  was  Gray's 
meaning,  when  he  said,  that  "  good 
writing  not  only  required  great  [wirts, 
but  the  very  best  of  those  part.s  ;"* — a 
maxim  which,  if  tnio,  would  point  out 
the  state  of  the  public  taste  with  respect 
to  style,  as  the  surest  test  among  any 
people  «)f  the  general  improvement  which 
thtiir  intellectual  powers  have  received  ; 
and  which,  when  applied  to  our  Trans- 
atlantic brethren,  would  justify  sanguine 
expectations  of  the  attainments  of  the 
rising  generation. 


*  Note  of  .Mason  on  a  Letter  of  Qn.y'%  to  Dr.  Wharton,  on  the  death  of  I)r.  Middleton. 


426  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

those  ascetic  habits  of  abstract  and  mystical  meditation  which 
seem  to  have  been,  in  all  ages,  congenial  to  their  constitutional 
temperament.  Of  such  habits,  an  Idealism,  approaching  to 
that  of  Berkeley  and  Malebranche,  is  as  natural  an  offspring, 
as  Materialism  is  of  the  gay  and  dissipated  manners,  which, 
in  great  and  luxurious  capitals,  are  constantly  inviting  the 
thoughts  abroad. 

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

Much  more,  however,  may  be  yet  expected,  if  such  a  prodigy 
as  Sir  William  Jones  should  again  appear,  uniting,  in  as  mira- 
culous a  degree,  the  gift  of  tongues  with  the  spirit  of  philo- 
sophy. The  structure  of  the  Sanscrit,  in  itself,  independently  of 
the  treasures  locked  up  in  it,  affords  one  of  the  most  puzzling 
subjects  of  inquiry  that  was  ever  presented  to  human  ingenuity. 
The  affinities  and  filiations  of  different  tongues,  as  evinced  in 
their  corresponding  roots  and  other  coincidences,  are  abundantly 
curious,  but  incomparably  more  easy  in  the  explanation,  than 
the  systematical  analogy  which  is  said  to  exist  between  the 
Sanscrit  and  the  Greek,  (and  also  between  the  Sanscrit  and  the 
Latin,  which  is  considered  as  the  most  ancient  dialect  of  the 
Greek,)  in  the  conjugations  and  flexions  of  their  verbs,  and  in 
many  other  particulars  of  their  mechanism ;  an  analogy  which 
is  represented  as  so  complete,  that,  in  the  versions  which  have 
been  made  from  the  one  language  into  the  other,  "  Sanscrit," 
we  are  told,  "  answers  to  Greek,  as  face  to  face  in  a  glass."^ 
That  the  Sanscrit  did  not  grow  up  to  the  perfection  which  it 
now  exhibits,  from  popular  and  casual  modes  of  speech,  the  un- 

*  liCtter  from  the  Reverend  David  tJie  Gatjjel^,  (dated  Calcutta,  September 
Brown,  Provost  of  the  College  of  Fort  1806,  and  published  in  some  of  the 
William,  about  the  Sanscrit  Edition  of      Literary  Journals  of  the  day.) 


XETAPUT8IC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        427 

exampled  r^ularity  of  its  forms  seems  almost  to  demonstrate ; 
and  yet,  should  this  supixwition  be  rejected,  to  what  other 
hypothesis  shall  we  have  recom:^,  which  does  not  invoke  equal 
if  not  greater  improbabilities  ?  The  problem  is  weU  worthy  of 
the  attention  of  philosopliical  granmiarians ;  and  the  solution 
of  it,  whatever  it  may  be,  can  scarcely  fail  to  throw  some  new 
lights  on  the  histor}-  of  the  hmnan  race,  as  well  as  on  that  of 
the  human  mind. 

[*"I  have  long  harboured  a  suspicion  that  some,  perliaps 
much,  of  the  Indian  science  was  derived  from  the  Greeks  of 
Bactriana." — (Gibbon's  Bom.  Hist,  vol.  xu.  294.)  This  is  also 
the  opinion  of  the  very  learned  and  judicious  Meiners. — {Hist 
DoctrincB  de  vero  Deo,  pp.  122,  seq.)  Meiners  refers  to  some 
arguments  in  support  of  it  in  Bayer's  Historia  Regni  GrtB- 
coram  Bactrtani,  p.  165.^  As  this  author  is  often  quoted  by 
Gibbon,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  he  derived  the  hint  from  him. — 
Sec  Robertson's  India,  pp.  33,  34.] 


SECT.  VIU. — METAPHYSICAL  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SCOTLAND. 

It  now  only  remains  for  me  to  tiike  a  slight  survey  of  the 
rise  and  progress  of  the  Mettiphysical  l*hilo80i)hy  of  Scotland ; 
and  if,  in  treating  of  this,  I  should  be  somewhat  more  minute 
than  in  the  former  parts  of  this  Historical  Sketch,  I  flatter 
myself  that  allowances  will  be  made  for  my  anxiety  to  supply 
some  chasms  in  the  literary  history  of  my  countrj',  which  could 

*  Restored. — On  Mr.  Stewart'8  Bpc-  indngat.     Qua  in  ro  mnltiun  tribui  con- 

culationii  touching  the  San»crit,  see  of  jccturiH,  ipne  vir  olim  doctiRsinius  non 

tliis  collection,  vol.  iv. — Kditor.  negavit.     Odiosuin  hoc  est  saejH)  suspi- 

cari  inquit,  attanien,  ut  mca  opinio  fort, 

'  [The  following  account  of  Bayer's  in  tempore  et  loco   neccsfMiriuni  atqno 

IVfok  is  given  by  Klotzius  in  an  epistle  utile,  ut  cniin   in  obscurissimis  quaes- 

prefixed   to   liat/eri  Ojyvxciila  ad  His-  tionibus  prinium  est,  Buspicari,   ita,  si 

toriom  Antiquamjd'C.Sp€ctunlin,\{f!At(i^  nihil    proficianius  aniplius,   exstaro   ct 

1770  : — "  Impriuii.s  vero  lectoribua  per-  cognosci  Buspiciones   no.strafi   convcnit, 

suaderc  conatur,  IndoH  a  Graecis  nume-  qnibun  fortaBse  aliin  occasio  prapWatur, 

roruni   noniina  et  niatheniaticas   disci-  ant  hoi"  ipHuni,  aut  novum,  et  diverauni 

plinas  accepisse,  et  vias,  quibun  (Jrwca'  Iter  sibi  muniendi,  qn<»  proximc  ad  veri- 

artcH  cum  Oricnte  communicatR'  fuerifit,  tatem  i»orveniatur.'T 


428 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


not  be  so  easily,  nor  perhaps  so  authentically,  filled  up  by  a 
younger  hand. 

The  Metaphysical  Philosophy  of  Scotland,  and,  indeed,  the 
literary  taste  in  general,  which  so  remarkably  distinguished 
this  country  during  the  last  century,  may  be  dated  from  the 
lectures  of  Dr.  Francis  Hutcheson,  in  the  University  of  Glasgow. 
Strong  indications  of  the  same  speculative  spirit  may  be  traced 
in  earKer  writers  ;i  but  it  was  from  this  period  that  Scotland, 
after  a  long  slumber,  began  again  to  attract  general  notice  in 
the  republic  of  letters.* 

The  writings  of  Dr.  Hutcheson,  however,  are  more  closely 
connected  with  the  history  of  Ethical  than  of  Metaphysical 


»  See  Note  BBB. 

•  An  Italian  writer  of  some  note,  in  a 
work  published  in  1763,  assigns  the 
same  date  to  the  revival  of  letters  in 
Scotland.  "  Fra  i  tanti,  e  si  chiari 
Scrittori  die  fiorirono  nclla  Gran  Bre- 
tagna  a'  tempi  della  Regina  Anna,  non 
se  no  conta  pur  uno,  che  sia  uscito  de 
Scozia.  .  .  .  Francesco  Hutcheson 
venuto  in  Iscozia,  a  professarvi  la  Filo- 
sofia,  e  gli  studii  di  umanita,  nella  Uni- 
versita  di  Glasgow,  v'insinud  per  tutto 
il  pacse  colle  istruzione  a  viva  voce,  e 
con  egregio  opere  date  allc  stampe,  un 
vivo  genio  per  gli  studii  filosofici,  o  lite- 
rani,  e  sparse  qui  fecondissimi  semi, 
d*onde  vediamo  nascere  si  felice  frutti,  e 
81  copiose." — Discorao  sopra  le  Vicende 
deUa  Letteratura,  del  Sig.  Carlo  Denina, 
p.  224,  Glasgow  edition,  1763. 

I  was  somewhat  surprised  to  meet 
with  the  foregoing  observations  in  the 
work  of  a  foreigner ;  but  wherever  he 
acquired  his  information,  it  evinces,  in 
those  from  w^hom  it  was  derived,  a  more 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  tradi- 
tionary history  of  letters  in  this  country 
than  has  fallen  to  the  share  of  most  of 
our  own  authors  who  have  treated  of 
.that  subject.  I  have  heard  it  conjec- 
tured, that  the  materials  of  his  section 


on  Scottish  literature  had  been  com- 
municated to  him  by  Mr.  Hume. 

Another  foreign  writer,  much  better 
qualified  than  Denina  to  appreciate  the 
merits  of  Hutcheson,  has  expressed  him- 
self ui)on  this  subject  with  his  usual  pre- 
cision. "  L'ecole  Ecossaise  a  en  quel- 
que  sorto  pour  fondateur  Hutcheson, 
maitre  et  predeccsseur  de  Smith.  C'est 
ce  philosophe  qui  lui  a  imprime  son  car- 
actere,  ct  qui  a  commence  k  lui  donuer 
de  I'eclat."  In  a  note  upon  this  passage, 
the  author  observes, — "  C'est  en  ce  seul 
sens  qu'on  pent  donner  un  chef  ^  uno 
ecolc  de  philosophic  qui,  comme  on  le 
verra,  professe  d'ailleurs  la  plus  parfaite 
independance  de  I'autoritc." — See  the 
excellent  reflections  upon  the  posthu- 
mous works  of  Adam  Smith,  annexed 
by  M.  Provost  to  his  translation  of  that 
work. 

Dr.  Hutcheson's  first  course  of  lec- 
tures at  Glasgow  was  given  in  1730. 
He  was  a  native  of  Ireland,  and  is  ac- 
cordingly called  by  Denina  "  un  dotto 
Irlandesc ;"  but  he  was  of  Scotch  ex- 
traction, (his  father  or  grandfather  hav- 
ing been  a  younger  son  of  a  respectable 
family  in  Ayrshire,)  and  he  was  sent 
over  when  very  young  to  receive  his 
education  in  Scotland. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THK  £IGHT£KNTH  CENTUKY.         429 

Science ;  and  I  shall,  accordingly,  delay  any  ri'niarks  whicli  I 
have  to  offer  u|)on  them  till  I  enter  u|x>n  tlmt  {mrt  of  my  sub- 
ject. There  are,  indeed,  some  very  ori<]^nal  and  important 
metaphysical  hints  scattered  over  his  works ;  but  it  is  cluefly 
as  an  ethical  writer  that  he  is  known  to  the  world,  and  that  he 
is  entitleil  to  a  place  among  the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth 
centurv.^ 

Among  the  contemporaries  of  Dr.  Hutcheson,  there  was  one 
Scottish  metaphysiciim  (Andrew  Baxter,  author  of  the  Inquiry 
into  the  Natmx  of  the  Human  Soul)  whose  name  it  would  be 
improper  to  pa.ss  over  without  some  notice,  after  the  splendid 
eulogy  bestowed  on  his  work  by  Warburton.  "  He  who  would 
see  the  justest  and  precisest  notions  of  (} od  and  the  soiU  may 
read  tliis  book,  one  of  the  most  finished  of  the  kind,  in  my 
humble  oivinion,  that  the  present  times,  greatly  advanced  in 
true  philosophy,  have  protlucecL"  ^ 

To  this  un([Uidified  praise,  1  must  confess,  I  do  not  think 
Baxter s  Im/Hirtf  altogether  entitled,  although  I  readily  acknow- 
ledge that  it  displays  considerable  ingenuity  as  well  as  learning. 
Some  of  the  remarks  on  Berkeley's  argimirnt  against  the  exists 
ence  of  matter  are  acute  and  just,  and,  at  the  time  when  they 
were  publislieil,  had  the  merit  of  novelty. 

*  One  of  the  ch'iof  objtM-ts  of  llntcho-  inony,  in  which  ho  purHUO*!,  with  con- 

son'H  writingH  was  to  oppono  tho  licni-  HiiltTJiMe   buccoss,    tho    jnith     rorently 

tious  Rystoin  of  Maudcvillo ;  a  HVhti'in  ntrufk  ont  hy  Addimtii  in  hiH  ICsnuifn  on 

wliirh  wuM  tin?  iiatunil  uffHi)rinf^(»f  s.»ino  thr.  Plrtunin-Jiofthe  fmaf/inatiun.  ThofW* 

of  r^)ckc*8  renHoningH  afraiiiHt  tlio  cxiKt-  ii)(|iiirirH  of  Hutcheson,  tofi^i>tho.r  with 

f*nce  of  innate  practical  )>riuc'ipl<'H.  Iuh    Tfmiu/htM  on   Ijaufihter,   although 

As  a  uioraliHt,  Hutcheson  was  a  warm  they  may  not  bo  very  highly  j)riz4Ml  for 

nUmircr  of  thn  anciontH,  and  Hi'cniH  to  their  ilcjith,  l>car  ovcrywhoro  tho  marks 

have  lK?cn  particularly  smitten  with  that  of  an  enlarged  and  cultivated  min<l,  and, 

favourite  d^ntrinc  of  the  Socratic  scluml  whatever  may  have  lx*en  their  cftects 

which  identifies  tho //wx/ with  the  hvtni-  olsrwhen',  certainly  (•(»iitril»nted  power- 

tiful.    Hence  he  was  led  to  follow  much  fully,  in  t)ur  Northern  si-ats  of  learning, 

too  closely  the  example  of  ShatteKhury,  to  introtluce  a  taste  for  more  lilx-ral  and 

in    con.sidering    nn»ral    distinctions    as  elegant  pursuits  than  could    have  l»een 

founded  more  on  sentiuu'nt  than  on  rea-  expected  so  soon  to  suci'oed  to  the  in- 

son,  and  to  ^peak  va«;uely  <if  virtue  as  toh-rance,  bigotry,  and  barbaiism  of  the 

A  sort  of  nnhlt  nithuMiaum :  but  ho  was  preceding  ciuituiy. 

led,  at  the  same  time,   to  connect  with  ■  See  Warburton's   Diriue,   l4*'fjntum 

his  ethical  speculations  some  collateral  of  Moses  tlrmoustrnttd,   p.  [VX)  of  the 

inquiries  ronceming  Ik'auty  and  Har-  first  e^lition. 


430  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

Notwithstanding,  however,  these  and  other  merits,  Baxter 
has  contributed  so  little  to  the  advancement  of  that  philosophy 
which  has  since  been  cultivated  in  Scotland,  that  I  am  afraid 
the  very  slight  notice  I  have  now  taken  of  him  may  be  consi- 
dered as  an  unseasonable  digression.  The  great  object  of  his 
studies  plainly  was,  to  strengthen  the  old  argument  for  the 
soul's  inmiateriality,  by  [*  the  doctrine  of  the  inertia  of  matter, 
which  had  recently  attracted  general  attention,  as  one  of  the 
fimdamental  principles  of  the  Newtonian  Philosophy.]  To  the 
intellectual  and  moral  phenomena  of  Man,  and  to  the  laws  by 
which  they  are  regulated,  he  seems  to  have  paid  but  little 
attention.^ 


*  Appendix  to  the  first  part  of  the  •  Baxter  was  bom  at  Old  Aberdeen , 
Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of  the  Hitman  in  1686  or  1687,  and  died  at  Whitting- 
8oulf  pp.  109,  110.  ham,  in  East  Lothian,  in  1750.    I  have 

*  Mr.  Stewart  had  substituted  the  not  been  able  to  discover  the  date  of 
following  for  "  the  new  lights  furnished  the  first  edition  of  his  Inquiry  into  the 
by  Newton's  discoveries." — Ed,  Nature  of  the  Human  Soulf  but  the 


MSTAPHY8IC8  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


431 


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


oecond  edition  appeared  in  1737,  two 
years  before  the  publication  of  Mr. 
Hume*B  Treatise  of  Human  Nature. 

*  A  gentleman,*  who  lived  in  habits 
of  great  intimacy  with  Dr.  Reid  towards 
the  close  of  his  life,  and  on  whose  accu- 
racy I  can  fully  depend,  rememlwrs  to 
have  heard  him  say  repeatedly,  that 
**  Mr.  Hume,  in  his  Essays,  appeared  to 
have  forgotten  his  Metaphysics."  Nor 
will  this  supposition  be  thought  impro- 
bable, \ty  in  addition  to  the  subtle  and 
fugitive  nature  of  the  Rubjects  canvassed 
in  the  Treatise  of  Human  Nature^  it  be 


considered  that  long  before  the  publica- 
tion of  his  EssaySf  Mr.  Hume  had  aban- 
doned all  his  metaphysical  researches. 
In  proof  of  this,  I  shall  quote  a  passage 
from  a  letter  of  his  to  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot, 
which,  though  without  a  date,  seemi 
from  its  contents  to  have  been  written 
about  1750  or  1751.  The  passage  ii 
interesting  on  another  account,  as  it 
serves  to  shew  how  much  Mr.  Hume 
undervalued  the  utility  of  mathematical 
learning,  and  consequently  how  little  ho 
was  aware  of  its  importance  as  an  organ 
of  physical  discovery,  and  as  the  foun- 


*  This  gentleman  wm  Mr.  Stewart  himMlf.  In  the  proof  there  U  nothing  whaterer  printed  our^ 
revponding  to  this.  But  on  the  opposite  blank  leaf  there  appears  the  following  written  in  pencil  r^ — 
"  I  remember  that  in  conTersation  Dr.  Beid  nsed  to  say  that  in  his  Eoays  Mr.  Home  appeared  !• 
YukTt /oryoUen  hU  Mftaphjftie*.  I  do  not  remember  whether,  in  his  writings.  Dr.  Reid  hat  exprsmi 
thiM  opinion  so  sharply."— JKcL 


432 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

"  'Tis  evident  that  all  the  sciences  have  a  relation,  greater  or 
less,  to  human  natm*e,  and  tliat,  however  wide  any  of  them 


dation  of  some  of  the  most  necessary 
arts  of  civilized  life.  "  I  am  sorry  that 
our  correspondence  should  lead  ns  into 
these  abstract  speculations.  I  have 
thought,  and  read,  and  composed  very 
little  on  such  questions  of  late.  Morals, 
politics,  and  literature,  have  employed 
all  my  time ;  but  still  the  other  topics 
I  must  think  more  curious,  important, 
entertaining,  and  useful,  than  any  geo- 
metry that  is  deeper  than  EuclM." 

I  have  said  that  it  is  in  Mr.  Hume's 
earliest  work  that  his  mettiphysical 
talents  appear,  in  my  opinion,  to  the 
greatest  advantage.  From  the  follow- 
ing advertisement,  however,  prefixed,  in 
the  latest  edition  of  his  works,  to  the 
second  vohime  of  his  Essays  and  Trea- 
iiseSj  Mr.  Hume  himself  would  appear 
to  have  thought  differently.  "  Most  of 
the  principles  and  reasonings  contained 
in  this  volume  were  published  in  a  work 
in  three  volumes,  called  A  Treatise  of 
Human  Nature ;  a  work  which  the 
author  had  projected  before  he  left  C'ol- 
lege,  and  which  he  wrote  and  published 
not  long  after.  But  not  finding  it  suc- 
cessful, he  was  sensible  of  his  error  in 
going  to  the  press  too  early,  and  he  cast 
the  whole  anew  in  the  following  pieces, 
where  some  ncghgences  in  his  former 
reasoning,  and  some  in  the  expression, 
are,  he  hopes,  correctetl.  Yet  several 
writers,  who  have  honoured  the  author's 
philosophy  with  answers,  have  taken 
care  to  direct  all  their  batteries  against 
that  juvenile  work,  which  the  author 
never  acknowledged,  and  have  aflected 
to  triumph  in  any  advantage  which  they 
imagined  they  had  obtained  over  it ;  a 
practice  very  contrary  to  all  niles  of  can- 
dour and  fair  dealing,  and  a  strong  in- 
stance of  those  polemical  artifices  wliich 


a  bigoted  zeal  thinks  itself  authorized  to 
employ.  Henceforth,  the  author  desires 
that  the  following  pieces  may  alone  be 
regarded  as  containing  his  philosophical 
sentiments  and  principles.'* 

Aft^r  this  declaration,  it  certainly 
would  be  highly  uncandid  to  impute  to 
Mr.  Hume  any  philosophical  aentimenta 
or  princii)le8  not  to  be  found  in  his  Phi- 
1oso})hi(:al  Essays,  as  well  as  in  his 
Treatise.  But  where  is  the  unfaimess 
of  replying  to  any  plausible  arguments 
in  the  latter  work,  even  although  Mr. 
Hume  may  have  omitted  them  in  his 
subsiMjuent  publications ;  more  esjKcially 
where  these  arguments  supply  any  use- 
ful lights  for  illustrating  his  more  popu- 
lar compositions  ?  The  Treatise  of 
Human  Natvre  will  certainly  be  re- 
membered as  long  as  any  of  Mr.  Hume's 
philosophical  writings  ;  nor  is  any  per- 
son qualified  either  to  approve  or  to 
reject  his  doctrines,  who  has  not  studied 
them  in  the  svstematical  form  in  which 
they  were  originally  cast.  That  Mr. 
Hume's  remonstrance  may  be  just  with 
respi^ct  to  some  of  his  adversaries,  1 
believe  to  be  tnie ;  but  it  is  surely 
expressed  in  a  tone  more  querulous  and 
peevish  than  is  justified  by  the  occa- 
sion. 

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

"  1  believe  the  Philosophical  Essays 
contain  evervthing  of  consequence  re- 
lating to  the  Understanding,  which  you 
would  meet  with  in  the  Treatise;  and 
I  give  you  my  advice  against  reading 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         438 

may  seem  to  run  from  it,  they  still  return  back  by  one  pas- 
sage or  another.  Even  Mathematics,  Natural  Philosophy,  and 
Natural  Religion,  are  in  some  measure  dependent  on  the 
science  of  Man,  since  they  lie  under  the  cognizance  of  men,  and 
are  judged  of  by  their  powers  and  faculties.  ...  If,  therefore, 
the  sciences  of  Mathematics,  Natural  Philosophy,  and  Natural 
Religion,  have  such  a  deiiendence  on  the  knowledge  of  man, 
what  may  be  expected  in  the  other  sciences,  whose  connexion 
with  human  nature  is  more  close  and  intimate  ?  The  sole  end 
of  logic  is  to  explain  the  principles  and  operations  of  our 
reasoning  faculty,  and  the  nature  of  our  ideas:  morals  and 
criticism  regnrd  our  tastes  and  sentiments,  and  politics  consider 
men  as  united  in  society,  and  dependent  on  each  other.  .  .  . 
Here,  then,  is  the  only  expedient  from  which  we  can  hope  for 
success  in  our  philosophical  researches,  to  leave  the  tedious 
lingering  method  which  we  have  hitherto  followed,  and,  instead 
of  taking  now  and  then  a  castle  or  village  on  the  frontier,  to 
march  up  directly  to  the  capital  or  centre  of  these  sciences,  to 
human  nature  itself:  which,  being  once  masters  of,  we  may 
ever3rwhere  else  hope  for  an  easy  victory.  From  this  station, 
we  may  extend  our  conquests  over  all  tiiose  sciences  which 
more  intimately  concern  human  life,  and  may  afterwards  pro- 
ceed at  leisure  to  discover  more  fully  those  which  are  the 
objects  of  pure  curiosity.  There  is  no  question  of  importance 
whose  decision  is  not  comprised  in  the  Science  of  Man,  and 
there  is  none  wliich  can  be  decided  with  any  certainty  before 
we  become  acquainted  with  that  science.  In  pretending,  there- 
fore, to  exi)lain  the  principles  of  Human  Nature,  we,  in  effect, 
propose  a  complete  system  of  the  sciences,  built  on  a  founda- 
tion almost  entirely  new,  and  the  only  one  u^wn  which  they 
can  stand  with  any  security. 

"  And,  as  the  science  of  nmn  is  the  only  solid  foundation  for 

the  latter.  By  Hhurtcning  luid  HiiDpli-  Unt  precipitatt^ly.  So  ?Ast  an  under- 
fying  the  tiiicHtions,  I  really  reii<ler  them  taking,  planuc<l  Iwfore  I  wa«  one  and 
more  complete.  Afldo  dum  minuo.  The  twenty,  and  compoecd  l)ofore  twenty- 
philosophical  principles  arc  the  same  in  five,  must  necessarily  be  very  defective, 
both ;  but  I  was  earned  away  by  the  I  have  repented  my  haste  a  hundred 
heat  of  youth  and  invention  to  publish  and  a  hundred  times." 

VOL.  I.  2  B 


434 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

I  am  far  from  thinking,  that  the  execution  of  Mr.  Hume's 
work  corresponded  with  the  magnificent  design  sketched  out 
in  these  observations ;  nor  does  it  appear  to  me  that  he  had 
formed  to  himself  a  very  correct  idea  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  experimental  mode  of  reasoning  ought  to  be  applied  to 
moral  subjects.  He  had,  however,  very  great  merit  in  separat- 
ing entirely  his  speculations  concerning  the  philosophy  of  the 
mind  from  all  physiological  hypotheses  about  the  nature  of  the 
union  between  soul  and  Ixxiy ;  and  although,  from  some  of  his 
casual  expressions,  it  may  be  suspected  that  he  conceived  our 
intellectual  operations  to  result  from  bodily  organization,'  he 
had  yet  much  too  large  a  share  of  good  sense  and  sagacity  to 
suppose,  that,  by  studying  the  latter,  it  is  possible  for  human 
ingenuity  to  throw  any  light  upon  the  former.  His  works, 
accordingly,  are  perfectly  free  from  those  gratuitous  and  wild 
conjectures,  wliich  a  few  years  afterwards  were  given  to  the 
world  with  so  much  confidence  by  Hartley  and  Bonnet^    And 


'  "  Mr.  Loclco,  I^rd  Shal^flburj',  Dr. 
Mandeville,  Mr.  Huteheson,  Dr.  Butler," 

■  The  only  expression  in  his  works  I 
can  recollect  at  present,  that  can  give 
any  reasonable  countenance  to  such  a 
suspicion,  occurs  in  his  Posthumous  Dia- 
logues, where  he  speaks  of  "  that  little 
agitation   of  the   brain  which  wo  call 


thought."— (2(1  edition,  pp.  60,  61.) 
But  no  fair  inference  can  be  drawn  from 
tliis,  as  the  expression  is  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Philo  the  Sceptic;  whereas 
the  author  intimates  that  Cleanthes 
speaks  his  own  sentiments. 

•  [*  The  only  exception  to  this  re- 
mark that  I  can  recollect  in  Mr.  Hume*B 
Treatise,  occurs  in  vol.  i.  p.  3,  et  seq.] 


*  B«etor«d.— £d. 


METAniYSICH  DUiilNQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUUT.         435 

ill  thin  re8iXH;t  his  example  has  been  of  infinite  use  to  liis  huc- 
cesflors  in  this  northern  jmrt  of  the  island  Many  absurd 
theories  have,  indecnl,  at  iliflerent  times  been  produced  by  our 
countrymen;  but  I  know  of  no  jmrt  of  Europe  where  such 
systems  as  those  of  Hartley  and  Bonnet  have  been  so  unifonnly 
treated  with  tlie  contempt  they  deserve  as  in  Scotland.^ 

Nor  was  it  in  this  resjxjct  alone,  that  Mr.  Hume's  juvenile 
speculations  contributed  to  forward  the  progress  of  our  national 
literature.  Among  the  many  verj-  exwptionable  doctrines  in- 
volved in  them,  there  arc  various  discussions,  equally  refinetl 
and  solid,  in  which  he  has  happily  exemplified  the  application 
of  metaphysical  analysis  to  questions  connected  with  taste,  with 
the  philosophy  of  jurisprudence,  and  with  the  theory  of  govern- 
ment .  C)f  these  discussions  some  afterwards  ai)i)earcd  in  a 
more  popular  form  in  his  philosophical  and  literary  Essays, 
and  still  retain  a  place  in  the  latest  editions  of  his  works ;  but 
others,  not  less  curious,  have  lx?en  suppressed  by  the  author, 
probably  from  an  idea  tliat  they  were  too  abstruse  to  interest 
the  curiosit}'  of  ordinary  readers.  In  some  of  those  practical 
applications  of  metaphysical  principles,  we  may  ix^rceive  the 
germs  of  several  inquiries  wliich  have  since  been  successfully 
prosecuted  by  Mr.  Hume  s  countrymen ;  and  among  others,  of 
those  which  gave  birth  to  Lord  Kames  s  Historical  Law  Tixvcts, 
and  to  liis  Elements  of  Criticism, 

The  publication  of  Mr.  Hume's  Treatise  was  attended  with 
another  important  effect  in  Scotland.     He  had  cultivated  the 

*  In  no  part  of  Mr.  Hnnip'a  metnphy-  l>o  prrsnmcil  that  tlic  university  of  the 

Rical  writinp)  is  tborc  the  sHghtest  re-  capiUil  was  at  least  on  a  footing  with 

fcrt«nce  to  cither  of  these  systems,  ul-  any  other  in  the  kingdom,  that  of  Glas- 

tliough  he  siirviveil  tlio  «late  of  their  gow  alone  excnpte;.!,  where  Dr.  Tlutche- 

publication  little  lens  than  thirty  years.  s<»n  had  shot  far  a-head  of  all  his  con- 

[*  Of  the  general  state  of  Mctaphy-  temporaries.      Of   this    plan   a  rccoitl 

sirs  and  Ethics  in  Scotland,  at  the  time  (evidently  communicatijd  hy  Sir  J<»hn 

when  the  Treatise  on  Human  Nature  Tringle   himself)   is   preserved   in   the 

appeared,    some   i«lea  may   l»e   formed  Scots  Mngu::lufi  for   17 — ;  and  it  ap- 

from   the   plan   adopted    by  Sir  John  i)ears  to  me  to  l»e  an  object  of  sufHcient 

Pringle,   (who   was   then    I'rofessor   of  curiosity  to  justify  me  in  giving  a  rcfer- 

Moral  Philosophy  at  Kdinburgh,)  for  his  encc  to  it  hero.] 
academical  course  of  lectures.     It  may 

•  ReHnred.  -FiU 


436  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

art  of  writing  with  much  greater  success  than  any  of  his  pre- 
decessors, and  had  formed  his  taste  on  the  best  models  of  Eng- 
lish composition.  The  influence  of  his  example  appears  to 
have  been  great  and  general;  and  was  in  no  instance  more 
remarkable  than  in  the  style  of  his  principal  antagonists,  all  of 
whom,  in  studying  his  system,  have  caught  in  no  inconsider- 
able  degree,  the  purity,  polish,  and  precision  of  his  diction. 
Nobody,  I  believe,  will  deny,  that  Locke  himself,  considered  as 
an  English  writer,  is  far  surpassed,  not  only  by  Hume,  but  by 
Beid,  Campbell,  Gterard,  and  Beattie ;  and  of  this  fact  it  will 
not  be  easy  to  find  a  more  satisfactory  explanation,  than  in,  the 
critical  eye  with  which  they  were  led  to  canvass  a  work,  equally 
distinguished  by  the  depth  of  its  reasonings,  and  by  the  attrac- 
tive form  in  which  they  are  exhibited. 

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

With  this  fundamental  principle  of  the  Grassendists,  Mr. 
Hume  combined  the  logical  method  recommended  by  their 
great  antagonists  the  Cai'tesians,  and  (what  seemed  still  more 


METAPHTSICS  DURING  THE  EIQHTISNTH  CXNTUBT.         437 

remote  from  his  Epicurean  starting  ground)  a  strong  leaning  to 
the  idealism  of  Malebranche  and  of  Berkeley.  Like  Descartes, 
he  began  with  doubting  of  every  thing,  but  he  was  too  quick- 
sighted  to  be  satisfied,  like  Descartes,  with  the  solutions  given 
by  that  philosopher  of  his  doubta  On  the  contrary,  he  exposes 
the  futility  not  only  of  the  solutions  proposed  by  Descartes 
himself,  but  of  those  suggested  by  Locke  and  others  among 
his  successors;  ending  at  lost  where  Descartes  began,  in 
considering  no  one  proposition  as  more  certain,  or  even  as 
more  probable  than  another.  That  the  proofis  alleged  by 
Descartes  of  the  existence  of  the  material  world  are  quite 
inconclusive,  had  been  already  remarked  by  many.  Nay, 
it  had  been  shewn  by  Berkeley  and  others,  that  if  the  prin- 
ciples be  admitted  on  which  Descartes,  in  common  with 
all  philosophers,  from  Aristotle  downwards,  proceeded,  the 
existence  of  the  material  world  is  imi)ossible.  A  few  bold 
thinkers,  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Egoists,  had  gone  still 
further  than  this,  and  had  pushed  their  scepticism  to  such  a 
length,  as  to  doubt  of  everything  but  their  own  existence. 
According  to  these,  the  proposition,  cogito,  ergo  sum,  is  the 
only  truth  which  can  be  regarded  as  absolutely  certain.  It 
was  reserved  for  Mr.  Hume  to  call  in  question  even  this  pro- 
position, and  to  admit  only  the  existence  of  impressions  and 
ideas.  To  dispute  againat  the  existence  of  these  he  conceived 
to  be  impossible,  inasmuch  as  they  are  the  immediate  subjects 
of  consciousncsa  But  to  admit  the  existence  of  the  thinking 
and  percipient  /,  was  to  admit  the  existence  of  that  imaginary 
substance  called  Mind,  which  (according  to  him)  is  no  more 
an  object  of  human  knowledge  than  the  imaginary  and  ex- 
ploded substance  called  Matter. 

From  wliat  has  been  already  said,  it  may  be  seen,  that  we 
are  not  to  look  in  Mr.  Hume's  Treatise  for  any  regular  or  con- 
nected systeuL  It  is  neither  a  scheme  of  Materialism,  nor  a 
scheme  of  Spiritualism ;  for  his  reasonings  strike  equally  at  the 
root  of  both  these  theories.  His  aim  is  to  establish  a  universal 
scepticism,  and  to  produce  in  the  reader  a  complete  distnist  in 
his  own  facidties.     For  this  purjxjse  he  avails  himself  of  the 


438 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


data  assumed  by  the  most  opposite  sects,  shifting  his  groimd 
skilfully  from  one  position  to  another,  as  best  suits  the  scope 
of  his  present  argument.  With  the  single  exception  of  Bayle, 
he  has  carried  this  sceptical  mode  of  reasoning  farther  than 
any  other  modem  philosopher.  Cicero,  who  himself  belonged 
nominally  to  the  same  school,  seems  to  have  thought,  that  the 
controversial  habits  imposed  on  the  Academical  sect  by  their 
profession  of  universal  doubt,  required  a  greater  versatility  of 
talent  and  fertility  of  invention,  than  were  necessary  for  de- 
fending any  particular  system  of  tenets ;  ^  and  it  is  not  im- 
probable, that  Mr.  Hume,  in  the  pride  of  youthful  genius,  was 
misled  by  this  specious  but  very  fallacious  idea.  On  the  other 
hand,  Bayle  has  the  candour  to  acknowledge,  that  nothing  is 
so  easy  as  to  dispute  after  the  manner  of  the  sceptics  ;2  and  to 
this  proposition  every  man  of  reflection  will  find  himself  more 
and  more  disposed  to  assent,  as  he  advances  in  life.  It  is  ex- 
l>erience  alone  that  can  con\ince  us,  how  much  more  difficult 
it  is  to  make  any  real  progress  in  the  search  after  truth,  than 
to  acquire  a  talent  for  plausible  disputation.^ 


*  "  Nam  si  singulas  disdplinas  perci- 
pere  magnum  est,  qnanto  majus  omnes  ? 
quod  facere  iis  necesse  CBt,  quibus  pro* 
pofiitum  est,  vcri  reperiendi  causa,  et 
contra  omnes  philosophos  et  pro  omni- 
bus dicere. — Cnjus  rei  tantje  tamquo 
difficilis  facultatcm  consecutum  esse  me 
non  profiteer :  Secutnm  esse  pras  me 
fero." — Cicero,  De.  Nat.  Deor.  1.  i.  v. 

[♦  Independently  of  the  love  of  truth, 
other  conHiderations,  it  is  probable,  con- 
tiibutcd  to  confirm  Cicero  in  his  attach- 
ment to  a  sect,  which,  by  accustoming 
him  to  employ  his  ingenuity  and  elo- 
quence in  defence  of  both  sides  of  a 
disputed  question,  prepared  him  for  the 
exercise  of  the  forensic  talents,  to  which 
he  is  chiefly  indebted  for  his  immortal 
fame.  "  Fateor,  me,  oratorem,  si  mode 
sim,  aut  ctiam  quicimque  sim,  non  ex 
rhctorura  officinis,  sed  ex  Acadeniife 
Hpatiis  rxHtissc.*' — Orat.  ad  Brut,  iii.] 


■  See  the  passage  quoted  from  Bayle, 
in  page  317  of  this  DisserkUion. 

•  In  the  very  interesting  account, 
given  by  Dr.  Holland,  of  Velara,  a  mo- 
dem Greek  physician,  whom  he  met 
with  at  Larissa  in  Thessaly,  a  few 
slight  particulars  are  mentioned,  which 
let  us  completely  into  the  character  of 
that  ingenious  person.  "  It  appeared,** 
says  Dr.  Holland,  "  that  Velara  hod 
thought  much  on  the  various  topics  of 
Metaphysics  and  Morals,  and  his  con- 
versation on  these  topics  bore  the  same 
tone  of  satirical  scepticism  which  was 
apparent  as  the  general  feature  of  bis 
opinions.  We  sjioke  of  the  questions  of 
Materialism  and  Necessity,  on  both  of 
which  he  declared  an  affirmative  opi- 
nion." —  (Holland's  Travels  in  the 
Ionian  Isles,  &,c.  p.  275.)  "  I  passed 
this  evening  with  Velara  at  his  own 
house,  and  sut  with  him  till  a  late  hour. 


♦  Restored.— JRW. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


439 


That  this  spirit  of  sceptical  argument  lias  been  carried  to  a 
most  pernicious  excess  in  modern  EurojK*,  as  well  as  among  the 
ancient  Academics,  will,  I  presume,  be  now  very  generally  al- 
lowed ;  but  in  the  form  in  which  it  appears  in  Mr.  Hume's 
Treatise,  its  miscliievous  tendency  has  l>een  more  tlian  com- 
jx^nsated  by  the  importance  of  those  results  for  which  it  has 
prepared  the  way.  The  principles  which  he  assumes  were 
sanctioned  in  common  by  Giissendi,  by  Descartes,  and  by 
Locke ;  and  from  these,  in  most  instances,  he  reasons  with 
great  logical  accuracy  and  force.  The  conclusions  to  which  he 
is  thus  led  are  often  so  extravagant  and  dangerous,  that  he 
ought  to  liave  regarded  them  as  a  proof  of  the  unsoimdness  of 
his  data ;  but  if  he  had  not  the  merit  of  drawing  this  inference 
himself,  he  at  least  forced  it  so  irresistibly  on  the  observation 
of  his  successors,  as  to  Ixj  entitled  to  share  with  tliem  in  the 
honour  of  their  discoveries.  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned if  the  errors  which  he  adopted  from  his  predecessors 
would  not  liave  kept  their  ground  till  this  day,  liad  not  his 
sagacity  displayed  so  clearly  the  conseciuences  wliich  they  ne- 
cessarily involve.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  we  must  understand 
a  compliment  paid  to  liim  by  the  ablest  of  his  adversaries,  when 
he  says,  that  "  Mr.  Hume's  premises  often  do  more  than  atone 
for  his  conclusions."  * 


During  part  of  the  time  our  convcrflo- 
tion  turned  upon  nietaphyttical  topics, 
and  chiefly  on  the  old  Pyrrhonic  doc- 
trine of  the  non-existence  of  Matter. 
Velara,  as  usual,  took  the  sceptical  side 
of  the  argument,  in  which  he  showed 
much  ingenuity  and  great  knowledge 
of  the  more  eminent  controversialists  on 
thin  and  other  collateral  subjects." — 
{Ibid.  p.  370.)  We  see  here  a  lively 
picture  of  a  character  daily  to  bo  met 
with  in  more  polished  and  learned  so- 
cieties, disputing  not  for  tnith  but  for 
victory;  in  the  first  conversation  pro- 
fessing himself  a  Materialist,  and  in 
the  second  denying  the  existence  of 
Mattor;  on  both  occuhions  taking  up 
thut  gnmnd  where  he   was  most  likely 


to  provoke  op])osition.  If  any  inference 
is  to  be  drawn  from  the  c<mversation  of 
such  an  individual,  with  respect  to  his 
real  creed,  it  is  in  favour  of  those  opi- 
nions which  ho  controverts.  These 
opinions,  at  least,  we  may  confidentlj 
conclude  to  be  agreeable  to  the  general 
b<dief  of  the  country  where  he  lives. 

'  Mr.  Hume  himself  (to  whom  Dr. 
lie  id's  Inquiry  was  communicated  pre- 
vious to  its  publication,  by  their  com- 
mon friend  Dr.  Blair)  secerns  not  to  have 
bc^en  dissatisfied  with  this  upology  for 
some  of  his  si^eculations.  "  I  shall 
only  say,  (he  observes  in  a  lett«*r  ad- 
dressed to  the  author,)  that  if  you  httv« 
b*»en  able  to  clear  up  these  abstruse  and 
important    subjects,    iiiHt«»ad    of    beinj; 


440  DI8SDBBTATI0K. — PAAT  SECOND. 

The  bias  of  Mr.  Hume's  mind  to  scepticism  seems  to  have 
been  much  encoiu-aged,  and  the  success  of  his  sceptical  theories 
in  the  same  proportion  promoted,  by  the  recent  attempts  of 
Descartes  and  his  followers  to  demonstrate  Self-evident  Truths ; 
— attempts  which  Mr.  Hume  clearly  perceived  to  involve,  in 
every  instance,  that  sort  of  paralogism  which  logicians  call 
reasoning  in  a  circle.  The  weakness  of  these  pretended  de- 
monstrations is  triumphantiy  exposed  in  the  TrecUiae  of 
Human  Nature  ;  and  it  is  not  very  wonderful  that  the  author, 
in  the  first  enthusiaffln  of  his  victoiy  over  his  immediate  prede- 
oessors,  should  have  fancied  that  the  inconclusiveness  of  the 
proofs  argued  some  unsoundness  in  the  propositions  which  they 
were  employed  to  support.  It  would,  indeed,  have  done  still 
greater  honour  to  his  sagacity  if  he  had  ascribed  this  to  its 
true  cause — ^the  impossibility  of  confirming,  by  a  process  of 
reasoning,  the  fundamerUal  laws  of  human  belief;  but  (as 
Bacon  remarks)  it  does  not  often  happen  to  those  who  labour 
in  the  field  of  science,  that  the  same  person  who  sows  the  seed 
should  reap  the  harvest. 

From  that  strong  sceptical  bias  which  led  this  most  acute 
reasoner,  on  many  important  questions,  to  shift  his  controver- 
sial groimd  accordinrto  the  hmnou;  of  the  momeni,  one 
favourable  consequence  has  resulted — that  we  are  indebted  to 
him  for  the  most  powerful  antidotes  we  possess  against  some  of 
the  most  poisonous  errors  of  modem  philosophy.  I  have 
already  made  a  similar  remark  in  speaking  of  the  elaborate 
refiitation  of  Spinozism  by  Bayle ;  but  the  argument  stated  by 
Hume,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Idea  of  Necessary  Connection, 
(though  brought  forward  by  the  author  with  a  very  diflferent 
view,)  forms  a  still  more  valuable  accession  to  metaphysical 
science,  as  it  lays  the  axe  to  the  very  root  from  which  Spinozism 
springs.     The  cardinal  principle  on  which  the  whole  of  that 

mortified,  I  shall  be  so  vain  as  to  pre-  which  were  the  common  ones,  and  to 

tend  to  a  share  of  the  praise,  and  shall  perceive  their  futility." — For  the  whole 

think  that  my  errors,  by  having  at  least  of  Mr.  Hume's  letter,  see  Biographical 

some  coherence,  had  led  you  to  make  a  Memoirs  of  Smith,  Robertson,  and  Eeid, 

more  strict  review  of  my   principles,  by  the  authur  of  this  Dissertation,  p.  417. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


441 


system  turns  is,  that  all  events,  physical  and  moral,  are  necea- 
sarily  linked  together  as  causes  and  effects ;  from  which  prin- 
ciple all  the  most  alarming  conclusions  adopted  by  Spinosa 
follow  as  unavoidable  and  manifest  corollaries.  But,  if  it  be 
true,  as  Mr.  Hume  contends,  and  as  most  philosophers  now 
admit,  that  physical  causes  and  effects  are  known  to  us  merely 
as  antecedents  and  conaeguenta ;  still  more,  if  it  be  true  that 
the  word  neceaaity,  as  employed  in  this  discussion,  is  altogether 
unmeaning  and  insignificant,  the  whole  system  of  Spinoza  is 
nothing  better  than  a  roi)e  of  sand,  and  the  very  proposition 
which  it  professes  to  demonstrate  is  incomprehensible  by  our 
faculties.  Mr.  Hume's  doctrine,  in  the  unqualified  form  in 
which  he  states  it,  may  lead  to  other  consequences  not  less 
dangerous :  but,  if  he  had  not  the  good  fortune  to  conduct  me- 
taphysicians to  the  truth,  he  may  at  least  be  allowed  the  merit 
of  having  shut  up  for  ever  one  of  the  most  frequented  and 
fatal  paths  which  led  them  astray. 

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

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


*  TreaiUe  of  Human  Nature^  vol.  i. 
p.  144. — Although  Mr.  Hume,  however, 
succeeded  hotter  than  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors, in  calling  the  attention  of  philo- 
sophers to  this  discussion,  his  opinion  on 
the  suhject  ilocs  not  possess  the  merit, 
in  point  of  originality,  which  was  sup- 
[)Osod  to  belong  to  it  cither  by  himself 
or  by  his  antagonists.    See  the  passages 


which  I  have  quoted  in  proof  of  tliis,  in 
the  first  volume  of  the  PhUonophy  of  the 
Human  Mind^  p.  542,  et  «f//.,  fourth 
edition,  and  also  in  the  second  volume 
of  the  same  work,  p.  560,  ei  set/.,  second 
edition.  Among  these,  I  request  the 
attention  of  my  readers  more  particu- 
larly to  a  passage  from  a  book  entitled, 
The  Procedure,  Extent,  and  Limits  of 


442  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

he  examines  three  different  arguments  which  liave  been  alleged 
as  proofs  of  the  proposition  in  question ;  the  first  by  Mr. 
Hobbes ;  the  second  by  Dr.  Clarke ;  and  the  third  by  Mr. 
Locke.  And  I  think  it  will  now  be  readily  acknowledged  by 
every  competent  judge,  that  his  objections  to  all  these  pre- 
tended demonstrations  are  conclusive  and  unanswerabla 

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

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

the  Human   Understanding,  published  dence   is   truly  wonderful,   as    it    can 

two  years  before  the  TVcafwco/'/fMwwin  scarcely,   by   any   possibility,    l)c    sup- 

Natwre^  and  commonly  Rscribed  to  Dr.  posed  that  this  lK»ok  was   ever  heanl 

Browne,  Bishop  of  Cork.     The  coinci-  of  by  Mr.  Hume. 


METAPHYSICS  DUKING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         443 

From  this  last  reasoning,  liowever,  of  Mr.  Hume,  it  may 
be  suspected,  that  he  was  aware  of  the  vulnerable  point 
against  which  his  adversaries  were  most  likely  to  direct  their 
attacks.  From  the  weakness,  too,  of  the  entrenchments 
which  he  has  here  thrown  up  for  his  own  security,  he  seems 
to  have  been  sensible,  that  it  was  not  capable  of  a  long  or 
vigorous  resistance.  In  the  mean  time,  he  betrays  no  want  of 
confidence  in  his  original  position;  Init  repeating  his  asser- 
tion, that  "  we  derive  the  opinion  of  the  necessity  of  a  cause 
to  every  new  production,  neither  from  demoustmtion  nor  from 
intuition,"  he  l)oldly  concludes,  that  "  this  opinion  must  neces- 
sarily arise  from  ol>8ervation  and  experience." — (Vol.  i.  p.  147.) 
Or,  as  he  elsewhere  expresses  himself,  "All  our  reasonings 
concerning  causes  and  effects  are  deriveil  from  nothing  but 
custom ;  and,  consequently,  belief  is  more  properly  an  act  of 
the  sensitive  than  of  the  cogitative  part  of  our  natures." — 
Ibid.  p.  321. 

The  distinction  here  alluded  to  between  the  sensitive  and  the 
cogitative  parts  of  our  nature,  (it  may  be  proper  to  remind  my 
readers,)  makes  a  great  figure  in  the  works  of  Cudworth  and 
of  Kant  By  the  former  it  was  avowedly  borrowed  from  the 
philosophy  of  Plato.  To  the  latter,  it  is  not  improbable,  that 
it  may  have  been  suggested  by  this  passage  in  Hume.  Without 
disputing  its  justness  or  its  importance,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
express  my  doubts  of  the  propriety  of  stating,  so  strongly  as 
has  frequently  been  done,  the  one  of  these  parts  of  our  nature 
in  contrast  with  the  other.  Would  it  not  Ix?  more  philosophical, 
as  well  as  more  pleasing,  to  contemplate  the  l>eautiful  harmony 
Ix^tween  them,  and  the  gradual  steps  by  which  the  mind  is 
trained  by  the  intimations  of  the  fonner,  for  the  deliberate 
conclusions  of  the  latter  ?  If,  for  exiimple,  oiur  conviction  of 
the  permanence  of  the  laws  of  nature  be  not  founded  on  any 
process  of  reasoning,  (a  ])ropoKition  which  Mr.  Hume  secerns  to 
have  established  with  demonstrative  evidence,)  but  be  either 
the  result  of  an  instinctive  principle  of  belief,  or  of  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas,  ()i)erating  at  a  period  when  the  light  of  reason 
has  not  vet  da\\nie<l,  what  can  W  m(»n»  deli*xhtful  than  t^^  find 


444 


DISSEBTATtON. — PABT  SECOND. 


this  suggestion  of  our  sensitive  frosme^  verified  by  every  step 
which  our  reason  afterwards  makes  in  the  study  of  physical 
science;  and  confirmed  with  mathematical  accuracy  by  the 
never-failing  accordance  of  the  phenomena  of  the  heavens  with 
the  previous  calculations  of  astronomers !  Does  not  this  afibrd 
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  atmos- 
phere ?  So  far  from  encouraging  scepticism,  such  a  view  of 
human  nature  seems  peculiarly  calculated  to  silence  every 
doubt  about  the  veracity  of  our  faculties.* 


^  Upon  either  of  these  suppositions, 
Mr.  Hume  would,  with  equal  propriety, 
have  referred  our  anticipation  of  the 
future  event  to  the  sensitive  part  of  our 
nakire;  and,  in  point  of  fact,  the  one 
supposition  would  have  answered  his 
purpose  as  well  as  the  other. 

•  It  is  hut  justice  to  Mr.  Hume  to  re- 
mark, that,  in  his  later  puhlications,  he 
has  himself  suggested  this  very  idea 
as  the  hest  solution  he  could  give  of  his 
own  douhts.  The  following  passage, 
which  appears  to  me  to  he  eminently 
philos(^hical  and  beautiful,  I  beg  leave 
to  recommend  to  the  particular  attention 
of  Kant*s  disciples : — 

"  Here,  then,  is  a  kind  of  pre-esta- 
blished harmony  between  the  course  of 
nature  and  the  succession  of  our  ideas ; 
and  though  the  powers  and  forces  by 
which  the  former  is  governed  be  wholly 
unknown  to  us,  yet  our  thoughts  and 
conceptions  have  still,  we  find,  gone  on 
in  the  same  train  with  the  other  works 
of  nature.  Custom  is  that  principle  by 
which  this  correspondence  has  been 
effected ;  so  necessary  to  the  subsistence 
of  our  species,  and  the  regulation  of  our 
conduct  in  every  circumstance  and  oc- 
currence of  human  life.  Had  not  the 
presence  of  an  object  instantly  excited 
the  idea  of  those  objects  conunonly  con- 
joined with  it,  all  our  knowledge  must 


have  been  limited  to  the  narrow  sphere 
of  our  memory  and  senses;  and  we 
should  never  have  been  able  to  adjust 
means  to  ends,  or  employ  our  natural 
powers,  either  to  the  producing  of  good, 
or  avoiding  of  evil.  Those  who  delight 
in  the  discovery  and  contemplation  of 
final  cattses  have  here  ample  subject  to 
employ  their  wonder  and  admiration. 

"  I  shall  add,  for  a  further  confirma- 
tion of  the  foregoing  theory,  that,  as  this 
operation  of  the  mind,  by  which  we  in- 
fer like  e£fects  from  like  causes,  and  vice 
versOf  is  so  essential  to  the  subsistence 
of  all  human  creatures,  it  is  not  probable 
that  it  could  be  trusted  to  the  fidlacious 
deductions  of  our  reason,  which  is  slow 
in  its  operations,  appears  not  in  any  de- 
gree during  the  first  years  of  infancy, 
and  at  best  is,  in  every  age  and  period 
of  human  life,  extremely  liable  to  error 
and  mistake.  It  is  more  conformable  to 

the    ORDINART    WISDOM    OF    NATURE  tO 

secure  so  necessary  an  act  of  the  mind 
by  some  instinct  or  mechanical  tendency 
which  may  bo  infallible  in  its  operations, 
may  discover  itself  at  the  first  appear- 
ance of  life  and  thought,  and  may  be  in- 
dependent of  all  the  laboured  deductions 
of  the  understanding.  As  nature  has 
taught  us  the  use  of  our  limbs,  without 
giving  us  the  knowledge  of  the  muscles 
and  nerves  by  which  they  are  actuated, 


•» 


METAPHTSICB  DUBINQ  THE  BIQHTBBNTH  CENTURY. 


445 


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

In  the  course  of  Mr.  Hiune's  very  refined  discussions  on  this 
subject,  he  is  led  to  apply  them  to  one  of  the  most  important 
principles  of  the  mind, — our  belief  of  the  continuance  of  the 
laws  of  nature ;  or,  in  other  words,  our  belief  that  the  future 
course  of  nature  will  resemble  the  past.  And  here,  too,  (as  I 
already  hinted,)  it  is  very  generally  admitted  that  he  has  suc- 
ceeded completely  in  overturning  all  the  theories  which  profess 
to  account  for  this  belief,  by  resolving  it  into  a  process  of  rea- 
soning.^   The  only  diflference  which  seems  to  remain  among 


80  has  iho  implanted  in  us  an  instinct 
which  carries  forward  the  thoughts  in  a 
correspondent  course  to  that  which  she 
has  established  among  external  objects ; 
though  wc  arc  ignorant  of  those  powers 
and  forces  on  which  this  regular  course 
and  succession  of  objects  totally  de- 
pends.**— See,  in  the  lost  editions  of 
Mr.  Hume*8  Philatophical  Essays^  pub- 
lished during  his  own  lifetime,  the  two 
sections  entitled  Sceptical  Doubts  con- 
cerning the  Operations  of  the  Under- 
atandiwf;  and  Sceptical  Solution  of  these 
Doubts.  The  title  of  the  latter  of  these 
sections  has,  not  altogether  without  rea- 
son, incurred  the  ridicule  of  Dr.  Bcattie, 


who  translates  it,  Doubtful  Solution  of 
Doubtful  Doubts.  But  the  essay  con- 
tains much  sound  and  important  matr 
ter,  and  throws  a  strong  light  on  some 
pf  the  chief  difficulties  which  Mr.  Hume 
himself  had  started.  Sufficient  justice  has 
not  been  done  to  it  by  his  antagonists. 

^  The  incidental  reference  made,  by 
way  of  illustration,  in  the  following  pas- 
sage, to  our  instinctive  conviction  of  the 
permanency  of  the  laws  of  Nature,  en- 
courages me  to  hope  that,  among  candid 
and  intelligent  inquirers,  it  is  now  re- 
ceived as  an  acknowledged  fact  in  the 
Theory  of  the  Human  Mind. 

"  The  anxiety  men  have  in  all  ages 


44G 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


philosopliers  is,  whether  it  can  be  explained,  as  Mr.  Hume  ima- 
gined, by  means  of  the  association  of  ideas  ;  or  whether  it  must 
be  considered  as  an  original  and  fundamental  law  of  the  human 
understanding ; — a  question,  undoubtedly,  abundantly  curious, 
as  a  problem  connected  with  the  Theory  of  the  Mind  ;  but  to 
which  more  practical  importance  has  sometimes  been  attached 
than  I  conceive  to  be  necessary.^ 

That  Mr,  Hume  himself  conceived  his  refutation  of  the 
theories  which  profess  to  assign  a  reason  for  our  faith  in  the 


shewn  to  obtain  a  fixed  standard  of 
value,  and  that  remarkable  agreement 
of  nations,  dissimilar  in  all  other  ciis* 
toms,  in  the  use  of  one  medium,  on 
account  of  its  superior  fitness  for  that 
purpose,  is  itself  a  convincing  proof  how 
essential  it  is  to  our  social  interests. 
The  notion  of  its  permanency,  although 
it  be  conventional  and  arbitrary,  and 
liable,  in  reality,  to  many  causes  of  va- 
riation, yet  had  gained  so  firm  a  hold  on 
the  minds  of  men,  as  to  resemble,  in  its 
effects  on  their  conduct,  that  instinctive 
conviction  of  the  permanency  of  the  Ioads 
of  nature  tchich  is  tlte  foundation  ofaU 
our  retisoning,^' — A  Letter  to  the  Iii{jht 
Hon,  S.  Peelf  M,F.for  the  University  of 
Oxford^  by  one  of  his  Constituents. 
Second  edition,  p.  23. 

*  The  difference  between  the  two  opi- 
nions amounts  to  nothing  more  than 
this,  whether  our  expectation  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  laws  of  nature  results 
from  a  principle  coeval  with  the  first 
exercise  of  the  senses;  or  whether  it 
arises  gradually  from  the  accommoda- 
tion of  the  order  of  our  thoughts  to  the 
established  order  of  physical  events. 
"Nature  (as  Mr.  Hume  himself  ob- 
serves) may  certainly  produce  whatever 
can  arise  from  habit ;  nay,  habit  is  no- 
thing but  one  of  the  principles  of 
nature,  and  derives  all  its  force  from 
that  origin." — {Treatise  of  Human  Na- 
ture^ vol.  i.  p.  313.)  Whatever  ideas, 
therefore,  and  whatever  principles  we 


are  unavoidably  led  to  acquire  by  the 
circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed, 
and  by  the  exercise  of  those  faculties 
which  are  essential  to  our  preservation, 
are  to  be  considered  as  parts  of  human 
nature,  no  less  than  those  which  are 
implanted  in  the  mind  at  its  first  forma- 
tion. Are  not  the  acquired  perceptions 
of  sight  and  of  hearing  as  much  parts  of 
human  nature  as  the  original  perceptions 
of  external  objects  which  we  obtain  by 
the  use  of  the  hand  ? 

The  passage  quoted  frx)m  Mr.  Hume, 
in  Note  2,  p.  444,  if  attentively  consi- 
dered, will  be  found,  when  combined  with 
these  remarks,  to  throw  a  strong  and 
pleasing  light  on  his  latest  views  with 
respect  to  this  part  of  his  philosophy. 

In  denying  that  our  expectation  of 
the  continuance  of  the  laws  of  nature 
is  founded  on  reasoning,  as  well  as  in 
asserting  our  ignorance  of  any  necessary 
connexions  among  physical  events,  Mr. 
Hume  had  been  completely  anticipated 
by  some  of  his  predecessors.  (See  the 
references  mentioned  in  the  Note,  p. 
441.)  I  do  not,  however,  think  that, 
before  his  time,  philosophers  were  at  all 
aware  of  the  alarming  consequences 
which,  on  a  superficial  view,  seem  to 
follow  from  this  part  of  his  system.  In- 
deed, these  consequences  would  never 
have  been  apprehended,  had  it  not  been 
supposed  to  form  an  essential  link  in  his 
argument  against  the  commonly  received 
notion  of  Causation. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         447 

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

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

When  this  doctrine  was  first  proposed  by  Mr.  Hume,  he  ajv- 
pears  to  have  been  very  strongly  impressed  with  its  repugnance 
to  the  common  apprehensions  of  mankind.  "  I  am  sensible  (he 
observes)  that  of  all  the  paradoxes  which  I  have  had,  or  shall 
hereafter  have  occasion  to  advance  in  the  course  of  this  treatise, 
the  present  one  is  the  most  violent." — {Treatise  of  Human 


448 


DISSERTATION. — PABT  SECOND. 


Naiure^  vol.  i.  p.  291.)  It  was  probably  owing  to  this  impres- 
sion that  he  did  not  fully  unfold  in  that  work  all  the  conse- 
quences which,  in  his  subsequent  publications,  he  deduced  from 
the  same  paradox ;  nor  did  he  even  apply  it  to  invalidate  the 
argument  which  infers  the  existence  of  an  intelligent  cause  from 
the  order  of  the  universe.  There  cannot,  however,  be  a  doubt 
that  he  was  aware,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  of  the  conclusions 
to  which  it  unavoidably  leads,  and  which  are,  indeed,  too  ob- 
vious to  escape  the  notice  of  a  far  less  acute  inquirer. 

In  a  private  letter  of  Mr.  Hume's,  to  one  of  his  most  intimate 
friends,^  some  light  is  thrown  on  the  circumstances  which  first 
led  his  mind  into  this  train  of  sceptical  speculation.  As  his 
narrative  has  every  appearance  of  the  most  perfect  truth  and 
candour,  and  contains  several  passages  which  I  doubt  not  will 
be  very  generally  interesting  to  my  readers,  I  shall  give  it  a 
place,  together  with  some  extracts  from  the  correspondence  to 
which  it  gave  rise,  in  the  Notes  at  the  end  of  this  Dissertation, 
Everything  connected  with  the  origin  and  composition  of  a 
work  which  has  had  so  powerful  an  influence  on  the  direction 
which  metaphysical  pursuits  have  since  taken,  both  in  Scot- 
land^  and  in  Grermany,  will  be  allowed  to  form  an  important 


\  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  Bart.,  grandfather 
of  the  present  Earl  of  Minto.  The  ori- 
ginals of  the  letters  to  which  I  refer  are 
in  Lonl  Minto's  possession. 

•  A  foreign  writer  of  great  name  (M. 
Frederick  Schlegel)  seems  to  think  that 
the  influence  of  Mr.  Hume's  TreaHae  of 
Human  Nature  on  the  Philosophy  of 
England  has  been  still  more  extensive 
than  I  had  conceived  it  to  be.  His  opi- 
nion on  this  point  I  transcribe  as  a  sort 
of  literary  curiosity : 

"  Since  the  time  of  Hume,  nothing 
more  has  been  attempted  in  England 
than  to  erect  all  sorts  of  bulwarks  against 
the  practical  influence  of  his  destructive 
scepticism ;  and  to  maintain,  by  various 
substitutes  and  aids,  the  pile  of  moral 
principle  uncorrupted  and  entire.  Not 
only  with  Adam  Smith,  but  with  all 


their  late  philosophers,  national  welfare 
is  the  rtiUng  and  central  principle  of 
thought;  —  a  principle  exceUerU  cmd 
praiseworthy  in  its  due  situation,  hut 
quite  unfitted  for  being  the  centre  and 
oracle  of  all  knowledge  and  science^" 
From  the  connexion  in  which  this  last 
sentence  stands  with  the  context,  would 
not  one  imagine  that  the  writer  con- 
ceived the  Wealth  of  Nations  to  be  a 
new  moral  or  metaphysical  system,  de- 
vised by  Mr.  Smith  for  the  purpose  of 
counteracting  Mr.  Hume's  scepticism  ? 
I  have  read  this  translation  of  Mr. 
Schlegers  lectures  with  much  curiosity 
and  interest,  and  flatter  myself  that  we 
shall  soon  have  English  versions  of  the 
works  of  Kant,  and  of  other  German 
authors,  firom  the  pens  of  their  English 
disciples.    Little  more,  I  am  fully  per- 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


449 


article  of  philosophical  history;  and  this  history  I  need  not 
offer  any  apology  for  choosing  to  communicate  to  the  public 
rather  in  Mr.  Hume's  words  than  in  my  own.* 

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


Ruaded,  is  necessary,  in  this  country,  to 
bring  down  the  philosophy  of  Germany 
to  its  proper  level. 


In  treating  of  literary  and  historical 
subjects,  Mr.  Schlegel  seems  to  be  more 
in  his  element  than  when  he  ventures 
to  pronounce  on  philosophical  questions. 
But  even  in  cases  of  the  former  descrip- 
tion, some  of  his  dashing  judgments  on 
English  writers  can  be  accounted  for 
only  by  haste,  caprice,  or  prejudice. 
"  The  English  themBclves  (wo  are  told) 
are  now  pretty  well  convinced  that  Ro- 
bertson is  a  careless,  superficial,  and 
blundering  historian :  although  they 
study  his  works,  and  are  right  in  doing 
so,  as  models  of  pure  composition,  ex- 
tremely deserving  of  attention  during 
the  present  declining  state  of  English 

VOL.  I. 


style.  .  .  .  With  all  the  abundance  of 
his  Italian  elegance,  what  is  the  over- 
loaded and  affected  Roscoe  when  com- 
pared with  Gibbon?  Coxe,  although 
master  of  a  good  and  classical  style,  re- 
sembles Robertson  in  no  respect  so  much 
as  in  the  superficialness  of  his  re- 
searches; and  the  statesman  Fox  has 
nothing  in  common  with  Hume  but  the 
bigotry  of  his  party  zeal."  Such  criti- 
cisms may  perhaps  be  applauded  by  a 
German  auditory,  but  in  this  country 
they  can  injure  the  reputation  of  none 
but  their  author. 

»  See  Note  C^  C'  C. 

*  I  allude  particularly  to  the  unne- 
cessary multiplication,  in  his  philoso- 
phical arguments,  of  internal  senses  and 
of  instinctive  principles. 

2  F 


450 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


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

The  answer  which  Mr.  Hume  made  to  this  argument,  when 
it  was  first  proposed  to  him  in  the  easy  intercourse  of  private 
correspondence,  seems  to  me  an  object  of  so  much  curiosity, 
as  to  justify  me  for  bringing  it  under  the  eye  of  my  readers 


'  Voltaire,  in  liis  catalogue  of  the  illus- 
trious writers  who  adorned  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.,  is  one  of  the  very  few 
French  authors  who  have  spoken  of 
Buffier  with  due  respect :  "  11  y  a  dans 
ses  traitcs  do  metaphysique  des  mor- 
ceaux  que  Locke  n*aurait  pas  desavoues, 
et  c'est  le  seul  jesuite  qui  ait  mis  une 
philosophie  raisonnahle  dans  ses  ouv- 
rages/' — Another  French  philosopher, 
too,  of  a  very  different  school,  and  cer- 
tainly not  disposed  to  overrate  the  tal- 
ents of  Buffier,  has,  in  a  work  published 
as  lately  as  1805,  candidly  acknow- 
ledged the  lights  which  he  might  have 
derived  from  the  labours  of  his  prede- 
cessor, if  he  had  been  acquainted  with 
them  at  an  earlier  period  of  his  studies. 
Condillac,  he  also  observes,  might  have 


profited  greatly  by  the  same  lights,  if  ho 
had  availed  himself  of  their  guidance, 
ill  his  inquiries  concerning  the  human 
understanding.  "  Du  moins  est  il  cer- 
tain quo  pour  ma  part,  je  suis  fort  iacho 
de  ne  connoitre  que  depuis  tres  peu  de 
temps  ces  opinions  du  Pere  Buffier ;  si 
je  les  avais  vues  plutot  enoncees  quel- 
que  part,  elles  m*auraient  epargne  beau- 
coup  de  peines  et  d'hesitations." — "  Je 
regrette  beaucoup  que  Cktndillac,  dans 
ses  profondes  et  sagaces  meditations  sur 
I'intelligcnce  humaine  n'ait  pas  fait  plus 
d^attention  aux  idees  du  Pere  Buffier," 
&c.  &c. — El^mens  d' Idiolofjie^  par  M. 
Destutt-Tracy,  tom.  iii.  pp.  136,  137. 
— See  ElemenU  of  the  Philosophy  of 
the  Human  Mind,  vol.  ii.  pp.  88,  89, 
2d  edit. 


METAPUYSIOB  DURING  THK  EIGUTKENTH  CENTURY.  451 

in  imaiediate  connexion  with  tlie  foregoing  details.  Opinions 
thus  communicated  in  the  conlideuce  of  friendly  discussion, 
possess  a  value  whicli  seldom  belongs  to  propositions  hazarded 
in  those  public  controversies  where  the  love  of  victory  is  apt  to 
mingle,  more  or  less,  in  the  most  candid  minds,  with  the  love 
of  truth. 

"  Your  notion  of  correcting  subtlety  by  seiUiment  is  cer- 
tainly very  just  l^^th  regard  to  morals,  which  depend  upon 
sentiment:  and  in  politics  and  natural  philosophy,  whatever 
conclusion  is  contrary  to  certain  matters  of  fact,  must  certainly  . 
be  wrong,  and  there  must  some  error  lie  somewhere  in  the 
argument,  wliether  we  be  able  to  shew  it  or  not  But,  in  meta- 
physics or  theology,  I  cannot  see  how  eitlier  of  tliese  plain  and 
obvious  standards  of  truth  can  have  place.  Nothing  there  can 
correct  bad  reasoning  but  good  reasoning ;  and  sophistry  must 
be  opposed  by  syllogism.'  About  seventy  or  eighty  years  ago,' 
I  observe  a  principle  like  that  whicli  you  advance  prevailed 
very  much  in  France,  amongst  some  philosophers  and  beaux 
esprits.  The  occasion  of  it  was  tliis :  The  famous  M.  Nicole 
of  the  Port  Royal,  in  his  Peiyituiti  de  la  Fai,  pushed  the 
Protestants  very  liard  upon  the  impossibiUty  of  the  people's 
reacliing  a  conviction  of  their  religion  by  the  way  of  j)rivate 
judgment,  which  required  so  many  disquisitions,  reasonings, 
researches,  erudition,  impartiality,  and  {)enetration,  as  not  one 
of  a  hundred,  even  among  men  of  eilucation,  is  capable  of  M. 
Claude  and  the  Protestants  answered  1dm,  not  by  solving  his 
difficulties,  (which  seems  impossible,)  but  by  retorting  Uiem, 
(which  is  very  easy.)  Tliey  showed,  that  to  reach  the  way  of 
authority  which  the  Catholics  insist  on,  as  long  a  train  of  acute 
reasoning,  and  as  great  erudition  was  reqiusite,  as  would  be 
sufficient  for  a  Protestant  We  must  first  prove  all  the  truths 
of  natural  religion,  the  foundation  of  morals,  the  divine  autho- 


'  May  not  BOphi?»tr}-  Iw  also  opponcd  'Flic  wonl  ^rntimrnt  does  not  pxpn»M, 

bv  appcftlinp  to  tho  fundamental  Jaini  with  wifficient  precision,  the  tent  which 

of  human  hiUef;  and,  in  nomc  cabcs,  by  Mr.   Hume's  corR-Bpondciit  had  luani- 

nppoaling  to  facta  for  which  we  have  fi-Htly  in  vfow. 

the  evidence  of  our  own  (>onsciouiine88  ?  ■  This  letter  iu  c'.atol  ITol. 


452  DISSBRTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

rity  of  the  Scripture,  the  deference  which  it  commands  to  the 
Church,  the  tradition  of  the  Church,  &c.  &c.  The  comparison 
of  these  controversial  writings  begat  an  idea  in  some  that  it 
was  neither  by  reasoning  nor  authority  we  learn  our  religion, 
but  by  sentiment;  and  this  was  certainly  a  very  convenient 
way,  and  what  a  philosopher  would  be  very  well  pleased  to 
comply  with,  if  he  could  distinguish  sentiment  from  education. 
But,  to  all  appearance,  the  sentiment  of  Stockholm,  Greneva, 
JRome,  ancient  and  modem  Athens,  and  Memphis,  have  not 
the  same  characters;  and  no  thinking  man  can  implicitly 
assent  to  any  of  them,  but  from  the  general  principle,  that,  as 
the  truth  on  these  subjects  is  beyond  human  capacity,  and 
that,  as  for  one's  own  ease,  he  must  adopt  some  tenets,  there  is 
more  satisfaction  and  convenience  in  holding  to  the  catechism 
we  have  been  first  taught.  Now,  this  I  have  nothing  to  say 
against.  I  would  only  observe,  that  such  a  conduct  is  foimded 
on  the  most  universal  and  determined  scepticism.  For  more 
curiosity  and  research  give  a  direct  opposite  turn  from  the 
same  principles." 

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

As  to  the  distinction  alleged  by  Mr.  Hume  between  the 
criteria  of  truth  in  natural  philosophy  and  in  metaphysics,  I 
trust  it  will  now  be  pretty  generally  granted,  that  however  well 
founded  it  may  be  when  confined  to  the  metaphysics  of  the 
schoolmen,  it  will  by  no  means  hold  when  extended  to  the 
inductive  philosophy  of  the  human  mind.  In  this  last  science, 
no  less  than  in  natural  philosophy,  Mr.  Hume's  logical  maxim 
may  be  laid  down  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that  "  whatever 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  TlfE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  453 

conclusion  is  contrary  to  matter  of  fact  must  be  wrong,  and 
there  must  some  error  lie  somewhere  in  the  argument,  whether 
we  be  able  to  show  it  or  not." 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  in  the  history  of  Mr.  Hume's 
literary  life,  and  a  proof  of  the  sincerity  with  which  he  was 
then  engaged  in  the  search  of  truth,  that,  previous  to  the  pub* 
lication  of  his  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  he  discovered  a 
strong  anxiety  to  submit  it  to  the  examination  of  the  cele- 
brated Dr.  Butler,  author  of  the  Analogy  of  Religion,  NcUural 
and  Revealed,  to  the  ConstitiUion  and  Course  of  Nature.  For 
this  purpose  he  applied  to  Mr.  Henry  Home,  between  whom 
and  Dr.  Butler  some  friendly  letters  appear  to  have  passed 
before  this  period.  "  Your  thoughts  and  mine  (says  Mr.  Hume 
to  his  correspondent)  agree  with  respect  to  Dr.  Butler,  and  I 
would  be  glad  to  be  introduced  to  him.  I  am  at  present 
castrating  my  work,  that  is,  cutting  off  its  nobler  parts ;  that 
is,  endeavoiuing  it  shall  give  as  little  oflfence  as  possible,  before 
which  I  could  not  pretend  to  put  it  into  the  doctor's  hands."  ^  In 
another  letter,  he  acknowledges  Mr.  Home  s  kindness  in  recom- 
mending him  to  Dr.  Butler's  notice.  "  I  shall  not  trouble  you 
with  any  formal  compliments  or  thanks,  which  would  be  but 
an  ill  return  for  the  kindness  you  have  done  me  in  writing  in 
my  behalf,  to  one  you  are  so  little  acquainted  with  as  Dr. 
Butler ;  and,  I  am  afraid,  stretching  the  tnith  in  favoiu:  of  a 
friend.  I  have  called  on  the  doctor,  with  a  design  of  delivering 
your  letter,  but  find  he  is  at  present  in  the  country.  I  am  a 
little  anxious  to  have  the  doctor's  opinion.  My  own  I  dare  not 
trust  to ;  both  because  it  concerns  myself,  and  because  it  is  so 
variable,  that  I  know  not  how  to  fix  it.  Sometimes  it  elevates 
me  above  the  clouds;  at  other  times  it  depresses  me  with 
doubts  and  fears ;  so  that,  whatever  be  my  success,  I  cannot 
be  entirely  disappointed." 

Whether  Mr.  Hume  ever  enjoyed  the  satisfaction  of  a  per- 
sonal interview  with  Dr.  Butler,  I  have  not  heard.     From  a 


*  For  the  rest  of  the  letter,  see  Me-       Kamen^  by  T/)rd  WooHhousolee,  vol.  i. 
moirt  of  the  Lifi  and  WrUinqt  ofTjord      p.  S4,  ti  srq. 


464  DISSERTATION. —  FART  SECOND. 

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

These  particulars,  trifling  as  they  may  appear  to  some, 
seemed  to  me,  for  more  reasons  than  one,  not  unworthy  of 
notice  in  this  sketch.  Independently  of  the  pleasing  record 
they  afford  of  the  mutual  respect  entertained  by  the  eminent 
men  to  whom  they  relate,  for  each  other's  philosophical  talents, 
they  have  a  closer  connexion  with  the  history  of  metaphysical 
and  moral  inquiry  in  this  island,  than  might  be  suspected  by 
those  who  have  not  a  very  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
writings  of  both.  Dr.  Butler  was,  I  think,  the  first  of  Mr. 
Locke's  successors  who  clearly  perceived  the  dangerous  conse- 
quences likely  to  be  deduced  from  his  account  of  the  origin  of 
our  ideas  literally  interpreted ;  and  although  he  has  touched  on 
this  subject  but  once,  and  that  with  his  usual  brevity,  he  has 
yet  said  enough  to  show,  that  his  opinion  with  respect  to  it  was 
the  same  with  that  formerly  contended  for  by  Cudworth,  in 
opposition  to  Gktssendi  and  Hobbes,  and  which  has  since  been 
revived  in  different  forms  by  the  ablest  of  Mr.  Hume's  anta- 
gonists.3    With  these  views,  it  may  be  reasonably  supposed, 

^  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  Memoirs  has  inadvertently  confounded 

of  Lord  Karnes,  Yoi.  \.  1^.  92.  this  volume  with   the   second  part  of 

that  work,  containing  the  Political  Di9- 

■  Ihid.  p.  404.     The  Essays  here  re-  courses,  (properly  so  called,)  which  did 

ferred  to  were  the  first  part  of  the  Essays  not  appear  till  ten  years  afterwards. 

Moral,  Political,  and  Literary,  published  •  See  the  short  Essay  on  Personal 

in  1742.     The  elegant  author  of  thcs©  Tdentiiy,  at  the  end  of  Butler*i  Ana- 


METAPU78IC8  DUKINU  THE  EIQHTfiEMTH  CENTURY.         455 

tliat  he  was  not  displeased  to  see  the  consequences  of  Locke's 
doctrine  so  very  logically  and  forcibly  pushed  to  their  utmost 
limits,  as  the  most  effectual  means  of  rousing  the  attention  of 
the  learned  to  a  re-examination  of  this  fundamental  principle. 
That  he  was  perfectly  aware,  before  the  publication  of  Mr. 
Hume's  work,  of  the  encouragement  given  to  scepticism  by  the 
logical  maxims  then  in  vogue,  is  evident  from  the  concluding 
paragraph  of  his  short  Essay  on  Personal  Identity.  Had  it 
been  published  a  few  years  later,  nobody  would  have  doubted, 
that  it  had  been  directly  pointed  at  the  general  strain  and  spirit 
of  Mr.  Hume's  philosophy. 

^^But  though  we  are  thus  certain,  tliat  we  arc  the  same 
agents  or  living  beings  noWj  which  we  were  as  far  back  as  our 
remembrance  reaches :  yet  it  is  asked,  Whether  we  may  not 
possibly  be  deceived  in  it  ?  And  this  question  may  be  asked 
at  the  end  of  any  demonstration  whatever,  because  it  is  a  ques- 
tion concerning  the  truth  of  perception  by  memory.  And  he 
who  can  doubt,  whether  perception  by  memory  can  in  this  case 
be  dei)cnded  on,  may  doubt  also  whether  perception  by  deduc- 
tion and  reasoning,  which  also  includes  mcTnory,  or  indeed 
whether  intuitive  pcrcejition  can.  Here  then  we  can  go  no 
farther.  For  it  is  ridiculous  to  attempt  to  prove  the  truth  of 
those  perceptions  whose  truth  we  can  no  otherwise  prove  than 
by  other  perceptions  of  exactly  the  same  kind  with  them,  and 
which  there  is  just  the  same  ground  to  suspect ;  or  to  attempt 
to  prove  the  truth  of  our  faculties,  which  can  no  otherwise  be 
proved,  than  by  the  use  or  means  of  those  very  suspected  facul- 
ties themselves."  * 


logjf;  Bud  compare  the  second  paragraph 
witli  the  remarks  on  this  part  of  Ijockn's 
Essay  by  Dr.  Price. — Review  of  the 
Principal  QuestionM  and  Dijfieulties  re- 
lating to  Morals,  pp.  49,  50,  3d  edit. 
I/)ml.  1787. 

>  I  must  not,  however,  be  understood 
AS  giving  unqualified  praise  to  this  Essay. 
It  iH  by  no  means  fro<>  from  the  old 
scholastic  jargon,  and  contains  some 
reasoning  which,  I  may  confidently  as- 


sert, the  anthor  would  not  have  em- 
ployed, had  it  been  written  fifty  years 
later.  Whoever  takes  the  trouble  to  read 
the  paragraph  beginning  with  these 
words,  "  Thirdly,  Every  person  is  con- 
scious,** &c..  will  immediately  perceive 
the  truth  of  this  remark.  I  mention  it 
as  a  proof  of  the  change  to  the  better, 
which  has  taken  place  since  Butler's 
time,  in  the  mode  of  thinking  and  writ- 
ing on  Metaphysical  questions. 


45G  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

The  remarks  hitherto  made  on  the  Treatise  of  Human 
Nature  are  confined  entirely  to  the  first  volume.  The  specula- 
tions contained  in  the  two  others,  on  Morals,  on  the  Nature 
and  Foundation  of  Government,  and  on  some  other  topics  con- 
nected with  political  philosophy,  wUl  fall  under  our  review  after- 
wards. 

Dr.  Reid's  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Mind,  (published  in 
1764,)  was  the  first  direct  attack  which  appeared  in  Scotland 
upon  the  sceptical  conclusions  of  Mr.  Hume's  philosophy.  For 
my  own  opinion  of  this  work  I  must  refer  to  one  of  my  former 
publications.^  It  is  enough  to  remark  here,  that  its  great 
object  is  to  refute  the  Ideal  Tlieory  which  was  then  in  complete 
possession  of  the  schools,  and  upon  which  Dr.  Reid  conceived 
that  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hume's  philosophy,  as  well  as  the  whole 
of  Berkeley's  reasonings  against  the  existence  of  matter,  was 
founded.  According  to  this  theory  we  are  taught,  that  "nothing 
is  perceived  but  what  is  in  the  mind  which  perceives  it ;  that 
we  do  not  really  perceive  things  that  are  external,  but  only  cer- 
tain images  and  pictures  of  them  imprinted  upon  the  mind, 
which  are  called  impressions  and  ideas." — "  This  doctrine,  (says 

*  Bioffraphicol  Account  of  ItntJ. 


BIETAPHY8ICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENT  UK  Y.         457 

Dr.  Reid  on  another  occasion,)  I  once  believed  so  finuly,  as  to 
embrace  the  whole  of  Berkeley's  system  along  with  it ;  till  find- 
ing other  consequences  to  follow  from  it,  which  gave  me  more 
uneasiness  than  the  want  of  a  material  world,  it  came  into  my 
mind,  more  than  forty  years  ago,  to  put  the  question,  What 
evidence  have  I  for  this  doctrine,  that  all  the  objects  of  my 
knowledge  are  ideas  in  my  own  mind  ?  From  that  time  to 
the  present,  I  have  been  candidly  and  impartially,  as  I  think, 
seeking  for  the  evidence  of  tliis  principle ;  but  can  find  none, 
excepting  the  authority  of  philosophers." 

On  the  refutation  of  the  ideal  theory,  contained  in  this  and 
Ids  other  works,  Dr.  Reid  himself  was  disposed  to  rest  his  chief 
merit  as  an  author.  The  merit,  (says  he  in  a  letter  to  Dr. 
James  Gregory,)  of  what  you  are  pleased  to  call  my  Philosophy^ 
lies,  I  think,  chiefly  in  having  called  in  question  the  common 
theory  of  ideas  or  images  of  tilings  in  the  mind  being  the  only 
objects  of  thought;  a  theory  founded  on  natural  prejudices,  and 
so  universally  received  as  to  l>e  interwoven  with  the  structure  of 
language.  Yet  were  I  to  give  you  a  detail  of  what  led  me  to 
call  in  question  this  theory,  after  I  had  long  held  it  as  self- 
evident  and  unquestionable,  you  would  think,  as  I  do,  that 
there  was  much  of  chance  in  the  matter.  The  discovery  was 
the  birth  of  time,  not  of  genius ;  and  Berkeley  and  Hume  did 
more  to  l)ring  it  to  light  than  the  man  that  hit  upon  it.  I 
think  there  is  hardly  anything  that  can  be  called  mine  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  mind,  which  Aoqh  not  follow  with  ease  from 
the  detection  of  this  prejudice. 

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

« 

*  An  ingenious  and  profound  writer,  Metaphysical  System,  has  bestowed,  in 

who,  though  intimately  connected  vrith  the  lat^^st  of  his  publications,  the  fol- 

Mr.  Hume  in  habits  of  friendship,  was  lowing  encomium  on  Dr.  Reid's  Philo- 

not  blind  to  the  vulnerable  parts  of  his  $ophica1  Worlcn: — 


458 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


When  I  reflect  on  the  stress  thus  laid  by  Dr.  Reid  on  this 
part  of  his  writings,  and  his  frequent  recurrence  to  the  same 
argument  whenever  his  subject  affords  him  an  opportunity  of 
forcing  it  upon  the  attention  of  his  readers,  I  cannot  help  ex- 
pressing my  wonder,  that  Kant  and  other  Grerman  philosophers, 
who  appear  to  have  so  carefully  studied  those  passages  in  Reid, 
which  relate  to  Hume's  Theory  of  Causation,  should  have 
overlooked  entirely  what  he  himself  considered  as  the  most 
original  and  important  of  all  his  discussions ;  more  especially 
as  the  conclusion  to  which  it  leads  has  been  long  admitted,  by 
the  best  judges  in  this  island,  as  one  of  the  few  propositions  in 
metaphysical  science  completely  established  beyond  the  reach 
of  controversy.  Even  those  who  affect  to  speak  the  most 
lightly  of  Dr.  Reid's  contributions  to  the  philosophy  of  the 
human  mind,  have  found  nothing  to  object  to  his  reasonings 
against  the  ideal  theory,  but  that  the  absurdities  involved  in  it 
are  too  glaring  to  require  a  serious  examination.^     Had  these 


"  The  author  of  an  Inquiry  into  the 
Mindf  and  of  subsequent  Essays  on  the 
InteUedual  and  Active  Powers  of  Man^ 
has  great  merit  in  the  effect  to  which 
he  has  pursued  this  history.  But,  con- 
sidering the  point  at  which  the  science 
■toed  when  he  began  his  inquiries,  he 
has,  perhaps,  no  less  merit  in  having 
removed  the  mist  of  hypothesis  and 
metaphor,  with  which  the  subject  was 
enveloped ;  and,  in  having  taught  us  to 
state  the  facts  of  which  we  are  conscious, 
not  in  figurative  language,  but  in  the 
terms  which  are  proper  to  the  subject. 
In  this  it  will  be  our  advantage  to  follow 
him ;  the  more  that,  in  former  theories, 
so  much  attention  had  been  paid  to  the 
introduction  of  idects  or  images  as  the 
elements  of  knowledge,  that  the  belief 
of  any  external  existence  or  prototype 
has  been  left  to  be  inferred  from  the 
mere  idea  or  image ;  and  this  inference, 
indeed,  is  so  little  foimdcd,  that  many 
who  have  come  to  examine  its  evidence 
have  thought  themselves  warranted  to 
deny  it  altogether.      And  hence   the 


scepticism  of  ingenious  men,  who,  not 
seeing  a  proper  access  to  knowledge 
through  the  medium  of  ideas,  without 
considering  whether  the  road  they  had 
been  directed  to  take  was  the  true  or  a 
false  one,  denied  the  possibility  of  ar- 
riving at  the  end." — Principles  of  Moral 
and  Political  Science^  by  Dr.  Adam 
Ferguson,  vol.  i.  pp.  75,  76. 

The  work  from  which  this  passage  is 
taken  contains  various  important  obser- 
vations connected  with  the  Philosophy 
of  the  Human  Mind ;  but  as  the  taste  of 
the  author  led  him  much  more  strongly 
to  moral  and  political  speculations,  than 
to  researches  concerning  the  intellectual 
powers  of  man,  I  have  thought  it  right 
to  reserve  any  remarks  which  I  have  to 
offer  on  his  philosophical  merits  for  the 
last  part  of  this  Discourse. 

'  I  allude  here  more  particularly  to 
Dr.  Priestley,  who,  in  a  work  published 
in  1774,  alleged,  that  when  philosophers 
called  ideas  the  images  of  external 
things,  they  are  only  to  be  understood 
as  speaking  figuratively ;  and  that  Dr. 


ALETAFUYSICS  DUUING  THE  JCIGHTEJCNTH  Ci&NTUKY. 


459 


reasonings  been  considered  in  the  same  light  in  Germany,  it  is 
quite  impossible  that  tlie  analogical  language  of  Leibnitz,  in 
which  he  speaks  of  the  soul  as  a  living  mirror  of  the  univerae^ 
could  have  been  again  revived ;  a  mode  of  speaking  liable  to 
every  objection  which  Reid  has  urged  against  the  ideal  theory. 
Such,  however,  it  would  appear,  is  the  fact  The  word  liepi^e- 
sentation  (Vorstellung)  is  now  the  Grerman  substitute  for 
Idea;  nay,  one  of  the  most  able  works  which  Qermany  has 
produced  since  the  commencement  of  its  new  philosophical  era^ 
is  entitled  Nova  Theoria  FacuUatia  Representatives  Humance, 
In  the  same  work,  the  author  has  prefixed,  as  a  motto  to  the 
second  book,  in  which  he  treats  of  "  the  Bepresentative  Fa- 
cility in  general,"  the  following  sentence  from  Locke,  which  he 
seems  to  have  thought  himself  entitled  to  assume  as  a  first 
principle :  ^^  Since  the  mind,  in  all  its  thoughts  and  reasonings^ 

Reid  has  gravely  argacd  against  this 
metaphorical  language,  as  if  it  were 
meant  to  convey  a  theory  of  perception. 
The  same  remark  has  hecn  repeated 
over  and  over  since  Priestley's  time,  by 
various  writers.  I  have  nothing  to  add 
in  reply  to  it  to  what  I  long  ago  stated 
in  my  Philosophical  Essays,  (see  Note 
H.  at  the  end  of  that  work,)  hut  the 
following  short  quotation  finom  Mr. 
Hume: — 

"  It  seems  evident,  that,  when  men 
follow  this  blind  and  powerful  instinct 
of  nature,  they  always  suppose  the  very 
images,  presented  by  the  Hcnses,  to  be 
the  exttrnal  objects,  and  never  enter- 
tain any  suspicion,  that  the  one  are  no- 
thing but  reprettntations  of  the  other. 
.  .  .  But  this  universal  and  primary 
opinion  of  all  men  is  soon  destroyed  by 
the  slightest  philosophy,  which  teaches 
us,  that  nothing  can  ever  be  present  to 
the  mind  but  an  imaije  or  perception, 
and  that  the  senses  arc  only  the  inlets 
through  which  these  images  are  con- 
veyed, witliout  being  able  to  produce 
any  immediate  intercourse  between  the 
mind  and  the  object.  The  table  which 
wo  ^e  seems  to  diminish  as  we  remove 


fiirther  from  it ;  but  the  real  table, 
which  exists  independent  of  us,  suflfen 
no  alteration.  It  was,  therefore,  no- 
thing but  its  imago  which  was  present 
to  the  mind.  Tliese  are  the  obviooa 
dictates  of  reason.*' — Ettay  on  the  Aca- 
demical Philosophy. 

Is  not  this  analogical  theory  of  per- 
ception the  principle  on  which  the 
whole  of  Ikrkeley's  reasonings  against 
the  existence  of  the  material  world,  and 
of  Hiune-s  scepticism  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, are  founded? 

The  same  analogy  still  continues  to 
be  suncti(mud  by  some  English  philo- 
sophers of  no  small  note.  Long  after 
the  publication  of  Dr.  Reid's  Inquiry^ 
Mr.  Home  Tooke  quoted  with  approba- 
tion the  following  words  of  J.  C.  Scali- 
ger :  "  8icut  in  sim»cu1o  ea  quaj  videntur 
non  sunt,  scd  eonim  species;  ita  qusi 
intelligimus,  ea  sunt  re  ipsa  extra  nos, 
eonimque  species  in  nobis.    Est  brim 

QUASI  REEUM  SPECULUM  INTELLECTUS 
KOeTRB;  GUI,  NISI  I'EE  SENBUM  REPRB- 
BBNTEIfTUR    RES,     KIHIL     SCTF     IPSE." — 

(J.  C  Scaliger,  de  Catuis,  L.  L.  cap. 
Ixvi.)  DiversioM  of  PurUy^  vol.  i.  p.  3.5, 
2d  edition. 


460 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


hath  no  other  immediate  object  but  its  own  ideas  {representor- 
tions)  which  it  alone  does  or  can  contemplate,  it  is  evident  that 
our  knowledge  is  only  conversant  about  them." —  (Locke's 
Essay,  book  iv.  chap,  i.)  In  a  country  where  this  metaphysi- 
cal jargon  still  passes  current  among  writers  of  eminence,  it  is 
vain  to  expect  that  any  solid  progress  can  be  made  in  the  in- 
ductive philosophy  of  the  human  mind.  A  similar  remark 
may  be  extended  to  another  country,  where  the  title  of  Ideologie 
(a  word  which  takes  for  granted  the  truth  of  the  hypothesis 
which  it  was  Reid's  great  aim  to  explode)  has  been  lately  given 
to  the  very  science  in  which  the  theory  of  Ideas  has  been  so 
clearly  shown  to  have  been,  in  all  ages,  the  most  fniitftil  source 
of  error  and  absurdity.^ 

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

On  comparing  the  opposition  which  Mr.  Hume's  scepticism 
encountered  from  his  own  countrymen,  with  the  account  for- 
merly given  of  the  attempts  of  some  German  philosophers  to 
refute  his  Theory  of  Causation,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck 
with  the  coincidence  between  the  leading  views  of  his  most 


'  In  censuring  these  metaphorical 
terms,  I  am  far  from  supposing  that  the 
learned  writers  who  have  employed 
them  have  heen  all  misled  by  the  theo- 
retical opinions  involved  in  their  lan- 
guage. Reinhold  has  been  more  parti- 
cularly careful  in  guarding  against  such 
a  misapprehension.    But  it  cannot,  I 


think,  be  doubted  that  the  prevalence  of 
such  a  phraseology  must  have  a  ten- 
dency to  divert  the  attention  from  a  just 
view  of  the  mental  phenomena,  and  to 
infuse  into  the  mind  of  the  young  in- 
quirer very  false  conceptions  of  the 
manner  in  which  these  phenomena 
ought  to  be  studied. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  4(J1 

eminent  antagonists.  Tliis  coincidence  one  would  liavc  been 
disposed  to  consider  as  purely  accidental,  if  Kant,  by  his  petu- 
lant sneers  at  Reid,  Beattie,  and  Oswald,  had  not  expressly 
acknowledged,  that  he  was  not  unacquainted  with  their  writ- 
ings. As  for  the  great  discovery,  which  he  seems  to  claim  as 
his  o^vn — that  the  ideas  of  Cause  and  EiFect,  as  well  as  many 
others,  are  derived  from  the  pure  understanding  without  any 
aid  from  experience,  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  repetition,  in 
very  nearly  the  same  terms,  of  what  was  advanced  a  century 
before  by  Cudworth,  in  reply  to  Hobbes  and  Gassendi ;  and 
borrowed  avowedly  by  Cudworth  from  the  reasonings  of  So- 
crates, as  reported  by  Plato,  in  answer  to  the  scepticism  of 
Protagoras.  This  recurrence,  under  diiFerent  forms,  of  the 
same  metaphysical  controversies,  wliich  so  often  surprises  and 
mortifies  us  in  the  liistory  of  literature,  is  an  evil  which  will 
probably  always  continue,  more  or  less,  even  in  the  most  pros- 
perous state  of  philosophy.  But  it  affords  no  objection  to  the 
utility  of  metaphysical  pursuits.  While  the  sceptics  keep  the 
field,  it  must  not  be  abandoned  by  the  friends  of  sounder  prin- 
ciples ;  nor  ought  they  to  be  discouraged  from  their  ungrateful 
task,  by  the  reflection,  that  they  have  probably  been  anticipated, 
in  everything  they  have  to  say,  by  more  than  one  of  their  pre- 
decessors. If  anything  is  likely  to  check  this  periodical  return 
of  a  mischief  so  unpropitious  to  the  progress  of  useful  know- 
ledge, it  seems  to  be  the  general  diffusion  of  tliat  historical  in- 
formation concerning  the  literature  and  science  of  former  times, 
of  which  it  is  the  aim  of  these  Preliminary  Dissertations  to 
present  an  outline.  Should  it  fail  in  preventing  the  occasional 
revival  of  obsolete  paradoxes,  it  will,  at  least,  diminish  the 
wonder  and  admiration  with  wliich  they  are  apt  to  be  regarded 
by  the  multitude. 

And  here  I  cannot  refrain  from  remarking  the  injustice  with 
which  the  advocates  for  truth  are  apt  to  be  treated ;  and  by 
none  more  remarkably  than  by  that  class  of  writers  who  profess 
the  greatest  zeal  for  its  triumph.  The  importance  of  their 
labours  is  discredited  by  those  who  are  the  loudest  in  their 
declamations  and  invectives  against  the  licentious  philosophy 


462 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


of  the  present  age ;  insomuch  that  a  careless  observer  would 
be  inclined  to  imagine  (if  I  may  borrow  Mr.  Hume's  words  on 
another  occasion)  that  the  battle  was  fought  "  not  by  the  men 
at  arms,  who  manage  the  pike  and  the  sword ;  but  by  the 
trumpeters,  drummers,  and  musicians  of  the  army." 

These  observations  may  serve,  at  the  same  time,  to  account 
for  the  slow  and  (according  to  some  persons)  imperceptible 
advances  of  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind,  since  the  pub- 
lication of  Locke's  Essay,  With  those  who  still  attach  them- 
selves to  that  author,  as  an  infallible  guide  in  metaphysics,  it 
is  in  vain  to  argue ;  but  I  would  willingly  appeal  to  any  of 
Locke's  rational  and  discriminating  admirers,  whether  much 
has  not  been  done  by  his  successors,  and,  among  others,  by 
members  of  our  northern  universities,  towards  the  illustration 
and  correction  of  such  of  his  principles  as  have  furnished, 
both  to  English  and  French  sceptics,  the  foundation  of  their 
theories.^  If  tliis  be  granted,  the  way  has,  at  least,  been 
cleared  and  prepared  for  the  labours  of  our  posterity;  and 
neither  the  cavils  of  the  sceptic,  nor  the  refutation  of  them 
by  the  sounder  logician,  can  be  pronounced  to  be  useless  to 
mankind.  Nothing  can  be  juster  or  more  liberal  than  the 
following  reflection  of  Reid :  "  I  conceive  the  sceptical  writers 
to  be  a  set  of  men,  whose  business  it  is  to  pick  holes  in  the 
fabric  of  knowledge  wherever  it  is  weak  and  faulty ;  and  when 
those  places  are  properly  repaired,  the  whole  building  becomes 
more  firm  and  solid  than  it  was  formerly." — Inquiry  into  the 
Human  Mind,     Dedication. 


*  According  to  Dr.  Priestley,  the 
laboura  of  these  commentators  on  Locke 
have  done  more  harm  than  good.  **  I 
think  Mr.  Locke  has  been  hasty  in  con- 
cluding that  there  is  some  other  source 
of  our  ideas  besides  the  external  senses ; 
but  the  rest  of  his  system  appears  to 
me  and  others  to  be  the  comer-stone  of 
all  just  and  rational  knowledge  of  our- 
selves." 

"  This  solid  foundation,  however,  has 
lately  been  attempted  to  be  overturned 
by  a  set  of  pretended  philosophers,  of 


whom  the  most  conspicuous  and  assum- 
ing is  Dr.  Reid,  Professor  of  Moral  Phi- 
losophy in  the  University  of  Glasgow.** 
— {Exam.  ofMeid,  Benttie^  and  Oswald, 
p.  6.)  As  to  Mr.  Hume,  Dr.  Priestley 
says,  "  In  my  opinion,  he  has  been  very 
ably  answered,  again  and  again,  upon 
more  solid  principles  than  those  of  this 
new  common  sewie ;  and  I  beg  leave  to 
refer  to  the  tioo  first  volumes  of  my 
Institutes  of  Natural  and  Revealed 
Religion^ — Examination  of  Reid,  &c. 
Preface?,  p.  xxvii. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  £IGUT£UNTU  CENTURY.  463 

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

Nor  have  these  elegant  applications  of  metaphysical  pursuits 
been  altogether  overlooked  by  Mr.  Hume's  antagonists.  The 
active  and  adventurous  spirit  of  Lord  Karnes,  here,  as  in  many 
other  instances,  leil  the  way  to  his  countrymen ;  and,  due 
allowances  being  made  for  the  novelty  and  magnitude  of  his 
undertaking,  with  a  succchs  far  greater  than  could  have  been 
reasonably  anticipateil.  The  Eleincnfs  o/Crittcisni,  considered 
as  the  first  systematical  attemj^t  to  investigate  the  metaphysical 
l)rincii)les  of  the  fine  arts,  possesses,  in  spite  of  its  inimerous 
defects  both  in  point  of  taste  and  of  philosophy,  infinite*  merit/*, 
and  will  ever  Ikj  regarded  as  a  literary  wonder  by  those  who 
know  how  small  a  jwrtion  of  his  time  it  was  i)ossible  for  the 
author  to  allot  to  tlie  comjwsition  of  it,  amidst  the  imperious 
and  multifarious  duties  of  a  most  active  and  useful  life. 
Camplwll  and  Gerard,  with  a  sounder  philosophy,  and  Beattie, 
witli   a   much   more  lively  relish   for  the   Sublime   and   the 


4G4  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

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

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

*  Bioyrajthiv'  I  Account  of  lieid. 


METAPHYRinS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         4r»5 

His  w^qiiaintance  ^vitll  the  metapliysical  doctrineB  of  his 
predecessors  does  not  appear  to  have  l)een  very  extensive; 
witli  those  of  his  own  contemporaries  it  was  remarkably  defi- 
cient. I  do  not  recollect  that  he  has  anywhere  mentioned  the 
names  cither  of  Condillac  or  of  lyAlembert  It  is  im{)ossiblc 
not  to  regret  this,  not  only  as  it  has  deprived  us  of  his  critical 
judgments  on  some  celebrated  theories,  but  as  it  has  prevented 
him  from  enlivening  his  works  with  that  variety  of  historical 
discussion  so  peculiarly  agreeable  in  these  abstract  researches. 

On  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Reid's  limited  range  of  metaphysical 
reading,  by  forcing  him  to  draw  the  materials  of  his  philoso- 
pliical  sjKXJulations  almost  entirely  from  his  own  reflections, 
has  given  to  his  style,  both  of  thinking  and  of  writing,  a  char- 
acteristical  unity  and  simplicity  seldom  to  be  met  with  in  so 
voluminous  an  author.  He  sometimes,  indeed,  repeats,  with 
an  air  of  originality,  what  had  been  previously  said  by  his 
predecessors ;  but  on  thene,  as  on  all  other  occasions,  he  has 
at  least  the  merit  of  thinking  for  himself^  and  of  sanctioning, 
by  the  weight  of  his  unbiassed  judgment,  the  conclusions  which 
he  adopts.  It  is  this  uniformity  of  thought  and  design,  which, 
according  to  Dr.  Butler,  is  the  best  test  of  an  author's  sincerity  ; 
and  I  am  a])t  to  regard  it  also,  in  these  abstruse  disquisitions, 
as  one  of  the  surest  marks  of  liberal  and  unfettered  inquiry.* 

In  comparing  Dr.  Reid's  publications  at  different  jK'riods  of 
his  life,  it  is  interesting  to  obser\'e  his  growing  partiality  for 
the  ai)horifitical  style.  Some  of  his  Essays  on  the  Intellectual 
and  Active  Powers  of  A  fan  are  little  more  than  a  series  of 
detached  paragraphs,  consisting  of  leading  thoughts,  of  which 
the  reader  is  left  to  tnux)  the  connexion  by  his  own  sagacity. 
To  this  ai)horistical  style  it  is  not  im])rolmble   that  he  wa« 

'  [*  Among  the  tin  lights  wlii<:h  Dr.  ht?  has  the  appearance  of  copying  I/)cko 

Rcid  has   been   accused    of  borrowing  in  drawing  the  line  l)etwcen  volition  and 

from  other  tvTiters,  not  a  few  have  been  desire,  his  apology  ih  to  be  found  in  the 

forced  on  him  by  the  disgusting  re\'ival  perverse  obstinacy  with  which  rriestley 

in  the  present    age   of   errors,   which  and  others  still  i>or8evcrc  in  confound- 

onght  to  liave  been  considered  as  long  ing  two  words   so   manifestly   and   so 

ago  exploded.     It  is  thus,  that   when  esstmtially  diflfcrent  in  their  m<\'iuing.j 

*  Rcitoretl.— f.f. 

VOL.   I.  12  G 


466  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

partly  led  by  the  indolence  incident  to  advanced  years,  as  it 
relieved  him  from  what  Boileau  justly  considered  as  the  most 
difficult  task  of  an  author,  the  skilful  management  of  transi- 
tions} In  consequence  of  this  want  of  continuity  in  his  com- 
positions, a  good  deal  of  popular  effect  is  unavoidably  lost; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  few  who  have  a  taste  for  such 
inquiries,  and  who  value  books  chiefly  as  they  furnish  exercise 
to  their  own  thoughts,  (a  class  of  readers  who  are  alone  com- 
petent to  pronounce  a  judgment  on  metaphysical  questions,) 
there  is  a  peculiar  charm  in  a  mode  of  writing,  so  admirably 
calculated  to  give  relief  to  the  author's  ideas,  and  to  awaken, 
at  every  sentence,  the  reflections  of  his  readers. 

When  I  review  what  I  have  now  written  on  the  history  of 
Metaphysics  in  Scotland,  since  the  publication  of  Mr.  Hume's 
Treatise,  and  at  the  same  time  recollect  the  laurels  which, 
during  the  same  period,  have  been  won  by  Scottish  authors,  iu 
every  other  department  of  literature  and  of  science,  I  must 
acknowledge  that,  instead  of  being  mortified  at  the  slender 
amount  of  their  contributions  to  the  philosophy  of  the  human 
mind,  I  am  more  disposed  to  wonder  at  their  successful  per- 
severance in  cultivating  a  field  of  study,  where  the  approbation 
of  a  few  enlightened  and  candid  judges  is  the  only  reward  to 
which  their  ambition  could  aspire.  Small  as  their  progress 
may  hitherto  have  been,  it  will  at  least  not  suffer  by  a  compari- 
son with  what  has  been  accomplished  by  their  contemporaries 
in  any  other  part  of  Europe. 

It  may  not  be  useless  to  add  in  this  place,  that,  if  little  has 
as  yet  been  done,  the  more  ample  is  the  field  left  for  the  indus- 
try of  our  successors.  The  compilation  of  a  Mamial  of  Rational 
Logic,  adapted  to  the  present  state  of  science  and  of  society  in 
Europe,  is  a  desideratum  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  at  no 
distant  period  be  supplied.  It  is  a  work,  certainly,  of  which 
the  execution  has  been  greatly  facilitated  by  the  philosophical 

*  Boileau   is   said,   by    tlie  younger  rile  (Vun  ouvrage  on   s'cpargnant  lea 

Racine,  to  have  made  this  remark  in  transitions." — M^mohe  svr  la   Vie  tie 

speaking  of  I^a  Bniyere :  "  II  disoit  que  Jean  Hacine. 
Ija  Bniyore  s'etoit  epargne  le  plus  diffi- 


METAPHYSICS  dCIIING  THE  EIUHTEENTH  CENTURY.         467 

labours  of  the  last  century.  The  varieties  of  intellectual  char- 
acter among  men  present  another  very  interesting  object  of 
study,  which,  considering  its  practical  utility,  has  not  yet  ex- 
cited, so  much  as  might  have  l)een  expected,  the  curiosity  of 
our  countrymen.  Much,  too,  is  still  wanting  to  complete  the 
theory  of  evidence.  Campbell  has  touched  ujwn  it  with  his 
usual  acuteness,  but  he  has  attempted  nothing  more  than  an 
illustration  of  a  very  few  general  principles.  Nor  has  he  turned 
his  attention  to  the  various  illusions  of  the  imagination,  and  of 
the  passions,  by  which  the  judgment  is  liable  to  be  waqunl  in 
the  estimates  it  fonns  of  moral  evidence  in  the  common  affairs 
of  life.  This  is  a  most  imjwrtant  inquiry,  considering  how 
often  the  lives  and  fortimes  of  men  are  subjected  to  the  deci- 
sions of  illiterate  jKirsons  concerning  circumstantial  proofs  ;  and 
how  much  the  success  or  failure  of  every  indivi(hial  in  the  con- 
duct of  his  private  concems  turns  on  the  sagacity  or  rashness 
with  which  he  anticipates  futiu'c  contingencies.  Since  the  time 
when  Cami)bell  wrote,  an  attempt  has  l)ei?n  made  by  Condorcet^ 
and  some  other  French  wiiters,  to  a])ply  a  mathematical  calcu- 
lus to  moral  and  ix)litical  tniths  ;  but  though  much  mettiphysi- 
cal  ingenuity,  as  well  as  mathematical  skill,  have  been  displayed 
in  carrying  it  into  execution,  it  has  not  yet  led  to  any  useful 
practical  results.  Perhaps  it  may  even  1x5  cpiestioned,  whether, 
in  investigating  tniths  of  this  sort,  the  intellectual  powers  can 
derive  much  aid  from  the  employment  of  such  an  organ.  To 
define  accurately  and  distinctly  the  limits  of  its  legitimate  pro- 
Wnce,  still  remains  a  dcmderettum  in  this  al)6tnisc  \mri  of  logic. 
Nearly  connected  with  this  subject  are  the  metaphysical 
principles  assumed  in  the  mathematical  Calculation  of  Proba- 
bilities ;^  in  delivering  which  principles,  some  foreign  mathema- 
ticians, with  the  illustrious  La  Place  at  their  head,  have  blended 
with  many  unquestionable  and  highly  interesting  conclusions, 
various  moral  paralogisms  of  the  most  pernicious  tendency.  A 
critical  examination  of  these  paralogisms,  which  are  apt  to 

*  Ensai  8ur  VApji^lcntion  th  PAndlytte  ft  In  Prnhahilitf  den  D^risionM  rendvf^ 
a  la  plurality  den  Voir. 
«  L«ee  Note  E  E  E.] 


468  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

escape  the  attention  of  the  reader  amid  the  variety  of  original 
and  luminous  discussions  with  wliich  they  are  surrounded, 
would,  in  my  humble  apprehension,  be  one  of  the  most  essen- 
tial services  which  could  at  present  be  rendered  to  true  philo- 
sophy. In  the  mind  of  La  Place,  their  origin  may  be  fairly- 
traced  to  an  ambition,  not  altogether  unnatural  in  so  transcend- 
ent a  genius,  to  extend  the  empire  of  his  favourite  science  over 
the  moral  as  well  as  the  material  worli^  I  have  mentioned 
but  a  few  out  of  the  innumerable  topics  which  crowd  upon  me 
as  fit  objects  of  inquiry  for  the  rising  generation.^  Nor  have  I 
been  guided  in  my  selection  of  these  by  any  other  consideration 
than  their  peculiar  adaptation  to  the  actual  circumstances  of 
the  philosophical  world. 

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

The  most  popular  objection  hitherto  made  to  our  Scottish 
metaphysicians  is,  that,  in  treating  of  human  nature,  they  have 
overlooked  altogether  the  corporeal  part  of  our  frame.  From 
the  contempt  which  they  have  uniformly  expressed  for  all  phy- 
siological theories  concerning  the  intellectual  phenomena,  it  has 
been  concluded,  that  they  were  disposed  to  consider  the  human 
mind  as  altogether  independent  of  the  influence  of  physical 
causes.  Mr.  Belsham  has  carried  this  charge  so  far,  as  to  sneer 
at   Dr.   Eeid's  inconsistency,  for  having  somewhere  acknow- 

^  The  paralogisms  to  which  I  allude  nish  new  problems  to  hmnan  ingenuity, 

did  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  the  ad-  in  the  most  improved  state  of  human 

mirable  criticism  on  this  work  in  the  knowledge.    It  is  not  surprising  that  an 

Edinburgh  Review.  art  which  lays  the  foundation  of  all  the 

■  Among  these,  the  most  prominent  others,  and  which  is  so  intimately  con- 
is  the  Natural  or  Theoretical  History  of  nected  with  the  exercise  of  reason  itself, 
Language,  (including  under  this  title  should  leave  behind  it  such  faint  and 
written  as  well  as  oral  language,)  a  sub-  obscure  traces  of  its  origin  and  in- 
ject which  will  probably  continue  to  fur-  fancy. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         4(59 

ledged,  "  in  opposition  to  liis  sjstcmatical  principles,  that  a  cer- 
tain constitution  or  state  of  the  brain  is  necessary  to  memory." 
In  reply  to  this  charge,  it  may  be  confidently  asserted,  that  no 
set  of  philosophers,  since  the  time  of  Lord  Bacon,  have  enter- 
tained juster  views  on  this  subject  than  the  school  to  which  Dr. 
Reid  belonged.  In  proof  of  this,  I  need  only  appeal  to  the 
Lectures  on  the  Duties  and  Quali/iccUions  of  a  Physician,  by 
the  late  learned  and  ingenious  Dr.  John  Gregory.  Among  the 
diflFerent  articles  connected  with  the  natural  history  of  the 
human  species,  which  he  has  there  recommended  to  the  exami- 
nation of  the  medical  student,  he  lays  particular  stress  on  "  the 
laws  of  union  between  the  mind  and  body,  and  the  mutual  in- 
fluence they  have  upon  one  another."  "  This,  (he  observes,)  is 
one  of  the  most  important  inquiries  that  ever  engaged  the 
attention  of  mankind,  and  almost  equally  necessary  in  the 
sciences  of  morals  and  of  medicine."  It  must  be  remarked, 
however,  that  it  is  only  the  laws  which  regulate  the  union 
between  mind  and  body,  (the  same  class  of  facts  wliich  Bacon 
called  the  doctrina  de/cedere,)  wliich  are  here  pointed  out  as 
proiKjr  objects  of  philosophical  ciuiosity ;  for  as  to  any  hypo- 
thesis concerning  the  manner  in  which  the  union  is  carried  on, 
this  most  sagacious  writer  was  well  aware,  that  they  are  not 
more  unfavourable  to  the  improvement  of  logic  and  of  ethics, 
than  to  a  skilful  and  judicious  exercise  of  the  healing  art. 

I  may  perhaps  form  too  high  an  estimate  of  the  progress  of 
knowledge  during  the  last  fifty  years ;  but  I  think  I  can  per- 
ceive, within  the  period  of  my  own  recollection,  not  only  a 
change  to  the  better  in  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind, 
but  in  the  sjxjculations  of  medical  inquirers.  Physiological 
theories  concerning  the  functions  of  the  nerves  in  producing 
the  intellectual  phenomena  have  pretty  generally  fallen  into 
contempt :  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  large  ac^cession  has  been 
made  to  our  stock  of  well  authenticated  facts,  both  with  resjKJct 
to  the  influence  of  body  on  mind,  and  of  mind  upon  bo<ly.  As 
examples  of  this,  it  is  sufficient  to  mention  the  exjwrimental 
inquiries  instituted,  in  consequence  of  the  pretended  cur(»s 
(effected  by  means  of  Animal  Magnetism  and  of  Tractors ;  to 


470 


DISSEKTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


which  may  be  added,  the  philosophical  spirit  eviuced  in  some 
late  publications  on  Insanity. 

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


'  Biographical  Memoirs^  p.  472. 

•  After  relating,  in  the  words  of  Vale- 
rius Maximus,  the  noted  story  of  Caius 
ToraniuB,  who  betrayed  his  affectionate 
and  excellent  father  to  the  triumvirate, 
Dr.  Paley  thus  proceeds : — 

"  Now,  the  question  is,  whether,  if  thi^ 
story  were  related  to  the  wild  boy  caught 
some  years  ago  in  the  woods  of  Hano- 
ver, or  to  a  savage  without  experience 
and  without  instruction,  cut  oflf  in  his 
infancy  from  all 'intercourse  with  his 
(ipecies,  and  consequently  under  no  pos- 
sible influence  of  example,  authority, 
education,  s}Tnpathy,  or  habit ;  whether, 
I  say,  such  a  one  would  feel,  upon  the 
relation,  any  degree  of  that  sentiment  of 
disapprobation  of  Toranins's  conduct 
which  we  feel  or  not? 

"Thev  who  maintain  the  existence 
of  a  moral  senKP,  of  innate  maxims,  of 


a  natural  conscience;  that  the  love  of 
virtue  and  hatred  of  vice  are  instinctive, 
or  the  perception  of  right  or  wrong  in- 
tuitive, (all  of  which  arc  only  different 
ways  of  expressing  the  same  opinion,) 
affirm  that  he  would. 

"  They  who  deny  the  existence  of  a 
moral  sense,  &c.,  affirm  that  he  would 
not. 

"  And  upon  this  issue  is  joined." — 
Principles  of  Moral  and  Pditical  PhUo- 
sophy^  book  i.  chap.  5. 

To  those  who  are  at  all  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  this  dispute,  it  must 
appear  evident  that  the  question  is  here 
completely  mis-stated ;  and  that,  in  the 
whole  of  Dr.  Paley's  subsequent  argu- 
ment on  the  subject,  he  combats  a 
phantom  of  his  own  imagination.  The 
opinion  which  he  ascribes  to  his  antago- 
nists has  been   loudly  and   repeatedly 


METAPHYSICS  DUHING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKV. 


471 


more  advanced  years,  lie  amply  atoned  for  this  error  of  liis 
youth,  by  the  ingenuity  and  acuteness  with  which  he  combated 
the  reasonings  employed  by  some  of  his  contemporaries,  to 
invalidate  the  proofs  aflbrded  by  the  phenomena  of  instinct,  of 
the  existence  of  a  designing  and  provident  cause.  In  tliis  part 
of  his  work,  he  has  plainly  in  his  eye  the  Zoononiia  of  Dr. 
Darwin,^  where  the  same  principles,  of  which  Paley  and  others 


disavowed  by  all  thu  most  eminttDt  mo- 
ralists who  have  disputed  Lockers  rca- 
BoningB  apiinst  innate  practical  princi- 
ples ;  and  is,  ind<>cd,  so  very  obviously 
absurd,  tliat  it  never  could  have  been 
for  a  moment  entertained  by  any  person 
in  his  senses. 

Did  it  ever  enter  into  the  mind  of  the 
wildest  theorist  to  ima|:pne  thnt  the  sense 
of  seeing  would  enable  a  man  brought 
up,  from  the  moment  of  his  birth,  in 
utter  darkness,  to  form  a  conception  of 
light  and  colours?  But  would  it  not 
bo  equally  rash  to  conclude  from  the  ex- 
travagance of  such  a  supposition,  that 
the  sense  of  seeing  is  not  an  original 
part  of  the  human  frame  ? 

The  al)ove  quotation  from  Paley  forces 
me  to  remark,  farther,  that,  in  combat- 
ing the  supposition  of  a  moral  seme^  he 
has  confounded  together,  as  only  differ- 
ent icayn  of  expressing  the,  same  opinion^ 
a  variety  of  systems,  which  are  regard- 
c<l  by  all  our  best  philosophers,  not 
only  as  essentially  distinct,  but  as  in 
some  measure  standing  in  opposition  to 
ejich  other.  The  system  of  Hutchoson, 
for  example,  is  identified  with  that  of 
(Judworth.  But  although,  in  this  in- 
stance, the  author's  logical  discrimina- 
tion does  not  appear  to  much  advan- 
tage, the  sweeping  censure  thus  Inistow- 
ed  on  HO  many  of  our  most  celebrated 
ethical  theories,  has  the  merit  of  throw- 
ing a  very  strong  light  on  that  jwirticu- 
lar  view  of  the  subject  which  it  is  the 
aitn  of  his  reasonings  to  rstablish,  in 
mntradirtion  to  them  all. 


^  See  his  observations  on  Instinct. 
— Section  xvi.  of  the  Zoonomia. 

[*Mr.  Home  Tooke,  in  his  Diver- 
sions of  Purley,  has  very  ingenioiulj 
shewn,  that  what  were  called  general 
ideas,  are  in  reality  only  general  terms, 
or  words  which  signify  any  parts  of  a 
complex  object:  whence  arises  much 
error  in  our  verbal  reasoning,  as  the 
same  word  has  different  significations. 
And  hence  those,  who  can  think  witltaut 
wards,  reason  more  accurately  than 
those  who  only  compare  the  ideas  sug- 
gested hy  words;  a  rare  faculty,  which 
distinguishes  the  writers  of  philosophy 
from  tJtose  of  sophistry." — Zoonomia, 
vol.  i.  p.  178.     3d  edit.  1801. 

"  By  a  due  attention  to  circumstan- 
ces, many  of  the  actions  of  young  ani- 
mals, which  at  first  sight  seemed  only 
referable  to  an  inexplicable  instinct, 
will  appear  to  have  been  acquired,  like 
all  other  animal  actions  that  are  at- 
tended with  consciousness,  by  the  re- 
peated efforts  of  our  musdes  under  the 
conduct  of  our  sensations  or  desires." — 
Ibid.  p.  189. 

Our  sensations  and  desires  (it  is  to 
be  observed)  are  admitted  by  Darwin 
to  constitute  a  part  of  our  system,  m 
our  muscles  and  bones  constitute  another 
{uirt;  and  hence  they  may  alike  be 
termed  natural  or  connate ;  but  neither 
of  them  can  properly  In-  tcnncd  instinc- 
tive; as  the  wonl  iuHtinct  in  its  usual 
ac-ceptation  refers  only  to  the  artions  of 
animals.  '*  The  reader  (says  Darwin) 
ia  entreated  carefully  to  attend  to  this 


•  Il«st..red.— Krf. 


472 


DISSEKTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


had  availed  themselves  to  disprove  the  existence  of  instinct  aad 
instinctive  propensities  in  man^  are  eagerly  laid  hold  of  to  dis- 
prove the  existence  of  instinct  in  the  brutes.  Without  such 
an  extension  of  the  argument,  it  was  clearly  perceived  by  Dar- 
win, that  sufficient  evidences  of  the  existence  of  a  Designing 
Cause  would  be  afforded  by  the  phenomena  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals; and,  accordingly,  he  has  employed  much  ingenuity  to 
show,  that  all  these  phenomena  may  be  accounted  for  by  expe- 
rience, or  by  the  influence  of  pleasurable  or  painful  sensations, 
operating  at  the  Tnoment  on  the  animal  frame. 

In  opposition  to  this  theory,  it  is  maintained  by  Paley,  that 
it  is  by  instinct,  that  is,  according  to  his  own  definition,  "  by  a 
propensity  prior  to  experience,  and  independent  of  instruction/' 
— "  that  the  sexes  of  animals  seek  each  other ;  that  animals 
cherish  their  offspring ;  that  the  young  quadruped  is  directed 
to  the  teat  of  its  dam ;  that  birds  build  their  nest,  and  brood 
with  so  much  patience  upon  their  eggs ;  that  insects,  which  do 
not  sit  upon  their  eggs,  dejx)sit  them  in  those  particular  situa- 
tions in  which  the  young  when  hatched  find  their  appropriate 
food;  that  it  is  instinct  which  carries  the  salmon,  and  some 
other  fish,  out  of  the  sea  into  rivers,  for  the  purpose  of  shedding 
their  spawn  in  fresh  water."  ^ 

In  Dr.  Pale/s  very  able  and  convincing  reasonings  on  these 
various  points,  he  has  undoubtedly  approached  nearer  to  the 
spirit  of  what  has  been  ironically  called  Scottish  philosophy,^ 


definition  of  instinctive  actions,  lest  by 
using  the  word  inaHnct  without  adjoin- 
ing any  accurate  idea  to  it,  he  may  in- 
clude the  natural  desires  of  love  and 
hunger,  and  the  natural  sensations  of 
pain  or  pleasure  under  this  general 
term." 

According  to  this  explanation,  the 
difiercnce  of  opinion  between  Dr.  Dar- 
win and  his  opponents  is  cliiefly  verbal ; 
for  whether  we  consider  the  actions  of 
animals  commonly  referred  to  instinct, 
as  the  immediate  result  of  implanted 
determinations,  or  as  the  result  of  sen- 
sofions  and  desires  which  arc  naffiynl  or 


connate,  they  afford  equally  manifesta- 
tions of  design  and  wisdom  in  the  Author 
of  their  being;  inasmuch  as,  on  both 
suppositions,  they  depend  on  causes 
cither  mediately  or  immediately  sub- 
servient to  the  preservation  of  the  crea- 
tures to  which  they  belong.  On  both 
suppositions,  there  is  an  infallible  pro- 
vision  and  preparation  made  by  the 
hand  of  nature,  for  the  effect  which  she 
has  in  view.] 

>  Paley 's  Natural  Theology,  p.  324. 

•  May  I  take  the  liberty  of  requesting 
the  render  to  compare  a  few  pages  of 
l>r.  l*aley*s  Section  on  Instinct,  begin.- 


METAPHYSICS  DUIIINO  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUUY. 


473 


than  any  of  Mr.  Locke  s  English  disciples,  since  the  time  of 
Dr.  Butler;  a  circumstance  which,  when  compared  with  the 
metaphysical  creed  of  his  earlier  years,  reflects  the  greatest 
honour  on  the  candour  and  fairness  of  his  mind,  and  encour- 
ages the  hope,  that  this  X)hilosophy,  where  it  is  equally  sound, 
will  gradually  and  silently  work  its  way  among  sincere  in- 
quirers after  truth,  in  spite  of  the  strong  prejudices  which 
many  of  our  southern  neighbours  still  appear  to  entertain 
against  it  The  extravagances  of  Darwin,  it  is  probable,  first 
opened  Dr.  Pale/s  eyes  to  the  dangerous  tendency  of  Locke's 
argument  against  innate  principles,  when  inculcated  without 
due  limitations.^ 


iiiiig  ''  1  am  fwt  ignorant  of  the  tfieorif 
which  resolves  iwtinct  into  sensation," 
&o.,  with  Bomo  remarks  mailc  by  the 
author  of  this  Dissertation,  in  an  Ac- 
count of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Dr. 
Reid?  See  the  passage  in  section  se- 
cond, beginning  thus,  "  In  a  very  ori- 
ginal work  on  xchich  I  have  already 
hazartUalsotnc  criticisms  "&c.  As  both 
publications  appeared  about  the  same 
time,  (in  the  year  1802,)  the  coincidence, 
in  (Kjint  of  thought,  must  have  been 
wholly  accidental,  and  as  such  affords 
no  slight  presumption  in  favour  of  its 
H'inudness. 

[*  Tlirough  the  whole  of  Darwin's 
reasonings  on  this  subject,  there  seems 
to  me  to  run  a  strange  incouMstcncy. 
On  some  occasions,  he  is  at  pains  to  re- 
present the  brutes  as  little  more  than 
sentient  machines ;  on  others,  he  seems 
anxious  to  elevate  them  to  the  rank  of 
rational  beings.  Of  the  former  bias,  we 
have  an  instance  in  his  theory  to  ac- 
count  for  the  operations  of  birds  in  the 
incubation  of  their  eggs ;  of  the  latter, 
in  the  explanation  he  proposes  of  the 
jdionomena  exhibited  by  some  of  their 
tribes,  in  the  course  of  their  periodical 
migrations.  "  It  is  probable,'*  says  he, 
"  that  thebc  emigrations  were  at  first 


undertaken,  as  accident  directed,  by  the 
more  adventurous  of  their  species,  and 
learned  from  one  another  like  the  dis- 
coveries of  mankind  in  navigation." — 
(V'ol.  i.  p.  231.)  It  is  curious  that  the 
philosopher  who  started  this  hypothesis 
did  not  also  refer  the  incubation  of  eggs 
to  the  lights  afforded  by  observation  and 
example,  aided  by  those  supplied  by 
tradition  and  by  iMirental  instruction. 
This  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  his 
puerile  aversion  to  the  word  instinct, 
which  prompts  him  always  to  setrch 
for  a  cause,  implying  cither  less  or  more 
sagacity,  than  that  word  is  commonly 
understood  to  express.] 

*  AVTien  Dr.  Paley  publi.shed  his  /Vm- 
a'jfles  of  Moral  and  Political  Philoso- 
phy, he  seems  to  have  attached  himself 
much  too  slavishly  to  the  opinions  of 
J^ishop  Law,  to  whom  tliat  work  is  in- 
scribed. Hence,  probably,  his  anxiety 
to  disprove  the  existence  of  the  moral 
faculty.  Of  the  length  to  which  Law 
was  disposed  to  carry  liocke's  argument 
against  innate  principles,  ho  has  en- 
abled us  to  judge  by  his  own  explicit 
declaration :  "  I  take  in)])lanted  senses, 
instincts,  aj^Uftites,  passions,  and  affec- 
tions, &c.,  to  be  a  remnant  of  the  old 
pliilos4»phy,  which  need  t<i  call  ever)*- 


•  Restored.  -  hUf. 


474 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


With  this  very  faint  outline  of  the  speculations  of  Locke's 
chief  successors  in  Scotland,  prior  to  the  close  of  Dr.  Reid's 
literary  labours,  I  shall  for  the  present  finish  ray  review  of  the 
metaphysical  pursuits  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  long 
period  which  has  since  elapsed  has  been  too  much  crowded 
with  great  political  events  to  favour  the  growth  of  abstract 
science  in  any  of  its  branches ;  and  of  the  little  wliich  appears 
to  have  been  done,  during  this  interval,  in  other  parts  of 
Europe,  towards  the  advancement  of  true  philosophy,  the  inter- 
rupted communication  between  this  island  and  the  Continent 
left  us  for  many  years  in  a  state  of  almost  total  ignorance. 
This  chasm  in  our  information  concerning  foreign  literature,  it 
may  not  be  a  difficult  task  for  younger  men  to  supply.  At  my 
time  of  life  it  would  be  folly  to  attempt  it ;  nor,  perhaps,  is  any 
author  who  has  himself  been  so  frequently  before  the  public, 
the  fittest  person  to  form  an  impartial  estimate  of  the  merits  of 
his  living  contemporaries.  Now,  however,  when  peace  is  at 
length  restored  to  the  world,  it  may  reasonably  be  hoped  that 
the  human  mind  will  again  resume  her  former  career  with 
renovated  energy;  and  that  the  nineteenth  century  will  not 
yield  to  the  eighteenth  in  furnishing  materials  to  those  who 
may  hereafter  delight  to  trace  the  progressive  improvement 
of  their  species.  In  the  meantime,  instead  of  indulging  my- 
self in  looking  forward  to  the  future,  I  shall  conclude  this 
section  with  a  few  general  reflections  suggested  by  the  fore- 
going retrospect. 


thing  innate  that  it  could  not  account 
for;  and  therefore  heartily  wish,  that 
they  were  in  one  sense  all  eradicated, 
which  was  undouhtedly  the  aim  of  that 
great  author  last  mentioned,  (Mr.  Locke,) 
as  it  was  a  natural  consequence  of  his 
first  book." — Law's  Translation  of  Arch- 
bishop King,  On  iJte  Origin  of  Evil^  p. 
79,  note. 

In  justice,  however,  to  Dr.  Law,  it 
must  be  observed,  that  he  tippears  to 
have  been  fully  aware  that  the  dispute 
about  innate  principles  was  in  a  great 


measure  verbal.  "  It  will  really,"  says 
he,  "  come  to  the  same  thing  with  re- 
gard to  the  moral  attributes  of  God  and 
the  nature  of  virtue  and  vice,  whether 
the  Deity  has  implanted  these  instincts 
and  affections  in  us,  or  has  framed  and 
disposed  us  in  such  a  manner,  has  given 
us  such  powers,  and  placed  us  in  such 
circumstances,  that  we  must  necessarily 
acquire  them.^' — {Ibid.)  But  if  Dr. 
Law  was  aware  of  this,  why  should  he 
and  his  followers  have  attached  such  in- 
finite importance  to  the  controversy? 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.         475 

Among  these  reflections,  what  cliiefly  strikes  my  own  mind 
is  the  extraordinary  cliange  which  has  gradually  and  insensibly 
taken  place,  since  the  publication  of  Locke's  Essay,  in  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  Metaphysics  ;  a  word  formerly  appropriated  to 
the  ontology  and  pneumatology  of  the  schools,  but  now  under- 
stood as  equally  applicable  to  all  those  inquiries  which  have  for 
their  object  to  trace  the  various  branches  of  human  knowledge 
to  their  first  principles  in  the  constitution  of  our  nature.^  This 
change  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  a  change  in  the  pliiloso- 
pliical  pursuit49  of  Locke's  successors ;  a  change  from  the  idle 
abstractions  and  subtleties  of  the  dark  ages,  to  studies  subser- 
vient to  the  culture  of  the  imderstanding ;  to  the  successful 
exercise  of  its  faculties  and  powers ;  and  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
great  ends  and  pui-poses  of  oiu:  being.  It  may  be  regarded, 
therefore,  as  a  palpable  and  incontrovertible  proof  of  a  corre- 
si)onding  progress  of  reason  in  this  part  of  the  world. 

On  comparing  together  the  midtifarious  studies  now  classed 
together  under  the  title  of  Metaphysics,  it  will  be  found  difficult 


*  Tlic  following  is  the  account  of  Me- 
tapbyaicB  given  by  JIobbcH : — "  There  in 
H  certain  Pkt'loscphia  priinn^  on  which 
all  other  Philosophy  ought  to  depend  ; 
and  consisteth  principally  in  right  limit- 
ing of  the  significations  of  such  a])pella- 
tions,  or  names,  as  are  of  all  others  the 
most  universal :  which  limitations  serve 
to  avoid  (imbiguity  and  equivocation  in 
reasoning,  and  are  commonly  called  De- 
finitions ;  such  08  are  the  Definitions  of 
Botly,  Time,  Place,  Matter,  Form,  Es- 
sence, Subject,  Substance,  Accident, 
Power,  Act,  Finite,  Infinite,  Quantity, 
Quality,  Motion,  Action,  Passion,  and 
divers  others,  necessary  to  the  explain- 
ing of  a  man's  Cimceptions  conceniing 
the  nature  and  generation  of  bodies. 
ITie  explication  (that  is,  the  settling  of 
the  meaning)  of  which,  and  the  like 
terms,  is  commonly  in  the  schools  called 
Metaphysics y  —  {Moral  and  Political 
Works.  Folio  e<lit.  Ix»nd.  1750,  p.  399.) 


[*  How  very  difiercnt,  and  how  much 
more  extensive,  is  the  province  now 
assigned  to  metaphysical  science  ;  a 
title  under  wliich  is  comprehended,  not 
only  the  inductive  philosophy  of  tho 
human  mind,  but  all  the  subordinate 
branches  of  that  study ;  our  logical  in- 
quiries (for  example)  concerning  the 
conduct  of  the  underntanding ;  our  ethi- 
cal inquiries  concerning  the  theory  of 
morals ;  our  philological  in(iuiries  con- 
cerning universal  grammar ;  our  critical 
inquiries  concerning  the  principles  of 
rhetoric  and  of  the  fine  arts.  To  these 
may  be  added  those  abstract  spccida- 
tions  which  relate  to  the  objects  of  Ma- 
thematics and  of  Physics,  and  an  infinite 
variety  of  other  general  disquisitions  to 
which  these  sciences  have  directed  the 
curiosity  of  the  learned.  As  for  the  re- 
searches mentioned  by  Ilobl>es,  they  arc 
no  longer  to  be  heard  of,  even  within 
the  walls  of  our  univerhities.] 


•Rcntored.    Ed. 


476  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

to  trace  any  common  circmnstance  but  this,  that  they  all  re- 
quire the  same  sort  of  mental  exertion  for  their  prosecution  ; 
the  exercise,  I  mean,  of  that  power  (called  by  Locke  Reflection) 
by  which  the  mind  turns  its  attention  inwards  upon  its  own 
operations,  and  the  subjects  of  its  own  consciousness.  In 
researches  concerning  our  intellectual  and  active  powers,  the 
mind  directs  its  attention  to  the  faculties  which  it  exercises,  or 
to  the  propensities  which  put  these  faculties  in  motion.  In  all 
the  other  inquiries  which  fall  under  the  province  of  the  meta- 
physician, the  materials  of  his  reasoning  are  drawn  chiefly  from 
his  own  mtemal  resources.  Nor  is  this  observation  less  appli- 
cable to  speculations  which  relate  to  things  external,  than  to 
such  as  are  confined  to  the  thinking  and  sentient  principle 
within  him.  In  carrying  on  his  researches  (for  example)  con- 
ceming  hardness,  softness,  figure,  and  motion,  he  finds  it  not 
less  necessary  to  retire  within  himselfj  than  in  studying  the 
laws  of  imagination  or  memory.  Indeed,  in  such  cases  the 
whole  aim  of  his  studies  is  to  obtain  a  more  precise  definition 
of  his  ideas ^  and  to  ascertain  the  occasions  on  wliich  they  are 
formed. 

From  this  account  of  the  nature  and  object  of  metaphysical 
science,  it  may  be  reasonably  expected  that  those  with  whom  it 
is  a  favourite  and  habitual  pursuit,  should  acquire  a  more  than 
ordinary  capacity  of  retiring,  at  pleasure,  from  the  external  to 
the  internal  world.  They  may  be  expected  also  to  acquire  a 
disposition  to  examine  the  origin  of  whatsoever  combinations 
they  may  find  established  in  the  fancy,  and  a  superiority  to  the 
casual  associations  wliich  warp  common  understandings.  Hence 
an  accuracy  and  a  subtlety  in  their  distinctions  on  all  subjects, 
and  those  peculiarities  in  their  views  which  are  characteristical 
of  imbiassed  and  original  thinking.  But  perhaps  the  most 
valuable  fruit  of  their  researches,  is  that  scrupulous  precision 
in  the  use  of  language,  upon  which,  more  than  upon  any  one 
circmnstance  whatever,  the  logical  accuracy  of  our  reasonings, 
and  the  justness  of  our  conclusions,  essentially  depend.  Ac- 
cordingly it  will  be  found,  on  a  review  of  the  history  of  the 
moral  sciences,  that  the  most  inqx^rtant  steps  which  have  been 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


477 


luade  in  some  of  those  apparently  the  most  remote  from  meta- 
physical pm^uits,  (in  the  science,  for  example,  of  political  eco- 
nomy,) liave  been  made  by  men  trained  to  the  exercise  of  their 
intellectual  powers  by  early  habits  of  abstract  meditation.  To 
tliis  fiurt  Burke  probably  alluded  when  he  remarked,  that  "  by 
turning  the  soul  inward  on  itself,  its  forces  are  concentered,  and 
are  fitted  for  stronger  and  bolder  flights  of  science ;  and  that  in 
such  pursuits,  whether  we  take,  or  whether  we  lose  the  game, 
the  cliase  is  certainly  of  service."  The  names  of  Locke,  of 
Berkeley,  of  Hume,  of  Quesnai,  of  Turgot,  of  Morellet,  and 
above  all,  of  Adam  Smith,  will  at  once  illustrate  the  truth  of 
these  observations,  and  shew  that,  in  combining  together,  in 
this  Dissertation,  the  sciences  of  Metaphysics,  of  Ethics,  and 
of  Politics,  I  have  not  adopted  an  arrangement  altogether 
capricious.1 

In  farther  justification  of  this  arrangement,  I  might  appeal 
to  the  popular  prejudices  so  industriously  fostered  by  many, 
against  these  tliree  branches  of  knowledge,  as  ramifications  from 
one  common  and  most  pernicious  root.  How  often  have  Mr. 
Smith's  reasonings  in  favour  of  the  freedom  of  trade  been  ridi- 
culed as  metaphysical  and  visionaiy  I  Nay,  but  a  few  years 
have  elapsed  since  this  epithet  (accompanied  with  the  still  more 
opprobrious  terms  of  Atheistical  and  Democratical)  was  applied 
to  the  argument  then  urged  against  the  morality  and  policy  of 


'  It  furniKhes  no  objection  to  these 
remarks,  that  some  of  our  best  treatises 
un  questions  of  political  economy  have 
proceeded  from  men  who  were  strangers 
to  metaphysical  studies.  It  is  enough 
for  my  purpose  if  it  be  granted,  that  it 
was  by  habits  of  metaphysical  thinking 
that  the  minds  of  those  authors  were 
formed,  by  whom  political  economy  was 
first  exalted  to  the  dignity  of  a  science. 
To  a  great  proportion  even  of  the  learned, 
the  ndes  of  a  sound  logic  arc  best  taught 
by  examples ;  and  when  a  precise  and 
well-defined  phraseology  is  once  intro- 
duced, the  speculations  of  the  most  or- 
dinary writers  assume  an  appearance 


(sometimes,  it  must  be  owned,  a  Tcry 
fallacious  one)  of  depth  and  consist- 
ency. 

Fontencllc  remarks,  that  a  single 
great  man  is  sufficient  to  accomplish  a 
change  in  the  taste  of  his  age,  and  that 
the  perspicuity  and  method  for  which 
Descartes  was  iiitlebtcd  to  his  mathe- 
matical researches,  were  successfully 
copied  by  many  of  his  contemporaries 
who  wore  ignorant  of  mathematics.  A 
similar  observation  will  be  found  to  ap- 
ply, with  still  greater  force,  to  the  models 
of  metaphysical  analysis  and  of  logical 
discussion  exhibited  in  the  political 
works  of  Hume  and  of  Smith. 


478  DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 

the  slave-trade  ;  and,  in  general,  to  every  speculation  in  which 
any  appeal  was  made  to  the  beneficent  arrangements  of  nature, 
or  to  the  progressive  improvement  of  the  human  race.  Absurd 
as  this  language  was,  it  could  not  for  a  moment  have  obtained 
any  currency  with  the  multitude,  had  there  not  been  an  obvious 
connexion  between  these  liberal  doctrines  and  the  well-known 
habits  of  logical  thinking  which  so  eminently  distinguished  their 
authors  and  advocates.  Whatever  praise,  therefore,  may  be  due 
to  the  fathers  of  the  modem  science  of  political  economy,  be- 
longs, at  least  in  part,  (according  to  the  acknowledgment  of 
their  most  decided  adversaries,)  to  those  abstract  studies  by 
which  they  were  prepared  for  an  analytical  investigation  of  its 
first  and  fundamental  principles. 

Other  connexions  and  affinities  between  Political  Economy 
and  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind  will  present  themselves 
afterwards.  At  present  I  purposely  confine  myself  to  that 
which  is  most  obvious  and  indisputable. 

The  influence  of  metaphysical  studies  may  be  also  perceived 
in  the  pliilosophical  spirit  so  largely  infused  into  the  best  his- 
torical compositions  of  the  last  century.  This  spirit  has,  in- 
deed, been  often  perverted  to  pernicious  purposes ;  but  who  can 
doubt  that,  on  the  whole,  both  history  and  philosophy  have 
gained  infinitely  by  the  alliance  ? 

How  far  a  similar  alliance  has  been  advantageous  to  our 
poetry,  may  be  more  reasonably  questioned.  But  on  the  most 
unfavourable  supposition  it  must  be  admitted,  that  the  number 
of  poetical  readers  has  thereby  been  greatly  increased,  and  the 
pleasures  of  imagination  proportionally  communicated  to  a 
wider  circle.  The  same  remark  may  be  extended  to  the  study 
of  philosophical  criticism.  If  it  has  not  contributed  to  the 
encouragement  of  original  genius  in  the  fine  arts,  it  has  been 
followed  by  a  much  more  beneficial  result  in  difiiising  a  relish 
for  the  beautiful  and  the  elegant ;  not  to  mention  its  influence 
in  correcting  and  fixing  the  public  taste,  by  the  precision  and 
steadiness  of  the  principles  to  which  it  appeals.^ 

*  Seo  some  admirable  remarks  on  this       the  To  of  Plato. — Edition  of  Gray,  by 
subject  by  Gray,  in  his  comments  on       Mathias. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.         479 


Another  instance,  still  more  important,  of  the  practical  in- 
fluence of  metaphysical  science,  is  the  improvement  which, 
since  the  time  of  Locke,  has  become  general  in  the  conduct  of 
education,  both  private  and  public.  In  the  former  case,  the 
fact  is  universally  acknowledged.  But  even  in  our  universities, 
(not^'ithstanding  the  proverbial  aversion  of  most  of  them  to 
everything  which  savours  of  innovation,)  what  a  change  has 
been  gradually  accompliBhetl  since  the  begimiing  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century !  The  studies  of  Ontology,  of  Pneumatology, 
and  of  Dialectics,  have  been  supplanted  by  that  of  the  Human 
Mind,  conducted,  with  more  or  less  success,  on  the  plan  of 
Locke's  Eamy  ;  and,  in  a  few  seats  of  learning,  by  the  studies 
of  Bacon's  Method  of  Inquiry,  of  the  Principles  of  Philosophical 
Criticism,  and  of  the  Elements  of  Political  Economy.  In  all 
this  an  approach  has  been  made,  or  attempted,  to  what  Locke 
80  earnestly  recommended  to  parents,  "  that  their  children's 
time  should  be  spent  in  acquiring  wliat  may  be  useful  to  them 
when  they  come  to  be  men."  Many  other  circumstances,  no 
doubt,  have  contributed  their  share  in  producing  this  revolu- 
tion ;  but  what  individual  can  be  compared  to  Locke  in  giving 
the  first  impulse  to  that  spirit  of  reform  by  which  it  has  been 
established?* 

In  consequence  of  the  operation  of  these  causes,  a  sensible 
cliange  lias  taken  place  in  the  style  of  English  composition.' 


*  Under  this  head  of  education  mav 
also  be  mentioned  the  practical  improYc- 
mcnts  which,  during  the  course  of  the 
lost  century,  have  taken  place  in  what 
Lord  Bacon  calls  //«<?  tradttive  part  of 
logic.  I  allude  hero  not  only  to  the 
new  arrangements  in  the  Lancastcnan 
Schools,  by  which  the  difTusion  of  the 
art  of  reading  among  tlie  poorer  classes 
of  the  community  is  so  wonderfully  faci- 
litated and  extended,  but  to  those  ad- 
mirable elementary  works  which  have 
opened  a  ready  and  speedy  access  to 
th(^  more  recondite  truths  of  the  severer 
sciences.  How  much  these  have  con- 
iributed  to  promote  the  progress  of  mo- 
thematicul  knowledge  in  France  may  be 


judged  of  from  an  assertion  ofCondorcet, 
that  two  years  spent  under  an  able 
teacher  now  carry  the  student  beyond 
the  conclusions  whicli  limited  the  re- 
searches of  Leibnitz  and  of  Newton.  The 
E^Hsays  lately  published  on  this  subject 
by  M.  Lacroix  {Eg$ais  mr  PEnseigne- 
went  en  G^tSral,  et  »vr  celui  des  Ma- 
ih^iatuptea  en  Particuiier ;  Paris,  1805) 
contain  many  valuable  suggestions  ; 
and,  beside  their  ulility  to  those  who 
are  concerned  in  the  tank  of  instruc- 
tion, may  justly  be  considered  as  an  ac- 
cession to  the  IMiiloNophy  of  the  Human 
Mind. 

'  Sec  some  judicious  remarks  on  tliis 
subject,  in  Mr.  Godwin's  Inqvirrr,  p. 


480 


DISSERTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


The  number  of  idiomatical  phrases  has  been  abridged ;  and  the 
language  has  assumed  a  form  more  systematic,  precise^  and 
luminous.  The  transitions,  too,  in  our  best  authors,  have  be- 
come more  logical,  and  less  dependent  on  fanciful  or  verbal 


274.  In  the  opinion  of  this  author, 
"  tho  English  language  is  now  written 
with  more  grammatical  propriety  than 
by  the  best  of  our  ancestors ;  and  with 
a  much  higher  degree  of  energy  and 
vigour.  Tho  spirit  of  philosophy  has 
inftised  itself  into  the  structure  of  our 
sentences.^'  He  remarks  farther,  in 
favour  of  the  present  style  of  English 
composition,  "  that  it  at  once  satisfies 
the  understanding  and  the  car."  The 
nnion  of  these  two  excellencies  certain- 
ly constitutes  the  perfection  of  writing. 
Johnson  boasts,  and  with  truth,  in  the 
concluding  paper  of  the  BambUr,  that 
he  had  "  added  something  to  our  lan- 
g^ge  in  the  elegance  of  its  construction, 
and  something  in  the  harmony  of  its 
cadence;*'  but  what  a  sacrifice  did  he 
make  to  these  objects,  of  conciseness,  of 
simplicity,  and  of  (what  he  has  himself 
called)  Oenuine  Anglicism.  To  accom- 
plish the  same  ends,  without  any  sacri- 
fice of  these  higher  merits,  has  been  one 
of  the  chief  aims  of  the  most  eminent 
among  his  successors. 

As  an  instrument  of  thought  and  a 
medium  of  scientific  communication,  the 
English  language  appears  to  me,  in  its 
present  8tat<j,  to  bo  far  superior  to  the 
French.  Diderot,  indeed,  (a  very  liigh 
authority,)  has,  with  much  confidence, 
asserted  the  contrary ;  and  it  is  but  fair 
to  let  him  speak  for  himself:  "  J'^'ou- 
terois  volontiers  quo  la  marche  didac- 
tique  et  reglee  &  laquelle  notre  langue 
est  assujettie  la  rend  plus  propre  anx 
sciences;  et  que  par  les  tours  et  les 
inversions  que  le  Grec,  le  Latin,  I'lta- 
lien,  I'Anglois,  se  pemiettcnt,  ces  lan- 
gues  sont  plus  avantageuses  pour  les 
lettres:  Que  nous  pouvons  mieux  qn' 
ancun  autre  peuple  faire  parler  I'cBprit ; 


et  que  le  bon  sens  choisiroit  la  laDgue 
Fran9oiBC ;  mais  que  1' Imagination  et 
les  passions  donncroient  la  preference 
aux  langues  anciennes  et  h  cclles  do  no* 
voisins :  Qu'il  faut  parler  Fran9oi8  dans 
la  societe  et  dans  les  ecoles  de  Philoso- 
phie ;  et  Grec,  Latin,  Anglois,  dans  lea 
chaires  et  sur  le  TheMre:  Que  notre 
langue  seroit  coUe  de  la  verite,  si  jamais 
cllo  revient  sur  la  terre;  et  que  la 
Grccque,  la  Latine,  et  les  autres  se- 
roient  les  langues  do  la  fable  et  du  men- 
Bonge.  Le  Francois  est  fait  pour  in- 
struire,  oclairer,  et  convaincre ;  le  Grec, 
lo  Latin,  I'ltalicn,  I'Anglois,  pour  per- 
suader, C>mouvoir,  et  tromper ;  parlez 
Grec,  Latin,  Italien  an  peuple,  mais 
parlez  Francois  an  sage." — (Kuvres  de 
IHderot,  torn.  ii.  pp.  70,  71,  Amster- 
dam, 1772. 

These  peculiar  excellencies  of  the 
French  language  are  ascribed,  in  part, 
by  Diderot,  to  the  study  of  the  Aristo- 
telian Philosophy. — {Ibid*  p.  7.)  I  do 
not  well  see  what  advantage  France 
should,  in  tins  respect,  have  enjoyed 
over  England ;  and  since  that  philoso- 
phy fell  into  disrepute,  it  will  scarcely 
be  alleged  that  the  habits  of  thinking 
cultivated  by  Locke's  disciples  have 
been  less  favourable  to  a  logical  rigour 
of  expression  than  those  of  any  contem- 
porary sect  of  French  metaphysicians. 

A  later  French  writer  has,  with  far 
greater  justice,  acknowledged  the  im- 
portant services  rendered  to  the  French 
language,  by  tho  gentlemen  of  tho  Port- 
Royal  Society.  "  L'Ecole  de  Port- 
Royal,  feconde  en  penseurs,  illustree 
par  les  ecrivains  les  plus  purs,  par  les 
erudits  les  plus  laborieux  du  siecle  de 
Louis  XIV.  cut  deja  rendu  parmi  nous 
un  assez  grand  service  n  lu  philosophic 


HETAPHYSICS  DURINQ  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.        481 

associations.  If  by  these  means  our  native  tongue  has  been 
rendered  more  unfit  for  some  of  the  lighter  species  of  writing, 
it  has  certainly  gained  immensely  as  an  instrument  of  thought^ 
and  as  a  vehicle  of  knowledge.  May  I  not  also  add,  that  the 
study  of  it  has  been  greatly  facilitated  to  foreigners  ;  and  that 
in  proportion  to  its  rejection  of  colloquial  anomalies,  more 
diu^ble  materials  are  supplied  to  the  present  generation  for 
transmitting  their  intellectual  acquisitions  to  posterity  ? 

But  granting  the  truth  of  these  reflections,  it  may  still  be 
asked,  what  is  the  amount  of  the  discoveries  brought  to  light 
by  the  metaphysical  speculations  of  the  eighteenth  century  ? 
Or  rather,  where  are  the  principles  to  be  found,  of  which  it  can 
be  justly  said,  that  they  unite  the  suffrages,  not  of  the  whole^ 
but  even  of  the  majority  of  our  present  philosophers  ?  The 
question  has  been  lately  put  and  urged,  with  no  common  abi- 
lity, by  a  foreign  academician. 

"  The  diversity  of  doctrines  (says  M.  de  Bonald)  has  in- 
creased, from  age  to  age,  with  the  number  of  masters,  and  with 
the  progress  of  knowledge ;  and  EurojK?,  which  at  present  pos- 
sesses libraries  filled  with  philosophical  works,  and  which 
reckons  up  almost  as  many  pliilosophers  as  writers ;  poor  in 
the  midst  of  so  much  riches,  and  uncertain,  with  the  aid  of  all 
its  guides,  which  road  it  should  follow  ;  Euroi)e,  the  centre  and 
the  focus  of  all  the  lights  of  the  world,  has  yet  its  philosophy 
only  in  expectation."^ 

In  proof  of  this  assertion,  the  author  appeals  to  the  Com- 
]yarafive  History  of  Philosophical  Systertis  relative  to  the 
Principles  of  Human  Knowledge^  by  M.  Degerando  ;  and  after 
a  variety  of  acute  strictures  on  the  contradictory  systems  thcTO 
described,  sums  up  his  argument  in  the  following  words : — 


par  ccIa  soul  qu'cllc  a  puissaincnt  con- 
couru  a  fixer  notro  langue,  A  liii  donner 
ce  caractere  de  precision,  de  clarte,  d*ex- 
actitiidc,  qui  la  rend  si  favorable  uux 
operations  de  Tesprit." — Hiit.  Corn- 
par  fe^  &c.,  torn.  ii.  p.  45. 

Mr.  Gibbon  also  has  remarked,  how 
njiuh    *'  the  learned   Sixiofy   of*  Port- 

VOL.  I. 


Royal  contributed  to  ostablish  in  France 
a  taste  for  just  reasoning,  simplicity  of 
style,  and  philoKOphicul  method."  The 
improvement,  in  all  these  respects,  of  our 
English  writers,  during  the  same  period, 
is,  in  my  opinion,  much  more  remarkable. 
*  Hecherchea  Philo8(tphiques,  &c.,  p.  2. 
raiiH,  1818. 

•J  ir 


482 


I>I88£RTATION. — PART  SECOND. 


"  Thus,  tlie  Comparative  History  of  Philosophical  Systems 
is  nothing  else  than  a  History  of  the  Variations  of  philosophi- 
cal schools,  leaving  no  other  impression  upon  the  reader  than 
an  insurmountable  disgust  at  all  philosopliical  researches ;  and 
a  demonstrated  conviction  of  the  impossibility  of  raising  an 
edifice  on  a  soil  so  void  of  consistencyj  and  so  completely  sur^ 
rounded  by  the  most  frightful  precipices.  About  what  then 
are  philosophers  agreed  ?  What  single  point  have  they  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  dispute  ?  Plato  and  Aristotle  inquired, 
What  is  science  ?  Wliat  is  knowledge  ?  And  we,  so  many 
ages  after  these  fathers  of  philosophy ;  we,  so  proud  of  the  pro- 
gress of  human  reason,  still  continue  to  rei)eat  the  same  ques- 
tions, vainly  pursuing  the  same  phantoms  which  the  Greeks 
pursued  two  thousand  years  ngo/'^ 

In  reply  to  this  bold  attack  on  the  evidence  of  the  moral 


*  Ihicherches  PhUosophique^^  &c.,  pp 
68,  59.     Parifl,  1818. 

On  the  other  hand,  may  it  not  bo 
asked,  if  tlio  number  of  philosophical 
uyetems  be  greater  than  that  of  the  sects 
which  at  present  ilivido  tlie  Christian 
Church?  The  allusion  here  made  to 
I^)HHUct'H  celebrated  HiHtoni  of  the 
Variatious,  h1i(»W8  plainly  that  the  simi- 
larity of  the  two  caRCM  had  nut  been 
overlooked  by  the  ingenious  writer  ;  and 
that  the  only  efTectual  irniedy  which,  in 
his  opinion,  can  be  aj)pliod  to  either,  is 
to  8u!)iect  once  more  the  reason,  both  of 
philoKophorH  and  of  divines,  to  the  para- 
mount authority  of  an  infallible  guide. 
The  conclusion  is  such  as  might  have 
U^en  expected  from  a  good  Catholic ; 
but  I  trust  that,  in  this  country,  it  is 
not  likely  to  niisl«*ad  many  of  my 
readers.  Somo  recent  conversions  to 
Popery,  however,  which,  in  consequence 
of  views  piimilar  to  those  of  M.  do 
Bonald,  have  t^iken  place  among  the 
pliilosophers  of  Germany,  afford  a  proof 
that,  in  the  present  political  state  of 
Europ*>,  the  danger  of  a  temporary  re- 
lapse   into    tho    suporwtition*    of    the 


(^hurch  of  Rome,  how  slight  soever, 
ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  altogether 
visionary. — Sec  Lectures  on  tlie  HUiory 
of  Literature^  by  Frederick  Schlegel, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  65,  88,  89,  175,  and  187. 
English  Translation,  Edinburgh. 

[*  It  is  observed  by  Dr.  MoHhcim, 
that  "  notwithsUuiding  the  boastcil 
unity  of  faith  in  the  Church  of  Rome, 
and  its  ostentatious  pretensions  to  har- 
ujony  and  concord,  it  was  at  the  time  of 
the  Reformation,  and  is,  at  this  day, 
divided  and  distracted  with  discussions 
and  contests  of  various  kinds.  The 
Francistrans  and  the  I>ominicans  c(m- 
tend  with  vehemence  about  several 
points  of  doctrine  and  discipline.  The 
Scotists  and  Thomists  are  at  eternal 
war.  .  .  .  Nor  are  the  theological  col- 
leges and  senn'narics  of  learning  more 
exempt  from  the  flame  of  controversy 
than  the  clerical  or  monastic  orders  :  on 
the  contrary,  debates  concerning  almost 
all  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  are 
multiplied  in  them  without  number,  and 
conducted  with  little  moderation." — 
MaclaiiH^'s  TravS'Otion,  vol.  iii.  pp.  •1»>2, 
A{\:\,  2d  edition.] 


•  Kfniore.l. -AW. 


METAPHYSICS  DURING  THE  EIQHTEENTH  CENTURY.         483 

sciences,  it  may  suffice  to  recall  to  our  recollection  the  state  of 
physical  science  not  more  than  two  centiuries  ago.  The  argu- 
ment of  M.  de  Bonald  against  the  former  is,  in  fact,  precisely 
the  same  with  that  ascribed  by  Xenophon  to  Socrates  against 
those  studies  which  have  immortalized  the  names  of  Boyle  and 
Newton ;  and  which,  in  our  own  times,  have  revealed  to  us  all 
the  wonders  of  the  modem  chemistry.  Whatever  contradic- 
tions, therefore,  may  yet  exist  in  our  metaphysical  doctrinesi 
(and  of  these  contradictions  many  more  than  is  commonly  sus- 
pected will  be  found  to  be  merely  verbal,)  why  should  we 
despair  of  the  success  of  future  ages  in  tracing  the  laws  of  the 
intellectual  world,  which,  though  less  obvious  than  those  of  the 
material  world,  are  not  less  the  natural  and  legitimate  objects 
of  human  curiosity  ? 

Nor  is  it  at  all  wonderful  that  the  beneficial  effects  of  meta- 
physical habits  of  thinking  should  have  been  first  i)erceivcd  in 
political  economy,  and  some  other  sciences  to  which,  on  u 
sui)erfieial  view,  they  may  seem  to  liave  a  very  remote  relation ; 
and  that  the  rise  of  the  sap  in  the  tree  of  knowledge  should  be 
indicated  by  the  germs  at  the  extremities  of  the  branches, 
before  any  visible  change  is  discernible  in  the  tnmk.  The 
sciences,  whose  improvement  during  the  last  century  lias  been 
generally  acknowledged,  are  those  which  are  most  open  to 
common  observation;  while  the  changes  which  have  taken 
place  hi  the  state  of  metaj)hysics,  have  attracted  the  notice  of 
the  few  alone  who  bike  a  deep  interest  in  these  abstract  pur- 
suits. The  swelling  of  the  buds,  however,  affords  a  sufficient 
proof  that  the  roots  are  sound,  and  encourages  the  hoj)e  that 
the  growth  of  the  trunk,  though  more  slow,  will,  in  process  of 
time,  l)e  equally  conspicuous  with  that  of  the  leaves  and 
])lo8soms.^ 

*  [*  The  analogy  of  which   I   huvo  est  la  Phyniquc,  ct  les  branches  qui  sor- 

availcd  inyHolf  in  the  above  paragraph,  tent  (lu  tronc   sout  toutcs  Ics  autn^H 

WAS  siiggCRted  to  me  by  the  following  BciencoB,  qui  so  reduiscnt  &  trois  princi- 

p.-is8age  in  Descartes :  "  Ainsi,  toiitc  l.i  pales,  la  Medccine,  la  Mecaniqiie  et  le 

philosophie  est  coninie  nn  arbrc,  dont  Morale :  j*entends  la  i>lus  haute  et  la 

Irs  racines  «ont  la  M«'taph\  sicjue,  le  tronc  plus  parfaito  Morale,  qui,  presuppoHani 

•  Rcttored.— K.l. 


484  DISSERTATION.— PART  SECOND. 

I  shall  close  this  part  of  my  Dissertation  with  remarking, 
that  the  practical  influence  of  such  speculations  as  those  of 
Locke  and  of  Bacon  is  to  be  traced  only  by  comparing,  on  a 
large  scale,  the  state  of  the  human  mind  at  distant  perioda 
Both  these  philosophers  appear  to  have  been  fully  aware,  (and 
I  know  of  no  philosopher  before  them  of  whom  the  same  thing 
can  be  said,)  that  the  progressive  improvement  of  the  species 
is  to  be  expected  less  from  the  culture  of  the  reasoning  powers^ 
strictly  so  called,  than  from  the  prevention,  in  early  life,  of 
those  artificial  impressions  and  associations,  by  means  of  which, 
when  once  rivetted  by  habit,  the  strongest  reason  may  be  held 
in  perpetual  bondage.  These  impressions  and  associations  may 
be  likened  to  the  slender  threads  which  fastened  Gulliver  to 
the  earth ;  and  they  are  to  be  overcome,  not  by  a  sudden  exer- 
tion of  intellectual  force,  but  by  the  gradual  effect  of  good 
education,  in  breaking  them  asunder  one  by  one.  Since  the 
revival  of  letters,  seconded  by  the  invention  of  printing,  and  by 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  tliis  process  has  l)een  incessantly 
going  on,  all  over  the  Cliristian  world ;  but  it  is  chiefly  in  the 
course  of  the  last  century  that  the  result  has  become  visible  to 
common  observers.  How  many  are  the  threads  which,  even  in 
Catholic  countries,  have  been  broken  by  the  writings  of  Locke  ! 
How  many  still  remain  to  be  broken,  before  the  mind  of  man 
can  recover  that  moral  liberty  which,  at  some  future  i>eriod,  it 
seems  destined  to  enjoy  ! 

une    enli^^o    connniHsnnce   dcs   autrcs  principale  utilitc  de  la  philosophic  de- 

BcienccB,   est  lo   ilernier    dejcre    de   la  jx'nd  de  cellcs  de  kcs  parties  qu'on  ne 

eagCNSo.     Or,  comme  cc  n'est  pas  des  pent  apprendre  que  les  derniercR." — 

racines  ni  du  tronc   dcs   arbres   qii'on  Preface    des    Principes    de    la    Philo- 

cueille  lea  fruits,  mais   sculemcnt  des  sophie.] 
extrcmit^a  de  leura  branches,  ainsi  la 


DISSERTATION. 


PART  THIRD. 


I 

I 


DISSERTATION. 


PART  III. 

PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL   AND  POLITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  DURING  THE 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.* 

CONCLUDINa  CHAPTER.— A  FRAGMENT. 

The  slight  Historical  Sketcli  which  I  have  now  attempted  to 
trace,  seems  fully  to  authorize  this  general  inference ;  that  from 
the  Revival  of  Letters  to  the  present  times,  the  progress  of 
mankind  in  knowledge,  in  mental  illumination,  and  in  enlarged 
sentiments  of  humanity  towards  each  other,  has  proceeded  not 
only  with  a  steady  course,  but  at  a  rate  continually  accelerating. 
When  considered,  indeed,  partially,  with  a  reference  to  local  or 
to  temporary  circumstances,  human  reason  has  repeatedly  ex- 
hibited the  appearance  of  a  pause,  if  not  of  a  retrogradation  ; 
but  when  its  advances  are  measured  upon  a  scale  ranging  over 
longer  periods  of  time,  and  marking  the  extent  as  well  as  the 
rapidity  of  its  conquests  over  the  surface  of  our  globe,  it  may 
be  confidently  asserted,  that  the  circle  of  Science  and  of  Civili- 
sation has  been  constantly  widening  since  that  era.*     It  must 

*  (This  was  dcBigned  (as  stated  above,  Stewart : — "  The  following  pages  were 

p.  202)  but  never  executed,  except  in  intended  to  form  the  concluding  chapter 

the  final  chapter,  now  first  published,  of  my  Dissertation  prefixed  to  the  En- 

which  comprises    Tendencies  and  Be-  cyclopaedia. — Kinniel,     Nov.    1816." — 

suits.    The  manuscript  from  which  this  EditorJ] 
is   printed   was  thus   labelled  by  Mr.  *  "  Du  scin  de  la  feodalit^,  qui  6toit  en 


488      DISSERTATION. — ^PART  THIRD— LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 


be  rememberedj  too,  that  the  obstacles  thrown  in  its  way  by 
the  crooked  policy  of  Machiavellian  statesmen,  have  generally 
contributed  in  the  last  result,  to  accomplish  those  ends  which 
they  were  intended  to  defeat ; — the  impetus  of  the  mind,  in 
some  cases,  forcing  for  itself  a  path  still  shorter  and  smoother 
than  that  in  which  it  was  expected  to  move  ;  and  in  others  re- 
coiling for  a  season,  to  gather  an  accession  of  strength  for  a 
subsequent  spring.  Nor  must  it  be  overlooked,  that  in  those 
unfortunate  coimtries  where  reason  and  liberaUty  have,  for  a 
time,  been  checked  or  repressed  in  their  career,  the  effect  has 
been  produced  by  the  influence  of  despotic  power  in  depri\'ing 
the  people  of  the  means  of  instruction — in  restraining  the  free 
communication  of  mutual  hghts — and  in  suppressing  or  per- 
verting the  truths  most  essential  to  human  happiness;  and 
consequently,  that  these  apparent  exceptions,  instead  of  weaken- 
ing, tend  to  confirm  the  general  principles  which  it  has  been 
the  chief  aim  of  the  foregoing  discourse  to  illustrate. 

These  reflections  naturally  carry  the  thoughts  forward,  and 
interest  our  curiosity  in  the  future  fortunes  of  the  human  race. 
A  few  general  observations  on  this  question  will  not,  therefore, 
I  trust,  be  considered  as  an  improper  sequel  to  the  foregoing 
retrospect. 

Before,  however,  I  enter  upon  this  argument,  some  notice  is 
due  to  an  objection,  not  unfrequently  urged  by  the  disciples  of 
Machiavel  and  of  Hobbes,  against  the  utility  of  such  prospec- 


elle  mome,  un  systeme  bien  moins  pro- 
pre  quo  celui  des  ropubliques  anciennes 
Au  dcvelopperoent  de  la  liberte  et  h  celui 
de  rcsprit  kumain,  sont  cependant  sor- 
ties peu  &  peu  I'abolition  presque  geii- 
Srale  de  TEscIavage,  et  un  tendance 
vers  I'egalite  civile  qui  n*a  cesse,  qui  ne 
oesse  d'agir,  et  que  nous  voyons  marcher 
&  grands  pas  h  son  entier  accomplissc- 
ment.  La  raison  publique,  gugnant 
toujours  du  terrein,  a  fait  des  progrtis 
continuels,  soavent  lents,  quelquefois 
interroinpus,  mais  &  la  longue  surmont- 
ant  tous  les  obstacles  qui  lui  etoient  op- 
po8'«,  sans  se  detoumer  de  sa  inarciie, 


eUe  a  toujours  ete  propageant  une  re- 
partition pins  universelle  de  Hnstnic- 
tion,  ajoutant  au  tresors  des  sciences,  et 
malgre  quelques  vicissitudes  momen- 
tanees,  ameliorant  nos  idees  sur  la  poli- 
tique, sur  la  morale,  et  meme,  quoiqu^on 
en  disc,  sur  la  religion,  qu'elle  tend 
chaque  jour,  en  depit  d*une  resistance 
bien  mal  calculee  fl  purger  de  ces  im- 
puret^s  dont  la  main  de  Thomme  n'a 
que  trop  depare  sa  divine  origine." — 
MiflexioM  sur  les  Moyens  propres  d 
Consolider  VOrdre  ConstUulionel  en 
France.  Par  M.  Xavier  de  Sade. 
Paris,  1822. 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   489 

tive  sixjculatious  concerning  the  liistor)'  of  the  world.  Of  what 
consequence  (it  has  heen  nskcnl)  to  the  happiness  of  the  exist- 
ing generation  to  be  told,  that  a  thousand,  or  even  a  hundred 
years  hence,  human  affairs  will  exhibit  a  more  pleasing  and 
encouraging  aspect  than  at  present  ?  How  poor  a  consolation 
under  the  actual  pressure  of  irremediable  evils  !  To  persons  of 
either  of  these  descriptions  I  desi)air  of  being  able  to  return  a 
satisfactory  answer  to  this  question ;  for  we  have  no  common 
principles  from  which  to  argue.  But  to  those  who  are  not 
systematically  steeled  against  all  moral  feelings,  yr  who  have 
not  completely  divested  themselves  of  all  concern  for  an  unborn 
posterity,  some  of  the  following  may  not  be  unacceptable.^ 

And  here  I  would  observe,  in  the  first  place, — That  if  it  be 
grateful  to  contemplate  the  order  and  beauty  of  the  Material 
Universe,  it  is  so,  in  an  infinitely  greater  degree,  to  perceive, 
amidst  the  apparent  irregularities  of  the  moral  world,  order 
l/Cginning  to  emerge  from  seeming  confusion.  In  tracing  the 
History  of  Astronomy,  how  delightful  to  see  the  Cycles  and 
Ei)icycle8  of  Ptolemy,  which  drew  from  Alphonsus  his  impious 
censure  on  the  wisdom  of  the  Creator,  give  way  to  the  perfect 
and  sublime  simplicity  of  the  Coperniaui  system  !  A  similar 
remark  may  l>e  applied  to  the  discoveries  since  made  by  Newton 
and  his  followers ;  discoveries  which  fully  justify  what  a  late 
eminent  wTiter  has  siiid  of  the  argument  from  final  causes  for 
the  existence  of  God,  "  That  it  gathers  strength  with  the  pro- 
gress of  Human  Reason,  and  is  more  convincing  to-day  than  it 
was  a  thousand  years  ago." 

Is  nothing  analogous  to  this  to  be  discovered  in  the  History 
of  Man  ?  Has  wo  change  taken  place  in  the  aspect  of  human 
affairs  since  the  revival  of  letters  ;  since  the  invention  of  print- 
ing ;  since  the  discovery  of  the  New  World ;  and  since  the 
Reformation  of  Luther  ?     Has  not  the  happiness  of  our  species 

»  Few,  it  is  to  be  hf)ped,  would  be  dig-  "  ^^  ^''^  <>'  **>•  «»". 

posed   to   close  life  with  avowing  the  ^^^^t^^!  '^  "*'  ^'  """'^"^  "•"  "*''' 

HeliUh  and  miHanthropical   Bontimenta  ^^  aa^CuTudian  has  expressed  the  same 

winch  Shakespeare  has  with  admirable  ji^i,„HcaI  feeling  :- 

propriety  put  into  the  mouth  of  Mac-  ..  g^erw  Juv^t  orb«»  mori ;  loUiia  letho 

U'th  : —  Exitiam  commune  dalifft." 


490      DISSERTATION. — PAKT  THIRD— LAST  CHAPTER  ONLT. 

kept  pace,  in  every  country  where  despotism  has  not  drieti  up 
or  poisoned  the  springs  of  liuman  improvement,  with  the  dif- 
fusion of  knowledge,  and  with  the  triumphs  of  reason  and 
morality  over  the  superstition  and  profligacy  of  the  dark 
ages  ?  What  else  is  wanting,  at  this  moment,  to  the  repose 
and  prosperity  of  Europe,  but  the  extension  to  the  oppressed 
and  benighted  nations  around  us,  of  the  same  intellectual  and 
moral  liberty  which  are  enjoyed  in  tliis  island  ?  Is  it  possible, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  that  this  extension  should  not,  sooner 
or  later,  be  effected  ?  Nay,  is  it  possible,  {now  when  all  the 
regions  of  the  globe  arc  united  together  by  commercial  rela- 
tions,) that  it  should  not  gradually  reach  to  the  most  remote  and 
obscure  hordes  of  barbarians  ?  The  prospect  may  be  distant, 
but  nothing  can  prevent  it  from  being  one  day  realized,  but 
some  physical  convulsion  which  shall  renovate  or  destroy  the 
surface  of  our  planet. 

It  is  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  since  the  following 
lines  were  written  ;  at  which  time  they  were,  in  all  probability, 
admired  merely  as  the  brilliant  vision  of  a  warm  and  youthful 
imagination.  Already  they  begin  to  assume  the  semblance  of 
a  sober  philosophical  theory;  nor  is  it  altogether  impossible, 
that  before  the  end  of  another  century,  the  most  important 
parts  of  it  shall  have  become  matters  of  history. 

"  The  time  shall  come,  when,  free  as  seas  or  wind. 
Unbounded  Thames  shall  flow  for  all  mankind  ; 
Whole  nations  enter  with  each  swelling  tide, 
And  seas  but  join  the  regions  they  divide ; 
Earth's  distant  ends  our  glory  shall  behold, 
And  the  New  World  launch  forth  to  seek  the  Old. 
Oh,  stretch  thy  wings,  fair  Peace,  from  shore  to  shore, 
Till  conquest  cease,  and  slavery  be  no  more ; 
Till  the  freed  Indians  in  their  native  groves, 
Heap  their  own  fruits,  and  woo  their  sable  loves : 
Peru  once  more  a  race  of  kings  behold, 
And  other  Mexicos  be  roof'd  with  gold." 

In  proportion  as  these  and  other  predictions  of  the  same 
kind  shall  be  verified ;  or,  in  other  words,  in  proportion  as  the 
future  history  of  man  shall  illustrate  the  inseparable  connexion 


ETHICS  AND  VOLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTUKY — IN  RESULT.    4m 

l)etween  the  dift'ilsion  of  knowledge  and  that  of  human  happi- 
ness, will  not  the  argument  from  final  causes,  for  benevolent  as 
well  as  systematical  design  in  the  moral  world,  gain  an  acces- 
sion of  strength,  analogous  to  what  it  has  already  gained  from 
the  physical  discoveries  of  modern  science;  and  will  not  an 
experimental  reply  be  obtained  to  the  most  formidable  of  those 
cavils  which,  of  old,  gave  birth  to  the  Manichean  hypothesis  ; 
and  which  liave,  in  all  ages,  been  justly  regarded  as  the  chief 
stronghold  of  the  Epicurean  theology  ?^ 

The  foregoing  observations  relate  solely  to  the  influence  of 
the  doctrine  in  question,  on  individual  happiness.  When  con- 
sidered, however,  as  a  practical  principle^  animating  and  guid- 
ing our  conduct  as  members  of  society,  this  doctrine  opens 
some  views  of  still  higher  importance. 

I  have  already  hinted,  that  the  Epicurean  idea  which  ascribes 
t^ntirely  to  chance  the  management  of  human  affairs,  is  alto- 
gether irreconcilable  with  the  belief  of  a  progressive  system  of 
order  and  happiness.  The  aim  of  the  policy,  accordingly, 
which  is  dictated  by  the  lessons  of  this  school,  is  to  leave  as 
little  as  possible  to  the  operation  of  natural  causes ;  and  to 
guard  with  the  utmost  solicitude  against  whatever  may  disturb 
the  artificial  mechanism  of  society,  or  weaken  the  authority  of 
those  prejudices  by  which  the  multitude  may  more  easily  be 
held  in  subjection.  The  obvious  tendency  of  these  principles  is 
to  damp  every  generous  and  patriotic  exertion,  and  to  unite 
the  timid  and  the  illiberal  in  an  interested  league  against  the 
progressive  emancipation  of  the  human  mind.  A  firm  convic- 
tion, on  the  contrary,  that  the  general  laws  of  the  moral,  as 
well  as  of  the  material  world,  are  wisely  and  beneficently 
ordered  for  the  welfare  of  our  species,  inspires  the  pleasing  and 
animating  persuasion,  that  by  studying  these  laws,  and  accom- 
modating to  them  our  political  institutions,  we  may  not  only 
be  led  to  conclusions  which  no  reach  of  human  sagacity  could 
liiive  attaineil,  unassisted  by  the  steady  guidance  of  this  polar 
light,  but  may  reasonably  enjoy  the  satisfaction  of  considering 
ourselves,  (according  to  the  sublime  expression  of  the  philoso- 

>  Se«  Note  F  F  F. 


492      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

phicol  emperor j)  asfettow-workera  toith  God  in  forwarding  the 
gracious  purposes  of  his  government  It  represents  to  us  the 
order  of  society  as  much  more  the  result  of  Divine  than  of 
human  wisdom  ;  the  imperfections  of  this  order  as  the  eflFect« 
of  our  own  ignorance  and  blindness ;  and  the  dissemination  of 
truth  and  knowledge  among  all  ranks  of  men  as  the  only  solid 
foimdation  for  the  certain  though  slow  amelioration  of  the  race. 
Such  views,  when  under  the  control  of  a  sound  and  comprehen- 
sive judgment,  cherish  all  the  native  benevolence  of  the  mind, 
and  call  forth  into  exercise  every  quaUty  both  of  the  head  and 
the  heart,  by  which  the  welfare  of  society  may  oe  promoted. 

I  have  been  led  into  this  train  of  thinking,  by  a  controversy 
which  has  been  frequently  agitated,  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
with  respect  to  the  probable  issue  of  the  present  state  of  human 
affairs.  The  greater  part  of  writers,  resting  their  conclusions 
chiefly  on  the  past  history  of  the  world,  have  taken  for  granted, 
that  nations,  as  well  as  individuals,  contain  within  themselves 
the  seeds  of  their  decay  and  dissolution ; — that  there  are  limits 
prescribed  by  nature  to  the  attainments  of  mankind,  which  it 
is  impossible  for  them  to  pass ;  and  that  the  splendid  exertions 
of  the  two  preceding  centuries  in  arts,  in  commerce,  and  in 
arms,  portend  an  approaching  night  of  barbarism  and  misery. 
The  events  which  we  ourselves  have  witnessed  since  the  period 
of  the  American  Revolution,  have  been  frequently  urged  as 
proofs,  that  the  reign  of  Science  and  of  Civilisation  is  already 
drawing  to  a  close. 

In  opposition  to  this  very  prevalent  belief,  a  few,  and  but  a 
few,  philosophers  have  ventured  to  suggest,  that  the  experience 
of  the  past  does  not  authorize  any  such  gloomy  forebodings ; — 
that  the  condition  of  mankind  at  present  differs,  in  many 
essential  respects,  from  what  it  even  was  in  any  former  age ; 
and  that,  abstracting  entirely  from  the  extravagant  doctrine 
of  some  of  our  contemporaries  about  the  indefinite  per/ectibtUti/ 
of  the  race,  the  thick  cloud  which  at  present  hangs  over  the 
civiUzed  world,  affords  no  solid  argument  for  despairing  of  its 
future  destiny. 

In  the  course  of  those  splenetic  epistles  which  were  pub- 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURIXO  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   493 

lished,  a  few  years  ago,  from  the  late  King  of  Prussia  to  M. 
d'Alembert,  the  former  of  these  systems  is  strenuously  incul- 
cated ;  and  it  leaves  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  an  impression 
of  so  imsatisfuctory  and  discouraging  a  nature,  as  affords  of 
itself  no  inconsiderable  presumption  against  its  truth.^  The 
same  system  is  insinuated  more  or  less  directly  in  the  writings 
of  most  of  our  modem  sceptics ;  and,  as  it  is  unfortunately 
but  too  much  favoured,  on  the  one  hand,  by  Atheistical  or 
Epicurean  prejudices ;  and,  on  the  other,  by  that  prostitution 
of  religious  professions  to  the  purposes  of  political  faction, 
which  has  disgraced  the  present  age,  it  has  found  numerous, 
and  warm,  and  powerful  advocates  among  very  different  de- 
scriptions of  individuals.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted,  that  the 
greater  part  of  those  who  have  opj^sed  it,  have  suffered  them- 
selves to  be  carried  by  their  enthusiasm,  or  by  their  love  of 
paradox,  so  far  towards  the  other  extreme,  that  they  have 
added  weight  and  authority  to  the  opinion  which  they  wished 
to  explode.  Even  the  grave  and  philosophical  Price  has  in- 
dulged himself  in  some  conjectures  concerning  the  future  state 
of  society,  which  it  is  difficult  to  peruse  without  a  smile  ;  nor 
is  it  possible  to  acquit  his  illustrious  correspondent  Turgot, 
of  some  tendency  to  the  exaggerations  of  a  heated  fancy  in 
his  benevolent  si>eculations  on  the  same  subject.  The  follow- 
ing outline  of  his  philosophical  and  jwlitical  creed,  sketched, 
and  perhaps  heightened  in  its  colouring,  by  the  masterly  hand 
of  one  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  will  sufficiently  confirm 
this  remark.  Making  due  allowances,  however,  for  these 
amiable  blemishes,  how  congenial  is  its  general  spirit  and 
character  to  all  the  best  feelings  of  our  nature ! 

"  But  is  it  possible  that  men  will  ever  conform  themselves, 
in  general,  to  views  suggested  by  sound  reason  ?     M.  Turgot 

*  ''L'impcrfection  tant  en  moralo  qii'en  ct  abandonncr  le  vulgnire  &  TeiTCur,  en 

plij-sique  est  le  carat-tere  de  ce  globo  tachant  dc  Ic  detourner  deH  crimes  qui 

que  nous  habitons ;  c'est  peine  perdue  derangent  I'ordre  de  la  socioto." — See 

d'entreprendre  de  I'eclairer,  et  souvent  the  whole  passage,  (l^uv.  Poti.  torn.  ii. 

la  coiDDiisKion  est  dangereuse  pour  ceux  p.  66.     8ee  also  the  same  vol.,  p.  71 ; 

qui  h'en  chaigent.     11  faut  se  contenter  also  pp.  83,  84. 
d'etre  sago  ptnir  soi,  si  on  pent  I'f'tre, 


494       DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — ^LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

not  only  believed  that  it  t8  possible,  but  he  regarded  a  constant 
susceptibility  of  improvement^  as  one  of  the  characteristical 
qualities  of  the  human  race.  The  effects  of  this  susceptibility, 
always  increasing,  appeared  to  him  to  be  infallible.  The  in- 
vention of  printing  has  undoubtedly  co-operated  with  it  power- 
fully, and  has  rendered  a  retrograde  movement  impossible; 
but  this  invention  was  itself  a  consequence  of  the  taste  for 
reading  which  had  been  previously  diffused  over  Europe.  The 
press  is  by  no  means  the  only  method  now  known  of  multiply- 
ing copies ;  and  if  it  had  escaped  the  ingenuity  of  the  first 
inventors  of  the  art,  they  could  not  hate  failed  to  discover  some 
other  expedient  for  accomplishing  their  purpose.  This  constant 
susceptibility  of  improvement  he  conceived  to  belong  both  to 
the  race  and  to  the  individual.  He  believed,  for  example,  that 
the  progress  of  physical  science  and  of  the  art  of  education, 
together  with  improvements  in  the  methods  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation, or  with  the  discovery  of  methods  yet  unknown,  would 
render  men  capable  of  an  increased  accumulation  of  knowledge, 
and  of  combining  its  materials  more  extensively  and  variously 


*  I  have  substituted  this  circumlocu- 
tion instead  of  the  word  perfectibility 
which  is  employed  in  the  original,  be- 
cause the  latter  word  conveys  very  dif- 
ferent ideas  to  a  French  and  to  an 
English  ear.  In  the  French  language, 
it  ought  to  be  remarked,  there  is  uo 
verb  corresponding  to  the  English  verb 
improve,  but  perfectionner ;  nor  any 
substantive  but  perfecHonnement,  by 
which  the  word  improvement  can  pos- 
sibly be  translated.  When  the  French 
writers,  accordingly,  represent  a  con- 
stant j>er/ec/i6i7iVy  as  one  of  the  char- 
acteristical qualities  of  our  race,  they 
mean  nothing  more  than  this,  that  no 
limit  can  be  set  to  the  possible  improve- 
ment of  society ;  a  proposition  which 
no  pliilosopher,  whether  English  or 
French,  has  yet  ventured  to  dispute. 
llie  writers,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
have    transplanted    this  doctrine   into 


England,  have  frequently  expressed 
themselves,  as  if  they  conceived  that 
man,  both  in  his  individual  and  political 
capiU'ity,  was  destined  at  last  to  attain 
to  the  actual  perfection  of  his  being, — 
an  error  into  which  some  of  them  ap- 
pear to  have  been  partly  led  by  tbo  later 
extravagances  of  Condorcct.  The  ridi- 
cule which  has  been  lavished  on  this 
last  supposition,  has  been  justly  merited 
by  those  who  have  given  it  any  counte- 
nance ;  but  it  ought  not  to  be  extended 
to  such  a  writer  as  Turgot,  and  still 
less  to  the  older  philosophers  of  France, 
by  whom  it  has  been  used.  I  do  not 
know  at  what  period  it  was  first  intro- 
duced, but  it  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  pub- 
lications of  Buffon,  of  Rousseau,  and  of 
Charles  Bonnet,  according  to  whom  this 
perfedihiiity  is  the  cliaracteristic  which 
essentially  disiinguishcs  man  from  the 
brutes. — See  Bonnet,  loni.viii.  y.  333. 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DUlllNG  XVIIl.  CENTURY — IN  KKSULT.   495 

together :   He  believed  also,  that  their  moral  sense  was  sus- 
ceptible of  a  similar  progress  towards  perfection. 

"  According  to  these  principles  every  useful  truth  would 
necessarily  at  one  period  or  another  be  generally  known  and 
adopted  by  mankind.  All  the  errors  sanctioned  by  time  would 
gradually  disiippear,  and  be  replaced  by  just  and  enlightened 
conclusions.  And  this  progress,  going  on  from  age  to  age,  if 
it  has  any  limit,  has  certainly  none,  which,  in  the  present  state 
of  our  knowledge,  it  is  possible  to  assign. 

"  He  was  convinced  that  the  perfection  of  the  social  order 
would  necessarily  produce  one  no  less  remarkable  in  morals, 
and  that  men  will  continually  grow  better,  in  j)roportion  as 
they  shall  become  more  enlightened.  He  was  anxious,  there- 
fore, tliat  iastead  of  attempting  to  graft  the  virtues  of  mankind 
on  their  prejudices,  and  to  support  them  by  enthusiasm  or  by 
exaggcr.ited  principles,  philosophers  would  endeavour  to  con- 
vince nun,  by  addi'cssing  themselves  both  to  their  reason  and 
to  their  feelings,  that  a  regard  to  self-interest  ought  to  incline 
them  to  the  practice  of  the  gentle  and  the  peaceful  virtues ; 
and  that  their  own  happiness  is  inseparably  connected  with 
that  of  their  fellow-creatures.  Neither  the  fanaticism  of  liberty, 
nor  of  patriotism,  appeared  to  him  to  1x3  virtuous  motives  of 
action;  but  if  these  sentiments  were  sincere,  he  considered 
them  as  respectable  qualities  of  great  and  elevated  minds, 
which  it  was  i)roper  to  enlighten  rather  than  to  inflame.  He 
dreaded  always,  that,  if  subjected  to  a  severe  and  philosophical 
examination,  they  might  be  foimd  to  originate  in  pride  or  the 
desire  of  superiority ;  that  the  love  of  liberty  might  some- 
times l)e,  at  bottom,  a  wish  for  an  ascendant  over  our  fellow- 
citizens,  and  the  love  of  our  country  a  desire  of  the  personal 
advantages  connected  with  its  greatness;  and  he  fortified 
himself  in  this  belief,  ])y  observing,  of  how  little  importance 
it  was  to  the  multitude  to  possess  an  influence  in  public  affairs, 
or  to  belong  to  a  great  and  formidable  nation. 

"  He  (lid  not  doubt  that  every  age,  in  consequence  of  the 
progress  of  agriculture,  of  the  arts  and  of  the  sciences,  would 
increase  the  enjoyments  of  all  the  different  classes  of  society: 


496        DISSERTATION. — ^PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

would  diminish  their  physical  evils ;  and  would  furnish  the 
means  of  preventing  or  mitigating  the  misfortunes  which  may 
appear  to  threaten  them.  The  ties  which  unite  nations  are 
every  day  strengthened  and  multiplied.  In  a  short  period,  all 
the  productions  of  nature,  and  all  the  fruits  of  human  industry 
in  different  parts  of  the  globe,  will  become  the  common  inherit- 
ance of  the  human  race ;  and  one  day  or  other,  all  mankind 
will  acknowledge  the  same  principles,  possess  the  same  means 
of  information,  and  combine  their  exertions  for  the  progress 
of  reason  and  the  happiness  of  the  species. 

"  M.  Turgot  saw  that  the  fundamental  principles  of  legisla- 
tion and  of  government  had  already  been  perceived  and  recog- 
nised by  various  enliglitened  writers.     He  saw  that  the  nature 
and  object  of  political  institutions,  the  duties  of  governors  and 
the  rights  of  the  governed,  were  now  very  generally  understood. 
But  he  was  far  from  thinking  that  a  system  of  legislation,  regu- 
lated by  these  principles, — a  system  where  the  object  of  govern- 
ment and  the  rights  of  individuals  were  steadily  kept  in  view, 
had  yet  been  formed  or  conceived  in  all  its  perfection.     Time 
alone  and  the  progress  of  knowledge  could  conduct  us,  not  to 
reach  this  ultimate  limit,  but  to  approximate  to  it  continually. 
He  hoped  that  the  day  would  come,  when  men,  convinced  of 
the  folly  of  opposing  nation  to  nation,  force  to  force,  passion  to 
passion,  and  crime  to  crime,  would  learn  to  listen  with  atten- 
tion to  what  reason  may  dictate  for  the  welfare  of  humanity. 
Why  should  not  the  science  of  Politics,  founded  as  it  is,  in 
common  with  all  the  other  sciences,  on  observation  and  reason- 
ing, advance  gradually  to  perfection  in  proj)ortion  as  observa- 
tions are  made  with  greater  delicacy  and  correctness,  and  as 
reasonings  are  conducted  with  greater  depth  and  sagacity  ? 
Shall  we  dare  to  fix  a  limit  to  the  attainments  of  genius,  cher- 
ished by  a  lietter  education ;  exercised  from  infancy  in  forming 
more  extensive  and  varied  combinations ;  and  accustomed  to 
employ,  with  address,  modes  of  investigation  at  once  more  easy 
and  more  general  ?     Let  us  consider  what  may  be  expected 
from  the  invigorated  powers  of  tliat  understanding,  which  we 
may  presume,  fnmi  the  ox[)erience  of  the  past,  is  destined  yet 


ETHIC8  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   497 

to  perform  wonders ;  and  let  us  console  ourselves  for  not  being 
witnesses  of  these  fortunate  times,  by  the  pleasure  of  antici- 
{mting  them  in  idea ;  and,  if  possible,  by  the  still  more  sublime 
satisfaction  of  having  contributed  to  accelerate  (were  it  but  by 
a  few  moments)  the  arrival  of  this  too  distant  era. 

^^  It  was  thus  that,  far  from  believing  knowledge  to  be  fatal 
to  mankind,  M.  Turgot  considered  the  faculty  of  acquiring  it 
as  the  only  efifectual  remedy  against  the  evils  of  life ;  and  as 
the  true  justification  of  that  order  (imperfect,  indeed,  to  our 
eyes,  but  tending  always  to  correct  its  imperfections)  which  he 
observed  in  liuman  affairs,  and  in  that  part  of  the  universe  with 
which  we  are  connected."* 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  at  length,  because  it  illustrates 
strongly,  when  considered  in  connexion  with  the  events  that 
have  since  taken  place  in  France,  the  extreme  danger  of  exhi- 
biting such  Utopian  pictures  of  human  aflairs,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, by  the  most  remote  tendency,  to  inflame  the  jmssions  of 
tlie  multitude ; — a  caution  more  })eculiarly  necessary  in  address- 
ing those  who  have  a  leaning  to  that  Theory  of  Morals  which 
resolves  the  whole  of  virtue  into  Utility,  Engrossed  with  the 
magnitude  of  the  beneficent  ends  which  they  believe  themselves 
forwarding,  men  lose  gradually  all  moral  discrimination  in  the 
selection  of  means ;  and  are  hurried  by  passions,  originally 
grafted  on  the  love  of  their  country  and  of  mankind,  into  enor- 
mities which  would  appal  those  ordinary  profligates  who  act 
from  the  avowed  motives  of  interest  and  ambition.  Some  of 
those,  it  is  certain,  who  professed  the  enthusiastic  sentiments 
which  have  just  been  stated,  are  accused  of  having  connected 
themselves,  after  the  overtlirow  of  the  French  monarchy,  with 
the  most  violent  revolutionary  proceedings ;  and  in  our  own 
country,  during  the  distractions  of  the  seventeenth  century,  we 
know  what  torrents  of  blood  were  shed  without  remorse  by  a 
set  of  fanatics,  wlio,  while  they  were  dreaming  that  the  reign 
of  the  saints  on  earth  and  the  kingdom  of  the  Messias  were  at 
hand,  found  themselves  under  the  iron  sceptre  of  a  usurper.* 

*  [Turgofs Life.hy Con^QTC^X. — Ed.]       lution,  the  fact  is  more  peculiarly  re- 

*  With  respect  to  the  French  Revo-      markable ;  as  the  few  individuals  then 

VOL.  I.  2  I 


498       DISSERTATION.— PART  THIRD— LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

These  considerations,  however,  while  they  forcibly  recommend 
the  calm  and  dispassionate  exercise  of  our  reason  in  the  forma- 
tion of  our  practical  principles,  and  illustrate  the  danger  of 
trusting  ourselves  to  the  guidance  of  imagination,  even  when 
warmed  by  our  sublimest  moral  emotions,  afford  no  reason  for 
rejecting  the  tnith  on  account  of  the  errors  with  which  it  is 
liable  to  be  blended,  or  for  sacrificing  at  once  all  the  hoiKJS 
which  both  morality  and  religion  eucoiu-age  us  to  cherish,  to  a 
cold  and  comfortless  system,  Cijually  fatal  l)oth  to  public  and  to 
private  ^nrtue.  It  is  pnident,  at  least,  as  well  as  ])hilosoplucal, 
Ixjfore  we  embrace  oj)inions  so  melancholy  in  their  consequences, 
to  consider  what  the  argimients  are  which  are  generally  urged 
in  their  defence. 

On  this  head  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  mo  to  insist  long, 
as  these  arguments  rest  chiefly  on  the  j)uerile  supposition  of  an 
analogy  between  the  natural  and  political  body ;  or  on  an 
empirical  retrospect  of  the  past  history  of  mankind,  unaccom- 
})anied  with  any  consideration  of  the  important  peculiarities 
which  so  advantageously  distinguish  the  present  times.  The 
late  celebrated  Father  Boscovich  is  the  only  person,  as  &r  as  I 
know,  who  has  attempted  a  direct  pr(X)f  that  the  human  mind 
was  already  at  the  limit  (if,  indeed,  that  limit  be  not  already 
passed)  of  its  progressive  improvement ;  and  even  he,  by  the 
very  mode  of  reasoning  he  employs,  seems  to  acknowledge 
that  a])jK»anmces  are  in  favour  of  the  oj>posite  supposition. 
This  reasoning  of  Boscovich  deserves  to  Ih)  mentioned,  as  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  inst^uices  that  c^an  bo  ])roduced,  as  a 
mis{ij)plication  of  nisithenuitical  theory  to  the  business  of  human 
life.  It  occurs  in  his  succinct  but  masterly  commentary  on  the 
Latin  ix)era  of  l>enedictus  Stay,  Dv  Systcmaic  Mumli;  and  in 

Burvivinp  (»f  the  Bcliool  of  Tnrgot  niul  llio  wftrninfjR  tlioy  nddresscil  to  those  in 

of  Qucsnai  were,  in  the  first  iuHtaneo,  |><)wer,  of  the  confiisiouH  in  which  tlu'y 

BO  zeah)iiHly  and  HyHtrnintically  attarlied  were  likely  to  involve  their  country  l>y 

to  the  old  nionan'hieal  const  it  nt  ion,  that  subjecting  (picHtionH  of  bucIi  incalculable 

they   cxpoHcd   thenistdvefl,    during   Iho  moment  to  the  discuKsions  of  nu?n  ko 

year  178H,  to  a  very  genend  odium,  by  little   acquainttul    with    the    Theory   of 

remonstrating  loudly  against  the  (\»n-  (lovcrnujent  and  the  i)rinci|>le»  of  Toli- 

vocation  of  the  »Statc8>CJc'ncral,  and  by  tical  Economy. 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY— IN  RESULT.   499 

introduced  on  occasion  of  some  versos  in  which  the  poet  seonis 
to  express  himself  favourably  to  the  opposite  opinion.  "  But, 
for  my  part,"  says  Boscovich,  "  my  mind,  more  prone  to  augur 
ill  than  well  of  the  future,  is  overcast  with  gloomy  pre^wiges ; 
presages  in  which  I  am  farther  confirmed  by  some  Geometrical 
considerations  afterwards  to  be  explained."*  Accordingly,  ho 
has  annexed  to  the  poem  an  appendix,  containing  what  he  calls 
a  Geometrical  Prophecy;  in  which  ho  assumes  a  straight  lino 
A  B  to  express  the  times,  and  certain  ordinates  to  express  the 
corresponding  states  of  knowledge ;  the  curve  to  wliich  these 
ordinates  belong,  receding  from  the  axis  A  B,  or  approaching 
to  it,  according  as  the  lines  denoting  the  states  increase  or  di- 
nunish.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  that  from  the  general 
decrease  of  the  increments^  during  the  thirty  years  preceding 
the  date  of  his  prophecy,  he  anticipates  a  succession  of  decre- 
ments as  about  to  follow,  till  the  curve  expressing  the  states 
and  vicissitudes  of  knowledge,  shall  intersect  the  axis,  and 
recede  from  it  on  the  opposite  side,  with  an  acceleration 
growing  in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  distances.^ 


^  "  At  niihi  contra  ad  infiiiiRta,  qii«e 
niiilto  froqiicutius  accidiint,  pronainonR, 
animo  fonnidincm  incutit.  .  .  .  Quml 
antom  pertinet  ad  pn>grcHsnin  in  ntato 
mox  siibnecntura,  est  milii  indicium 
quoddam  a  Geometria  potituni,  quod 
itidem  detcriora  divinare  jnbeat ;  de  qno 
in  Supplemento.** — [Tom.  i.  p.  93,  teq. 
—Ed.] 

*  "  Si  supcrius  dcciranm  80i)timum 
8«eculum,  ct  primos  Iiujusce  dccrimi  oc- 
tavi  anuon  conKidercmns  qiiam  multis, 
quam  praK^lariH  invcntlH  f<Rcunduni  ex- 
titit  id  omno  tenipus?  Quwl  quidom 
si  cum  hoc  pnesenti  tcniporo  coniparcn- 
tur,  patcbit  Bane,  eo  noa  jam  dnvcniMSO, 
nt  fere  pcrmancns  quidem  liabeatnr  8ta- 
tUH,  nisi  etiam  rep^sRus  jam  ca'perit. 
Qui  %*\\\m  proproRsus  in  iiH,  quai  Carte- 
Hi  uh  in  alf^ibnc  potiRRiunim  applicatinne 
a<l  goomctriam,  (lalilaniR  ac  HugcniuB, 
in  priniiR  in  optica,  afttronomia,  roccha- 
nica,  invenerunt?     Quid  ca,  qua)  Ncw- 


tonus  protulit  portinentia  ad  analjrsin^ 
ad  gcomctriam,  ad  meclianicam,  a<l  op- 
ticam,  ad  astronoraiam  potiRhimum,  quas 
ipso,  qnaj  Ijcibnitius,  quaj  univorsa  Bor- 
noulliorum  familia  in  calculo  infinitoM- 
mali  vol  inveniendo,  vtd  promovendo 
proilidcnint.  Quam  multa  ea  Runt,  cu- 
jus  ponderis,  quant«e  utilitatiH  ?  At  ca 
omnia  contum  annonmi  circitur  inter- 
vallo  prodicrunt,  initio  quidem  plurima 
ctmfertim,  turn  senHim  pauciora:  ab 
nnuifl,  jam  triginta  vix  quidqnam  ad- 
jectnm  CBt.  Abcrratif)  luminiH,  et  nuta- 
tio  axiH  acccHsit  astnnioniia*,  dinit^nKio, 
grn<bnmi  ad  TolbiriH  formam  googra- 
pbiie,  niira  clectriconmi  ph(fn(imrnonim 
Renos,  cauRin  tamon  a<ihuc  fere  bitcnti- 
bus,  PliyMce,  ot  Ri  qna  alia  f^unt  ejuH- 
niodi,  qure  Banc  cum  pnoribus  illid 
tantiH  hanmi  diBciplinarum  incTcniontiit 
comparari  nullo  modo  i>oHHunt.  An  non 
igitur  eo  deveniniuj*,  ut  incrumcntis  dc- 
cn^scciitibuB,  brovi  di'boant  decremcnta 


500       DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY* 

To  this  reasoning  of  Boscovich  it  will  not  be  expected  that 
I  should  attempt  a  serious  answer ;  and  as  to  the  analogical 
argument  drawn  from  growth,  decline,  and  mortality  of  the 
human  body,  it  is  so  manifestly  grounded  on  a  verbal  quibble, 
that  a  logical  refutation  of  it  is  impossible.  The  only  point  on 
which  it  seems  of  importance  to  enlarge,  is  the  essential  diflfer- 
ence  between  the  present  state  of  society,  and  any  which  has 
occurred  in  the  preceding  ages  of  the  world ;  and  on  this  view 
of  the  subject,  which  forms  the  very  hinge  of  the  controversy, 
very  little  stress  has  hitherto  been  laid  by  the  advocates  for 
either  side  of  the  question.  Mr.  Gibbon,  indeed,  in  his  reflec- 
tions on  the  fall  of  the  Boman  Empire  in  the  West,  has  aUuded 
slightly  to  the  changes  introduced  into  the  art  of  war,  by  the 
invention  of  gunpowder,  and  the  consequent  improvement  in 
the  science  of  fortification ;  but  as  he  has  passed  over  entirely 
various  other  circumstances  of  far  greater  moment — in  particu- 
lar, he  has  passed  over  the  effects  produced  by  the  invention  of 
printing,  without  the  co-operation  of  which,  all  the  other 
causes  he  mentions  would  be  insufficient  to  justify  his  general 
conclusions, — I  shall,  therefore,  take  this  opportunity  of  illus- 
trating these  effects  at  some  length;  for,  although  I  have 
touched  on  the  subject  already  in  a  former  publication,  I  have 
not  attempted  in  that  work  to  examine  it  with  the  accuracy 
which  its  importance  deserves.^ 

■uccedere,  ut  cnrva  ilia  linea,  quie  ex-  of  retrogradation  in  particular  regiona, 
primit  hujus  literatune  statum  ac  vices,  but  continually  embracing  a  wider  and 
iterum  ad  axem  deflexa  delabatur,  et  wider  circle  of  tbe  inbabitants  of  the 
j)riBceps mat?" — [Tom. i.  p.  353.-7- ^rf.]  globe.  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to  repre- 
^  In  an  eloquent  and  pbilosopbical  sent  tbe  establishment  of  this  cardinal 
discourse  pronounced  before  the  Magis-  truth  as  the  proper  aim  of  the  PhUoto- 
trates  of  Geneva,  on  the  2(Hh  of  June  phy  of  History.  The  object  which  I 
1814,  the  author  (M.  Simonde  de  Sis-  have  in  view  at  present  is  comparatively 
mondi)  has  attempted,  with  great  inge-  confined,  extending  no  further  than  to 
nnity  and  plausibility,  to  shew,  that  the  history  of  our  species  during  the 
from  the  earliest  authentic  records  of  the  last  three  centuries.  I  am  far,  how- 
human  race,  the  progress  of  the  world  ever,  from  being  disposed  to  call  in 
in  reason,  in  virtue,  in  knowledge,  and  question  the  justness  of  his  very  pleas- 
in  civilisation,  has  been  constant  and  ing  conclusions.  On  the  contrary,  the 
uninterrupted ;  exhibiting,  he  acknow-  reasonings  which  follow  are  perfectly 
ledges,  on  many  occasions,  the  most  in  unison  with  his  speculations,  and  so 
unequivocal  and  melancholy  symptoms  far  as  they  go,  tend  to  confirm,  instead 


KTHIC8  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIIL  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   501 


Nor  let  the  following  remarks  be  accused  as  savouring  of 
what  is  now  sarcastically  called  tJie  New  Philosophy.  They 
coincide  entirely  with  the  prophetic  language  of  Scripture,*  as 
well  as  with  the  views  of  a  writer,  whose  sanguine  predictions 


of  invaliilating  his  general  argument. 
— De  la  PhiloBophie  de  VHistoire^  DU- 
cours  prononci  devant  les  MwjiBtraU  et 
le  PevpU.  de  la  RiptMtpie  de  Getitve, 
aprU  la  Distribution  Annuelle  des 
Prix  du  College.  Par  J.  C.  L.  Simoiulo 
de  Sismondi.     Ix>ndre8,  1814. 

It  is  consolatory  to  compare  the  spirit 
of  this  discourse  with  a  very  beautiful 
but  melancholy  passage  from  a  prior 
publication  of  the  same  author.  "  Cette 
immense  richesso  litterairo  des  Arabes 
quo  nous  n'avons  fait  qu'entrevoir,  n'ex- 
iste  plus  dans  aucun  des  pays  on  les 
Arabes  et  les  Mussulmans  dominent. 
('e  n'est  plus  1&  qu'il  faut  cherchcr  ni  la 
rcnommee  do  lours  grands  hommcs,  ni 
Icurs  ecrits.  Cc  qui  s'en  est  sauve  est 
tout  enticr  entrc  les  mains  de  leurs  en- 
nemis,  dans  les  couvcnts  de  moiues,  ou 
les  bibliothoqucs  des  rois  de  TEurope. 
Et  ccpendant  ces  vastcs  contrecs  n*ont 
point  ^te  conquises ;  co  n'est  i)oint  Tet- 
rangcr  qui  les  a  depouillecs  do  leurs 
riohesscR,  qui  a  anranties  leur population, 
qui  a  detruit  leurs  lois,  leurs  mieurs,  ot 
leur  esprit  national.  I^a  poison  etoit 
au-dedans  duellos,  il  s'est  dcvuloppo  par 
lui-nieme,  et  il  a  tout  aneanti. 

"  Qui  sait  si,  dan.s  quelques  sieclcs, 
cette  mrmo  Europe,  oxi  le  regno  des 
Lcttres  ct  des  Sciences  est  am'ourd'hui 
transports,  qui  brillc  d'un  si  grand  ec- 
lat, qui  jugo  si  bien  les  temps  passes,  qui 
compare  si  bien  le  regno  successif  des 
litterateurs  et  des  mccura  antiques,  ne 
sera  pas  deserte  et  sauvago  commo  les 
collines  de  la  Mauritanie,  les  sables  do 
I'Egypte,  ou  les  vallees  do  TAnatolie  ? 
(^ui  sait  si,  dans  un  pays  cnticrement 
tiuuf,  peutH'tro  dans  les  hautes  contr^et 
dou  dccoule  POrcnoque  ou  la  fleuve dos 
Amaztms,  peut-otre  dans  cette  enceinte 


jusqu*  jl  cc  jour  impenetrable  des  mon- 
tagnes  de  la  NouTello  Hollande,  il  ne  se 
fomiera  pas  des  peuples  avec  d'autres 
mceun,  d  autrcs  langues,  d'autrcs  pen- 
sees,  d'autres  religions,  des  peuples 
qui  renouvellcront  encore  une  fois  la 
race  humaine,  qui  etudiront  comme 
nous  les  temps  passes,  et  qui,  voyant 
avec  btonnement  que  nous  avons  exists, 
quo  nous  avons  su  ce  qu'ils  sauront, 
que  nous  avons  cm  comme  eux  IL  la 
durec  et  &  la  gloirc,  plaindront  nos  im- 
puissans  efforts,  et  rappelleront  les  noma 
des  Newton,  des  Racine,  des  Tassc, 
comme  exemples  de  cette  vaine  lutte  de 
lliomme  pour  atteindre  une  immorta- 
litc  de  renommeo  que  la  destin^  lui 
refuse."— />«  LtUir.  du  Midi  de  VEur 
rope,  torn.  i.  pp.  76,  77 ;  &  Paris,  1813. 
^  It  may  not  be  improper  to  observe 
here  that  this  improvement  in  the  con- 
dition of  mankind  is  represented  in  the 
sarrcd  writings,  not  as  the  consequenco 
of  such  a  miraculous  interposition  of 
Providence  as  was  dreamed  of  by  the 
Cromwvllian  Millenarians;  but  as  the 
natural  effect  of  the  progress  and  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge,  resulting  from  a 
more  enlarged  and  liberal  intercourse 
among  the  different  nations.  "  Many 
(it  is  said)  shall  go  to  and  fro,  and 
knowledge  shall  be  increased."  [Dan. 
xii.  4.]  An  expression  so  very  congenial 
in  its  spirit  to  that  of  Bacon's  writings, 
that  Montucla  has  mistaken  tho  Latin 
version  of  it  for  one  of  Bacon's  Aphor- 
isms, and  has  quoted  it  as  such  in  the 
title  page  of  his  History  of  Mathematics. 
MulHpertransibunt  et  augebitur  Scien- 
tia.  The  same  mistake  is  committed 
by  Baillet  in  his  Life  of  Descartes.  8ee 
book  ii.  chap.  11,  end  of  the  chapter. 
(Part  1.  p  149.) 


502      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

concerning  the  progress  of  experimental  knowledge  have  been 
already  verified  with  an  almost  prophetic  precision.     "  And 
mnAj  (says  Bacon)  when  I  set  before  me  the  condition  of 
these  times,  from  the  height  of  men's  wits;    the  excellent 
monuments  of  ancient  writers  which  as  so  many  great  lights 
shine  before  us:   the  Art  of  Printing:    the  traversed 
BOSOM  OF  THE  OcEAN  AND  OF  THE  WoRLD :  the  leisure  where- 
with the  civilized  world  abounds,  and  the  inseparable  quality 
that  attends  time  itself,  which  is  ever  more  and  more  to  disclose 
truth,  I  cannot  but  be  raised  to  the  persuasion  that  the  learn- 
ing of  this  third  period  of  time,  blessed  beyond  former  times 
by  sacred  and  divinely  inspired  Religion,  will  far  surpass  the 
learning  of  Greece  and  of  Rome:  if  men  will  but  well  and 
wisely  know  their  own  strength  and  weakness,  and  instead  of 
tearing  and  rending  one  another  with  contradictions,  and,  in  a 
civil  rage,  bearing  arms  and  waging  war  against  themselves^ 
will  conclude  a  peace,    and   with  joint  forces,  direct  their 
strength  against  nature  herself,  and  take  her  high  towers,  and 
dismantle  her  fortified  holds,!  and  thus  enlarge  the  borders  of 
man's  dominion,  so  far  as  Almighty  God  of  his  goodness  shall 
permit." 

If  this  be  indeed  the  spirit  of  the  New  Philosophy,  little 
are  their  feelings  to  be  envied  who  still  adhere  to  the  Old. 
It  is  observed  by  Aristotle  of  Anaxagoras,  (the  first  philo- 
sopher of  the  Ionian  School,  who  taught,  in  opposition  to 
the  prevailing  atheism  of  his  countrymen,  that  all  things 
were  made  and  governed  by  one  supreme  mind,)  that  he 
talked  like  a  sober  man  among  drunkards.  The  same  tiling 
may  be  said  of  the  author  of  the  above  passage,  when 
contrasted  with  the  crowd  of  vnJgar,  or  rather  of  courtly 
politicians. 

*  To   prevent    any  misapprehension  n(mxmperatur^nisiparendo;—tikm2Ls\m 

with  respect  to  the  import  of   these  which  will  be  found   to  hold  equally 

figurative  expressions,  it  is  necessary  true,  when  applied  to  the  Moral  and  to 

for  me  to  remind  my  readers,  that,  ac-  tlie  Material  World ;  and  which  might 

cording  to  Bacon  liimself,    **  the  only  form  the  text  of  a  volume  on  the  subject 

way  of  subduing  Nature  is  by  studying  of  Political  Economy, 
and  obeying  her  laws."     Natura  enim 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   503 


The  cflFects  of  printing  in  promoting  the  improvement  of 
society  may  Ix)  referred  to  two  general  heads : — 

Firsty  Its  eflfect  in  securing  and  accelerating  the  progress  of 
knowledge. 

Secondly^  Its  effect  in  facilitating  the  diffusion  and  dissemi- 
nation of  knowleilge  among  the  lower  ordera 

I.  §  1.  That  the  press,  by  multiplying  the  copies  of  every 
literary  production,  diminishes  to  a  great  degree,  or  rather 
reduces  to  nothing,  the  chances  of  a  repetition  of  those  acci- 
dents wliich  have  deprived  us  of  so  many  of  the  ancient  dis- 
coveries, is  sufficiently  obvious.  The  waste  of  intellectufd 
labour  which  has  been  thus  occasioned  in  the  past  history  of 
the  world,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine.  Not  only  have  many  of 
the  most  valuable  compositions  of  Greece  and  Bome  perished 
in  the  wreck  of  ages ;  but  hardly  can  a  vestige  be  traced  of 
those  scientific  attainments  which,  in  earlier  times,  drew  to 
Egypt,  from  every  part  of  the  civilized  earth,  all  those  who 
were  anxious  to  be  initiated  in  the  mysteries  of  Philosophy. 
The  infinite  multiplication  of  books  by  means  of  the  press ;  the 
universal  diffusion  of  the  accomplislmients  of  reading  and 
writing ;  and  the  stability  which  the  different  known  languages 
give  to  each  other  by  Dictionaries  and  Translations,  (all  of 
them  consequences  of  the  same  happy  invention,)  seem  to  re- 
move completely,  in  future,  the  possibility  of  a  similar  misfor- 
tune. In  this  respect,  the  effect  of  printing  may  be  compared 
to  that  of  a  catch  in  a  machine,  by  which  we  are  enabled  to 
susjxjnd  occasionally  our  exertions,  without  losing  any  iwirt  of 
the  advantage  we  have  gained.* 


*  The  permanency  which  the  press 
bcHtows  on  the  proiluctions  of  genius, 
and  the  security  whicli  is  thereby  added 
to  the  reign  of  civilisation,  have  not 
escaped  the  notice  of  the  ingenious  and 
philosophical  poet,  to  whose  pleasing 
anticipations  of  the  future  history  of 
the  world  I  had  formerly  occasion  to 
allude.  The  reflections  oi  Sttiy  on  this 
Iliad  aflord  him  an  op{K)rtunity.  whioh 
Ik-  aj>]K'arb  to  me  to  have  managed  with 


peculiar  skill,  of  resuming  the  subject  of 
his  work,  after  a  long  digression. 
Kx  aliquo  at  qutmiaiu  Jam  tempore  novimus 

Mtcm 
Eductricoin  operum,  Rerratriccmque  laburum 
Ingeuii,  {xtMint  diffundl  ut  inultiplicati 
Prwla  per  ot  format,  latetiuo  per  ura  Tirorum 
Spargier.  et  t&nto  renorarier  increments 
Interdum,  ex  uno  ut  nascantur  milUa  nmlta; 
Loi)}duK  liU'irco  wo\m  pnmiinhnu?  (uvuiii, 
liinnciuM»?<iuc  licot  qiuxiue  i^po  cxtciitleru  iu 

ann4«, 
Teinp(>ris  ct  ^a'VOf  labcutb  tvmu«re  miirsui 


604      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — ^LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

In  consequence  of  this  circumstance  the  progress  of  know- 
ledge, however  slow,  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  at  all  times  advan- 
cing ;  and  the  longer  the  progress  continues,  the  more  rapid 
(ceteris  paribus)  will  be  the  rate  at  which  it  proceeds :  For, 
*'  new  knowledge  (as  Mr.  Maclaurin  well  remarks)  does  not 
consist  so  much  in  our  having  access  to  a  new  object,  as  in 
comparing  it  with  others  already  known ;  observing  its  rela- 
tions to  them,  or  discerning  what  it  has  in  common  with  them, 
and  wherein  their  disparity  consists.     Thus,  our  knowledge  is 
vastly  greater  than  the  sum  of  what  all  its  objects  separately 
could  aflFord ;  and,  when  a  new  object  comes  within  its  reach, 
the  addition  to  our  knowledge  is  the  greater  the  more  we 
already  know ;  so  that  it  increases,  not  as  the  new  objects  in- 
crease, but  in  a  much  higher  proportion." 

§  2.  The  progress  of  knowledge  must  be  wonderfully  aided 
by  the  effect  of  the  press  in  multiplying  the  number  of  scien- 
tific inquirers,  and  in  facilitating  a  free  comimrce  of  ideas  all 
over  the  civilized  world ;  effects,  not  proportioned  merely  to  the 
increased  number  of  cultivated  minds,  thus  engaged  in  the 
search  of  truth,  but  to  the  powers  of  this  increased  number, 
combined  with  all  those  arising  from  the  division  and  distribu- 
tion of  intellectual  labour. 

Mr.  Smith,  in  his  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations^  has  explained  with  great  ingenuity,  and 
with  a  peculiar  felicity  of  illustration,  in  what  manner  the 
division  of  labour,  in  the  meclianical  arts,  increases  the  produc- 
tive powers  of  human  industry.  The  advantage,  however, 
which  from  the  operation  of  analogous  circumstances  is  gained 
in  the  pursuits  of  knowledge,  is  incomparably  greater.  Different 
individuals  are  led,  partly  by  original  temperament,  partly  by 
early  education,  to  betake  themselves  to  different  studies ;  and 
hence  arise  those  infinitely  diversified  capacities  of  mind,  which 

Magniv  praMertini  pro  rebus  :  nam  IcTo  queis  est  His  immortali  de  tem|>oro  ?    Concitat  istis 

Pondup,   ferre  qaeftnt  aetatem  haud  denique  Me    quoque    promistis,  et   mentem    numine 

multom.  Phoebus 

Sed  quw  fata  inanent  nostros  ventura  labores  ?  Tmplet,  ct  incefsit;  jam,   quo  feror,  impetus 

Quantum  icTi  mihi  fas  optare  ?   Quid  augurcr  ire  ert.-  [Lib.  ii.  v.  92,  tcq.-Ed] 


ETHICB  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   505 

we  commonly  call  diversities  of  geiiiue.  These  diversities  of 
genius,  in  consequence  of  the  connexions  and  affinities  among 
the  various  branches  of  human  knowledge,  are  all  subservient 
one  to  another ;  and  when  the  productions  to  which  they  give 
birth  are,  by  means  of  the  press,  contributed  to  a  common 
stock,  all  the  varieties  of  intellect,  natural  and  acquired,  among 
men  are  combined  together  into  one  vast  engine,  operating  with 
a  force  daily  accumulating,  on  the  moral  and  poUtical  destiny 
of  mankind. 

But  the  circumstance  which  constitutes  the  chief  distinction 
between  the  division  of  labour  in  the  meclianical  arts,  and  in 
those  pursuits  which  are  more  purely  intellectual,  is  the  small 
and  limited  number  of  individuals  who  in  the  former  can  be 
made  to  co-operate  in  the  execution  of  the  same  design ; 
whereas  in  the  latter,  a  combination  is  formed,  by  means  of  the 
press,  among  all  the  powers  which  genius  and  industry  have 
disi)layed,  in  the  most  remote  nations  and  agea  Howjmany 
trains  of  sublime  or  of  beautiful  imagery  have  been  kindled  in 
tlie  minds  of  our  modem  poets  by  sparks  struck  out  by  Homer 
or  by  Hesiod  I  And,  (not  to  speak  of  the  mighty  effects  pro- 
duced on  the  Christian  world  by  the  truths  which  Revelation 
has  brought  to  light,)  what  an  accession  to  the  happiness  of 
many  individuals  now  existing  on  the  globe,  might  be  traced  to 
the  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  the  Maxims  of  Con- 
fuciuH,  or  to  the  familiar  sayings  which  fell  from  tlie  lips  of 
Socrates  on  the  streets  of  Athens ! 

In  those  scientific  researches,  however,  which  rest  on  obser- 
vation and  experiment  solely,  and  where  the  reasoning  powers 
are  alone  concerned,  a  mutual  communication  of  lights  is  of 
still  greater  importance,  than  in  works  of  imagination  and  of 
Hcntiment  In  studies  of  the  former  kind,  the  force  of  a  single 
mind,  how  matchless  soever  its  superiority,  can  accomplish  but 
little,  when  compared  with  the  united  exertions  of  an  ordinary 
multitude  ;  and  some  of  the  most  liberal  contributions  to  our 
preHcnt  stock  of  knowledge  liave  pnxieeded  from  men,  who, 
while  thoy  were  following  the  impulw  of  a  merely  speculative 
curioHity,  were  imconPciouHly  sowing  the  seeds  of  a  rich  harvest 


506      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD— LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

for  a  distant  posterity.  In  this  point  of  view,  the  value  of  one 
new  fact,  or  of  any  new  liint,  however  insulated  it  may  appear 
at  present,  may  eventually  be  incalculably  great ;  insomuch,  that 
he  who  has  the  merit  of  ascertaining  the  one,  or  of  suggesting 
the  other,  puts  in  motion  the  wheel  of  a  machine,  to  whose  pos- 
sible effects  no  human  sagacity  can  fix  a  limit. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  the  sublimer  exertions  of  imagination  or  of 
invention,  that  we  may  trace  the  effect  of  this  division  of  labour 
on  human  improvements.  What  Mr.  Smith  has  so  well  re- 
marked concerning  the  astonishing  multipUcity  of  arts  which 
contribute  their  share  in  furnishing  the  peasant  with  his  coarse 
wooUen  coat,  will  be  found  to  apply,  in  a  far  greater  degree,  to 
the  homely  furniture  of  liis  comparatively  unfurnished  under- 
standing. In  the  former  instance,  something  like  an  enumera- 
tion may  be  attempted ;  but  who  can  form  the  most  distant 
conception  of  the  number  of  minds  which  must  have  united 
their  Ughts  in  discovering  and  in  famiKarizing  to  the  appre- 
hensions of  the  multitude,  those  elementary  truths  in  morality, 
in  physics,  in  mechanics,  and  in  natural  history,  which  the 
lowest  of  the  people,  in  the  actual  state  of  European  society, 
derive  iiiflensibly  from  parental  instruction,  and  from  the  ob- 
servation  and  imitation  of  the  arts  which  are  practised  around 
them! 

§  3.  The  improvements  of  the  mind,  however,  must  not  be 
estimated  merely  by  the  accumulation  of  facts,  or  of  theoretical 
conclusions.  To  correct  an  error,  or  to  explode  a  prejudice,  is 
often  of  more  essential  imi)ortance  to  human  happiness,  than 
to  enlarge  the  boimdaries  of  science. — That  there  has  been  a 
most  remarkable  progress  in  this  last  respect,  in  all  the  Pro- 
testant states  of  Europe,  since  the  era  of  Luther's  Reformation, 
cannot  be  tUsputed ;  nor  do  I  sec  how  it  can  be  cxphiiucd,  bi;t 
by  the  effect  of  a  general  diffusion  of  knowledge  in  gradually 
clearing  truth  from  that  admixture  of  error,  wliich  it  had 
contracted  from  casual  associations,  fostered  by  an  ambitious 
priesthood,  diuring  the  long  i)eriod  of  Gothic  darkness.  Of 
this  progress,  a  very  striking  instance  has  occurred,  in  our 
own  northern  part  of  the  island,  in  the  rapidity  witli  wliich 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVUI.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   507 

the  j>oj)iilar  belief  of  witchcraft  has  vauished  in  the  course  of 
a  very  few  years.^ 

It  was  not  till  the  year  1735,  that  a  bill,  which  was  passed 
into  a  law,  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons,  "  repeal- 
ing the  former  statutes  against  witchcraft,  Scots  as  well  as 
English,  and  prohibiting  all  future  prosecutions  for  that  crime." 
The  law,  however,  it  is  well  known,  gave  great  oflFence  to  a 
large  proportion  of  very  re8i)ectable  individuals  in  this  country, 
on  account  of  its  daring  imjriety  ;  and  yet,  such  has  since  been 
the  progress  of  information  and  of  good  sense,  that  scarcely 
does  a  relic  now  exist  of  a  superstition,  which,  sixty  or  eighty 
years  ago,  triumphed  very  generally  over  the  reason  of  men  of 
the  most  unquestionable  talents  and  learning.^ 


*  In  tho  year  1697,  wo  meet  with  a 
warrant,  issued  by  the  Privy  Council  of 
Scotland,  to  certain  CommiH.sioner8  to 
try  twenty-four  persons,  male  and  female, 
BUHpccted  and  accused  of  witchcraft. 
The  result  was,  that  seven  of  the  num- 
ber were  consigned  to  the  flames.  A 
trial  for  the  same  supposed  crime  took 
place  at  the  Dumfries  Circuit,  as  late 
as  1709 ;  and  in  the  year  1722,  a  person 
was  brought  to  the  stake,  (under  the 
same  charge,)  in  consequence  of  the 
sentence  of  a  Sheriff-depute  in  a  remote 
county. 

'  In  the  other  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  traces  of  the  same  supersti- 
tion continued  till  an  equally  recent 
date.  "  I  know  not,"  says  Dr.  Parr, 
"  that  Ju<lge  Powel  was  a  weak  or  a 
hard-hearted  man ;  but  I  do  know,  that 
in  Uie  Augustan  age  of  Knglish  litera- 
ture and  science,  when  our  country'  was 
adorned  by  a  Newton,  a  Halley,  a  Swift, 
a  Clarke,  and  an  Addison,  this  Judge, 
in  1712,  condemned  Jane  Wennian  at 
Hertford,  who,  in  conseciuence  perhaps 
of  a  controversy  that  arose  upon  her 
case,  rather  than  from  any  interposition 
of  Powel,  was  not  executed ;  and  that 
four  years  afterwards,  he,  at  Hunting- 


don, condemned  for  the  same  crime, 
Mary  Hicks  and  her  daughter  Elisa- 
beth, an  infant  of  eleven  years  old,  who 
were  executed  on  Saturday  the  17th  of 
July  1716.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
same  century,  of  which  English  philo- 
sophers and  English  scholars  talk  with 
triumph,  two  unhappy  wretches  were 
hung  at  Northampton,  the  17th  of  March 
1705;  and,  upon  July  the  22d,  1712, 
five  other  witches  suffered  the  same 
fate  at  the  same  place." — Characten  of 
Charles  James  Fox^  p.  370. 

Sir  William  Blackstone,  in  mention- 
ing the  9th  of  George  II.,  which  enacts, 
that  no  prosecution  shall,  for  the  future, 
be  carried  on  against  any  person  for 
conjuration,  witchcraft,  sorcery,  or  en- 
chantment, does  not  venture  to  pro- 
nounce decidedly  that  such  crimes  exist 
only  in  the  imaginations  of  the  ignorant 
and  credulous ;  but,  with  his  usual  cau- 
tion, amtentfl  himself  with  applying  to 
them  the  epithet  of  dubious.  "  All 
prosecutions,"  he  observes,  "  for  these 
dubious  crimes,  are  now  at  an  end." 

At  a  considerably  earlier  period,  a 
similar  regulation  had  taken  pl{u*o  in 
France,  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV., 
owing    probably   to   the   cxtroonlinary 


508      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTBR  ONLY, 

The  comparatively  harmless  prejudices  with  respect  to  dreams, 
apparitions,  the  second  sight,  and  the  influence  of  the  stars  on 
human  affairs,  have,  in  like  manner,  all  vanished  from  Scotland, 
within  the  space  of  a  hundred  years ;  and  it  is  of  importance 
to  remark,  that  the  extinction  of  these  prejudices,  as  well  aa  of 
the  popular  belief  in  witchcraft,  has  been  accomplished,  not  by 
any  new  reasonings  or  discoveries  unknown  to  our  forefathers ; 
but  by  the  silent  and  slow  influence  of  moral  causes,  more 
easy  to  be  conceived  than  enmnerated.    I  shall  mention  only 
the  effects  of  Locke's  writings,  in  recommending  to  parents  a 
more  judicious  and  vigUant  attention  to  the  casual  associations, 
and  to  the  natural  credulity  of  the  infant  mind.     The  circula- 
tion among  the  lower  ranks  of  society,  of  a  certain  portion  of 
historical  information  and  of  experimental  science,  and   (in 
consequence  of  these  and  other  circumstances)  the  universal 
prevalence  of  a  spirit  of  free  inquiry  and  discussion,  unexampled 
in  former  times. 

With  this  effect  of  printing  in  gradually  undermining  esta- 


extent  to  which  prosecutions  for  sorcery 
had  heen  carried  in  that  country.  On 
this  subject  there  is  a  curious  insinua- 
tion of  President  Renault,  which  the 
high  and  deserved  reputation  of  the 
writer  induces  me  to  transcribe.  "  Ur- 
bain  Grandier,  atteint  et  convaincu, 
du  crime  de  magie  par  une  commission 
particuli^re,  est  brule  vif  1634.  On 
demandoit  k  La  Peyrero,  auteur  des 
Preadamites,  mais  qui  d'ailleurs  a  com- 
post une  histoire  de  Groeenland  fort 
estimee,  pourquoi  il  y  avoit  tant  de 
Borciers  dans  le  nord ;  c'est,  disoit-il,  que 
les  biens  de  ces  pr^tendus  sorciers,  que 
I'on  fait  mourir,  sont  en  partic  confis- 
qu^  au  profit  de  leurs  juges." — Ahrigi 
Chronologique. 

It  is  observed  by  Lord  Hailes,  that  in 
the  ancient  history  of  Scotland,  there 
is  little  mention  of  magic,  and  scarcely 
any  vestiges  of  witchcraft.  The  first 
capital  punishment  for  tcitchcraft  (ac- 
cording  to   Pinkerton)  was    in    1479. 


The  triumph  of  this  absurd  and  cmel 
superstition  was  reserved  for  the  gloomy 
fanaticism  of  the  (Covenanters.  "  The 
fanaticism,**  says  Hume,  "which  pre- 
vailed (1650)  being  so  full  of  sour  and 
angry  principles,  and  so  overcharged 
with  various  antipathies,  had  acquired 
a  new  object  of  abhorrence:  these 
were  the  sorcerers-  So  prevalent  was 
the  opinion  of  witchcraft,  that  great 
numbers,  accused  of  that  crime,  were 
burnt,  by  sentence  of  the  Magistrates, 
throughout  all  parts  of  Scotland.  In  a 
village  near  Berwick,  which  contained 
over  fourteen  hoases,  fourteen  persons 
were  punished  by  fire  ;  and  it  became  a 
science,  everywhere  much  studied  and 
cultivated,  to  distinguish  a  true  witch 
by  proper  trials  and  symptoms*** — ^Vol. 
vii.  p.  186. 

According  to  Beccaria,  there  have 
been  a  hundred  thousand  witches  con- 
demned to  die,  by  tribunals  calling 
themselves  Christian. 


ETUICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   509 

blislied  prejudices,  the  general  diffusion  of  wealth  among  the 
lower  orders,  in  consequence  of  the  progress  of  commerce,  has 
very  powerfully  co-operated.  Without  this  auxiliary  circum- 
stance, the  art  of  printing  must  have  been  a  barren  invention  ; 
for  before  men  read,  they  must  have  felt  the  desire  of  know- 
ledge,— and  this  desire  is  never  strong,  till  a  certain  degree  of 
independence  and  of  affluence  is  obtained. 

But  it  is  chiefly  by  the  active  intercourse  wliich  commerce 
gives  rise  to  between  different  and  remote  regions,  that  it  con- 
tributes to  the  intellectual  and  moral  improvement  of  mankind; 
—diminishing,  all  over  the  world,  the  virulence  of  national 
antipathies  and  of  religious  bigotry,  and  uniting  men  together 
by  their  common  interest  In  this  respect  its  influence  extends 
to  classes  of  the  people  who  have  neither  leisure  nor  inclination 
to  cultivate  their  minds.  To  be  able  to  profit  by  reading,  a 
man  must  previously  possess  a  certain  measure  of  information, 
as  well  as  of  speculative  curiosity  ;  but  to  profit  by  travelling, 
(so  far  at  least  as  is  sufficient  to  open  and  to  humanize  the 
mind,)  requires  only  the  use  of  the  external  senses ;  and  the 
lights  which  it  affords  are  much  stronger  and  more  permanent 
in  their  effect,  than  those  which  are  derived  from  books.  What, 
indeed,  is  that  large  portion  of  book-learning  which  relates  to 
the  institutions  and  manners  of  foreign  coimtries,  but  an  im- 
|)erfect  substitute  for  actual  experience  and  observation  ? 

The  ocean,  which  at  first  view  appears  intended  to  separate 
tlie  inhabitants  of  this  globe  into  unconnected  and  mutually 
unknown  communities,  is  found,  in  the  progress  of  the  com- 
mercial arts,  to  be  a  part  of  the  same  mighty  plan  of  which  I 
have  now  been  attempting  to  trace  the  outlines;  and  the  winds, 
with  all  their  irregularities,  conspire  to  the  accomplishment  of 
its  beneficent  purposes.  "They  blow  from  all  quarters,  (as 
Seneca  has  well  observed,)  that  the  peculiar  advantages  of 
every  different  climate  might  contribute  to  the  enjoyments  of 
mankind  in  common;  that  an  interchange  of  good  offices  should 
extend  over  tlie  whole  earth ;  and  that  nations  the  most  remote 
should  be  connected  together  by  their  mutual  wonts  and  their 
mutual  interests."     "A  wonderful  provision  (he  beautifully 


510       DISSERTATION. — ^PART  THIRD— LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

adds)  for  augmenting  the  sum  of  human  happiness ;  if  the  bad 
passions  of  men  did  not  convert  the  blessings  of  heaven  into 
instruments  of  hostility  and  destruction/'^ 

II.  The  remarks  which  I  have  offered  on  this  last  head  lead 
me  to  consider  more  particularly,  the  effects  of  the  press  in 
diffusing  knowledge  among  the  great  body  of  a  people. 

Prior  to  the  invention  of  printing,  the  advantages  of  educa- 
tion must  have  everywhere  been  exclusively  confined  to  a 
small  and  privileged  circle ;  the  discoveries  which  from  time 
to  time  genius  and  industry  added  to  the  stock  of  human  in- 
formation, must  have  spread  by  very  slow  degrees  among  the 
multitude  ;  and  the  labours  of  inquisitive  men  must  have  been 
carried  on,  without  any  of  the  aids  now  afforded  by  the  exten- 
sive and  rapid  communication  of  literary  intelligence.  Of  this 
some  idea  may  be  formed  from  the  gratitude  with  which  Pliny 
mentions  the  name  of  Asinius  Pollio,  a  celebrated  orator  and 
patron  of  letters  in  the  Augustan  age,  who  first  opened  a  library 
at  Rome  for  the  general  use  of  the  city ;  and  thereby  (to  use 
the  words  of  Pliny)  "  made  the  genius  of  individuals  the  pro- 
perty of  the  public."*  With  how  much  greater  force  does  this 
expression  apply  to  the  inventor  of  an  art,  which  multiplies  copies 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  readers,  and  enables  us,  at  all 
times,  and  in  all  places,  to  appropriate  to  ourselves  the  accumu- 
lated exi)erience  and  wisdom  of  the  remotest  nations  and  ages  I 

In  order,  however,  to  give  to  this  invention  that  full  and 
universal  efficacy  which  alone  can  render  it  a  blessing  to  the 
world,  it  is  necessary  that  the  lower  orders  should  have  easy 
access  to  the  elementary  parts  of  education  ;  in  particular,  that 
they  should  be  taught  to  read  at  so  early  a  period  of  life  that 
they  may  afterwards  have  recourse  to  books  as  an  enjoyment 
rather  than  as  a  task.  It  was  for  this  reason,  that  I  formerly 
mentioned  the  general  diffusion  of  wealth  produced  by  com- 
merce, as  a  circumstance  which  had  co-operated  powerfully 

*  [Nat  Qu.Y.  18? — £d.]  ingeiiia  hominum  rem  publicam  fecit." 

'  "  Asinii  PoUionis  hoc  Roma3  inven-      — Hist.  Nat.  1.  xxxv.  c.  1. 
turn,  qui  primus  Bibliothecam  dicando 


BTHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVlll.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.   511 

with  tlie  press  in  enlightening  modem  Europe.  But  this  nlone 
is  not  sufficient ;  for  beside  the  general  ease  and  security  of  the 
l)eople,  some  arrangements  are  necessary,  on  the  part  of  govern- 
ment, to  provide  the  proper  means  of  public  instruction.^  In 
England,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt,  that  the  mass  of  the  com- 
nmnity  enjoy  the  comforts  of  animal  life  nuich  more  amply 
tlum  in  Scotland;  and  yet,  in  the  latter  country,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  footing  on  which  our  parochial  schools  are  esta- 
bliHhed,  there  is  scarcely  a  person  of  either  sex  to  he  met  with 
who  is  not  able  to  read,  and  very  few  who  do  not  possess,  to  a 
certain  degree,  the  accomplishments  of  writing  and  of  cypher- 
ing; whereas,  in  the  southern  pirt  of  the  island,  there  are 
many  parishes  where  the  number  of  those  who  can  read,  bears 
a  very  inconsiderable  proiwrtion  to  the  whole  Ixnly  of  inhabi- 
tants. In  most  other  parts  of  Europe,  (not  excepting  France 
itself,^)  the  proportion  is  probably  much  less. 


^  The  following  passage,  written 
seventy  years  ago,  by  an  eminent 
English  prelate,  exliibits  a  pleasing  con* 
trast  to  the  spirit  displayod  at  a  much 
more  recent  period,  by  some  political 
divines,  in  both  parts  of  the  island. 
"  Till  within  a  century  or  two,  nil  ranks 
were  nearly  on  a  level  as  to  the  learning 
in   question.    Thr  Akt  op  Pkintino 

APPKAR8  TO  HAVE  BEEN  PROVIDESTIALLY 
RESERVED  TILL  THEflR  LATTER  AOE8, 
AMD  THEN  PROVIDENTIALLT  DROUGHT 
INTO  USE,  AS  WHAT  WAS  TO  DE  IXSTRU- 
MRKTAL  FOR  THE  FUTURE  IN  CARRTINO 
ON  THE  APPOINTED   COURSE  OF   TIIINOB. 

The  alterations  which  this  art  bus  al- 
ready inatlo  in  the  face  of  the  world,  are 
not  incouHiderable.  Dy  moans  of  it, 
whether  immediately  or  remotely,  the 
methods  of  carrying  on  business  are,  in 
several  respects,  improved;  knotnMge 
has  been  ittcreased;  and  some  sort  of 
literature  is  become  general.  And  if 
this  \h*.  a  blessing,  we  ought  to  let  the 
jxwr,  in  their  dogree,  share  it  with  us. 
If  we  do  not,  it  is  certain  that  they  ^till 
be  upon   a  greater    disadvantage,    on 


many  accounts,  especially  in  populous 
places,  than  they  were  in  the  dark  ages ; 
for  they  will  be  more  ignorant,  compara* 
tively  with  the  people  about  them,  than 
they  were  then.  And  therefore  to  bring 
up  the  poor  in  their  former  ignorance, 
would  be,  not  to  keep  tliem  in  the  same, 
but  to  put  them  into  a  lower  condition 
of  life  than  what  they  were  in  formerly. 
Nor  let  j>eople  t>f  rank  flatter  themselves, 
that  ignorance  will  keep  their  inferiors 
more  dutiiiil  and  in  greater  subjection 
to  them ;  for  surely  there  must  Ikj  danger 
that  it  will  have  a  contrary  eflcct,  under 
a  free  government  such  as  ours,  niid  in 
a  <lisHolute  age." — Sermon  preached  at 
ChrUtchurchf  London,  1745,  by  Bishop 
Butler. 

'  In  a  book  of  M.  Daubcnton*s,  en> 
titled  Instruction  pour  lea  Bcrgers^ 
(published  in  1782,)  there  is  a  paHsnge 
from  which  we  may  form  scmic  estimate 
on  this  subject.  In  the  first  Lesson^  the 
question  is  proposed,  (for  the  lKH)k  is 
written  in  the  fonn  of  a  catechism,) 
"  Whether  it  bo  iiecessnrj'  that  a  shop- 
herd  should  be  able  to  read  ?*'    To  this 


512      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAFTEK  ONLV. 


The  universal  diffusion  of  the  rudiments  of  knowledge  among' 
the  Scottish  peasantry,  when  contrasted  with  the  prevailing 
ignorance  of  the  same  class  on  the  other  side  of  the  Tweed, 
affords  a  decisive  proof  that,  in  such  a  state  of  society  as  ours, 
some  interference  on  the  part  of  government  is  indispensably 
necessary  to  render  the  art  of  printing,  even  when  aided  by  the 
congenial  tendencies  of  commerce,  completely  effectual  in  ex- 
tending the  benefits  of  elementary  education  to  the  mass  of  a 
large  community.  How  much  more  might  be  accomplished  by 
a  government  aiming  systematically,  and  on  enlightened  prin- 
ciples, at  the  instruction  and  improvement  of  the  multitude,  it 
is  not  easy  to  imagine. 

But  although  a  great  deal  yet  remains  in  prospect  to  animate 
our  exertions,  much,  it  must  be  remembered,  has  already  been 
done.  The  number  of  readers  is,  I  believe,  in  almost  every 
part  of  the  island,  rapidly  on  the  increase  ;  and  to  tJiese  usefiil 
knowledge  is  every  day  presented,  in  a  form  more  and  more 
accessible,  and  more  and  more  alluring.  One  circumstance 
(which  has,  indeed,  been  operating  more  or  less  during  two 
centimes,  but  of  which,  in  our  times,  the  influence  has  been 
more  peculiarly  remarkable)  is  not  undeserving  of  notice ;  I 
mean  the  wide  circulation  of  occasional  pamphlets,^  and  of 


question  the  following  answer  is  given : 
— "  A  shepherd  who  can  read  possesses 
a  superior  facility  in  acquiring  informa- 
tion ;  but  this  caunot  be  considered  as 
indispensably  necessary,  since  he  may 
employ  others  to  read  to  him  what  has 
been  published  for  his  instruction.  He 
will  be  able,  perhaps,  to  find  some  per- 
son in  the  same  house  with  him,  or  at 
least  in  the  neighbourhood,  who  can 
read,  and  who  will  be  willing  to  instruct 
him.  The  schoolmasters  in  the  village 
will  do  it  for  a  trifling  gratification ; 
and  sometimes  a  spirit  of  charity  or  of 
patriotism,  will  induce  the  curates  or 
surgeons  to  undertake  this  good  office.'' 
In  one  of  the  Revolutionary  Assemblies 
of  France,  a  proposition  was  made,  which, 
if  I  recollect  right,  passed  into  a  law,  that 


no  soldier  should  be  promoted  to  the  rank 
of  an  officer  who  was  not  able  to  read  and 
to  write.  Is  it  surprising  that  a  people, 
among  whom  such  a  law  was  thought 
necessary,  should  so  easily  have  become 
the  dupes  and  instruments  of  the  most 
shallow  and  unprincipled  demagogues  ? 
And  yet  a  very  distinguished  English 
statesman,  in  one  of  his  Parliamentary 
speeches,  drew  an  argument  against  the 
expediency  of  popular  instruction,  from 
the  atrocities  committed  by  the  Parisian 
mobs,  whom  he  described  as  "mobs 
composed  of  savans  and  philo8opher$y 
*  The  first  appearance  of  pamphlets 
in  England  is  said  to  have  been  at  the 
time  of  the  Protestant  Reformation ;  and 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  they  con- 
tributed more  to  the  establishment  of 


KTHI08  AND  lH)IJTIi^S  DURIN'a  XVIII.  lENTUKY — IN  KKSIJLT.    513 

|)eriiHlical  jounmls, — those  chettj>  and  enticing  vehicles  of  in- 
struction, wliicli,  ack])ting  themst^lves  to  the  rapid  and  often 
capricious  changes  of  general  curiosity,  coniimniicate,  even  to 
the  indolent  and  the  dissipated,  some  imiK-rfwt  knowledge  of  tlie 
course  of  political  events,  and  of  tlie  progress  of  scientific  im- 
provement. The  ix»culiar  attractions  which  iK'rimlical  joiunals 
derive  from  their  miscellaneous  nature,  and  the  quick  regidarity 
of  their  succession,  may  1k»  judged  of  from  the  extent  to  winch 
tins  branch  of  bookselling  si)eculation  has  been  carried  both 
here  and  on  the  Continent.  A  late  verv  eminent  mathemati- 
cian,  Mr.  Simpson  of  Woolwich,  sjx^aking  of  a  monthly  publi- 
cjition,  begim  in  the  year  1704,  under  the  title  of  the  LmUes 
Diary ;  and  which,  among  a  humble  collection  of  Itebvses^ 
Contindruj)i8,  and  Acrodics,  includes  some  very  ingenious  ma- 
thematical problems,  luis  asserted,  that  "  for  upwards  of  half  a 
century,  this  small  performance,  sent  nbroad  in  the  ptK)r  dix^ss 
of  an  Almanack,  ha«  contributed  more  to  the  study  of  the 
mathematicks  than  Imlf  tlie  books  written  professedly  on  the 
subject."  What,  theji,  may  we  suppose  to  Ikj  the  influence  of 
periodical  miscellanies  conducted  by  men  of  superior  genius  and 
l(»arning,  and  which  address  the  i)ublic  on  subjects  more  imme- 
<liately  connected  with  the  business  of  human  life  ?  "  The 
people  (as  an  eloquent  writer  observes)  cannot  be  jirofoimd ; 
but  the  truths  wliich  regulate  the  moral  and  i>olitical  relations 
of  man  are  at  no  great  distance  from  the  surface.  The  great 
works  in  which  discoveries  are  contained  cannot  be  read  by  the 
people,  but  their  substance  passes,  through  a  variety  of  minute 
iind  circuitous  channels,  to  the  shop  and  tlie  hamlet.    The  con- 


thc  new  opinions  than  all  the  profound 
and  syKtcmatical  works  which  issned 
fnim  the  press  aboat  the  same  period, 
in  opposition  to  the  corruptions  of  the 
Romish  Church.  During  the  reign  of 
Cliarles  I.,  (which  is  called  by  Dr. 
.JuhnRon  the  age  of  pamphletN,)  the 
same  weapons  were  zealously  employed 
I>y  the  contending  parties ;  and  although 
their  influence  was  uot  such  as  to  pre- 

VOL.  I. 


vont  a  final  appeal  to  violence  and  amis, 
yet  they  certainly  accustomed  men  to 
the  exercise  of  reason  on  those  ques- 
tions which  had  formerly  been  decided 
by  a  reference  to  authority,  and  gave  a 
beginning  to  that  freedom  of  {tolitical 
discussion,  to  which  Knglaud  ib  indebted 
for  that  system  of  regulated  lil»erty 
which  was  established  at  the  llevolii- 
tion. 

2  Iv 


514       DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

▼ersion  of  the  works  of  unproductive  splendour  into  latent  use 
and  unobserved  activity,  resembles  the  process  of  nature  in  the 
external  world.  The  expanse  of  a  noble  lake,  the  course  of  a 
majestic  river,  imposes  on  the  imagination  by  every  impression 
of  dignity  and  sublimity.  But  it  is  the  moisture  that  insen- 
ttbly  arises  from  them,  which,  gradually  mingling  with  the  soil, 
nourishes  all  the  luxiuriance  of  vegetation,  fructifies  and  adorns 
the  surface  of  the  earth." 

Some  other  causes,  too,  which  naturally  result  from  the 
general  progress  of  society,  have  conspired  with  the  circum- 
stances now  under  our  consideration,  in  extending  and  quicken- 
ing the  circulation  of  knowledge.  The  multipUcation  of  high 
roads,  and  the  establishment  of  regular  posts  and  couriers, 
have  virtually  contracted  the  dimensions  of  the  countries  where 
they  have  been  introduced ;  communicating  to  them  the  ad- 
vantages arising  from  the  animated  discussions  and  the  con- 
tagious pubUc  spirit  of  a  small  community,  combined  with  the 
order  and  stability  connected  with  a  population  spread  over  an 
extended  territory.  The  happy  invention  of  the  telegraph,  and 
the  application  of  the  steam-engine  to  the  purposes  of  naviga- 
tion, afford  a  proof  that  the  resources  of  human  ingenuity  for 
accomplishing  these  important  purposes,  have  not  been  com- 
pletely exhausted  by  our  forefathers. 

I  am  aware  of  an  objection  which  presents  itself  to  these 
speculations  ;  that  the  inverUions  which  I  have  dignified  with 
the  name  of  improvements^  are  equally  instrumental  in  the 
circulation  of  error  and  of  truth.  But,  not  to  insist  on  the 
advantage  which  the  latter  may  confidently  be  expected  to  gain 
over  the  former,  wherever  there  is  a  perfectly  fair  field  opened 
for  controversy,  it  will  be  found  (as  I  already  hinted)  that  the 
collision  and  contention  of  different  and  opposing  prejudices, 
are  the  means  which,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  bring 
mankind  at  last  to  a  general  acquiescence  in  reasonable  and 
just  opinions.  The  first  effect  may,  indeed,  be  a  tendency  to 
universal  doubt ;  but  so  distempered  and  unnatural  a  state  of 
mind  cannot  long  exist  in  the  great  body  of  a  people ;  and  it  is 
far  less  adverse  to  the  progress  of  reason  and  humanity,  than  a 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.    515 

spirit  of  uneiilightened  and  intolerant  bigotry.  The  active 
friends  of  tmth  and  of  mankind,  however  few  in  number,  will 
continue,  slowly  but  surely,  to  extend  their  conquests,  and  will 
gradually  draw  to  their  standard,  the  unprejudiced  and  un- 
corrupted  judgments  of  the  rising  generation.  In  the  mean- 
time, it  is  comfortable  to  reflect,  that  inconsiderable  as  the 
body  of  such  men  may  appear  to  be  in  the  eye  of  the  world, 
they  are  more  firmly  and  zealously  united  together  than  any 
other  description  of  individuals  can  possibly  bo ; — united  not 
merely  by  the  same  benevolent  intentions,  but  by  the  systema- 
tic consistency  and  harmony  of  those  doctrines  which  it  is  their 
common  aim  to  illustrate.  Mr.  Hume  himself  has  stated  it  as 
an  undoubted  principle,  "  that  Truth  is  07i€  thing,  but  errors 
numberless ; "  and  we  may  add,  as  an  obvious  and  important 
consequence  of  his  maxim,  that,  while  the  advocates  for  false 
systems  are  necessarily  at  variance  with  each  other,  and  have  a 
tendency  to  correct  each  other's  deviations,  a  combination  is 
no  less  necessarily  formed  among  all  those  minds  wliich  arc 
sincerely  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  solid  and  of  useful  know- 
ledge. 

I  need  scarcely  add,  that  all  I  have  now  said  proceeds  on  the 
supposition,  that  an  unlimited  freedom  of  the  press  is  enjoyed. 
In  consequence  of  the  restraints  imposed  on  it  in  some  parts  of 
Europe,  the  invention  of  printing  has  hitherto  continued  not 
merely  sterile  and  useless,  but  it  may  be  questioned,  whether  it 
has  not  fiunished  those  who  have  monopolized  the  use  of  it, 
with  additional  resources  for  prolonging  the  reign  of  supersti- 
tion and  darkness.  The  objections  wliich  are  commonly  urged 
to  such  an  unlimited  freedom  might,  in  a  great  measure,  be 
obviated  by  a  regulation  (perfectly  compatible  with  the  princi- 
ples of  genuine  liberty)  which,  while  it  left  the  press  open  to 
every  man  who  was  willing  to  avow  his  opinions,  rendered  it 
impossible  for  any  individual  to  publish  a  sentence  without  the 
sanction  of  his  nama 

Such  then  are  the  eficcts  of  the  press  in  accelerating  the  pro- 
gress and  in  promoting  the  diffusion  of  knowledge.  But  whnt 
is  the  tendency  of  these  two  circumstances  with  respect  to  the 


1 1 
I  'I ' 


51C      DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD— LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

wellbeiiig  of  society  ?     It  is  to  tliia  test,  that,  in  all  our  jkJI- 
tical  arguments,  the  ultimate  appeal  must  be  made. 

It  has  been  often  alleged,  that  in  proportion  as  knowledge  ad- 
vances and  spreads,  originality  of  genius  decays ;  and  that  no 
proof  more  certain  of  its  decline  can  be  produced,  than  the  multi- 
plication of  commentators,  compilers,  and  imitators.     Hence  it 
lias  been  inferred,  that  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  is  not  even 
so  favourable  to  the  advancement  of  science  as  might  at  first 
be  imagined ;  the  advantages  resulting  from  the  growing  crowd 
of  authors  being  more  than  compensiited  by  the  decreawng 
value  of  their  productions.     Voltaire  has,  I  think,  placed  this 
fact  in  its  proper  light  by  remarking,  that  "  original  genius 
occurs  but  seldom  in  a  nation  where  the  literary  taste  is  formed. 
The  nmnber  of  cultivated  minds  which  there  abound,  like  the 
trees  in  a  thick  and  flourishing  forest,  prevent  any  single  indi- 
vidual from  rearing  liis  head  far  above  the  rest.     Where  trade 
is  in  few  hands,  we  meet  ^vith  a  small  number  of  overgrown 
fortunes  in  the  midst  of  a  general  poverty.     In  proportion  as  it 
extends,  opulence  becomes  general,  and  great  fortunes  rare.     It 
is  precisely,"  he  adds,  "  because  there  is  at  present  much  light 
and  much  cultivation  in  France,  that  we  are  led  to  complain  of 
the  want  of  original  genius." 

In  this  remark  of  Voltaire  it  seems  to  be  implied,  that  the 
apparent  mediocrity  of  talent  in  times  of  general  cultivation  is 
partly  owing  to  the  great  number  of  individuals  who,  by  rising 
above  the  ordinary  standard,  diminish  the  effect  of  those  who 
attain  to  a  still  greater  eminence.  But  granting  the  fact  to  be 
as  it  is  commonly  stated,  and  that  the  diffusion  of  knowledge 
is  accompanied  with  a  real  decline  in  point  of  genius,  no  in- 
ference can  be  deduced  from  this  in  favour  of  less  enlightened 
ages ;  for  the  happiness  of  mankind  at  any  particular  period  is 
to  be  estimated,  not  by  the  materials  which  it  affords  for 
literary  history,  but  by  the  degi'ee  in  which  a  capacity  for  in- 
tellectual enjoyment  is  imparted  to  the  great  body  of  the 
people.  In  this  point  of  view,  what  a  spectacle  does  our  own 
country  afford  during  the  last  forty  years !  Literary  societies, 
composed  of  manufacturers  and  of  agriculturists,  arising  in 


KTHICS  AND  POLITICS  DUUING  XVllI.  CENTURY — IN  REBULT.    517 

various  provincial  towns  of  the  kingdom,  and  publishing,  from 
time  to  time,  their  unitc^d  contributions ;  and  a  nudtitude  of 
female  authors,  in  every  department  of  learning  and  of  taste, 
disputing  tlie  palm  of  excellence  with  tlie  most  celebrateil  of 
their  countrymen.  Amidst  such  a  profusion  of  proiluctions, 
there  will,  of  course,  be  much  to  call  forth  and  to  justify  the 
severity  of  criticism ;  but  the  IMiilosopher  will  trace  with 
l»leasure,  in  the  humblest  attemi)ts  to  instruct  or  to  amuse  the 
world,  the  progiess  of  science  and  of  philanthroi)y  in  widening 
the  circle  of  their  operation  ;  and  evi'u  where  he  finds  little  to 
admire  or  to  approve,  will  reflect  with  satisfaction,  that  the 
delights  of  study,  and  the  activity  of  public  spirit,  arc  not  con- 
fined to  the  walks  of  academical  retirement,  or  to  the  gi*eat 
theatre  of  Political  Ambition.  To  those  who  consider  the  sub- 
ject in  this  light,  the  long  list  of  obscure  and  ephemeral  publi- 
cations which  swell  the  monthly  catalogue  in  our  literary 
journals,  is  not  Mrithout  its  interest ;  and  to  collect  the  rays  of 
fancy  or  the  sparks  of  tenderness  in  the  rude  verses  of  a  milk- 
maid or  of  a  negro  girl,  affords  an  occupation  not  less  gratify- 
ing to  the  understanding  and  the  heart,  than  to  catch  the 
inspirations  of  more  cultivated  and  exalted  minds. 

Nor  let  it  be  sup|)Osed  that  any  danger  is  to  l)e  apprehended 
from  this  quarter,  in  witlidrawing  men  from  active  professions 
and  imiKTious  duties  to  the  pursuits  of  literature  and  science. 
It  is  wisely  ordercnl  by  Providence,  in  every  age  and  in  every 
sttite  of  society,  that  while  a  small  imml)er  of  minds  are  capti- 
vated with  the  luxury  of  intellectual  enjoyments,  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  are  urged,  by  motives  much  more  irresistible,  to 
take  a  share  in  the  busy  concerns  of  human  life.  The  same 
wisdom  which  regulates  the  physical  condition  of  man,  watches 
also  (we  may  presimie)  over  all  the  other  circumst4inces  of  his 
destiny ;  and  as  it  preserves  invariably  that  balance  of  the  8(?xes 
which  is  essential  to  the  social  order,  so  it  mingles,  in  their  due 
proportion,  the  elements  of  those  moral  and  intellectual  quali- 
ties on  which  the  welllx»ing  and  stability  of  the  political  system 
(lei)ends.  To  vary  these  proportions  by  legislative  arrangements 
is  surely  not,  in  any  instance,  the  business  of  an  enlightened 


!!i:' 


1.' 
I,! 


518       DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

statesman  ;  and,  least  of  all,  in  those  cases  where  his  interfer- 
ence may  have  the  effect  to  bury  in  obscurity  those  seeds  of 
genius  which  are  so  sparingly  sown  among  the  human  race,  and 
which,  with  careful  culture,  might  have  ripened  into  a  harvest 
to  improve  and  to  bless  generations  yet  unborn. 

These  views  of  the  effects  resulting  from  the  difiiision  of 
knowledge,  in  opening  to  the  multitude  new  sources  of  refined 
and  ennobling  pleasures,  become  still  more  satisfactory  when  we 
attend  to  the  mighty  influence  of  the  same  circumstance  on 
public  morals,  and  on  the  good  order  of  society. 

In  almost  every  species  of  manual  labour,  a  considerable  part 
of  the  day  must  be  devoted  to  relaxation  and  repose ;  and,  un- 
less some  exercise  or  amusement  be  prorided  for  the  mind,  these 
intervals  of  bodily  rest  wiU  naturally  be  filled  up  with  intem- 
perance and  profligacy.  The  task  of  speculative  thinking  is 
far  beyond  the  capacities  of  those  who  have  not  received  the 
advantages  of  education  ;  and,  where  the  curiosity  has  not  been 
excited,  and  the  faculties  exercised  in  early  life,  is  of  all  mental 
efforts  the  most  painfiil.  Such,  at  the  same  time,  is  the  activity 
of  our  nature,  that  a  state  of  perfect  listlessness  is  the  comple- 
tion of  suffering,  and  seldom  fails  to  suggest  some  expedient, 
however  desperate,  for  a  remedy.  Hence  the  indolence  and 
i  languor  of  the  savage,  when  his  animal  powers  are  imemployed ; 

and  hence  that  melancholy  vacuity  of  thought,  which  prompts 
him  to  shorten  his  hours  of  inaction  with  the  agitations  of 
gaming  and  the  delirium  of  intoxication.  All  this  applies  more 
or  less  to  uncultivated  minds  in  every  state  of  society ;  and  it 
can  be  prevented  only  by  those  early  habits,  which  render  some 
degree  of  intellectual  exertion  a  sort  of  want  or  necessary  of 
life.  Nor  is  this  mere  theory.  Wherever  the  lower  orders 
enjoy  the  benefits  of  education,  they  will  be  found  compara- 
tively sober  and  industrious ;  and  in  many  instances,  the 
establishment  of  a  small  library  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a 
manufactory  has  produced  a  sensible  and  rapid  reformation  in 
the  morals  of  the  workmen.  The  cultivation  of  mind,  too, 
which  books  communicate,  naturally  inspires  that  desire  and 
hope  of  advancement  which,  in  all  the  classes  of  society,  is  the 


<  • 

ii-. 
■  <\ 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVllI,  CENTURY — IN  RESULT.    519 

most  steady  and  powerful  motive  for  economy  and  industry. 
The  book-societies  in  different  parts  of  Scotland,  England,  and 
America,  abundantly  illustrate  and  confirm  the  truth  of  these 
observations. 

But  it  is  not  merely  as  a  resource  against  ^^  the  pains  and 
penalties  of  idleness"  that  habits  of  reading  and  of  thinking 
are  favourable  to  the  morals  of  the  lower  orders.  The  great 
source  of  the  miseries  and  vices  which  afflict  mankind  is  in 
their  prejudices  and  speculative  errors;  and  every  addition 
which  is  made  to  the  stock  of  their  knowledge  has  a  tendency 
to  augment  their  virtue  and  their  happinesa 

The  exceptions  which  seem  to  contradict  the  universality  of 
this  remark  will,  I  am  persuaded,  be  found,  upon  examination, 
to  be  rather  apparent  than  real 

It  cannot  be  disputed,  that  there  are  various  prejudices,  both 
of  a  political  and  of  a  moral  nature,  which  a  philosopher  who 
wishes  well  to  the  world,  would  touch  with  a  very  cautious  and 
timorous  hand.  But,  in  cases  of  this  sort,  it  will  always  be 
foimd,  that  the  prejudice  derives  its  utility  from  some  mixture 
which  it  involves  of  important  truth.  The  truth,  probably, 
in  the  first  instance,  from  its  congeniality  with  the  principles 
of  human  nature,  served  to  consecrate  the  prejudice;  but 
frequently  this  order  of  things  comes  to  be  reversed,  and  the 
prejudice  to  perform  the  office  of  an  auxiliary  to  the  truth. 
Where  such  a  combination  exists,  the  indulgence  shewn  to  the 
error  is  but  an  additional  mark  of  homage  to  the  truths  with 
which  it  is  associated  in  the  imaginations  of  the  multitude. 

With  a  view  to  the  solution  of  the  same  difficulty,  it  may  bo 
further  observed,  that  the  progress  of  scepticism  ought  not  to 
be  confounded  with  the  progress  of  knowledge ;  nor  a  want  of 
fixed  principles  with  a  superiority  to  vulgar  prejudices.  There 
is,  indeed,  a  certain  species  of  scepticiam  which  is  a  necessary 
step  towards  the  discovery  of  truth.  It  is  that  anxious  and  un- 
settled state  of  mind  which  immediately  succeeds  to  an  implicit 
faitli  in  established  opinions ;  and  which  seems  to  have  been 
intended  as  a  stimulus  to  our  inquiries,  till  doubt  gives  way  to 
the  permanent  convictions  of  reason.     But  it  is  not  in  this 


II 


'  i 


I     I 

■l" 


520      DIS8EUTAT10N. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAITER  ONL.Y. 

sense  that  the  word  scepticism  is  uow  commonly  understood, 
or  in  which  I  would  be  xmderstood  to  employ  it  at  present.  On 
the  contrary,  the  scepticism  to  which  I  object,  is  a  mental  dis- 
ease much  more  nearly  allied  to  the  infectious  credulity  of 
fashion,  than  to  a  spirit  of  free  and  bold  inquiry  ;  and  which, 
so  far  from  indicating  that  manliness  and  \'igour  of  intellect 
which  result  from  a  consciousness  of  the  connexion  between 
kiiotrledge  atidpoiocr,  is  a  relapse  towards  the  ignorance,  the 
inefficiency,  and  the  imbecility  of  childhood. 

With  these  apparent  exceptions,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  rei)eat 
it  as  an  incontrovertible  proposition,  tliat  the  discovery  of  philo- 
sophical bnith,  (under  which  term  I  comprehend  the  general 
laws  of  nature  both  in  the  physical  and  moral  worlds,)  always 
adds  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness.  That  there  are  many 
particular  facts,  a  knowledge  of  which  tends  only  to  disturb 
our  tranquillity,  A\ithout  bringing  any  accession  of  good  to  com- 
pensate the  uneasiness  wliich  it  occasions,  our  daily  experience 
is  sufficient  to  demonstrate.  But  the  general  laws  of  nature, 
as  far  as  they  have  yet  lx?on  traced,  appear  all  so  wisely  and 
beneficently  ordered,  as  to  entitle  us  to  reject,  on  this  very 
principle,  every  theory  wliich  represents  either  the  physical  or 
the  moral  order  of  the  universe,  in  a  light  calculated  to  damp 
the  hopes,  or  to  slacken  the  exertions  of  the  friends  of  humanity. 
This  is  a  conclusion,  not  resting  on  hypothesis,  but  on  an  in- 
comparably broader  induction  from  particular  instances,  than 
what  serves  as  the  foundation  of  anv  one  of  the  data  on  which 
we  reason  in  natural  philosophy. 

It  is  from  tliis  tendency  of  philo80j)liical  studies  to  cultivate 
habits  of  generalivaJtioii,  that  their  chief  utility  arises;  accustom- 
ing those  who  pursue  them  to  regard  events,  less  in  relation  to 
their  o>vn  immediate  and  partial  concerns,  than  to  the  general 
interests  of  the  human  race  ;  and  thus  rendering  them  at  once 
happier  in  themselves,  and  moi^e  likely  to  U^  extensively  useful 
in  the  discharge  of  their  s<x*ial  duties. 

Among  the  manifold  obstacles  which  stand  in  the  way  of 
these  CQCouraging  prosi)ects,  none  is  nearly  so  formidable  Jis 
the  selfish  and  turbulent. m/>a^?cwrc  of  tluit  unprin('i])led  crowd. 


'  -h 


li 


KTHR'S  AND  POLITICS  DUKlNCi  XVIII.  (ENTUUY — IN  UESULT.    521 

wlio,  during  every  sliort  gleam  of  sunshine  in  the  politiail 
world,  never  fail  to  press  into  the  foremost  ranks  among  the 
friends  of  reason  and  humanity.  To  such  men  it  is  of  little 
consequence  to  contemplate  any  advantage  to  miuikind,  of 
which  themselves  are  not  to  reap  some  immediate  share  in  the 
benefit ;  and,  accordingly,  they  are  ever  eager  to  hasten  to  their 
object,  in  spite  of  all  the  imjiediments  which  ancient  establish- 
nients  and  deei>-rooted  opinions  may  oppose  to  their  progress. 
The  calamitous  events  which  in  the  first  instance  resulted  from 
the  French  Revolution,  afford  an  awful  and  never  to  be  for- 
gotten comment  on  the  truth  of  tlus  remark. 

These  observations  natiu*ally  lead  me  to  take  notice  of  the 
mischievous  consequences  which  have,  in  many  instances,  been 
produced  by  the  indiscriminate  zeal  of  some  modern  philoso- 
l)hers  against  what  they  choose  to  consider  as  the  prejudices  of 
education;  a  zeal  warranted  (as  has  been  imagined)  by  the 
indefeasible  right  of  every  individual  to  the  use  of  his  own  un- 
bia^S(d  jiidgmont  on  all  <piestions  whatever.  It  appears  to  me 
that  this  doctrine  has  Ixjcn  carried  to  a  length,  equally  inex- 
jjcdient  in  the  practical  result,  and  inconsistent  vnth  the  prin- 
ciples of  sound  philosophy ;  indeed,  hardly  less  so,  tlian  if  it 
were  proix)8ed  that  eiich  individual  should  Ik?  abandoned  to  the 
exercise  of  his  own  ingenuity  in  re-inventing  all  the  necessary 
and  usefid  arts  of  life.  For  what  is  the  provision  made  by 
nature  to  secure  the  i)rogressive  improvement  of  the  species, 
but  that  every  successive  generation  should  build  on  the  ex- 
IKTience  and  wisdom  of  the  former  ?  And  although,  in  this 
way,  a  mixture  of  error  viusf  be  transmitted  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another,  yet  should  parents  and  instructors  refuse  to  in- 
culcate what  api>ears  to  their  private  judgment  to  l)e  conducive 
to  the  happiness  of  theii*  offspring,  from  a  distrust  in  the  attain- 
ments of  their  own  times,  when  compared  witli  the  possible  dis- 
coveries of  future  ages,  how  would  it  l)e  iK)ssible  for  mankind 
to  advance  either  in  knowledge  or  in  morals  ?  In  such  an  age, 
more  csiHX'ially  as  the  prestMit,  we  need  n(»t  be  apprehensive 
lliat  the  errors  we  conununicate  will  1k'  of  long  duration.  The 
evil  to  be  dreade<l  is  not  implicit  credulify.  but  a  general  dis- 


522       DISSERTATION. — PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 

regard  of  those  moral  principles  which  have  been    hitherto 
cherished  by  the  wise  and  good  in  all  ages  of  the  world. 

To  the  prevalence  of  the  spirit  which  I  am  now  attemptiiig 
to  oppose,  may  be  traced  a  looseness  and  want  of  system  in  the 
modem  plans  of  education,  and  an  inattention  to  that  import- 
ant part  of  our  constitution,  called  by  philosophers  the  Associa- 
tion of  Ideas ;  a  law  of  the  human  mind  by  which  Nature 
plainly  meant  to  put  into  the  hands  of  every  successive  genera- 
tion, the  culture  of  the  moral  principles,  and  the  formation  of 
the  moral  habits  of  those  to  whom  they  have  given  existence. 
The  melancholy  consequences  to  which  it  sometimes  led  in 
times  of  darkness,  only  place  in  a  more  striking  point  of  view, 
the  happy  eflFects  it  might  produce  in  times  comparatively  en- 
lightened ;  and  in  the  natural  progress  of  the  species  towards 
further  improvement,  its  unavoidable  inconveniences  would 
become  every  day  less  and  less  perceptible,  while  the  sphere 
of  its  utility  would  keep  pace  in  its  enlargement  with  the 
diffusion  of  right  principles  and  of  mental  cultivation  among 
all  the  various  orders  of  society.  "  Opinionum  enim  commenta 
delet  dies,  naturaa  judicia  confirmat."^ 

That  these  ideas  are  not  altogether  visionary  is  demonstrated 
by  the  proverbial  inefficacy  of  speculative  conclusions  of  the 
understanding,  when  opposed  to  early  habit,  or  even  to  the 
fashions  of  the  times.  An  argument  is  often  drawn  from  this 
circumstance  against  the  most  important  truths,  as  if  their 
evidence  or  certainty  were  to  be  judged  of  from  their  influence 
on  the  character  and  manners  of  those  who  profess  to  believe 
them.  The  just  inference  is,  that  reason  considered  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  action  is  of  inferior  force  to  habit ;  and  that  truth  itself 
can  become  a  steady  and  uniform  motive  to  human  conduct, 
!j|i  I  only  by  being  inculcated  so  early  as  to  be  identified  with  the 

essential  principles  of  our  constitution.  Hence  the  obvious 
necessity  of  fortifying  the  lessons  of  parental  wisdom  by  early 
associations  and  impressions,  if  we  would  wish  that  a  progress 


I:,. I 


•i! 
I  . 


!• 


*  [At  this  place  Miss  Stewart  had  in-      writinpj  ceases;  the  rest  is  in  mine 

serted — "  Here  my  father's  own  hand-       Maria  D-  Stewart." — Ed^ 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DUKING  XVIII.  CENTURY — ^IN  RESULT.    523 

in  good  morals  should  accompany  the  progress  of  mankind  in 
useful  knowledge.  In  consequence  of  that  law  of  the  human 
mind  which  I  have  just  mentioned,  combined  with  the  ever 
active  principle  of  curiosity,  a  beautiful  provision  is  made  on 
the  one  hand,  for  the  final  triumph  of  truth  over  error ;  and,  on 
the  other  liand,  against  the  mischief  of  a  sudden  revolution  in 
the  established  habits  of  mankind  And  it  is  the  business  of  a 
calm  and  enlightened  philosophy  in  this,  as  in  every  other 
instance,  to  consult  as  an  oracle  the  laws  and  intentions  of 
Nature,  contenting  itself  vrith  aiding  and  facilitating  the  means 
which  she  has  appointed  for  conducting  us,  by  slow  but  certain 
steps,  through  the  future  stages  of  our  progress.  To  loosen 
with  a  violent  hand  the  foundations  of  opinions  which  ^'  come 
home  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men,"  even  when  they 
involve  a  mixture  of  prejudices,  must  be  always  a  hazardous 
experiment,  lest  we  should  weaken  the  influence  of  what  is 
true  and  salutary,  in  a  greater  proportion  tlian  we  are  able  to 
correct  what  is  hurtfid  or  erroneous ;  or,  (as  it  is  l)eautifully 
expressed  in  the  Sacred  Writings,)  lest  "  in  pulling  up  the  tares 
we  should  pull  up  the  wheat  also."  For  these  reasons  I  have 
always  thought,  not  only  that  a  religious  veneration  is  due  to 
such  fundamental  maxims  as  the  united  experience  of  {mst  ages 
has  proved  to  be  essential  to  the  existence  of  the  social  order, 
but  that  even  prejudices  which  involve  a  mixture  of  sound  and 
useful  principles,  should  seldom  or  ever  be  attacked  directly ; 
and  that  the  philosopher  should  content  himself  with  exhibit- 
ing the  truth  pure  and  unadulterated,  leaving  it  to  the  opera- 
tion of  time  and  of  reflection  to  secure  its  future  triumph.  In 
this  manner  the  errors  which  prevail  in  the  world,  whether  on 
political  or  moral  subjects,  will  gradually  decay,  without  ever 
unsettling  the  opinions  of  the  multitude,  or  weakening  the 
influence  of  those  truths  that  are  essential  to  human  happiness ; 
and  the  sc^iflblding  will  appear  to  vulgar  eyes  to  add  to  the 
stability  of  the  fabric,  till,  the  frail  materials  mouldering  into 
dust,  the  arch  exhibit  its  simple  and  majestic  form. 


024       DISSEKTATIUN.  — rAliT  THIUI) — LAST  CHA1»TER  ONLY. 


APPENDIX. 

As  a  supplement  to  the  foregoing  argument,  it  may  nc»t  l)e 
improfwr  to  remark  the  illustration  wliicli  it  aifonls  of  Bacon  h 
maxim  that  Knowledge  is  Power,    It  is  indeed  the  only  8i)ecies 
of  power  which  the  jHJOple  can  exercise  without  the  j^ssibility 
of  danger  to  themselves.     Under  all  governments,  even  the 
most  despotic,  the  superiority  in  point  of  physiciil  force  must 
belong  to  the  multitude ;  but,  like  the  i)hy8ical  force  of  the 
brutes,  it  is  easily  held  in  subjection  by  the  reason  and  art  of 
higher  and  more  cultivated  minds.     Vis  constUi  exiyers  viole 
ruit  svA,    In  proportion  as  pubUc  ()i)inion  lx?comes  enlighteneil, 
the  voice  of  the  i)eople  becomes  the  voice  of  reason ;  or,  to  use 
the  old  proverbial  phrase,  it  becomes  the  voice  of  God ;  and 
in  the  same  proportion  it  becomes  like  the  voice  of  God,  un- 
changeable, irresistible,  and  omni[)otent.     It  is  by  truth  alone 
tliat  the  multitude,  who  are  otherwise  united  by  a  rope  of  sand, 
can  l)e  led  to  direct  their  common  efforts  to  any  useful  object ; 
and  hence  the  origin  and  foundation  of  that  infallible  secret  of 
state  iK)licy,  Divide  et  impera.     Of  tlie  practical  efficacy  of 
this  secret,  examples  are  not  wanting  even  in  our  own  times ; 
but  yet  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  there  are  symptoms  of  a 
growing  disposition  in  men  to  rally  around  some  general  and 
fundamental  principles.      The  progress  indeed  would  be  in- 
finitely more  rapid,  weie  it  not  for  the  miserable  vanity  which 
misleads  so  many,  l)oth  in  philosophy  and  in  politics,  from  the 
sUmdards  of  those  who  are  willing  and  able  to  lead  them. 

Among  the  various  remarkable  effects  which  have  already 
resulted  from  the  general  dilfusion  of  light  and  hljerality  in 
the  principal  nations  of  Euro|)e,  none  is  more  deserving  of 
attention  than  the  change  which  ha«  taken  i)laoe  in  the  lan- 
guage employed  by  the  rulers  of  mankind  in  addressuig  their 
subjects.  "  Nothing  in  the  history  of  the  world,"  siiid  the  late 
Emperor  of  the  French,  at  the  momcMit  of  his  usurpation, 
'*  resembles  the  clofse  of  the  eighteenth  century;"  and  the  re- 


ETHICS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIIT.  (^KNTURY — IN  RESULT.    ;V2j 

ileotioii  wliicli  was  everywhere  ai)})laude(l  as  at  once  just  and 
profound,  setnued  to  men  of  sanguine  ho})es  to  promise*  a 
government  in  harmony  with  tlie  prevailing  spirit  and  prin- 
ciples of  the  times.  Had  these  exi)ectations  been  realized,  he 
would  have  Siived  himself  the  mortification  (whatever  might 
have  l)een  the  issue  of  his  personal  fortunes)  of  having  been 
the  midisputed  author  of  his  own  ruin.  It  will  be  happy  for 
posterity  if  the  sad  comment  which  his  history  has  left  on  the 
shortsightedness  of  his  Machiavellian  policy,  shall  leave  a  last- 
ing impression  on  the  minds  of  his  conquerors. 

The  most  memorable  illustration,  however,  which  has  yet 
appeared  of  the  influence  of  public  opinion  over  the  councils  of 
princes,  is  the  manifesto  published  by  the  Allied  Sovereigns  at 
the  gates  of  Paria* 


'  The  public  and  solemn  testimony 
which,  on  various  occasions,  has  boon 
l)ome,  by  tliosc  statesmen  who  arc  gen- 
erally supposed  not  to  bavo  been  most 
fayourablo  to  popular  rights,  to  the  truth 
and  soundness  of  the  most  liberal  prin- 
ciples of  commercial  policy,  is  another 
important  fact  which  leads  to  favourable 
presages  with  respect  to  the  future. 
This  testimony,  indeed,  has  not  been 
always  accompanied  with  a  disposition 
to  adopt,  at  the  present  moment,  the 
line  of  condnct  suitable  to  its  profes- 
sions ;  but  it  is  at  least  something  gain- 
ed to  the  good  cause,  when  such  public 
and  official  homage  is  rendered  to  it 
from  all  (quarters,  and  encourages  the 
hope  that  at  no  distant  period  the  cause 
itself  will  be  everywhere  triumphant, 
llie  following  brief  report  of  a  Parlia- 
mentary conversation  is,  in  this  point 
of  view,  not  unworthy  of  a  place  in  this 
Appendix.* 

"  The  House  then  resolved  itself  into 
a  Committee. 

"  I^rd  Castlereagh  said,  that  after 
the  full  discussion  which  the  late  Treaty 


with  Spain,  respecting  the  abolition  of 
the  Slave  Trade,  underwent  on  a  former 
evening,  and  the  almost  unanimous  ap- 
probation it  received,  he  had  little  doubt 
of  the  assent  of  the  Committee  to  tlie 
proposition  growing  out  of  that  Treaty, 
for  granting  the  simi  of  £400,000.  He 
should,  therefore,  merely  move  the  re- 
solution to  that  effect,  being  ready  to 
answer  any  subseijucnt  questions  which 
Gentlemen  might  wish  to  put  to  him. 

"  Mr.  Lyttelton  said,  that  it  was  with 
reluctance  he  rose  to  offer  any  observa- 
tions at  all  calculated  to  disturb  the 
unanimity  which  the  object  of  the  Treaty 
so  justly  obtained.  There  was  no  more 
sincere  friend  to  the  progress  of  that 
great  cause  of  humanity  than  ho  was. 
But  he  took  the  opportunity,  from  in- 
structions that  he  had  received,  to  ask 
the  noble  Lord  some  questions,  materi- 
ally connected  with  our  commercial  in- 
tercourse with  Spain.  He  saw  by  the 
provisions  of  that  Treaty,  that  a  sum  of 
J£400,000  was  to  be  paid  by  this  coun- 
tr>',  as  a  bonus  to  the  Spanish  nation. 
When  wo  were  evincing  such  a  disposi- 


*  This  last  paittgtapb,  it  may  be  obwrred,  was  written  in  Mr.  Stewart* b  own  hand,  after  March 
1S21,  and  before  Aoguit  182i.   The  reel  of  the  note  was  cut  firom  the  newspaper.— £J. 


526      DISSERTATION.— PART  THIRD — LAST  CHAPTER  ONLY. 


"  Inhabitants  of  Paris  I  The  allied  armies  are  under  your 
walls.  The  object  of  their  march  to  the  capital  of  France,  is 
founded  on  the  hope  of  a  sincere  and  durable  pacification  with 
her.     For  twenty  years  Europe  has  been  deluged  with  blood 


tion  to  that  Grovemment,  it  could  not 
be  inopportune  to  advert  to  the  state 
of  our  commercial  relations  with  that 
Power.  And  he  must  say,  from  what 
he  was  taught  to  belieye,  this  country 
was,  as  to  those  relations,  in  a  state 
rather  remote  from  a  very  cordial  amity 
with  Spain.  The  British  merchants 
were  not  alone  treated  with  severity, 
but  with  a  caprice  the  most  destnictivc 
to  the  continuance  of  a  commercial  in- 
tercourse. In  the  export  of  cotton 
goods,  one  of  our  principal  articles,  we 
were  met  with  a  total  prohibition.  Al- 
though he  lamented  that  circumstance, 
he  was  still  ready  to  admit  that  such 
prohibition  could  not  form  the  ground 
of  any  hostile  remonstrance.  Woollens 
and  linens  were  most  highly  taxed,  but 
in  respect  to  our  iron  trade,  the  duties 
on  which  were  augmented  in  a  propor- 
tion of  110  per  cent,  on  the  value, 
changes  the  most  sudden  were  so  fre- 
quently introduced,  that  the  British 
merchant  had  no  previous  notice,  until 
his  vessel  entered  the  ports  of  that 
country,  although,  according  to  the  an- 
cient usage,  six  months'  notice  of  these 
changes  were  given.  There  were,  in- 
deed, instances  where  cargoes  just  ar- 
rived found  a  rate  of  duty  so  different 
from  what  they  had  a  right  to  expect, 
that  time  was  not  allowed  to  prevent 
shipments  made  on  their  faith.  It  was 
of  the  first  consideration — of  the  very 
essence  of  commercial  intercourse,  that 
regulations  affecting  it  should  never  be 
clandestine.  He  wished  therefore  to 
know,  whether  up  to  the  present  period, 
any  representations  had  been  made  to 
the  Spanish  Government  relative  to 
these  severities  and  restrictions,  and 
whether    any   modification    might    be 


expected  in  the  commercial  tariff  be- 
tween the  two  countries  ? 

"  Lord  Castlereagh  felt  a  diflSculty 
on  the  distinct  proposition  before  the 
House,  to  hazard  a  premature  explana- 
tion on  the  complicated  question  of  our 
commcrci;^  intercourse  with  Spain.    He 
sincerely  lamented  the  continuance  in 
that  country  of  those  erroneous  princi- 
ples of  commerce  which  were   happily 
exploded  in  our  own.     Some  indnlgence 
ought,  however,  to  be  extended  to  that 
error,  when  it  w^as  recollected  that  for 
a  succession  of  years  those  principles 
were  cherished  in  this  country  in  their 
fullest  vigour,  and  how  long  we  oar- 
selves  had  been  reaping  the  bitter  fhiits 
of  such  a  policy.    Every  endeavour  had 
been  made   to   awaken    Spain   to   the 
adoption   of  a  more   enlightened    and 
prosperous  system,  but  he  was  sorry  to 
add  that,  from  their  attachment  to  a 
co<1e  of  restrictions  and  high  duties,  no 
great  progress  had  yet  been  made  in 
that  desirable  pursuit.     With  regard  to 
the  cotton  trade,  the  admission  it  had 
for  some  time  received  was  a  relaxation 
from   the   former  usage,  and  therefore 
the  prohibition  must  be  considered  as  a 
return  to  the  standard  laid  down  in  for- 
mer treaties,  such  as  it  was  in  the  year 
1792.     The  truth  was,  that  we  our- 
selves were  embaiTassed  in   our  mer- 
cantile relations  with  foreign  countries, 
by  our  own  prohibitive  code.     Still  re- 
presentations as  strong  as  he  felt  as- 
sured  the   honourable    member  would 
wish  were  made  by  bis  Majesty's  Go- 
vernment, and  nothing  would  be   left 
untried  to  convince  foreign  nations  that 
the  freest  and  most  unrestricted  inter- 
course was  the  certain  means  to  reci- 
procal advantage.   We  should,  however, 


KTHIOS  AND  POLITICS  DURING  XVIII.  CENTURY — IN  RESULT,   527 


and  tcara  Every  attempt  to  put  an  end  to  these  calamities 
has  proved  vain ;  for  this  reason,  that  in  the  very  government 
which  oppresses  you,  there  has  been  found  an  insurmountable 
obstacle  to  peace.  Who  among  you  is  not  convinced  of  this 
truth?  The  Allied  Sovereigns  desire  to  find  in  France  a 
beneficent  government,  which  shall  strengthen  her  alliance  with 
all  nations ;  and,  therefore,  in  the  present  circumstances,  it  is 
the  duty  of  Paris  to  hasten  the  general  pacification.  We  await 
the  expression  of  your  opinion,  witli  a  degree  of  impatience 
proportioned  to  the  mighty  consequences  which  must  result 
from  your  deliberation.  The  preservation  of  your  city  and  of 
your  tranquillity,  shall  be  the  object  of  the  prudent  measures 
which  the  Allies  will  not  fail  to  take,  in  concert  with  such  of 
your  authorities  as  enjoy  the  general  confidence.  Troops  shall 
not  be  quartered  on  you.  Such  are  the  sentiments  with  which 
Europe,  arrayed  before  your  walls,  now  addresses  you.  Hasten 
to  justify  her  confidence  in  your  patriotism  and  prudence." 

To  these  professions,  indeed,  it  must  be  owned,  that  sub- 
sequent events  exhibit  but  a  melancholy  contrast;  but  this 
afibrds  no  ground  for  despair  in  future.  An  instructive  lesson 
has  been  given  to  the  governed  as  well  as  to  their  governors,  and 
in  the  course  of  another  century,  the  latter  may  find  it  expedient 
to  carry  into  practical  eflfect  those  principles  to  which  they 
have  already  been  forced  to  give  the  solemn  sanction  of  their 
theoretical  authority. 


recollect,  that  at  no  very  remote  period, 
that  restrictive  system  was  as  strictly 
exercised  hetween  two  parts  of  our  own 
empire,  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  as 
between  this  kingdom  and  any  foreign 
nation. 

"  Mr.  Lyttelton  expressed  his  high 
satisfaction  at  tho  sound  and  enlight- 
ened views  of  the  Noble  Lord,  and  he 
hailed  their  annunciation  as  propitious 


to  the  commercial  interests  of  the 
country.  He  trusted  they  would  be 
acted  upon  in  the  Councils  of  the  na- 
tion, as  soon  as  was  compatible  with 
the  public  expediency.  What  he  had 
principally  complained  of,  in  regard  to 
Spain,  was  the  capricious  manner  in 
which  the  change  of  duties  without  noti- 
fication was  made." — Morning  Chrani- 
de,  12th  February  IS  18. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  chief  purpose  of  thcHe  Notes  and  IlluHtrAtions,  is  to  verify  some  of  the  more 
important  views  contained  in  the  foregoing  Historical  Sketch.  The  errors  into 
which  I  have  frequently  been  led  by  tnisting  to  the  information  of  writers,  who,  in 
describing  philosophical  systems,  profess  to  give  merely  the  general  results  of  their 
researches,  unauthenticatcd  by  particular  references  to  the  original  sources,  have 
long  convinced  mo  of  the  propriety,  on  such  occasions,  of  bringing  under  the  oyo 
of  the  reader,  the  specific  authorities  on  which  my  statements  proceed.  Without 
such  a  check,  the  most  faithfid  historian  is  perpetually  liable  to  the  suspicion  of 
accommcnlating  facts  to  his  favourite  theories ;  or  of  unconsciously  blending  with 
the  opinions  he  ascribes  to  others,  the  glosses  of  his  own  imagination.  The 
quotations  in  the  following  pages,  selected  principally  from  books  not  now  in 
general  circulation,  may,  I  hope,  at  the  same  time,  bo  useful  in  facilitating  the 
labours  of  those  who  shall  hereailcr  resume  the  same  subject,  on  a  sctUe  more  sus- 
ceptible of  the  minuteness  of  literary  detail. 

For  a  few  short  biographical  digressions,  with  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  give 
somewhat  of  interest  and  relief  to  the  abstract  and  unattractive  topics  which  occupy 
so  great  a  part  of  my  Discourse,  I  flatter  myself  that  no  apology  is  necessary ; 
more  especially,  as  these  digressions  will  in  general  be  found  to  throw  some  addi- 
tional light  on  the  philosophical  or  the  political  principles  of  the  individuals  to 
whom  they  relate. 


TO  DISSERTATION,  PART  FIRST.— NOTES  FROM  A  TO  R. 

Note  A,  p.  28. 

Sir  Hiomas  More,  though  towards  the  close  of  his  life,  he  became  "  a  persecutor 
even  unto  blood,  defiling  with  cniclties  those  hands  which  were  never  pollute<l  with 
bribes;"^  was,  in  his  earlier  and  better  days,  eminently  distinguished  by  the 
humanity  of  his  temper,  and  the  liberality  of  his  opinions.  Abundant  proofs  of  this 
may  be  collected  from  his  Letters  to  Erasmus ;  and  from  the  sentiments,  both 
religious  and  political,  indirectly  inculcated  in  his  Utopia.    In  contempt  for  the 

1  BfuriMt. 

VOL.  I.  2  L 


530       NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  I. 

ignorance  and  profligacy  of  the  monks,  he  was  not  surpassed  by  his  correRpondcnt ; 
*nd  against  various  sujxjrstitions  of  the  Romish  church,  such  as  the  celibacy  of 
priests,  and  the  use  of  images  in  worship,  he  has  expressed  himself  more  decidedly 
than  could  well  have  been  expected  from  a  man  placed  in  his  circumstances.  Bnt 
these  were  not  the  whole  of  his  merits.  Ilis  ideas  on  Criminal  Law  are  still  quoted 
with  respect  by  the  advocates  for  a  milder  code  than  has  yet  been  introduced  into 
this  country ;  and  on  the  subject  of  toleration,  no  modem  politician  has  gone 
iarther  than  his  Utopian  Legislators. 

The  disorders  occasioned  by  the  rapid  progress  of  the  Reformation,  having 
completely  shaken  his  faith  in  the  sanguine  speculations  of  his  youth,  seem  at 
length,  by  alarming  his  fears  as  to  the  fate  of  existing  establishments,  to  have 
unhinged  his  understanding,  and  perverted  his  moral  feelings.     The  case   was 
somewhat  the  same  with  his  friend  Erasmus,  who,  as  Jortin  remarks,  "  began  in 
his  old  days  to  act  the  zealot  and  the  missionary  with  an  ill  grace,  and  to  maintain, 
that  there  were  certain  heretics  who  might  be  put  to  death  as  blasphemers  and 
rioters,"  (pp.  428,  481.)     In  the  mind  of  Erasmus,  other  motives,  it  is  not  im- 
probable, concurred ;  his  biographer  and  apologist  being  forced  to  acknowledge, 
that  "  he  was  afraid  lest  Francis,  and  Charles,  and  Ferdinand,  and  George,  and 
Henry  VIII.,  and  other  persecuting  princes,  should  suspect  that  he  condemned 
their  cruel  conduct." — Ibid.  p.  481. 

Something,  it  must  at  the  same  time  be  observed,  may  be  alleged  in  behalf  of 
these  two  illustrious  persons  :  not,  indeed,  in  extenuation  of  their  unpardonable 
defection  from  the  cause  of  religious  liberty,  but  of  their  estrangement  from  somo 
of  their  old  friends,  who  scrupled  not  to  consider  as  apostates  and  traitors  all  those 
who,  while  they  acknowledged  the  expediency  of  ecclesiastical  reform,  did  not 
approve  of  the  violent  measures  employed  for  the  accomplishment  of  that  object. 
A  very  able  and  candid  argimicnt  on  this  point  may  be  found  in  Baylc,  Article 
CoBteUan,  Note  Q. 

Note  B,  p.  30. 

ITie  following  short  extract  will  8er%'e  to  convey  a  general  idea  of  CalWn's  argu- 
ment upon  the  subject  of  usury. 

"  Pecunia  non  parit  pecuniam.  Quid  mare  ?  quid  domus,  ex  cujus  locatione 
pensionem  percipio  ?  an  ex  tectis  ct  parietibus  argcntum  proprie  nascitur  ?  Sed  et 
terra  producit,  et  mari  advehitur  (juod  pecuniam  deinde  producat,  et  habitadonis 
commoditas  cum  certa  pecunia  parari  commutarive  solet.  Quod  si  igitur  plus  ex 
negotiatione  lucri  percipi  possit,  quam  ex  fundi  cujusvis  proventu  :  an  feretur  qui 
fundum  sterilem  fortasse  colono  locaverit  ex  quo  mercedem  vel  proventum  recipiat 
sibi,  qui  ex  pecunia  fructum  aliquem  pcrceperit,  non  feretur?  et  qui  pecunia  fun- 
dum acquirit,  annon  pecunia  ilia  generat  alteram  annuam  pecuniam  ?  Unde  vero 
mercatoris  lucrum  ?  Ex  ipsius,  inquies,  diligentia  atque  industria.  Quis  dubitat 
pecuniam  vacuam  inutilem  omnino  esse  ?  neque  qui  a  me  mutuam  rogat,  vacnam 
apud  se  hal)ere  a  me  acceptam  cogitat.  Non  ergo  ex  pecunia  ilia  lucrum  accedit, 
sed  ex  proventu.  Illae  igitur  rationes  subtiles  quidem  sunt,  ct  speciem  quandam 
habent,  sed  ubi  propius  expenduntur,  reipsa  concidunt.  Nunc  igitur  conclude, 
judicandum  de  usuris  esse,  non  ex  particulari  aliquo  Scripturae  loco,  sed  tantum  ex 
jcquitatis  regula." — Calvini  Epistolo'. 


NOTE  C.  531 


Note  C,  p.  4:1 

The  prevailing  idea  among  Machiavcrs  contemporaries  and  immediate  Hucces- 
8or8  certainly  waA,  that  the  design  of  the  Prince  was  hostile  to  the  rights  of  man- 
kind ;  and  that  the  author  was  either  entirely  unprincipled,  or  adapted  his  professed 
opinions  to  the  varying  circumstances  of  his  own  eventful  life.  The  following  are 
the  words  of  Bodinus,  horn  in  1530,  the  very  year  when  Machiavel  died ;  an  author 
whose  judgment  will  have  no  small  weight  with  those  who  are  acquainted  with  his 
political  writings  :  "Machiavel  s'est  bien  fort  mesconto,  do  dire  que  I'vstat  popu- 
laire  est  le  mcilleur :  ^  ct  neantraoins  ayant  oublic  sa  premiere  opinion,  il  a  tenu  en 
un  autre  lieu,'  que  pour  restituer  I'ltalie  en  sa  liberte,  il  faut  qn'il  n'y  ait  qu'un 
Prince  ;  et  de  fait,  il  s'est  efforce  de  former  un  estat  Ic  plus  tyrannique  du  monde  ; 
ct  en  autre  lieu*il  confcsse,  que  Tostat  de  Venisc  est  lo  plus  beau  do  tons,  lequel 
est  une  pure  Aristocratie,  s'il  en  fdt  onqucs :  tellemcnt  qu*il  ne  S9ait  &  quoi  se 
tenir." — (De  la  JR^publiqtte,  liv.  vi.  chap.  iv.  Paris,  1576  )  In  the  liatin  version 
of  the  above  passage,  the  author  applies  to  Machiavel  the  phrase.  Homo  levissimits 
ac  neqvUsimua. 

Que  of  the  earliest  apologists  for  Machiavel  was  Albericus  Gentilis,  an  Italian 
author,  of  whom  some  account  will  be  given  afterwards.  His  words  arc  these : 
"  Machiavel,  a  warm  panegyrist  and  keen  assertor  of  democracy ;  born,  educated, 
promoted  under  a  republican  government,  was  in  the  highest  possible  degree  hos- 
tile to  tyranny.  The  scope  of  his  work,  accordingly,  is  not  to  instnict  tyrants ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  by  disclosing  their  secrets  to  their  oppressed  subjtK^ts,  to  ex- 
pose them  to  public  view,  stripped  of  all  their  trappings."  Ho  afterwards  adds, 
that  "  Machiavel's  real  design  was,  under  the  mask  of  giving  lessons  to  sovereigns, 
to  open  the  eyes  of  the  people ;  and  that  he  assumed  this  mask  in  the  hope  of 
thereby  securing  a  freer  circulation  to  his  doctrines." — (De  Legationtbvs,  lib.  iii. 
c.  ix.  Lend.  1585.)  The  same  idea  was  afterwards  adopted  and  zealously  con* 
tended  for  by  Wicqucfort,  the  author  of  a  noted  book  entitled  the  Ambassador; 
and  by  many  other  writers  of  a  later  date.*  Bayle,  in  his  Dictionary^  has  stated 
ably  and  impartially  the  argimients  on  both  sides  of  the  question  ;  evidently  lean- 
ing, however,  very  decidedly,  in  his  own  opinion,  to  that  of  MachiavcPs  apologists. 

The  following  passage  from  the  excellent  work  of  M.  Simonde  de  Sismondi  on 
the  Literature  of  the  South,  appears  to  me  to  approach  very  near  to  the  truth  in 
the  estimate  it  contains  both  of  the  spirit  of  the  Prince^  and  of  the  character  of  the 
author.  "  The  real  object  of  Machiavel  cannot  have  been  to  confirm  upon  the 
throne  a  tyrant  whom  he  detested,  and  against  whom  he  had  already  conspired  ; 
nor  is  it  more  probable  that  he  had  a  design  to  expose  to  the  people  the  maxims 
c»f  tyranny,  in  order  to  render  them  odious.  Universal  experience  made  them  at 
that  time  sufficiently  known  to  all  Italy ;  and  that  infernal  policy  which  Machiavel 
reduced  to  principles,  was,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  practised  by  every  government. 
There  is  rather,  in  his  manner  of  treating  it,  a  universal  bitterness  against  man* 
kind  ;  a  contempt  of  the  whole  human  race ;  which  makes  him  address  them  in  the 
language  to  which  they  had  debased  themselves.     He  speaks  to  the  interests  of 

1  IHsroursei  upon  Livy.  *  Sc«   in   particular  RousMau.   Dn  CoMtrut 

-  Prince,  book  i.  c.  Ix.  iktcial,  lir.  lil.  c.  vi.  ."..,* 

'  Diifonnei  upon  Livit. 


532     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  I. 

men,  and  to  their  sclfiMh  calculations,  as  if  he  thought  it  useless  to  appeal  to  their 
enthusiasm  or  to  their  moral  feelings." 

I  agree  perfectly  with  M.  de  Sismondi  in  considericg  the  two  opposite  hypotheses 
referred  to  in  the  above  extract,  as  alike  untenable ;  and  have  only  to  add  to  his 
remarks,  that,  in  writing  the  Prince,  the  author  seems  to  have  been  more  under 
the  influence  of  spleen,  of  ill-humour,  and  of  blasted  hopes,  than  of  any  deliberate 
or  systematical  purpose,  either  favourable  or  adverse  to  human  happiness.  The 
prevailing  sentiment  in  his  mind  probably  was,  Sipopuiiis  vuU  decipi,  decipiaivtr} 

According  to  this  view  of  the  subject,  Machiavel's  Prince,  instead  of  being  con- 
sidered as  a  new  system  of  political  morality,  invented  by  himself,  onght  to  be 
regarded  merely  as  a  digest  of  the  maxims  of  state  policy  then  universally  acted 
upon  in  the  Italian  courts.     If  I  be  not  mistaken,  it  was  in  this  light  that  the  book 
was  regarded  by  Lord  Bacon,  whose  opinion  concerning  it  being,  in  one  instance, 
somewhat  ambiguously  expressed,  has  been  supposed  by  several  writers  of  note 
(particularly  Baylc  and  Mr.  Koscoe)  to  have  coincided  with  that  quoted  above  from 
Albericus  Gentilis.    To  nie  it  appears,  that  the  verj'  turn  of  the  sentence  appealed 
to  on  this  occa.sion  is  rather  disrespectful  than  otherwise  to  Machiavel's  character. 
"  Est  itaquc  quod  gratias  agamus  MachiavelHo  et  hujuamodi  8criptoribu8,  qui 
apcrte  et  indissiraulanter  profenint,  quid  homines  facere  soleant,  non  quid  debeant." 
— {De  Av(j.  Scient  lib.  vii.  cap.  ii.)     llie  best  comment,  however,  on  these  wordK, 
is  to  be  found  in  another  passage  of  Bacon,  where  he  has  expressed  his  opinion  of 
Machiavel's  moral  demerits  in  terms  as  strong  and  unequivocal  as  language  can 
furnish.     "  Quod  enim  ad  malas  artes  attinet ;  si  quis  MachiavelHo  se  dederit  in 
disciplinam  ;  qui  prrccipit,"  &c.  &c.     See  the  rest  of  the  paragraph,  (De  Aug. 
Scient.  lib.  viii.  cap.  ii.)    See  also  a  passage  in  book  vii.  chap,  viii.,  beg^inning  thus  : 
"  An  non  et  hoc  vcruni  est,  juvenes  multo  minus  Politicce  quam  Ethicce  auditores 
idoneosesse,  antcquam  religione  etdoctrinade  moribus  et  officiis  plane  imbuantur; 
ne  forte  judicio  depravati  et  comipti,  in  earn  opinionem  veniant,  non  esse  remm 
differentias  morales  veras  et  solidas,  sed  omnia  ex  utilitatc. — Sic  enim  Macbia- 
vellio  diccre  placet,  Quod  si  contigisset  Ceesarem  bello  aiiperatum  fuisse^  CiUiUna 
ipsofuisaet  odiosior,''^  &c,  &c.     After  these  explicit  and  repeated  declarations  of 
his  sentiments  on  this  point,  it  is  hard  that  Bacon  should  have  been  numbered 
among  the  apologi.sts  of  Machiavel,  by  such  high  authorities  as  Bayle  and  the 
excellent  biographer  of  Tx)renzo  de  Medicis. 


It  has  been  objected  to  me,  that  in  the  foregoing  observations  on  the  design  of 
the  Prince,  1  have  taken  no  notice  of  the  author's  vindication  of  himself  and  his 
writings,  in  his  letter  to  Zenobius  Buondelmontius,  annexed  to  the  old  English 
translation  of  Machiavel,  printed  at  London  in  1675  and  1G80.  In  the  preface  to 
this  translation,  we  are  told,  that  the  letter  in  question  "  had  never  before  been 
published  in  any  language,  but  lurked  for  above  eighty  years  in  the  private  cabinets 
of  his  own  kindred,  or  the  descendants  of  his  admirers  in  Florence,  till,  in  the 
Pontificate  of  Urban  VIII.,  it  was  procured  by  the  Jesuits  and  other  busy  bodies, 

1  Many  traces  of  this  misanthropic  di5position  coniedies  is  almost  always  mingled  with  gall, 

occur  in  the  historical  and  eren  in  the  dramatic  His  laughter  at  the  human  race  is  but  the 

works  of  Machiavel.    It  Is  very  Justly  observed  laughter  of  contempt." 
by  M.  de  Sismondi.  that  "  the  pleasantry  of  his 


NOTE  c.  533 

and  brought  to  Koiue  with  nu  intention  to  divert  thut  wise  Poim;  from  hiu  deuign  of 
making  ono  of  Nicholas  Machiavel'8  name  and  family  cardinal,  as  (notwithstand- 
ing all  their  opposition)  he  did,  not  long  after.  When  it  was  gotten  into  that  city, 
it  wanted  not  those  who  had  the  judgment  and  curiosity  to  copy  it,  and  so  at 
length  came  to  ei^oy  that  privilege  which  all  rare  pieces  (even  the  sharpest  libels 
and  pasquins)  challenge  at  that  court,  which  is  to  be  sold  to  strangers,  one  of 
which,  being  a  gentleman  of  this  country,  brought  it  over  with  him  at  his  return 
fn»m  thence  in  1645,  and  having  translated  it  into  English,  did  communicate  it  to 
divers  of  his  friends  ;  and  by  means  of  some  of  them,  it  hath  been  ray  good  fortune 
to  be  capable  of  making  thee  a  present  of  it ;  and  let  it  serve  as  an  apology  for  our 
author  and  his  writings,  if  thou  thinkcst  he  need  any." 

As  the  translation  of  Machiavel,  from  which  this  advertisement  is  copied,  is 
still  in  the  hands  of  many  readers  in  this  country,  it  may  not  be  improper  to  men- 
tion here,  that  the  letter  in  question  is  altogether  of  English  fabrication  ;  and  (as 
far  as  I  can  learn)  is  quite  unknown  on  the  Continent  It  is  reprinted  at  the  end 
of  the  second  volume  of  Fame  worth's  Translation  of  Machiavel's  works,  1762, 
with  the  following  statement  prefixed  to  it.' 

"  The  following  letter  haWng  been  printed  in  all  the  editions  of  the  old  transla- 
tion, it  is  here  given  to  the  reader,  though  it  certainly  was  not  written  by  Machiavel. 
It  bears  date  in  1537,  and  his  death  is  placed  by  all  the  best  historians  in  1530. 
There  are,  besides,  in  it  many  internal  marks,  which  to  the  judicious  will  clearly 
prove  it  to  be  the  work  of  some  other  writer,  vainly  endeavouring  at  the  style  and 
manner  of  our  excellent  author.  The  letter  is  indeed  a  spirited  and  judicious  de- 
fence of  Machiavel  and  his  writings ;  but  it  is  written  in  a  style  too  inflated,  and 
is  utterly  void  of  that  elegance  and  precision  which  so  much  distinguish  the  works 
of  the  Florentine  secretary." 

To  the  author  of  this  last  translation  we  are  farther  indebted  for  a  verv  curious 
letter  of  Dr.  Warburton*s,  which  renders  it  probable  that  the  forgery  was  contrived 
and  carried  into  execution  by  the  Marquis  of  Wharton.  I  shall  transcribe  the 
letter  in  Warburton's  words. 

*'  There  is  at  the  end  of  the  English  translation  of  Machiavel's  works,  printed  in 
folio,  1680,  a  translation  of  a  pretended  letter  of  Machiavd  to  Zenobius  Buondcl- 
montius,  in  vindication  of  himself  and  his  writings.  I  Ix^h'eve  it  has  been  gener- 
ally understood  to  be  a  feigned  thing,  and  has  by  some  been  given  to  Ncvil,  he 
who  wn»tt»,  if  1  do  n<it  mistake,  the  PUUo  Bediviwts.  Hut  many  years  ago,  a 
number  of  the  famous  Marquis  of  Wharton's  papers  (the  father  of  the  Duke)  were 
put  into  my  hands.  Amongst  these  was  the  press  copy  (as  appeared  by  the  printer's 
marks,  where  any  page  of  the  printed  lotter  began  and  ended)  of  this  remarkable 
letter  in  tli(;  Marquis's  handwriting,  as  1  took  it  to  be,  compared  with  oth<T  papers 
of  his.  The  person  who  intrusted  me  with  these  papers,  and  who  I  understood 
had  given  them  to  mc,  called  them  back  out  of  my  hands.  This  anecdote  1  com- 
municated to  the  late  Speaker;  and,  at  his  desire,  wn»to  down  the  Hulwtjince  of 
what  I  have  told  von,  in  his  book  of  the  above  edition. — AV.  (ilfniccstcr."* 


>  In  a  bcM^k  iniblirihcd  1816,  Uiid  letter  U  re-        PkUwo/tliff  o/  Modern  HiMtorii.    Dublin,  161(i. 
forred  U>  without  tt\\y  ezpreislon  of  duubt  u  to       p.  17. 
iln  authenticity.— Hee  Mlllcr>  Ltchirts  on  Ihf  *  In  a  letter  from  VVarlmrton  to  the  lleyerend 


534      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PAP-T  I. 

From  a  memoir  read  before  the  French  Institute  in  July  1814,  by  M.  Daunou,* 
it  appears  that  some  new  light  has  been  lately  thrown  on  the  writings  and  life  of 
Machiavel  by  the  discovery  of  some  of  his  unpublished  papers.  The  fullowing  par- 
ticulars cannot  fail  to  be  gratifying  to  many  of  my  readers. 

"  M.  GiDguene  continue  eon  Uistoirc  de  la  Litterature  Italienne,  et  Tient  de 
communiqner  IL  la  classe  Tun  des  articles  qui  vont  composer  le  septieme  tome  de 
cette  histoire.    C*est  un  tableau  de  la  vie  ct  des  Merits  de  Nicolas  Machiavel.     La 
Tie  de  cet  ^crivain  celebre  est  le  veritable  commentaire  do  ses  livres ;  et  jusqu'ici 
ce  commentaire  etoit  reste  fort  incomplct.     Par  exemple,  on  se  bomait  k  dire,  que 
la  r^publique  de  Florence,  dont  il  etoit  le  secretaire,  I'avoit  chai^  de  diTenes 
missions  politiques  h,  la  cour  de  France,  k  la  cour  de  Home,  aupr^  du  Xhic  de 
Valentinois,  aupr^s  de  I'Empereur,  au  camp  de  Pise,  &c.  &c.   M.  Gingnen6  le  suit 
annee  par  annee  dans  toutes  ses  legations,  il  en  fait  connoitre  I'objet  et  Ics  pnna- 
pales  circonstances.    Cette  vie  devient  ainsi  une  partie  essentielle  de  Thistoire  de 
Florence,  et  tient  mcme  &  cclle  des  puissances  qui  etoicnt  alors  en  relation  avec 
cette  republique.     On  lit  pen  dans  la  collection  des  CEuvres  de  Machiavel,  ses  oor- 
respondances  politiques,  qui  n^anmoins  ofi&ent  tons  ccs  details  et  jettent  no  grand 
jour  sur  son  caractere  et  sur  ses  intentions.    Malheurenscment,  ce  jour  lui  est  peu 
favorable,  et  ne  nous  eclaire  que  trop  sur  le  veritable  sens  dans  lequel  doit  etre  pris 
son  Traite  du  Prince  si  diversement  juge.     L'une  des  pieces  les  plus  curieuses  et 
les  plus  decisives  est  une  Icttro  qu'il  ecrivit  de  la  campagne  wi  il  8*ctoit  retire 
aprds  la  rentree  des  Meilicis  h  Florence.    II  venoit  d'etre  destitu6  de  ses  emplois ; 
impliquo  dans  une  conspiration  centre  ces  princes,  il  avoit  cte  incarcere,  mis  a  la 
torture,  et  juge  innocent,  soit  qu'il  le  fut  en  effet,  soit  que  les  tourmens  n'eassent 
pu  lui  arracher  Taveu  de  sa  faute.    11  trace  dans  ce  lettre  le  tableau  de  ses  occupa- 
tions et  do  sea  projcts,  des  travanx  et  des  distractions  qui  reraplisscnt  ses  joumees. 
Pour  sortir  d'une  position  voisine  de  la  miscre,  il  sent  la  necessite  de  rcntrcr  en 
grace  avec  les  Medicis,  et  n'en  trouve  pas  de  meilleur  moyen  que  de  dedier  le 
Traite  du  Prince  qu'il  vient  d'achever  a  Julien  le  Jeune,  frere  du  Leon  X.,  et  k 
qui  ce  Pape  avoit  confie  le  gouvemement  de  Florence.     Machiavel  croit  que  son 
Traite  ne  pent  manquer  d'etre  agreablc  et  utile  a  un  prince,  et  surtout  k  un  nouveau 
prince.    Qnelque  tems  apres,  il  fit  en  effet  homage  de  ce  livre,  non  k  Julien,  mais 
k  Laurent  II.     Cette  lettre,  qui  n'est  connue  en  Italic,  que  depuis  peu  d'annees, 
etoit  encore  ignoree  en  France.   M.  Giuguene  I'a  traduitc :  il  pense  qu'elle  ne  laisae 
aucune  incertitude  sur  le  but  et  les  intentions  de  I'auteur  du  Traite  du  Prince." — 
Some  farther  details  on  this  subject  are  to  be  found  in  a  subsequent  memoir  by  the 
same  author,  read  before  the  French  Institute  in  July  1815. 
Soon  after  reading  the  above  passage  in  ^I.  Daunou's  Report^  I  received  nearly 


Mr.  Birch,  there  is  the  following  passage : — "I 
told  you,  I  think,  I  had  several  of  old  Lord 
Wharton's  papera.  Amongst  the  rtst  is  a  raanu- 
script  in  his  own  handwritiiig,  a  pretended 
translation  of  a  manuscript  apologetical  epistle 
of  BfachiaTol's,  to  his  friend  Zenobio.  It  is  a 
wonderful  fine  thing.  There  are  the  printers 
marks  on  the  manuscript,  which  makes  me 
think  it  is  printed.  There  is  a  pottscript  of  Lord 
Whartvn's  to  it,  by  which  it  appears  this  pre- 


tended translation  was  designed  to  prefix  to  an 
£ut;lish  edition  of  hLn  work.^.  As  I  knr>w  nothing 
of  the  English  edition  of  Machiavel,  I  wish  you 
would  make  this  out,  and  let  me  know" — lUug- 
tration*  qfOie  Literary  History  of  tks  Eh^Uettlh 
Cmtiiry,  intended  as  a  sequel  to  the  Literary 
Anecdotcf  by  Jolin  Nichols,  vol.  ii.  p.  88- 

'   Ilapport  sur  Us   Travxiij:  dc   la   C7<uw 
d'tlisMrc,  &c.     1  Juillet,  1814. 


NOTE  r.  535 

• 

tlio  same  itifurmatiuii  from  the  North  of  Italy.     It  cuuuot  bo  so  well  expresBod  as 
in  the  wonls  of  the  writer : — 

"  Pray  tell  Mr.  Stewart  that  there  ia  a  verj'  remarkable  letter  of  Machiavorti 
lately  publinhcil,  written  to  a  private  friend  at  the  very  time  ho  was  engaged  iu 
the  composition  of  the  Priuce^  and  not  only  fixing  the  date  of  tliat  work,  but  ex- 
plaining in  a  manner  disgraceful  to  the  author,  the  use  he  made  of  it,  in  putting  it 
into  the  hands  of  the  Medicis  family.  The  letter  is  besides  full  of  character,  and 
tloscribes,  in  a  very  lively  maimer,  the  life  he  was  leading  when  driven  away  from 
Florence.  This  particular  letter  may  bo  read  at  the  end  of  the  last  volume  of 
Pignotti's  Storia  della  Jhscana ;  a  book  published  here,  but  which  was  in  all  the 
London  shops  before  I  came  away.  It  is  to  be  found  also  with  several  others, 
which  are  entertaining  and  curious,  in  a  new  collection  published  at  Florence  in 
1814,  of  Machiavel's  public  dispatches  and  familiar  letters.  By  the  way,  I  must 
likewise  tell  Mr.  Stewart,  that  my  late  reading  has  suggested  a  slight  criticism  upon 
one  expression  of  his  with  regard  to  Machiavers  Prince^  where  he  calls  it  one  of 
the  *  latest  of  his  publications.'  The  fact  is,  that  the  tlirce  great  works  were  none 
of  them  published  in  his  lifetime,  nor  for  four  years  after  his  death.  Tliey  appear 
to  have  been  all  written  at  the  same  period  of  his  life,  during  the  eight  or  ton  years 
of  leisure  that  were  forced  upon  him ;  and  I  believe  it  may  be  made  out  from  tho 
works  themselves,  that  the  Prince  was  composed  and  finished  first  of  the  three, 
then  the  Disconr$e»t  and  last  of  all  the  Jlistort/,  This  and  the  first  having  been 
written  for  the  Medicis  family,  the  MSS.  were  in  their  hands,  and  they  published 
them ;  the  Discourses  were  printed  by  the  care  of  some  of  his  personal  friends.  If 
Mr.  Stewart  wishes  to  have  the  proof  of  all  this  in  detail,  I  can  draw  it  out  without 
any  trouble." 

The  foregoing  passage  will  be  read  by  many  w^ith  no  common  interest,  when  it 
is  known  that  it  formed  part  of  a  letter  from  tho  late  Francis  Horner,  written  a 
very  few  weeks  before  his  death.  Independently  of  tho  satisfaction  I  feel  in  pre- 
serving a  memorial  of  his  kind  attention  to  his  friends,  at  a  period  when  he  was 
himself  nn  object  of  such  anxious  solicitude  to  his  country,  I  w^as  eager  to  record 
tho  opinion  of  so  perfect  and  accomplished  a  judge  on  a  question  which,  for  more 
than  two  centuries,  has  divided  the  learned  world ;  and  which  his  profound  ad- 
mirutitm  of  Machiavel's  genius,  combined  with  the  most  unqualified  detestation  of 
Machiavors  principles,  had  led  him  to  study  with  peculiar  care.  The  letter  is 
dated  Pisa,  December  17,  1810- 

The  miited  tribute  of  respect  already  paid  by  Mr.  Horner's  political  friends  and  his 
political  opponents,  to  his  short  but  brilliant  and  spotless  career  in  public  life,  renders 
all  additional  eulogies  on  his  merits  as  a  statesman,  equally  feeble  and  superfluous. 
Of  the  extent  and  variety  of  his  leaniing,  the  depth  and  accuracy  of  his  scientific 
attainments,  the  classical  (perhaps  somewhat  severe)  purity  of  his  taste,  and  tho 
truly  philosophical  cast  of  his  whole  mind,  none  had  better  opporttmities  than  my- 
self to  form  a  judgment,  in  tho  course  of  a  friendship  which  commenced  before  he 
left  the  University,  and  which  grew  till  the  moment  of  his  death.  But  on  these 
rare  endowments  of  his  understanding,  or  the  still  rarer  combination  of  viHues 
which  shed  over  all  his  mental  gifls  a  characteristical  grace  and  a  moral  harmony, 
this  is  not  the  pn»per  place  to  enlarge.  Never  certainly  was  more  completely 
realized  the  ideal  portrait  so  nobly  imagined  by  the  Koman  p<>et :  "  A  calm  devo- 


536     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  1. 

tioD  to  reason  aiid  justice,  the  s&nctuary  of  the  heart  undefiled,  and  a  breast  glow- 
ing with  inborn  honour/* 

Comporitum  jus  &aque  animi.  aanctosqne  reoemu 

M enti«,  et  incoctom  generoio  pectus  honesto. 

Note  D,  p.  53. 

The  charge  of  plagiarism  from  Bodin  has  been  urged  somewhat  indelicately 
against  Montesquieu,  by  a  very  respectable  writer,  the  Chevalier  de  Filangieri. 
"  On  a  cru,  et  I'on  croit  peut-etre  encore,  que  Montesquieu  a  parl^  le  premier  de 
I'influeuce  du  climat.    Cette  opinion  est  une  erreur.    Avant  lui,  le  delicat  et  inge- 
uieux  Fontenelle  s'ctoit  exerce  sur  cet  objet.     Machiavel,  en  plusieurs  endroits  de 
ses  ouvrages,  parle  aussi  de  cette  influence  du  climat  sur  le  physique  et  sur  le 
moral  des  peuples.    Chardin,  un  de  ces  voyageurs  qui  savent  observer,  a  &it 
beaucoup  de  reflexions  sur  Tinfluence  physique  et  moral  des  climats.     L'Abbe 
Dubos  a  soutenu  et  developp^  les  pensees  de  Chardin ;  et  Bodin,  qui  peut-etre  avoit 
lu  dans  Polybc  que  le  climat  determine  les  formes,  U  couleur,  et  lea  moears  des 
peuples,  en  avuit  deja  fait,  cent  cinquante  ans  auparavant,  la  base  de  son  systeme, 
dans  son  livre  de  la  Eepubliquc,  ct  dans  sa  Methode  de  THistoire.    Avant  tons  ces 
ecrivains,  I'immortel  Hippocrate  avoit  traite  fort  au  long  cette  mati^re  dans  sod 
fameux  ouvrage  de  Vair,  des  eauxj  et  des  Ueux,    LWteur  de  TEsprit  des  Lois, 
sans  citer  un  seul  de  ces  philosophes,  etablit  a  son  tour  un  systeme ;  mais  il  ne  fit 
qu*altercr  les  principes  d'Hippocrate,  et  donner  une  plus  grande  extension  aax 
idees  de  Dubos,  de  Chardin,  et  de  Bodin.     II  voulut  faire  croire  an  public  qu*il 
avoit  eu  le  premier  quclqucs  idces  sur  ce  sujet;  etle  public  I'en  crut  sursa  parole." 
— La  Science  de  la  L^ffislatUm,  ouvrage  iraduit  de  Vltalien.     Paris,  1786,  torn.  i. 
pp.  225,  226. 

The  enumeration  here  given  of  writers  whose  works  are  in  everybody's  bands, 
might  have  satisfied  B'ilangieri,  that,  in  giving  his  sanction  to  this  old  theory, 
Montesquieu  had  no  wish  lo  claim  to  himself  the  praise  of  originality.  It  is  sur- 
prising, that,  in  the  foregoing  list,  the  name  of  Plato  should  have  been  omitted, 
who  concludes  his  fifth  book,  £>e  Le^ibus,  with  remarking,  that  "  all  countries  are 
not  equally  susceptible  of  the  same  sort  of  discipline  ;  and  that  a  wise  legislator 
will  pay  a  due  regard  to  the  diversity  of  national  character,  arising  from  the  in- 
fluence of  climate  and  of  soil."  It  is  not  less  suri)ri8ing,  that  the  name  of  Charron 
should  have  been  overlooked,  whose  observations  on  the  moral  influence  of  physical 
causes  discover  as  much  originality  of  thought  as  those  of  any  of  his  successors. — 
See  De  la  Sagesse^  livre  i.  chap,  xxxvii. 

Note  E,  p.  57. 

Inmmicrable  instances  of  Luther's  credulity  and  superstition  are  to  be  found  in 
a  book  entitled  Martini  Lutheri  Colloquia  3fensalia,  &c.,  first  published,  accord- 
ing to  Bayle,  in  1571.  The  only  copy  of  it  which  I  have  seen,  is  a  translation 
from  the  Gorniun  into  the  English  tongue  by  Captain  Heurie  Bell. — (London,  1652.) 
This  work,  in  which  are  "  gathered  up  the  fnigments  of  the  divine  discourses 
which  Luther  held  at  his  table  with  Philip  Melanehthon,  and  divers  other  learned 
men,"  bears  to  have  been  originally  collected  "  out  of  his  holy  mouth "  by  Dr. 
Anthony  Lauterbach,  and  lo  have  been  afterwards  "digested  into  commonplaces" 


NOTE  E.  537 

by  Dr.  Aurifaber.  Although  not  sanctioned  with  Luther^s  name,  I  do  not  know 
that  the  slightest  doubts  of  its  details  have  been  suggested,  even  by  such  of  his 
followers  as  have  regretted  the  indiscreet  communication  to  the  public,  of  his  un- 
reserved table-talk  with  his  confidential  companions.  The  very  accurate  Secken- 
dorff  has  not  called  in  question  its  authenticity ;  but,  on  the  contrary',  gives  it  his 
indirect  sanction,  by  remarking,  that  it  was  collected  with  little  prudence,  and  not 
less  imprudently  printed :  "  Libro  GoUoquiarwn  Mensalium  minus  quidem  caute 
composito  et  vulgato.**  (Bayle,  article  liUther,  Note  L.)  It  is  very  often  quoted 
as  an  authority  by  the  candid  and  judicious  Dr.  Jortin. 

In  confirmation  of  what  I  have  said  of  Luther's  credulity,  I  shall  transcribe,  iu 
the  words  of  the  English  translator,  the  substance  of  one  of  Luther's  Divine  IH§- 
tiourseSf  "  concerning  the  de\il  and  his  works."  "  The  devil,"  said  Luther,  "  can 
transform  himself  into  the  shape  of  a  man  or  a  woman,  and  so  doceiveth  people ; 
insomuch  that  one  thinketh  he  lieth  by  a  right  woman,  and  yet  is  no  such  matter ; 
for,  OS  St.  Paul  saith,  the  devil  is  strong  by  the  child  of  unbelief.  But  inasmuch 
as  children  or  devils  are  conceived  in  such  sort,  the  same  are  very  horrible  and 
fearfiil  examples.  Like  unto  this  it  is  also  with  what  they  call  the  Nix  in  the 
water,  who  draweth  people  unto  him  as  maids  and  virgins,  of  whom  he  begetteth 
devils'  children.  The  devil  can  also  steal  children  away ;  as  sometimes  cliildren 
within  the  space  of  six  weeks  after  their  birth  are  lost,  and  other  children,  called 
tuppositiHif  or  changeling^,  laid  in  their  places.  Of  the  Saxons  they  were  called 
KiUcrope. 

"  Eight  years  since,"  suid  I^uther,  "  at  Dessau^  I  did  see  and  touch  such  a 
changed  child,  which  was  twelve  years  of  age ;  he  had  his  eyes,  and  all  members, 
like  another  child ;  he  did  nothing  but  feed,  and  would  eat  as  much  as  two  clowns 
were  able  to  eat.  I  told  the  Prince  of  Anhalt,  if  I  were  prince  of  that  country,  I 
would  venture  humicidium  thereon,  and  would  throw  it  into  the  liver  Moldan.  I 
Mbnonislied  the  people  dwelling  in  that  place  devoutly  to  pray  to  Qod  to  take 
away  the  devil.  The  same  was  done  accordingly,  and  the  second  year  after  the 
changeling  died. 

"  In  Saxony,  near  unto  Halberstadt,  was  a  man  that  also  had  a  killcrop^  who 
sucked  the  mother  and  five  other  women  dry,  and  besides  devoured  very  much. 
This  man  was  advised  that  he  should,  in  his  pilgrimage  at  Halberstadt,  make  a 
promise  of  the  killcrop  to  the  Virgin  Marie,  and  should  cause  him  there  to  be 
rocked.  This  advice  the  man  followed,  and  carried  the  changeling  thither  in  a 
basket.  But  going  over  a  river,  being  upon  the  bridge,  another  devil  that  was 
below  in  the  river,  called  and  said,  Killarop/  killcrop!  Then  the  child  in  the 
basket  (which  never  before  spoke  one  word)  ausweretl.  Ho,  ho.  The  devil  in  the 
water  asked  further,  AVhithcr  art  thou  going  ?  The  child  iu  the  basket  said,  I  am 
going  towards  Hocklestadt  to  our  loving  mother,  to  be  rocked.  The  man  being 
much  aiTrighted  thereat,  threw  the  child,  with  the  basket,  over  the  bridge  into  the 
water.  Whcreuiwn  the  two  devils  flew  away  together,  and  cried  Ho,  ho,  ha, 
tumbling  thcmHclves  over  one  another,  and  so  vanished." — Pp.  386,  387. 

With  respect  to  Luther's  Theological  Disputes  with  the  Devil,  see  the  ]iaKHages 
quoted  by  Bayle,  Art.  Lui/ier,  Note  U. 

Facts  of  this  Hort,  so  recent  in  their  date,  and  connected  with  the  hihtory  of  so 
gif  at  a  character,  are  consolatory  to  those  who,  smid  the  follies  and  rxtrnvagancics 


538      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  I. 

of  tbeir  contemporaries,  are  sometimes  tempted  to  despair  of  the  cause  of  truth, 
and  of  the  gradual  progress  of  human  reason. 

Note  F,  p.  76. 

Ben  Jonson  is  one  of  the  few  contemporary  writers  by  whom  the  transcendent 
genius  of  Bacon  appears  to  Iiavc  been  justly  appreciated;  and  the  only  one  I 
know  of  who  has  transmitted  any  idea  of  his  forensic  eloquence, — a  subject  on 
which,  from  his  own  professional  pursuits,  combined  with  the  reflecting  and  philo- 
sophical cast  of  his  mind,  Jonson  was  peculiarly  qualified  to  form  a  competent 
judgment.  "  There  happened,"  says  he,  '*  in  my  time,  one  noble  speaker,  who  was 
full  of  gravity  in  his  speaking.  No  man  ever  spoke  more  neatly,  more  pressly, 
more  weightily,  or  suffered  less  emptiness,  less  idleness  in  what  he  uttered.  No 
member  of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  its  own  graces.  His  hearers  could  not 
cough  or  look  aside  from  him  without  loss.  He  commanded  where  he  spoke,  and 
had  his  judges  angry  and  pleased  at  his  devotion.  The  fear  of  every  man  that 
heard  him  was,  that  ho  should  make  an  end."  No  finer  description  of  the  per- 
fection of  this  art  is  to  be  found  in  any  author,  ancient  or  modem. 

The  admiration  of  Jonson  for  Bacon  (whom  he  appears  to  have  known  inti- 
mately^) seems  almost  to  have  blinded  him  to  those  indelible  shades  in  his  fame, 
to  which,  even  at  this  distance  of  time,  it  is  impossible  to  turn  the  eye  without 
feelings  of  sorrow  and  humiliation.  Yet  tt  is  but  candid  to  conclude,  from  the 
posthumous  praise  lavished  on  him  by  Jonson  and  by  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,*  that 
the  servility  of  the  courtier,  and  the  laxity  of  the  judge,  were,  in  the  relations  of 
private  life,  redeemed  by  many  estimable  and  amiable  qualities.  That  man  must 
surely  have  been  marked  by  some  rare  features  of  moral  as  well  as  of  intellectual 
greatness,  of  whom,  long  after  his  death,  Jonson  could  write  in  the  following 
words :  — 

"  My  conceit  of  his  person  was  never  increased  toward  him  by  his  place  or 
honours ;  but  I  have  and  do  reverence  him,  for  the  greatness  that  was  only  proper 
to  himself,  in  that  he  seemed  to  me  ever,  by  his  works,  one  of  the  greatest  men, 
and  most  worthy  of  admiration,  that  had  been  in  many  ages.  In  his  adversity,  I 
ever  prayed  that  God  would  give  him  strength,  for  greatness  he  could  not  want. 
Neither  could  I  condole  in  a  word  or  syllable  for  him,  as  knowing  no  accident  could 
do  harm  to  virtue,  but  rather  help  to  make  it  manifest." 

In  Aubrey's  anecdotes  of  Bacon,*  there  are  several  particulars  not  unworthy  of 
the  attention  of  his  future  biographers.  One  expression  of  this  writer  is  more 
peculiarly  striking :  "  In  short,  all  that  were  ffreat  aiid  good  loved  and  honoured 
him."  When  it  is  consitlered,  that  Aubrey's  knowledge  of  Bacon  was  derived 
chiefly  through  the  medium  of  Hobbes,  who  had  lived  in  habits  of  the  most  inti- 
mate friendship  with  both,  and  whose  writings  shew  that  he  was  far  frova.  being 
an  idolatrous  admirer  of  Bacon's  philosophy,  it  seems  impossible  for  a  candid  mind, 
after  reading  the  foregoing  short  but  comprehensive  eulogy,  not  to  feci  a  strong 

»  Jou?on  U  nftiU  to  b*ve  tranidated  into  liUtiu  '  See  his  letU'rs  to  M.  de  Fennat.  pnuted  at 

emit  part  of  the  h<Hi)L^  De  Aufnncntis  Scienti-  the  end  of  Fcrmafs  Opera  MatAoHat U a,  To- 

aruiit.     ]>r.  Wurtoii  gtiites  this  (I  do  not  know  h^sao,  1 679. 

•Ml  what  authority)  as  an  un'Ioubtcd  fact.  -A'*-  »  Lately  published  in  the  extract^  from  the 

*ti.w  on  the  Gciihtf  and  WrUvnjn  of  poitt.  Bodleian  Library. 


NOTE  r.  539 

iiK'linatiun  tu  dwell  rather  on  tlic  fair  thou  un  the  dark  Hide  of  the  Chaucellor's 
character,  and,  before  pronouncing  an  unqualified  condemnation,  carefully  to  sepa- 
rate the  faults  of  the  age  from  those  of  the  individual. 

An  affecting  allusion  of  his  own,  in  one  of  his  greatest  works,  to  the  errors  and 
misfortunes  of  his  public  life,  if  it  does  not  atone  for  his  faults,  may,  at  least,  have 
some  effect  in  softening  the  asperity  of  our  censures.  '*  Ad  literas  potius  quam  ad 
oliud  quicquam  natus,  et  ad  res  gerendas  nescio  quo  fato  contra  genium  suum 
abreptus.'* — IJe  Avg.  Sclent,  lib.  viii.  cap.  iii. 

Even  in  Bacon's  professional  line,  it  is  now  admitted  by  the  best  judges  that  he 
was  greatly  underrated  by  his  contemporaries,  '*  The  Queen  did  acknowledge," 
says  the  Earl  of  Essex,  in  a  letter  to  Bacon  himself,  "  you  had  a  great  wit,  and  an 
excellent  gift  of  speech,  and  much  other  good  learning.  But  in  Uvw^  she  rather 
thought  you  could  make  show  to  the  utmost  of  your  knowledge,  than  that  you 
were  <ieep." 

"  If  it  be  asked,'^  says  Dr.  Kurd,  "  how  the  Queen  came  to  form  this  conclusion, 
the  answer  is  plain.  It  was  from  Mr.  Bacon's  having  a  great  wit,  an  excellent 
gift  of  speech,  and  much  other  good  learning." — Kurd's  IXaloffues. 

The  following  testimony  to  liacon^s  legal  knowledge,  (i)ointcd  out  to  me  by  a 
learned  friend,)  is  of  somewhat  more  weight  than  Queen  Elizabeth's  judgment 
against  it:  "  What  might  wo  not  have  expected,"  says  Mr.  Hargrave,  aOer  a  high 
encomium  on  the  powers  displayed  by  Bacon  in  his  "  Reading  on  the  Statute  of 
Uses;" — "  what  might  wo  not  have  expected  from  the  hands  of  such  a  master,  if 
his  vast  mind  had  not  so  embraced  vrithin  its  compass  the  whole  field  of  science 
as  ver}'  much  to  detach  him  from  professional  studies !" 

It  was  proliably  owing  in  part  to  his  court  disgrace  that  so  little  notice  waa 
taken  of  Bacon,  for  S4mie  time  afrer  his  death,  by  those  English  ^Titers  who  availed 
themselves  without  any  scniple  of  the  lights  struck  out  in  his  works.  A  very 
remarkable  example  of  this  occurs  in  a  curious,  though  now  almost  forgotten  book, 
(published  in  1627,)  entitled.  An  Apology  or  Declaration  of  the  J\)tper  and  Pro- 
ridtnce  of  God  in  tJte  Government  oftlte  Worlds  by  George  Hakewill,  D.D.,  Arch- 
deacon of  Surrey.  It  is  plainly  the  production  of  an  uncommonly  liberal  and  en- 
lightened mind,  well  stored  with  various  and  choice  learning,  collected  both  from 
ancient  and  modern  authors.  Its  general  aim  may  be  guessed  at  from  the  text  of 
Scripture  prefixed  to  it  as  a  motto—"  Say  not  thou,  what  is  the  cause  that  the 
former  days  are  better  than  these,  for  thou  dost  not  inquire  wisely  concerning 
this ;"  and  fr(»m  the  words  of  Ovid,  so  happily  applied  by  Ilakcwill  to  the  "  common 
error  touching  the  golden  age," 

"  PiiH:A  juTeirt  hIUw.  ego  ine  nunc  deiiique  imtuni 
(.'ratulor,' 

That  the  general  design  of  the  book,  as  well  as  many  incidental  observations 
containe<l  in  it,  was  borrowed  from  Bacon,  there  cannot,  I  apprehend,  be  a  doubt ; 
and  yet  I  do  not  recollect  more  than  one  or  two  references  (and  these  very  slight 
ones)  to  his  writings  through  the  whole  volume.  One  would  naturally  have  ex- 
pected that,  in  the  following  passage  of  the  epistle  dedicatory,  the  name  of  the 
late  unfortunate  Chancellor  of  England,  who  had  died  in  the  course  of  the  preced- 
ing year,  nn'ght  have  found  a  place  along  with  the  other  (/reat  clerks  there  enume- 
rated :  "  I  do  not  believe  that  all  regions  of  the  world,  or  all  ages  in  the  winie 


540      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  I. 

region,  afford  wits  always  alike ;  but  ihU  I  think,  (neither  is  it  my  opinion  alone, 
but  of  Scaliger,  Vives,  Budiens,  Bodin,  and  other  great  clerks,)  that  the  wits  of 
these  latter  ages,  being  manured  by  industry,  directed  by  precepts,  and  regulated 
by  method,  may  be  as  capable  of  deep  speculations,  and  produce  aa  masculine  and 
lasting  births,  as  any  of  the  ancienter  times  have  done.     But  if  we  conceive  them 
to  be  giants,  and  ourselves  dwarfs ;  if  we  imagine  all  sciences  already  to  have 
received  their  utmost  perfection,  so  as  we  need  not  but  translate  and  comment  on 
what  they  have  done,  surely  there  is  little  .hope  that  we  should  ever  come  near 
them,  much  less  match  them.     The  first  step  to  enable  a  man  to  the  achieving  of 
great  designs,  is  to  be  persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  achieve  them  ;  the  next  not  to 
be  persuaded,  that  whatsoever  hath  not  yet  been  done,  cannot  therefore  be  done. 
Not  any  one  man,  or  nation,  or  age,  but  rather  mankind  is  it,  which,  in  latitude 
of  capacity,  answers  to  the  universality  of  things  to  be  known."    In  another  passage 
Uakewill  observes  that,  "  if  we  will  speak  properly  and  punctually,  antiquity  rather 
consists  in  old  age,  than  in  the  infancy  or  youth  of  the  world."     I  need  scarcely 
add,  that  some  of  the  foregoing  sentences  are  almost  literal  transcripts  of  Bacon's 
words. 

The  philosophical  fame  of  Bacon  in  his  own  country  may  be  dated  from  the  esta- 
blishment of  the  Royal  Society  of  London ;  by  the  founders  of  which,  as  appears 
from  their  colleague.  Dr.  Sprat,  he  was  held  in  so  high  estimation,  that  it  was  once 
proposed  to  prefix  to  the  history  of  their  labours  some  of  Bacon's  writings,  as  the 
best  comment  on  the  views  with  which  they  were  undertaken.  Sprat  himself,  and 
his  illustrious  friend  Cowley,  were  among  the  number  of  Bacon's  earliest  eulogists  ; 
the  latter  in  an  Ode  to  the  Royal  Society,  too  well  known  to  require  any  notice 
here ;  the  former  in  a  very  splendid  passage  of  his  History,  from  which  1  shall 
borrow  a  few  sentences,  as  a  conclusion  and  ornament  to  this  note. 

"  For  it  is  not  wonderful,  that  he  who  had  run  through  all  the  degrees  of  that 
profession,  which  usually  takes  up  men's  whole  time ;  who  had  studied,  and  prac- 
tised, and  governed  the  common  law ;  who  had  always  lived  in  the  crowd,  and 
borne  the  greatest  burden  of  civil  business ;  should  yet  find  leisure  enough  for 
these  retired  studies,  to  excel  all  those  men,  who  separate  themselves  for  this  very 
purpose  ?     He  was  a  man  of  strong,  clear,  and  powerful  imaginations  ;  liis  genius 
was  searching  and  inimitable ;  and  of  this  I  need  give  no  other  proof  than  his 
style  itself;  which  a«,  for  the  most  part,  it  describes  men's  minds,  as  well  as  pic- 
tures do  their  bodies,  so  it  did  his  al)0ve  all  men  living.     The  course  of  it  vigorous 
and  mtyestical ;  the  wit  bold  and  familiar ;  the  comparisons  fetched  out  of  the  way, 
and  yet  the  more  easy :  •    In  all  expressing  a  soul  equally  skilled   in   men  and 
nature." 

Note  G,  p.  80. 

The  paradoxical  bias  of  Hobbcs's  undei  standing  is  never  so  conspicuous  as  when 
he  engages  in  physical  or  in  mathematical  discussions.     On  such  occasions,  he 
expresses  himself  with  even  more  than  his  usual  coiilidcnce  and  arrogance.     Of 
the  Royal  Society  {the  Virtuosi,  as  he  culls  thcni,  that  meet  at   (Jresham  Coiicge) 
he  writes  thus :    "  Convcniant,    studiii   conterant,    cxiK-rimcnla  faciant  quantum 

1  By  the  word  ca*.v,  1  presume  Sprat  here        lionary    siiuilca    borrowed     \>y    commonplace 
means  the  noUve  and  spontaneous  growth  of       writei-?  from  their  predeccssorH. 
Hiicon's  own  fancy,  in  opposition  to  the  tradi- 


NOTE8  G — 1.  541 

voluiit,  nisi  et  principiiH  utautur  mcis,  nihil  proficient."     And  elsewhere:    "A«l 

causas  auteni  propter  qiias  proticerc  ne  paullum  quidcm  potuitttiB  nee  pot^ritis, 

aecedunt  etiani  alia^  ut  odium  Hubbii,  quia  nimiuni  libere  BcripBcrat  de  academiifi 

veritatem:    Nam  ex  eo   tempore  irati  physici  ct  mathcmatici   vcritatem  ab  eo 

venientem  non  receptun)8  8e  palam  profeiifli  Runt.'*    In  his  English  publications,  ho 

indulges  in  a  vein  of  coarso  scurrility,  of  which  his  own  words  alone  can  convey 

^any  idea.     "  80  go  your  ways,"  says  he,  addressing  himself  to  Dr.  Wallis  and  Dr. 

Si'th  Ward,  two  of  the   most  eminent  mathematicians  then  in  England,  "  you 

uncivil  ecclesiastics,  inhuman  divines,  de-dtntors  of  morality,  unasinous  colleagues, 

egregious  pair  of  iMachara^  most  wretched  indices  and  vindices  academiarum ; 

and  remember  Vespasian's  law,  that  it  is  unlawful  to  give  ill  language  Jirtt,  hut 

riml  and  latrfvl  to  return  it." 

Note  H,  p.  83. 

With  respect  to  the  Ijeviathan,  a  vcr}'  curious  anecdote  is  mentioned  by  LonI 
Clarendon.  "When  I  returned,"  says  he,  "from  Spain  by  Paris,  Mr.  Hobbes 
frequently  came  to  me,  and  told  me  that  his  book,  which  he  would  call  Leviathan^ 
was  then  printing  in  England,  and  that  he  received  every  week  a  sheet  to  correct, 
and  thought  it  would  be  finished  within  a  little  more  than  a  month.  He  added, 
that  he  knew  when  I  read  the  book  I  would  not  like  it ;  and  thereupon  mentioned 
some  conclusions ;  upon  which  I  asked  him  why  he  woidd  publish  such  doctrines ; 
to  which,  afler  a  discourse  between  jest  and  earnest,  he  said,  *  The  truth  is,  I  have 
a  mind  to  go  hfime.^  ^  In  another  passage,  the  same  writer  expresses  himself 
thus : — "  The  renew  and  conclusion  of  the  Ijeviatluin  is,  in  truth,  a  sly  address  to 
Cromwell,  that,  l>cing  out  of  the  kingrlom,  and  so  bi'ing  neither  conquered  nor  his 
subject,  ho  niight,  by  his  return,  submit  to  his  government,  and  be  Inmnd  to  obey 
it.  This  n*view  and  conclusion  ho  made  short  enough  to  hope  that  Cromwell 
might  read  it ;  where  he  should  not  only  receive  the  pawn  of  his  new  subject's 
allegiance,  by  declaring  his  own  obligations  and  obedience,  but  by  pubhbhing 
such  doctrines  as,  being  diligently  infuse<l  by  such  a  master  in  the  art  of  govern- 
ment, might  secure  the  i>eople  of  the  kingdom  (over  whom  he  had  no  right  to 
command)  to  acquiesce  and  submit  to  his  brutal  |>ower." 

That  there  is  no  exaggeration  or  misrepresentation  of  facts  in  these  passages,  with 
the  view  of  injuring  the  character  of  Hobbes,  may  bo  confidently  presumed  from 
the  very  honourable  testimony  which  Clarendon  bears,  in  another  part  of  the  same 
work,  to  his  moral  as  well  as  intellectual  merits.  "  Mr.  Ilobbcs,"  he  observes, 
"  is  a  man  of  excellent  parts ;  of  great  wit ;  of  some  reading ;  and  of  somewhat 
more  thinking ;  one  who  has  siwnt  many  years  in  foreign  parts  and  observations : 
understands  the  leameil  as  well  aB  modem  languages ;  hath  long  had  the  repu- 
tation of  a  great  philosopher  and  mathematician  ;  and  in  his  ago  hath  had  con- 
versation with  many  worthy  and  extraordinary  men.  In  a  word,  he  is  one  of  the 
most  ancient  at'quaintance  I  have  in  the  world,  and  of  whom  1  have  always  had 
a  great  esteem,  as  a  man,  who,  besides  his  eminent  learning  and  knowledge,  hath 
been  always  looked  upcm  as  a  man  of  probity,  and  of  a  life  free  from  scandal." 

NoTR  I,  p.  117. 

It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  how  Descartes  reconciled,  to  his  own  satisfaction,  his 
fiequent  use  of  the  word  suhstanee^  as  applied  to  the  mind,  with  liis  favourite 


542    NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  I. 

doctrine,  that  the  essence  of  the  mind  consists  in  thow/ht.  Nothing  can  be  well 
imagined  more  unphilosophical  than  this  last  doctrine,  in  whatever  terms  it  is 
expressed  ;  but  to  designate  by  the  name  of  substance^  what  is  also  called  thcnghij 
in  the  course  of  the  same  argument,  renders  the  absuixlity  still  more  glaring  than 
it  would  otherwise  have  been. 

1  have  alluded,  in  the  text,  to  the  diflference  between  the  popular  and  the 
scholastic  notion  of  svbstance^     According  to  the  latter,  the  word  substcmce  cor-^ 
responds  to  the  Greek  word  •Wt»,  as  employed  by  Aristotle  to  denote  the  first  of 
the  predicaments ;   in  which  technical  sense  it  is  said,  in  the  language  of  the 
schools,  to  signify  thcU  wliich  supports  attributes,  or  which  is  subject  to  acddenU. 
At  a  period  when  every  person  liberally  educated  was  accustomed  to  this  barbarous 
jargon,  it  might  not  appear  altogether  absurd  to  apply  the  term  avhHance  to  the 
human  soul,  or  even  to  the  Deity.     But,  in  the  present  times,  a  writer  who  so 
employs  it  may  be  assured,  that,  to  a  great  majority  of  his  readers,  it  will  be  no 
less  puzzling  than  it  was  to  Crambe,  in  Martinus  Scribleiiis,  when  he  first  heard 
it  thus  defined  by  his  master  Cornelius.^     How  extraordinary  does  the  following 
sentence  now  sound  even  to  a  philosophical  ear  ?  and  yet  it  is  copied  from  a  work 
published  little  more  than   seventy  years  ago,   by  the   learned   and  judicious 
Gravesande :  "  SubstantisD  suntaut  cogitantes,  aut  non  cogitantes  ;  cogitantes  duas 
novimus,  Deum  et  mentcm  nostram.    Duae  etiam  substantise,  quae  non  cogitant, 
nobis  not«e  sunt,  spatium  et  corpus." — Inlrod.  ad  Phil.  §  19. 

The  Greek  word  •wr/«  (derived  from  the  participle  of  tifii)  is  not  liable  to  these 
objections.  It  obtrudes  no  sensible  image  on  the  fancy;  and,  in  this  respect,  has 
a  great  advantage  over  the  Latin  word  substantia.  The  former,  in  its  logical 
acceptation,  is  an  extension  to  Matter,  of  an  idea  originally  derived  from  Mind. 
The  latter  is  an  extension  to  Mind,  of  an  idea  originally  derived  from  Matter. 

Instead  of  defining  mind  to  be  a  tliinking  substance^  it  seems  much  more  logi> 
cally  correct  to  define  it  a  thinking  being.  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  still,  to 
avoid,  by  the  use  of  the  pronoun  that^  any  substantive  whatever,  '*  Mind  is  thai 
which  thinks,  wills,"  &c. 

The  foregoing  remarks  afford  me  an  opportunity  of  exemplifying  what  I  have 
elsewhere  observed  concerning  the  effects  which  the  scholastic  philosophy  has  left 
on  the  present  habits  of  thinking,  even  of  those  who  never  cultivated  that  brancb 
of  learning.  In  consequence  of  the  stress  laid  on  the  predicaments,  men  became 
accustomed  in  their  youth  to  imagine,  that  in  order  to  know  the  nature  of  any- 
thing, it  was  sufficient  to  know  under  what  predicament  or  category  it  ought  to  be 
arranged ;  and  that,  till  this  was  done,  it  remained  to  our  faculties  a  subject  merely 
of  ignorant  wonder."    Hence  the  impotent  attempt  to  comprehend  under  some  com- 


1  "  When  he  was  told  a  suhttance  was  that 
which  was  subject  to  accidents,  then  soldiers, 
quoth  Crambe,  are  the  ino8t  subi<tanlial  people 
in  the  world."  Let  me  ndd,  that,  in  the  list  of 
philosophical  reforment.  the  authors  of  Martinus 
Scriblerus  ought  n<  t  to  be  OTerlooked.  Their 
happy  ridicule  of  the  scholastic  Logic  and  Meta- 
physics is  universally  known ;  but  few  arc  aware 
of  the  acuteness  and  sagacity  displayed  in  their 
allusions  to  some  of  the  mo.«it  rulnerablc  passages 


in  Locke's  Essay.    In  this  part  of  the  work  it  is 
commonly  understood  Uiat  Arbuthnot  had  the 

piinci{ial  share. 

"  [So  far  was  this  idea  carried,  at  a  very  re- 
cent period,  that  as  late  as  1560,  we  read  of  a 
public  dispute  held  at  Weimar  between  tBo 
Lutheran  divines,  Flacius  and  Strigeliiu ,  on  the 
following  question : — "  Whether  original  sin  is 
to  be  placed  in  the  cla.^  of  substances  or  of  ac- 


NOTES  I — L.  043 

mon  name  (such  na  that  of  substance)  the  heterogeneous  cxiHtences  of  matter^  of 

mirul,  and  even  of  emi4y  apace ;  and  hence  the  endless  disputes  to  which  the  Ust 

of  these  words  has  given  rise  in  the  Schools. 

In  our  own  times,  Kant  and  his  followers  seem  to  have  thought  that  they  had 

ihrown  a  new  and  strong  light  on  the  nature  of  sjxicej  and  also  oftimej  when  they 

introduced  the  word/onw  (forms  of  the  intellect)  as  a  common  term  applicable  to 

l>oth.     is  not  this  to  revert  to  the  scholastic  fully  of  verbal  generalization  ?    And 

is  it  not  evident,  that  of  things  which  are  unique  (such  as  matter,  mind,  space,  time) 

no  classification  is  practicable  ?     Indeed,  to  si>eak  of  classifying  what  has  nothing 

in  common  with  anything  else,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.     It  was  thus  that  St. 

Augustine  felt  when  he  said,  "  Quid  sit  tcmpus,  si  nemoquaerat  a  me,  scio ;  si  quis 

intcrroget,  nescio."     Uis  idea  evidently  was,  that  although  he  annexed  as  clear 

and  precise  a  notion  to  the  word  time  as  ho  could  do  to  any  object  of  human 

thought,  he  was  unable  to  find  any  term  more  general  under  which  it  could  be 

comprehended ;  and,  consequently,  unable  to  give  any  definition  by  which  it  might 

bo  explained. 

Note  K,  p.  117. 

"  Les  Meditations  de  Descartes  pariirent  en  1641.  C'etoit,  de  tous  scs  ouvrages, 
celui  qu*il  estimoit  le  plus.  Ce  qui  caracteriso  surtout  cet  ouvrage,  c'est  qu'il 
contient  sa  fameusc  demoiiHtration  de  Dieu  par  Tidee,  demonstration  si  rep^'tee  dc- 
puis,  adoptee  par  les  unes,  ct  rejettee  par  les  autres ;  et  qu'il  est  le  premier  oti  la 
distinction  de  V esprit  et  de  la  matihre  soit  parfaitement  divelopp^e,  car  avant  Des- 
cartes on  n'avoit  encore  bicn  approfondi  les  prcuves  philosophiqucs  de  la  spirituality 
do  I'amc." — Uloffc  de  Descartes,  par  M.  Thomas.    Note  20. 

If  the  remarks  in  the  text  be  correct,  the  charactenstical  merits  of  Descartes* 
Meditiiti&ns  do  not  consist  in  the  novelty  of  the  proofs  contained  in  them  of  the 
spirituality  of  the  soul,  (on  which  point  Descartes  has  added  little  or  nothing  to 
what  had  been  advanced  by  his  predecessors,)  but  in  the  clear  and  decisive  argu- 
ments by  which  they  expose  the  absurdity  of  attempting  to  explain  the  mental 
phenomena  by  analogies  lioiTowcd  from  those  of  matter.  Of  this  distinction,  neither 
Thomas,  nor  Turgot,  nor  D'Alembert,  nor  Condorcet,  seom  to  have  been  at  all 
aware. 

I  quote  from  the  last  of  these  writers  an  additional  proof  of  the  confusion  of  ideas 
upon  this  point,  still  prevalent  among  the  most  acute  logicians.  "  Ainsi  la  spi- 
rituality, de  V&me,  n'est  pas  une  opinion  qui  ait  besoin  de  prcuves,  mais  le  resultat 
simple  et  naturel  d'un  analyse  exactc  de  nos  idees,  et  de  nos  facultes." — ( Vie  de 
M.  Turgot.)  Substitute  for  spirituality  the  word  immateriality,  and  the  observa- 
tion becomes  equally  just  and  im]>ortant. 

Note  L,  p.  118. 

Hie  following  extract  from  Descartes  might  be  easily  mistaken  for  a  passage  in 
the  Novum  Organon. 

"  Quoniam  infantes  nati  sumus,  et  varia  de  rebus  sensibilibus  judicia  prius  tuli- 
niUB,  quam  integnmi  nostras  rationis  usum  habercmus,  niultis  praejudiciis  a  veri 

cidi-ntsf"  Which  dijipute,  ludicrous  as  it  may  lasted,  the  progress  of  the  Lutheran  Reforma- 
now  seem,  appears  from  Mottheiin  to  have  spread  tlon.—  Mo$hfim,  tmrslated  by  Madainc,  vol.  I, 
m  wide  a  flame  an  to  hare  retarded,  while  it        pp.  43.  44  ] 


544     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PAKT  f. 

cognitione  avertiniur,  quibus  nou  aliter  videtuur  posse  liberari,  quam  bi  seme]  in 
vita,  de  iis  omnibus  studeamus  dubitare,  in  quibus  vel  niininiam  incertitudinis  sus- 
picioncm  reperiemus. 

"  Quin  et  ilia  ctiam,  de  quibus  dubitabimus,  utile  erit  habere  pro  falsis,  iit  tanto 
clarius,  quidnam  certissimum  et  cognitu  facillimum  sit,  inveniarous. 

"  Itaqne  ad  serio  philosophandum,  veritatemque  omnium  reruro  cog'noBcibilium 
indagandam,  pnmo  omnia  pracjudicia  sunt  deponenda;  sive  accurate  est  cavenduni, 
ne  ullis  ex  opinionibus  olim  a  nobis  receptis  fidem  habeamus,  nisi  prias,  iis  ad 
novum  examen  revocatis,  vcras  esse  comperiamus." — Princ.  Phil.  Pars  Primn^ 
^  lii.  Ixxv. 

Notwithstanding  these  and  various  other  similar  coincidences,  it  has  been 
asserted,  with  some  confidence,  that  Descartes  had  never  read  the  works  of  Bacon. 
"  Quelqucs  auteurs  assurent  que  Descartes  n'avoit  point  lu  les  ouvrages  de  Bacon  ; 
et  il  nous  dit  lui-meme  dans  une  de  ses  lettres,  qu'il  ne  lut  que  fort  tard  Ics  princi- 
paux  ouvragcs  de  Galilee." — {Eloge  de  Descartes,  par  Thomas.)  Of  the  veracity 
of  Descartes  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt ;  and  therefore  I  consider  this  last  fact 
(however  extraordinary)  as  completely  established  by  his  own  testimony.  But  it 
would  require  more  evidence  than  the  assertions  of  those  nameless  writers  alluded 
to  by  Thomas,  to  convince  me  that  he  had  never  looked  into  an  author  so  highly 
extolled  as  Bacon  is,  in  the  letters  addressed  to  himself  by  his  illustrious  antago- 
nist, Gassendi. ,  At  any  rate,  if  this  was  actually  the  case,  I  cannot  subscribe  to 
the  reflection  subjoined  to  the  foregoing  quotation  by  his  eloquent  eulogist :  "  Si 
cela  est,  il  faut  convenir,  que  la  gloire  de  Descartes  en  est  bien  plus  grande." 

[When  the  first  edition  of  this  Dissertation  was  sent  to  the  press,  I  had  not  an 
opportunity  of  consulting  cither  the  letters  of  Descartes,  or  his  life  by  Baillet, 
otherwise  I  should  have  expressed  myself  more  decidedly  with  respect  to  the  sen- 
tence quoted  above  from  Thomas.  The  following  passage  is  from  Baillet : — 
"  Quoique  Descartes  se  fut  fait  une  route  toute  nouvelle,  avant  que  d'avoir  jamais 
oui  parlcr  de  ce  grand  homme,  (Bacon,)  ni  de  ses  desseins,  il  paroit  neanmoins  que 
ses  ecrita  ne  lui  fiirent  pas  entii^rement  inutiles.  L'on  voit  en  divers  endroits  de 
ses  lettres  qu'il  no  desapprouvoit  point  sa  methode,"  &c.  [p.  149.]  In  confirmation 
of  this  remark,  the  following  references  (which  I  have  not  yet  had  it  in  my  power  to 
verify)  are  quoted  in  the  margin  : — Tom.  ii.  de  Lettres,  pp.  330,  494,  and  p.  324.] 

Note  M,  p.  131. 

From  the  indissoluble  union  between  the  notions  of  colour  and  extension,  Dr. 
Berkeley  has  drawn  a  curious,  and,  in  my  opinion,  most  illogical  argument  in 
favour  of  his  scheme  of  idealism  ; — which,  as  it  may  throw  some  additional  light 
on  the  phenomena  in  question,  I  shall  transcribe  in  his  own  words. 

"  Perhaps,  upon  a  strict  inquiry,  we  shall  not  find,  that  even  those  who,  from 
their  birth,  have  grown  up  in  a  continued  habit  of  seeing,  are  still  irrevocably  pre- 
judiced on  the  other  side,  to  wit,  in  thinking  what  they  see  to  be  at  a  distance 
from  them.  For,  at  this  time,  it  seems  agreed  on  all  hands,  that  colours,  which 
are  the  proper  and  immediate  objects  of  sight,  are  not  without  the  mind.  But 
then,  it  will  be  said,  by  sight  we  have  also  the  ideas  of  extension,  and  figure,  and 
motion ;  all  which  may  well  be  thought  without,  and  at  some  distance  from  the 
mind,  though  colour  should  not.     In  answer  to  this,  I  appeal  to  any  man's  experi- 


NOTE  N.  545 

enco,  whether  the  visible  extension  uf  any  object  doth  not  appear  as  near  to  him 
as  the  colour  of  that  object ;  nay,  whether  they  do  not  both  seem  to  be  in  the 
Bome  place.  Ih  not  the  extension  wo  sec  coloared ;  and  is  it  possible  for  us,  so 
much  as  in  thought,  to  separate  and  abstract  colour  from  extension  ?  Now,  where 
the  extension  is,  there  surely  is  the  figure,  and  there  the  motion  too.  I  speak  of 
those  which  are  perceived  by  sight."  ^ 

Among  the  multitude  of  arguments  advanced  by  Berkeley,  in  support  of  his 
favourite  theory,  I  do  not  recollect  any  that  strikes  me  more  with  the  appearance 
of  a  wilful  sophism  than  the  foregoing.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  so  very 
acute  a  reasoner  should  not  have  perceived  that  his  premises,  in  this  instance,  lead 
to  a  conclusion  directly  opposite  to  what  he  has  drawn  from  them.  Supposing  all 
mankind  to  have  an  irresistible  conviction  of  the  outneM  and  distance  of  extension 
and  figure,  it  is  very  easy  to  explain,  from  the  association  of  ideas,  and  from  our 
early  habits  of  inattention  to  the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  how  the  sensations 
of  colour  should  appear  to  the  imagination  to  bo  transported  out  of  the  mind.  But 
if,  according  to  Berkeley's  doctrines,  the  constitution  of  human  nature  leads  men 
to  believe  that  extension  and  figure,  and  every  other  quality  of  the  material  uni- 
verse, exists  only  witliin  themselves,  whence  the  ideas  of  external  and  of  internal ; 
of  remote  or  of  near  f  When  Berkeley  says,  '*  I  appeal  to  any  man's  experience, 
whether  the  visible  extension  of  any  object  doth  not  appear  as  near  to  him  as  the 
colour  of  that  object ;"  how  much  more  reasonable  would  it  have,  been  to  have 
stated  the  indisputable  fact,  that  the  colour  of  the  object  ap|K'ars  as  remote  as  its 
extension  and  figure?  Nothing,  in  my  opinion,  can  afford  a  more  conclusive 
proof,  that  the  natural  judgment  of  the  mind  is  against  the  inference  just  quoted 
from  Berkeley,  than  the  problem  of  D*Alembert,  which  has  given  occasion  to  this 

discussion. 

Notf.  N,  p.  138. 

It  is  observed  by  Dr.  Reid,  that  "  the  system  which  is  now  generally  received 
with  regard  to  the  mind  and  its  operations,  derives  not  only  its  spirit  from  Des- 
cartes, but  its  fundamental  principles ;  and  that,  afler  all  the  improvements  made 
by  Malebranchc,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume,  it  may  still  be  called  the  Cartesian 
system." — Conclusion  of  the  Ittquiry  into  the  JIuman  Mind. 

The  part  of  the  Cartesian  system  here  alluded  to  is  the  hypothesis,  that  the 
communication  Itetwceii  the  mind  and  cxteninl  objects  is  carried  on  by  means  of 
ideas  or  imnges; — not^  indeed,  tran8mitte<iyro/»  without^  (as  the  Aristotelians 
supposed,)  through  the  channel  of  the  senses,  but  nevertheless  bearing  a  relation 
to  the  qualities  perceived,  analogous  to  that  of  an  impression  on  wax  to  the  seal 
by  which  it  was  stamped.  In  this  last  assumption,  Aristotle  and  Descartes  agreed 
perfectly;  and  the  chief  difference  between  them  was,  that  Descartes  palliated,  or 
rather  kept  out  of  view,  the  more  obvious  absunlities  of  the  old  theory,  by  rejecting 
the  unintelligible  supposition  of  intentional  sj)eci€S,  and  by  substituting,  iustead  of 
the  word  image,  the  more  indefinite  and  ambiguous  wonl  idea. 

But  there  was  another  and  very  important  step  made  by  Descartes,  in  restricting 
the  ideal  Tlieory  to  the  primary  qualities  of  matter;  its  secontlary  qualities  (of 
colour,  souu'l,  smell,  taste,  heat,  and  cold)  having,  according  to  him,  no  more 
resemblance  to  the  sensations  by  means  of  which  they  are  i>erccived,  than  arbitrary 

1  Bssaif  toward  a  Ifete  Tkcorp  of  VIsUm,  p.  2)5. 
VOL.  L  2  M 


546       NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSEUTATION. — PAUT  I. 

Bounds  have  to  the  things  they  denote,  or  the  edge  of  a  sword  to  the  pain  it  may 
occasion.  (Princ.  Pars  iv.  §§  197,  198.)  To  this  doctrine  he  frequentl/  recum 
in  other  parts  of  his  works. 

In  these  modifications  of  the  Aristotelian  Theory  of  Perception,  Locke  ac- 
quiesced entirely ;  explicitly  asserting,  that  "  the  idetis  of  primary  qualities  are 
resemblances  of  them,  but  that  the  ideas  of  secondary  qualities  have  no  resemblance 
to  them  at  all." — Essay ^  B.  ii.  c.  viii.  §  15. 

Wlien  pressed  by  Gassendi  to  explain  how  images  of  extension  and  fi^re  can 
exist  in  an  unextended  mind,  Descartes  expresses  himself  thus  :  "  Qunris  qnomodo 
existimem  in  me  subjccto  inextenso  recipi  posse  specicm  ideamve  corporis  quod 
extensum  est.  Respondeo  nullam  speciem  corpoream  in  mente  recipi,  sed  puram 
intellectionem  tam  rei  corporeas  quam  incorpore«Q  fieri  absque  ulla  specie  oor- 
porea ;  ad  imaginationem  vero,  quae  non  nisi  de  rebus  corporeis  esse  potest,  opiu 
quidem  esse  specie  quae  sit  verum  corpus,  et  ad  quam  mens  se  appUeet,  sed  non 
qusB  in  mente  recipiatur.'' — Jiesponsio  de  its  quce  in  sextam  Medit4Uionem  objeda 
sunt^  §  4. 

In  tliis  reply  it  is  manifestly  assumed  as  an  indisputable  principle,  that  the 
immediate  objects  of  our  thoughts,  when  we  imagine  or  conceive  the  primary 
qualities  of  extension  and  figure,  are  ideas  or  species  of  these  qualities ;  and,  of 
(consequence,  are  themselves  extended  and  figured.  Had  it  only  occurred  to  hira 
to  apply  (mnUUis  mtUandis)  to  the  perception  of  primary  qualities,  his  own  account 
of  the  perception  of  secondary  qualities,  (that  it  is  obtained,  to  wit,  by  the  media 
of  sensations  more  analogous  to  arbitrary  signs,  than  to  stamps  or  pictures,)  he 
might  have  eluded  the  difficulty  started  by  Gassendi,  without  being  reduced  to 
the  disagreeable  necessity  of  supposing  his  ideas  or  images  to  exist  in  the  brain, 
and  not  in  the  mind.  The  language  of  Mr.  Locke,  it  is  observable,  sometimes 
implies  the  one  of  these  hypotheses,  and  sometimes  the  other. 

It  was  plainly  with  the  view  of  escaping  from  the  dilemma  proposed  by  Gassendi 
to  Descartes,  that  Newton  and  Clarke  were  led  to  adopt  a  mode  of  speaking  con- 
cerning perception,  approaching  very  nearly  to  the  lang^uage  of  Descartes.  "  Is 
not,"  says  Newton,  "  the  scnsorium  of  animals  the  place  where  the  sentient  sab- 
stance  is  present;  and  to  which  the  sensible  species  of  things  are  brought,  through 
the  nerves  and  brain,  that  there  they  may  be  perceived  by  the  mind  present  m  that 
place  ?"  And  still  more  confidently  Dr.  Clarke  :  "  Without  being  present  to  the 
images  of  the  things  perceived,  the  soul  could  not  possibly  perceive  them.  A 
living  substance  can  only  there  perceive  where  it  is  present.  Nothing  can  any 
more  act  or  be  acted  upon  where  it  is  not  present,  than  it  can  when  it  is  not" 
Tlie  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities  was  afterwards  rejected 
by  Berkeley,  in  the  course  of  his  argument  against  the  existence  of  matter ;  bat 
he  continued  to  retain  the  language  of  Descales  concerning  ideas^  and  to  consider 
them  as  the  immediate^  or  rather  as  the  <mly  objects  of  our  thoughts,  wherever  the 
external  senses  are  concerned.  Mr.  Himie's  notions  and  expressions  on  the 
subject  are  very  nearly  the  same. 

I  thought  it  necessary  to  enter  into  these  details,  in  order  to  show  with  what 
limitations  the  remark  quoted  from  Dr.  Reid  in  the  beginning  of  this  note  ought 
to  Ihj  received.  It  is  certainly  true,  that  the  Cartesian  system  may  be  said  to 
form  the  groundwork  of  liOcke^s  Theory  of  Perception,  as  well  as  of  the  sceptical 


NOTE  O.  547 

coiiclusionH  dodiicetl  from  it  by  Berkeley  and  Hume;  but  it  ih  not  tlie  Ichs  true, 

that  it  forms  also  the  groundwork  of  all  that  has  since  been  done  towards  the 

substitution,  in  place  of  this  scepticism,  of  n  more  solid   fabric  of  metaphysical 

science. 

Note  0,  p.  139. 

After  the  pains  taken  by  Descartes  to  ascertain  the  seat  of  the  soul,  it  is  sur- 
prising to  find  one  of  the  most  learned  English  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century 
(Dr.  Henry  More)  accusing  him  as  an  abettor  of  the  dangerous  hereny  o(  NuUibisin. 
Of  thiH  heresy  Dr.  More  represents  Descartes  as  the  chief  author ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  speaks  of  it  as  so  completely  extravagant,  that  he  is  at  a  loss  whether 
to  treat  it  as  a  serious  opinion  of  the  philosopher,  or  as  the  jest  of  a  buffoon. 
"  The  chief  author  and  leader  of  the  Nullibists,"  he  tells  us,  "  seems  to  have  been 
thtU  pteasatU  wli^  Benahu  Descartes^  who,  by  his  joatlar  metaphysical  medita- 
tions, has  luxated  and  distorted  the  rational  faculties  of  some  otherwise  sober  and 
qnick-witted  persons." — [It  is  not  easy  (considering  the  acknowledged  simplicity 
and  integrity  of  More's  character)  to  reconcile  these  sarcastic  and  contemptuous 
expressions,  with  the  unqualified  praise  lavished  on  Descartes  in  the  course  of 
their  epistolary  correspondence. — (See  Cartesii  Episi*  Pars  i.  £p.  66,  et  9eq.)  In 
a  letter,  too,  addressed  to  M.  CHerselier,  five  years  after  the  death  of  Descartes, 
More  expresses  himself  thus : — "  In  nominem  aptius  quadrat,  quam  in  divinum 
ilium  virum,  Horatianum  illud, — '  Qui  nil  molitur  inepU'  "  At  the  end  of  this 
letter,  he  subscribes  himself,  "  Tibi  Cartesianisqtte  omnibus  addictistimua^  H.  My 
With  respect  to  these  inconsistencies  in  the  language  of  More,  see  Baillet,  Vie 
de  Descartes ^  livre  vii.  chap.  15.]  To  those  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the 
philosophy  of  Descartes,  it  is  unnecessary  to  observe,  that,  so  far  from  being  n 
NuUibist,  he  valued  himself  not  a  little  on  having  fixed  tlie  precise  uhi  of  the  soul 
with  a  degree  of  accuracy  unthought  of  by  any  of  his  predecessors.  As  he  held, 
however,  that  the  soul  was  unextended^  and  as  More  happened  to  conceive  that 
nothing  which  was  unextendod  could  have  any  reference  to  place,  he  seems  to 
have  thought  himself  entitled  to  impute  to  Descartes,  in  direct  opposition  to  his 
own  words,  the  latter  of  these  opinions  as  well  as  the  former.  "  The  true  notion 
of  a  spirit,'*  according  to  More,  "  is  that  of  an  extended  penetrable  substance, 
logically  and  intellectually  divisible,  but  not  physically  discernible  into  parts." 

Wlioever  has  the  curiosity  to  look  into  the  works  of  this  once  admired,  and,  in 
truth,  very  able  logician,  will  easily  discover  that  his  alarm  at  the  philosophy  of 
Descartes  was  really  occasioned,  not  by  the  scheme  of  nullibism,  but  by  the 
Cartesian  doctrine  of  the  non-extension  of  mind,  which  More  thought  incon- 
sistent with  a  fundamental  article  in  his  own  creed — ^the  existence  of  witches  and 
apparitions.  To  hint  at  any  doubt  about  either,  or  even  to  hold  any  opinion  that 
seemed  to  weaken  their  credibility,  appeared  to  this  excellent  person  quite  a 
sufficient  proof  of  complete  atheism. 

The  observations  of  More  on  "  the  true  notion  of  a  spirit "  (extracted  bom  his 
Enchiridion  Ethicum)  were  aflerwarda  republished  in  Glanviirs  book  upon 
witchcraft ; — a  work  (as  I  before  mentioned)  proceeding  from  the  same  pen  with 
the  Scepsis  Scientifica^  one  of  the  most  acute  and  original  productions  of  which 
Klnglish  philosophy  had  then  to  boast. 

If  Kome  of  the  foregoing  particulars  should,  at  lirst  sight,  appear  unworthy  of 


548      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  I. 

attention  in  a  hiatorical  sketch  of  the  progress  of  science,  I  must  beg  IcaTe  to 
remind  my  readers,  that  they  belong  to  a  history  of  still  higher  importance  and 
dignity — that  of  the  progress  of  Reason,  and  of  the  Human  Mind. 

Note  P,  p.  141. 

For  an  interesting  sketch  of  the  chief  events  in  the  life  of  Descartes,  see  the 
Notes  annexed  to  his  Eloge  by  Thomas ;  where  also  is  to  be  found  a  very  pleasing 
and  lively  portrait  of  his  moral  qualities.  As  for  the  distinguishing  merits  of  the 
Cartesian  philosophy,  and  more  particularly  of  the  Cartesian  metaphysics,  it  was 
a  subject  peculiarly  ill  adapted  to  the  pen  of  this  amiable  and  eloquent,  but  rerbose 
and  declamatory  academician. 

I  am  doubtful,  too,  if  Thomas  has  not  gone  too  far,  in  the  following  passage,  on 
a  subject  of  which  he  was  much  more  competent  to  judge  than  of  some  others 
which  he  has  ventured  to  discuss.     "  L'imagination  brillante  de  Descartes  se  de- 
cile partout  dans  ses  ouvrages ;  et  sMl  n*avoit  voulu  etre  ni  geomdtre  ni  philosophe, 
il  n'auroit  tenu  qu'a  lui  d'etre  le  plus  bel  esprit  de  son  temps."    "WTiatever  opinion 
may  be  formed  on  this  last  assertion,  it  will  not  be  disputed  by  those  who  have 
studied  Descartes,  that  his  philosophical  style  is  remarkably  diy,  concise,  and 
severe.    Its  great  merit  lies  in  its  singular  predsion  and  perspicuity ;  a  perspicuity, 
however,  which  does  not  dispense  with  a  moment's  relaxation  in  the  reader's  atten- 
tion, the  author  seldom  repeating  his  remarks,  and  hardly  ever  attempting  to  illus- 
trate or  to  enforce  them  either  by  reasoning  or  by  examples.    In  all  these  respects, 
his  style  forms  a  complete  contrast  to  that  of  Bacon's. 

In  Descartes'  tpistolary  compositions,  indeed,  ample  evidences  are  to  be  found 
of  his  vivacity  and  fancy,  as  well  as  of  his  classical  taste.  One  of  the  most  remark^ 
able  is  a  letter  addressed  to  Balzac,  in  which  he  gives  his  reasons  for  preferring 
Holland  to  all  other  countries,  not  only  as  a  tranquil,  but  as  an  agreeable  residence 
for  a  philosopher :  and  enters  into  some  very  engaging  details  concerning  his  own 
petty  habits.  The  praise  bestowed  on  this  letter  by  Thomas  is  by  no  means  extra- 
vagant,  when  he  compares  it  to  the  liest  of  Balzac's.  "  Je  ne  89ai8  8*il  y  a  rieli 
dans  tout  Balzac  ou  il  y  ait  autant  d'esprit  et  d'agrement." 

Note  Q,  p.  147. 

It  is  an  error  common  to  by  far  the  greater  number  of  modem  metaphysicians, 
to  suppose  that  there  is  no  medium  between  the  innate  ideas  of  Descartes,  and  the 
opposite  theory  of  Gassendi.  In  a  very  ingenious  and  learned  essay  on  Philoso- 
phical Prejudices,  by  M.  Trembley,*  I  find  the  following  sentence : — "  Mais  Tex- 
perience  dement  ce  systeme  des  idees  inn^es,  puisque  la  privation  d*un  sens  em- 
porte  avec  elle  la  privation  des  idces  attachees  &  ce  sens,  comme  Ta  rmnarqn^ 
IHIlustre  auteur  de  VEeeai  Analytique  sur  les  Faculty  de  VAmeJ* 

What  are  we  to  understand  by  the  remark  here  ascribed  to  Mr.  Bonnet?  Does 
it  mean  nothing  more  than  this,  that  to  a  person  bom  blind  no  instruction  can 
convey  an  idea  of  colours,  nor  to  a  person  bom  deaf,  of  sounds  ?  A  remark  of 
this  sort  surely  did  not  need  to  be  sanctioned  by  the  united  names  of  Bonnet  and 
of  Trembley :  Nor,  indeed,  does  it  bear  in  the  slightest  degree  on  the  point  in  dis- 
pute.    The  question  is  not  about  our  ideas  of  the  material  world,  but  about  those 

1  Etiai  tur  la  Prij%tghy  kc.    Neofchatel,  1790. 


NOTE  R.  549 

ideas  on  metaphyaical  and  moral  subjects,  which  may  be  equally  imparted  to  the 
blind  and  to  the  deaf;  enabling  them  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  the  same 
truths,  and  exciting  in  their  minds  the  same  moral  emotions.  The  siffiu  employed 
in  the  reasonings  of  these  two  classes  of  persons  will-  of  course  excite  by  associa* 
tion,  in  their  respective  fancies,  very  different  material  images ;  but  whence  the 
origin  of  the  physical  and  moral  notions  of  which  these  signs  are  the  vehicle,  and 
for  suggesting  which,  aU  sets  of  sig^s  seem  to  be  equally  fitted?  The  astonishing 
scientific  attainments  of  many  persons,  blind  from  their  birth,  and  the  progress 
lately  made  in  the  instruction  of  the  deaf,  furnish  palpable  and  incontestable  proofs 
of  the  flimsiness  of  this  article  of  the  Epicurean  philosophy ;  so  completely  verified 
is  now  the  original  and  profound  conclusion  long  ago  formed  by  Dalgarno — '*  That 
the  soul  can  exert  her  powers  by  the  ministry  of  any  of  the  senses :  And,  there- 
fore, when  she  is  deprived  of  her  principal  secretaries,  the  eye  and  the  ear,  then 
she  must  be  contented  with  the  service  of  her  lackeys  and  scullions,  the  other 
senses,  which  are  no  less  true  and  faithful  to  their  mistress  than  the  eye  and  the 
ear,  but  not  so  quick  for  dispatch." — Didascalocophtu^  &c.,  Oxford,  1680. 

I  was  once  in  hopes  of  being  able  to  throw  a  still  stronger  light  on  the  subject 
of  this  note,  by  attempting  to  ascertain  experimentally  the  possibility  of  awakening 
and  cultivating  the  dormant  pow^ers  of  a  boy  destitute  of  the  organs  both  of  sight 
and  of  hearing,  but  unexpected  occurrences  have  disappointed  my  expectations. 

I  have  just  learned  that  a  case  somewhat  similar,  though  not  quite  so  favourable 
in  all  its  circumstances,  has  recently  occurred  in  the  state  of  Connecticut  in  New 
England ;  and  I  have  the  satisfaction  to  add,  there  is  some  probability  that  so 
rare  an  opportunity  for  philosophical  observations  and  experiments  will  not  be 
overlooked  in  that  quarter  of  the  world. 

Note  B,  p.  149. 

Of  Gassendi's  orthodoxy  as  a  Roman  Catholic  divine,  he  has  left  a  very  curious 
memorial,  in  an  inaugural  discourse  pronounced  in  1645,  before  Cardinal  Riche- 
lieu,* when  he  entered  on  the  duties  of  his  office  as  Regius  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics at  Paris.  The  great  object  of  the  oration  is  to  apologize  to  his  auditors  for 
his  having  abandoned  his  ecclesiastical  functions,  to  teach  and  cultivate  the  pro< 
fane  science  of  geometry.  With  this  view,  he  proposes  to  explain  and  illustrate 
the  saying  of  Plato,  who,  being  questioned  about  the  employment  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  answered  rutf^iT^tTv  to  Btit,  In  the  prosecution  of  this  argument,  he  ex- 
presses himself  thus  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity : — 

*'  Anne  proinde  hoc  adorandum  Trinitatis  mysterium  habebimus  rursus  ut  sphie- 
ram,  ciyus  quasi  centrum  sit  Pater  JStemus,  qui  totius  divinitatis  fons,  origo, 
principium  accommodate  dicitur;  circumferentia  Filius,  in  quo  legitur  habitare 
plenitude  Divinitatis;  et  radii  centro  circumferentiieque  intercedcntes  Spiritus 
Sanctus,  qui  est  Patris  et  f^lii  nexus,  vinculimique  mutuum?  Anne  potius 
diccndum  est  eminere  in  hoc  mysterio  quicquid  sublime  magnificumque  humana 
geometria  etiamnum  requirit?  Percelebre  est  latere  earn  adhuc,  quam  quadratu- 
ram  circuli  vocant;  atque  idcirco  in  eo  esse,  ut  dcscribat  triangulum,  cujus  ^ 
basin  ostenderit  circuli  ambitui  lequalem,  tum  demum  esse  circulo  triangulum 
ao(|nalo  dcmonstrat.  At  in  hoc  mysterio  augustissimo  gloriosissima  Porsonarum 
*  [The  wordf  "  before  Oardiaal  BkheUeu."  Me  deleted  in  hU  copy  bv  Mr.  fltewmrt— iStfl 


550      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  II. 

TriuH  ita  iufinitas  cssentias,  ipBiusque  foscunditati,  tanquam  circulo  exsdquatur,  seu, 
ut  sic  loquar,  et  verius  quidem,  penitus  identificatur ;  at  cum  sit  omnimn,  et  cu- 
j usque  una,  atque  eadem  essentia,  una  proinde  ae  eadem  sit  immensitas,  fetemitas, 
et  perfectionum  plenitudo. 

"  Sic,  cum  nondum  norit  humana  geometria  trisecare  an^ulum,  diyidereTe,  et 
citra  accommodationem  mechanicam,  ostendere  divisum  esse  in  tria  SBqaalia; 
habemus  in  hocce  mysterio  unam  essentiam  non  tarn  trisectam,  qaam  integram 
commynicatam  in  tria  tequalia  supposita,  quae  cum  simul,  sigillatimqiie  totam 
individuamquc  possideant,  sint  inter  se  tamen  realiter  distincta."  • 

The  rest  of  the  oration  is  composed  in  exactly  the  same  taste. 

Tlie  following  interesting  particulars  of  Gassendi's  death  are  njcorded  by 
Sorbi^re : — 

"  Eztremam  tamen  horam  imminentem  sentiens,  quod  reliquam  erat  Tiriom 
iinpendendum  existiroavit  pneparando  ad  mortem  animo.  Itaque  significavit,  ut 
quamprimnra  vocaretur  Sacerdos,  in  ci\jus  aurem,  dum  fari  poterat,  peocata  sua 
cflfiinderet  .  .  .  Dein,  ut  nihil  perfectai  Christiani  militis  armatnne  deesset,  sacro 
inungi  oleo  efflagitavit.  Ad  quam  caeremoniam  animo  attondens,  cmn  sacerdm 
aures  inungens  pronuntiaret  verba  solennia,  et  lapsu  qxiodam  memorise  dixisset, 
Indvlgeat  tibi  Domintts  quidquid  per  odoratum  peecastif  reposuit  statim  asger, 
imo  per  auditum ;  adeo  intentus  erat  rci  gravissimse,  et  eluendanim  BOidioro  Tel 
minimamm  cupidum  se  ct  sitibundum  gerebat." — Sorberi  PrafiUio. 

Having  mentioned  in  the  text  the  avowed  partiality  of  Qassendi  for  the  Epicureso 
ethics,  it  is  but  justice  to  his  memory  to  add,  that  his  own  habits  were,  in  every 
respect,  the  reverse  of  those  commonly  imputed  to  this  school.  "  Ad  privatam 
Qassendi  vitam  saepius  aitendens,"  says  Sorbiere,  "  anachoretam  afiqnem  oemere 
mihi  videor,  qui  media  in  urbe  vitam  instituit  plane  ad  monacbi  severioris  nor- 
mam;  adeo  paupertatcm,  castitatom  et  obedientiam  coluit;  quanquam  sine  ulb 
vote  tria  ista  vota  solvisse  vide&tur. — ^Abstemius  erat  sponte  sua,  ptisanam  tepidam 
bibens  pulmoni  refrigerando  humectandoque.  Came  raro,  herbis  ssspius,  ac  ma- 
cerata  offa  mane  et  vespere  utebatur." — Tbld. 

TO  DISSERTATION,  PART  SECOND.— NOTES  FROM  S  TO  EEE. 

Note  S,  p.  216. 

It  deserves  to  be  remarked,  as  a  circumstance  which  throws  considerable  light 
on  the  liter&ry  history  of  Scotland  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  centory, 
that,  from  time  immemorial,  a  continued  intercourse  had  been  kept  up  between 
Scotland  and  the  Continent  To  all  who  were  destined  for  the  profession  of  law, 
an  education  either  at  a  Dutch  or  French  university  was  considered  as  almost 
essential.  The  case  was  nearly  the  same  in  the  profession  of  physic  ;  and,  even 
among  the  Scottish  clergy,  I  have  conversed,  in  my  youth,  with  some  old  men  who 
had  studied  theology  in  Holland  or  in  Germany.  Of  our  smaller  country  gentle- 
men, resident  on  their  own  estates,  (an  onier  of  men  which,  from  Tarioos  causes, 
has  now,  alas  !  totally  vanished,)  there  was  scarcely  one  who  had  not  enjoyed  the 
benefit  of  a  university  education ;  and  very  few  of  thohO  who  could  afford  the  ex- 
p»"n8c  of  foreign  travel,  who  had  not  vinitcd  France  and  Italy.     Lord   MonlMHldi^ 


XOTE  T. 


f);")  I 


sumewlicrc  iiienliuns,  to  the  houour  of  bio  father,  tliat  he  sold  part  of  hJH  CKtate  to 
enable  himself  (his  eldest  son)  to  pursue  his  studies  at  the  University  of  Qroningcn. 
The  constant  influx  of  information  and  of  liberality  from  abroad,  which  was  thu.s 
kept  up  in  Scotland  in  consequence  of  the  ancient  habits  and  manners  of  the 
people,  may  help  to  account  for  the  sudden  burst  of  genius,  which  to  a  foreigner 
must  seem  to  have  sprung  up  in  this  country  by  a  sort  of  enchantment,  soon  afler 
the  Rebellion  of  1745.  The  great  step  then  made  was  in  the  art  of  English  com- 
position. In  the  mathematical  sciences,  where  the  graces  of  writing  have  no  place, 
Scotland  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  was  never,  from  the  time 
of  Neper,  left  behind  by  any  country  in  Europe ;  nor  ought  it  to  be  forgotten,  that 
the  philosophy  of  Newton  was  publicly  taught  by  David  Gregory  at  Eklinburgh, 
and  by  his  brother  ifamcs  Gregory  at  St.  Andrew's,  before  it  was  able  to  supplant 
the  vortices  of  Descartes  in  that  very  nniveniity  of  which  Newton  was  a  member.* 
The  case  was  similar  in  every  other  liberal  pursuit,  where  an  ignorance  of  the  deli- 
cacies of  the  English  tongue  was  not  an  insuperable  bar  to  distinction.  Even  in 
the  study  of  eloquence,  as  far  as  it  was  attainable  in  their  own  vernacular  idiom, 
some  of  the  Scottish  pleaders,  about  the  era  when  the  two  kingdoms  were  united, 
seem  ambitiously,  and  not  altogether  unsuccessfully,  to  have  formed  themselves 
upon  models,  which,  in  modem  times,  it  has  been  commonly  supposed  to  bo  more 
safe  to  admire  than  to  imitate.'  Of  the  progress  made  in  this  part  of  the  island  in 
Metaphysical  and  Ethical  Studies,  at  a  period  long  prior  to  that  which  is  commonly 
considered  as  the  commencement  of  our  literary  history,  I  shall  afterwards  have 
occasion  to  speak.  At  present,  I  shall  only  observe,  that  it  was  in  the  Scottish  uni- 
versities that  the  philosophy  of  Ix)cke,  as  well  as  that  of  Newton,  was  first  adopted 
as  a  branch  of  academical  education. 


Note  T,  p.  220. 

Extract  <)f  a  letter  from  M.  Allamand  to  Mr.  Oiblxm. — Sec  Gibbon's  Miscell- 
aneous Works. 

"  VouH  avt'z  sans  doute  raison  dc  dire  que  Ics  proimsitious  evidentes  dont  il 
.s'agit,  ne  sont  pas  de  simples  idecs,  mais  dcs  jugcniens.  Mais  ayez  uussi  la  com- 
plaisance de  reconnoitre  que  M.  I^ocke  les  alU'guant  on  cxcmplc  d'idecs  qui  passent 
pour  innces,  et  qui  ne  le  sont  pas  scion  lui,  sMl  y  a  ici  de  la  mcprise,  c'cst  lui  qn*il 


>  Fur  this  we  bare  tlie  autiiority  of  Whistoo, 
the  immediate  suoeevor  of  Sir  Iraac  Newton  in 
the  Luoaiian  ProfsMomhip  at  Cambridge:  and 
ttf  Dr.  Reid.  who  waa  a  nephew  of  the  two  Gre- 
Korys.  ' '  Mr.  O  regory  had  already  caused  seYeral 
of  his  scholars  t<)  keep  Acts,  as  we  caU  them, 
upon  sereral  branches  of  the  Newtonian  Phllo- 
•ioT)hy ;  while  we  at  Cambridge,  poor  wretches, 
were  ignnminiously  studying  the  fictitious  hypo- 
ihesos  of  the  CarteHians.** — Whiston's  Memoirs 
ttf  hi*  otrn  Liff. 

"  I  haTc  by  me,"  aa>-8  Dr.  Beld,  "  a  Thesis 
printed  at  Edinburgh.  1000,  by  James  Gregory, 
who  was  at  that  time  Professor  of  Philosophy 
nt  St.  Androw>.  containing  twenty-flve  posi- 
tions :  the  first  three  relating  to  logic,  and  the 
abuse  of  it  in  the  Aristotelian  and  Cartesian 


philosophy.  The  remaining  twenty-two  pwi- 
tlons  are  a  compend  of  Newton's  Principia. 
This  Thesis,  as  was  the  cuKtom  at  that  time  in 
the  Scottish  Unlvenlties,  n  as  to  be  defended  in 
a  public  disputation,  by  the  candidates,  preYious 
to  their  taking  their  degree  "— IlnUou's  Malhe- 
tuatical  Dictionary— SupidetnerU  by  Dr.  Reid 
to  the  article  Orrgorp. 

'  See  a  splendid  culogium  in  Uio  Latin  lan- 
guage, by  Sir  George  Mackeniie,  on  the  moot 
distinguished  pleaders  of  his  time  at  the  Scottish 
bar.  Every  allowance  being  made  for  the  flat- 
tering touches  of  a  friendly  hand,  his  porUniis 
can  scarcely  be  su]>poscd  not  to  hare  borne  a 
strong  and  characteristical  re.«cmblnnrc  to  the 
originals  from  which  they  were  copjp.l. 


552      NOTES  AND  ILLUHTRATION8  TO  DI88EUTAT10N. — PART  II. 

faut  relever  la-deMU8,  et  non  pas  moi,  qui  D^avois  autre  chose  jk  faire  qu*^  refnter 
sa  maniere  de  raisonner  centre  I'inDeite  de  ces  idees  on  jugemens  UL  D'aiUettm, 
MoDsieur,  vous  remarqucrez,  s'fl  vous  plait,  que  dans  cette  dispute  il  s'agit  en  effet, 
de  savoir  si  certaines  verites  cTidentcs  et  communes,  et  non  pas  seulemcnt  cer- 
taincs  idecs  simples,  stmt  innees  ou  non.  Ceux  qui  afiirment,  ne  donnent  gu^re 
pour  exemple  d'idecs  simples  qui  le  soyent,  que  cellcs  de  Dieu,  de  Tnnite,  et  de  Vex- 
istence ;  les  autres  exemples  sont  pris  de  propositions  completes,  que  voua  appellcs 
jugemens. 

"  Mais,  dites  vous,  y  aura-t-il  done  des  jugemens  innes  ?  I^e  jngement  e«t  il 
autre  chose  qu'un  actu  de  nos  facultcs  intcllcctuelles  dans  la  comparaison  des 
idees  ?  Le  jugement  sur  les  veriti's  ^videntes,  n'est  il  pas  une  simple  Ttie  de  ces 
▼elites  \k,  un  simple  coup-d'oeil  quo  Tcsprit  jette  sur  elles  ?  J'accorde  tout  ceU. 
J^t  de  ffractf  qu^ut  ce  qu*  idee  ?  N'est  ce  pas  vue,  ou  coup<l'<eil,  ai  vous  vouJez  f 
Ceux  qui  d^finissent  Tidee  autrement,  ne  s'eloignent-ils  pas  Tisiblement  dn  aens  et 
de  Tintention  du  mot?  Dire  quo  les  idees  sont  les  esp^ces  des  choses  imprimcea 
dans  resprit,  comme  Tiraage  de  I'objet  sensible  est  tracee  dans  Tceil,  n*est  ce  pas 
jargonner  plutot  que  definir  ?  Or  cVst  la  faute,  qu*ont  fait  tons  les  metaphysiciena, 
et  quoique  M.  Locke  I'ait  bien  scntic,  il  a  mieux  aimc  sefacher  contre  eux,  et  tirer 
contro  les  girouettes  do  la  place,  que  s'appliqner  k  demelcr  ce  galimatias.  Que 
nVt-il  dit,  non  seulemcnt  il  u*y  a  point  d'idees  innees  dans  le  sens  de  ces  Mesaieura ; 
mais  U  n^y  a  point  d'idUes  du  tout  dans  ce  sens  Ih ;  toute  \d4e  est  un  acU^  une  true, 
un  coup-d'wil  de  Vesprit,  Des  lors  demander  s'il  y  a  des  idees  innees,  c*est  de- 
mander  s'il  y  a  certaines  Terites  si  evidcntes  et  si  communes  que  tout  esprit  non 
stnpide  puissc  naturcllemcnt,  sans  culture  ct  sans  maitre,  sans  discussion,  sans 
raiHonncnicnt,  les  reconnoitre  d'un  coup-d*wil,  et  souvcnt  meme  sans  s'spercevoir 
qu'on  jcttc  ce  coupd'ccil.  L'uffimmtivc  mo  paroit  incontestable,  ct  scion  moi,  la 
quosfion  est  ?uidee  par  \i\. 

"  Muintenant  prenez  garde,  Monsieur,  que  cette  maniere  d'cntcnJrc  ruffaire,  va 
au  but  des  piutii»un8  des  idees  innees,  tout  comme  la  leur;  et  par  la  meme  contre- 
<lit  M.  Locke  dans  le  hien.  Car  pourquoi  voudroit-cm  qu'il  y  a  eu  des  idees  innees? 
C'cst  |H)ur  en  opposer  la  certitude  et  revidence  au  doute  universel  des  sceptiques, 
qui  est  mine  d'un  seul  coup,  s'il  y  a  des  verites  dont  la  vue  soit  necessaire  et  na- 
turelle  a  Thonmie.  Or  vous  sentez,  Monsieur,  que  je  puis  lour  dire  ccla  dans  ma 
fayon  d'expliijiicr  la  choHC,  tout  aussi  bien  que  les  j)arti«ans  ordinaircs  des  idees 
innees  dans  la  leur.  Et  voila  ce  que  semble  incomnuMler  un  pen  M.  Locke,  qui, 
sans  se  declarer  Pyrrhonien,  laissc  apcrcevoir  un  jxju  trop  de  foible  pour  le 
Pyrrhonismc,  et  a  l>eaucoup  contribue  a  le  noumr  dans  ce  siecle.  A  force  do 
vouloir  marquor  los  bomes  de  nos  eonnoissances,  ce  qui  etoit  fort  necessaire,  il  a 
<|uelquefoi.s  tout  mis  en  bornes." 

Note  T,  p.  222. 

"A  decisive  proof  of  this  is  affonled  by  the  allusions  to  Locke's  doctrines  in  the 
dramatic  pieces  then  in  possession  of  the  French  stage,"  &c. 

In  a  comedy  of  Destouches,  (entitled  La  Favssc  Agues,)  which  must  have  been 
written  long  bef<>rc  the  peritnl  in  question,'  the  heroine,  a  lively  and  accomplished 

>  ThifslitUc  piece  «m  first  published  in  17.07.        place  in  1754,  in  the  wrenty- fourth  year  of  his 
tlireA  yoan  after  the  nutlior'H  death,  which  took        age.    But  we  are  told  hy  P'Alembert.  thai  from 


NOTE  X.  553 

girl,  supposed  to  be  just  arrived  from  Paris  at  her  father's  house  in  Poitou,  is  in- 
troduced as  first  assuming  the  appearance  of  imbecility,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  a  dis- 
agreeable lover ;  and,  aflerwards,  as  pleading  her  own  cause  in  a  mock  trial  before 
an  absurd  old  president  and  two  provincial  ladies,  to  convince  them  that  she  is  in 
reality  not  out  of  her  senses.    In  the  course  of  her  argument  on  this  subject,  she 
endeavours  to  astonish  her  judges  by  an  ironical  display  of  her  philosophic^]  know- 
ledge ;  warning  them  of  the  extreme  difficulty  and  nicety  of  the  question  upon 
which  they  were  about  to  pronounce.     "  Vous  voulez  juger  de  moi !  mais,  pour 
juger  sainement,  il  faut  uue  grande  etendue  de  connoissances ;  encore  est  il  bien 
douteux  qu'il  y  en  ait  de  ccrtaines.   .   .   .   Avant  done  que  vous  entrcpreniez  de 
prononccr  sur  mon  sujet,  je  demande  prealablement  que  vous  examiniez  avec  moi 
nos  connoissances  en  gen£*ral,  les  degrvs  de  ces  connoissances,  leur  ^tendue,  leur 
rcalite  ;  que  nous  conveniens  de  ce  que  cW  que  la  vcrite,  ct  si  la  verity  se  trouve 
eifectivement.    Apr^s  quoi  nous  traiterons  des  propositions  universelles,  dcs  maxi- 
mes,  des  propositions  frivoles,  et  do  la  foiblesse,  ou  de  la  solidite  de  dob  lumieres. 
.   .   .   Quelques  pcrsonnes  tiennent  pour  veritc,  que  I'homme  nait  avec  certains  prin- 
cipes  innes,  certaines  notions  primitives,  certains  caractcres  qui  sent  comme  graves 
dans  son  esprit,  des  le  premier  instant  de  son  existence.    Pour  moi,  j'ai  longtempa 
examine  ce  sentiment,  et  j^entreprends  de  la  combattrc,  de  le  refiiter,  de  Taneantir, 
si  vous  avez  la  patience  de  m'ecouter."    I  have  transcribed  but  a  part  of  this  curi- 
ous pleading ;  but,  I  presume,  more  than  enough  to  show,  that  every  sentence,  and 
almost  every  word  of  it,  refers  to  Locke's  doctrines.    In  the  second  and  third 
sentences,  the  titles  of  the  principal  chapters  in  the  fourth  book  of  his  Essay  are 
exactly  copied.     It  was  impossible  that  such  a  scene  should  have  produced  the 
slightest  comic  effect,  unless  the  book  alluded  to  had  been  in  very  general  circula- 
tion among  the  higher  orders ;  I  might  perhaps  add,  in  much  mare  general  circula- 
tion than  it  ever  obtained  among  that  class  of  readers  in  England.     At  no  period, 
certainly,  since  it  was  first  published,  (such  is  the  difference  of  national  manners,) 
could  similar  allusions  have  been  made  to  it,  or  to  any  other  work  ou  so  abstract  a 
subject,  with  the  slightest  hope  of  success  on  the  London  stage.   And  yet  D'Alem- 
bert  pronounces  Zm  Fav4se  Agnu  to  bo  a  piece,  pUine  de  mauvement  et  de 

gaiet€. 

Note  X,  p.  227. 

"  Descartes  asserted,"  says  a  very  zealous  Lockist,  M.  de  Voltaire,  "  that  the 
soul,  at  ite  coming  into  the  body,  is  informed  with  the  whole  series  of  metephysical 
notions ;  knowing  God,  infinite  space,  possessing  all  abstract  ideas ;  in  a  word, 
completely  endued  with  the  most  sublime  lights,  which  it  unhappily  forgets  at  its 
issuing  from  the  womb. 

"  With  regard  to  myself,"  continues  the  same  writer,  "  I  am  as  little  inclined 
as  Locke  could  be  to  fancy  that,  some  weeks  adcr  I  was  conceived,  I  was  a  very 
learned  soul ;  knowing  at  that  time  a  thousand  things  which  I  forgot  at  my  birth  ; 

the  age  of  sixty,  be  had  renoanoed.  from  Mntl-  ootuted  for  bjr  hk  reddenee  in  Aaidand  flrom 

ments  of  piety,  all  thouf^hts  of  writing  for  the  1717  to  1723,  where  he  remmined,  for  tome  time 

stage.— (A'AijK  de  Dc*touek€s.)    This  carries  the  after  the  departure  of  Oardlnal  Duboln,  as  Charge 

date  of  all  his  dramatic  works,  at  iMSt  as  far  d'4ffairt$.     Voltaire  did  not  rislt  England  till 

bacic  as  1740.    As  for  Uestouches's  own  IkmiU-  1727. 
arity  with  the  writings  of  Loclce,  it  is  easily  ac- 


554     KOTE«  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TU  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

and  possessing,  when  in  the  womb,  (though  to  no  manner  of  purpose,)  knowledge 
which  I  lost  the  instant  I  had  occasion  for  it ;  and  which  I  have  never  since  been 
able  to  recover  perfectly." — Letters  concerning  the  English  Nation.     Letter  13. 

Whatever  inferences  may  be  deducible  from  some  of  Descartes's  expressions,  or 
from  the  comments  on  these  expressions  by  some  who  assumed  the  title  of  Carte- 
sians, I  never  can  persuade  myself  that  the  system  of  innate  ideas,  as  conceived 
and  adopted  by  him,  was  meant  to  give  any  sanction  to  the  absurdities  here  treated 
by  Voltaire  with  such  just  contempt.  In  no  part  of  Descartes's  works,  as  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  discover,  is  the  slightest  ground  given  for  this  extraordinaiy 
account  of  his  opinions.  Nor  was  Descartes  the  first  person  who  introduced  this 
language.  Long  before  the  date  of  his  works  it  was  in  common  use  in  England, 
and  is  to  be  found  in  a  Poem  of  Sir  John  Davis,  published  four  years  before  Des- 
cartes was  bom.  (See  sect  xxvi.  of  The  Immortality  of  the  Sovil.)  The  title  of 
this  section  expressly  asserts,  That  there  are  innate  ideas  in  the  soul. 

In  one  of  Descartes's  letters,  he  enters  into  some  explanations  with  respect  to 
this  part  of  his  philosophy,  which  he  complains  had  been  very  grossly  misunder- 
stood or  misrepresented.  To  the  following  passage  I  have  no  doubt  that  Locke 
himself  would  have  subscribed.  It  strikes  myself  as  so  very  remarkable,  that,  in 
order  to  attract  to  it  the  attention  of  my  readers,  I  shall  submit  it  to  their  consi- 
deration in  an  English  translation. 

"  When  I  said  that  the  idea  of  God  is  innate  in  us,  I  never  meant  more  than 
this,  that  Nature  has  endowed  us  with  a  faculty  by  which  we  may  know  God ;  but 
I  have  never  either  said  or  thought  that  such  ideas  had  an  actual  existence,  or 
even  that  they  were  species  distinct  from  the  faculty  of  thinking.  I  will  even  go 
farther,  and  assert  that  nobody  has  kept  at  a  greater  distance  than  myself  frt>m  all 
this  trash  of  scholastic  entities,  insomuch  that  I  could  not  help  smiling  when  I  read 
the  numerous  arguments  which  Regius  has  so  industriously  collected  to  shew  that 
infants  have  no  actual  knowledge  of  God  while  they  remain  in  the  womb  Although 
the  idea  of  God  is  so  impiinted  on  our  minds,  that  every  person  has  within  himself 
the  faculty  of  knowing  him,  it  does  not  follow  that  there  may  not  have  been  various 
individuals  who  have  passed  through  life  without  ever  making  this  idea  a  distinct 
object  of  apprehension ;  and,  in  truth,  they  who  think  they  have  an  idea  of  a 
plurality  of  Gods,  have  no  idea  of  God  whatsoever." — Cartcsii  E^tist.  Pars  i. 
Epist.  xcix. 

[*  In  another  letter,  Descartes  says  still  more  explicitly — "  Licet  idea  Dei  sit 
menti  humanas  ita  impressa,  ut  nemo  non  habeat  in  se  fiacultatem  ilium  cognos- 
cendi,  tamen  fieri  potest  ut  plurimi  nunquam  sibi  banc  ideam  distincte  repneaen- 
tarint;  et  revera  ii  qui  putant  se  habere  multorum  Doorum  ideam,  ncquaquani 
habent  ideam  Dei." — {Thid.  Epist.  cxvii.)  And  in  another  work — "  Idea  est  ipsa 
res  cogitata,  quatenus  est  objectiva  in  intellectu."  By  way  of  comment  on  thi.M, 
Descartes  tells  us  afterwards,  in  reply  to  u  difficulty  Btarted  by  one  of  his  corre- 
siwndents,  "  ubi  advertendum,  me  loqui  de  Idea  quie  nunquam  ut  extra  intellet- 
tum,  et  ratione  cujus  esse  objecti\'i  non  aliud  significet,  quam  cmso  in  intellectu  co 
niodo  quo  objccta  in  illo  ense  solcnt." — liespoiisio  nd primus  objectiones  in  Medi- 
tationes  Cartcsii. 

Ill  this  instance,  the  distinction  between  svhjectivr  and  objective  seems  to  l>c 

*  Rcntored.— AVf. 


NUTK  X.  555 

merely  grammatical,  analogous  to  tbat  between  the  verb  and  noun,  when  wc  make 
iiHe  of  such  a  circumlocution  as  thinking  and  thovyht] 

After  reading  thin  passage  from  Descartes,  may  I  request  of  my  readers  to  look 
back  to  the  extracts,  in  the  beginning  of  this  note,  from  Voltaire's  letters  ?  A 
remark  of  Montesquieu,  occasioned  by  some  strictures  hazarded  by  this  lively  but 
very  superficial  philosopher  on  the  Spirit  of  Laws^  is  more  peculiarly  applicable  to 
him  when  ho  ventures  to  pronounce  judgment  on  metaphysical  writers  :  "  Quant  & 
Voltaire,  il  a  tr€p  d^ esprit pourm' entendre ;  tous  Ics  livres  qu*il  lit,  il  les  fait,  apr^s 
quoi  il  approuve  ou  critique  co  qull  a  fait." — {Lettre  d.  M.  VAhhi  de  Ouaaco.) 
The  remark  is  applicable  to  other  critics  as  well  as  to  Voltaire. 

Tlic  prevailing  misapprehensions  with  respect  to  this  and  some  other  principles 
of  the  Cartesian  metaphysics,  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  supposing  that  the  opi- 
nions of  Descartes  have  been  more  frequently  judged  of  from  the  glosses  of  his 
followers  than  from  his  own  works.  It  seems  to  have  never  been  sufficiently  known 
to  his  adversaries,  cither  in  France  or  in  England,  that,  afler  his  philosophy  had 
become  fashionable  in  Holland,  a  number  of  Dutch  divines,  whose  opinions  differed 
very  widely  from  his,  found  it  convenient  to  shelter  their  own  errors  under  his 
established  name  ;  and  that  some  of  them  went  so  far  as  to  avail  themselves  of  his 
authority  in  propagating  tenets  directly  opposite  to  his  declared  sentiments.  Hence 
a  diHtinction  of  the'^artesians  into  the  genuine  and  the  /MeiM^o-Cartesians ;  and 
hence  an  inconsistency  in  their  representations  of  the  metaphysical  ideas  of  their 
master,  which  can  only  be  cleared  up  by  a  reference  (seldom  thought  of)  to  his  own 
very  concise  and  i)erspicuou8  text.  (Fabricii,  Bib.  Or.  lib.  iii.  cap.  vi.  p.  183. 
Heinecc.  El  Hist,  PhU.  §  ex.) 

Many  of  the  objections  commonly  urged  against  the  innate  ideas  of  Descaitcs 
are  much  more  applicable  to  the  innate  ideas  of  Leibnitz,  whose  language  concern- 
ing them  is  infinitely  more  hypothetical  and  unphilosophicul ;  and  sometimes  ap- 
proaches nearly  to  the  enthusiastic  theology  of  Plato  and  of  Cudworth.  Nothing 
in  the  works  of  Descartes  bears  any  resemblance,  in  point  of  extravagance,  to  what 
follows  :  "  Pulchem'ma  multa  sunt  Platonis  dogmata,  .  .  .  esse  in  divina  mento 
niundum  intelligibilem,  quern  ego  quoque  vocare  soleo  regionem  idcarum ;  objectum 
Hapicntise  esse  r«  ifr»/t  itra,  substantias  nempo  simplices,  qiisc  a  me  vwnades  ap- 
jxdlantur,  et  semel  existontos  scmi^er  perstaut,  w^Urm  %i*rt»m  rnt  T^tmt^  id  est,  Deum 
ot  Animas,  et  harum  potissimas  mentes,  prodncta  a  Deo  simulacra  divinitatis.  .  .  . 
Porro  qusBvis  mens,  ut  recte  Plotinus,  quendam  in  se  mundum  intelligibilem  coii- 
tiuet,  imo  mca  sententia  et  hunc  ipsum  scnsibilem  sibi  repncsentat.  .  .  .  Sunt  in 
nobis  semina  eorum^  quae  discimus,  idea?  nempe,  et  quae  inde  nascuntur,  setemn 
veritatcK.  .  .  .  Longe  ergo  pneferendsB  sunt  Platonis  notitite  innatce^  quas  remi- 
niscentia;  nomine  velavit,  tabulas  rasie  Aristotclis  et  IxK'kii,  aliorumquc  recontionim, 
qui  i^tfTifiinit  philosophautur." — Leib.  Opera,  torn.  ii.  p.  223. 

Wild  and  visionary,  however,  as  the  foregoing  propositions  are,  if  the  names  of 
f  iossendi  and  of  HobWs  had  been  substituted  instead  of  those  of  Aristotle  and  of 
IxK-ke,  I  Hhould  have  been  disixised  to  subscribe  implicitly  to  the  judgment  pn>- 
nounced  in  the  concluding  sentence.  The  metaphysics  of  Plato,  along  with  a 
••((HHiderable  alloy  of  poetical  fiction,  has  at  Icawt  the  iiK-rit  of  containing  a  large 
.ulniixturc  of  impoiiant  and  of  ennobling  truth ;  while  that  of  Gasscudi  and  of 
llolilios,  b<'8ides  its  inconsistcnry  with  fads  atlcMcd,  every  moment,  by  our  own 


556   NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

consciousness,  tends  directly  to  level  the  rational  faculties  of  man  with  the  in- 
stincts of  the  brutes. 

In  the  Ada  Erudiiorum  for  the  year  1684,  Leibnitz  observes,  that  "  in  the 
case  of  things  which  we  have  never  thought  of,  the  innate  ideas  in  our  minds  may 
be  compared  to  the  figure  of  Hercules  in  a  block  of  marble."  This  seems  to  me  to 
prove,  that  the  difference  between  him  and  Locke  was  rather  in  appearance  than 
in  reality ;  and  that,  although  he  called  those  ideas  innate  which  Locke  was  at 
pains  to  trace  to  sensation  or  to  reflection,  he  would  have  readily  granted,  that  our 
first  knowledge  of  their  existence  was  coeval  with  the  first  impressions  made  on 
our  senses  by  external  objects.  That  this  was  also  the  opinion  of  Descartes  is 
still  more  evident,  notwithstanding  the  ludicrous  point  of  view  in  which  Yoltaire 
has  attempted  to  exhibit  this  part  of  his  system. 

Note  Y,  p.  228. 

Mr.  Locke  seems  to  have  considered  this  use  of  the  word  reflection  as  peculiar  to 
himself;  but  it  is  perfectly  analogous  to  the  »nn0ut  »u*Xt»mi  of  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers, and  to  various  expressions  which  occur  in  the  works  of  John  Smith  of 
Cambridge,  and  of  Dr.  Cud  worth.  We  find  it  in  a  P^)em  on  the  Immortality  of  the 
Send,  by  Sir  John  Davis,  Attomey-Greneral  to  Queen  Elizabeth ;  and  probably  it 
is  to  be  met  with  in  English  publications  of  a  still  earlier  date.* 

All  things  without  which  round  about  we  see. 

We  seek  to  know,  and  have  wherewith  to  do ; 
But  that  whereby  we  reason,  live,  and  be. 

Within  ourselves,  we  strangers  are  thereto. 

Is  it  because  the  mind  is  like  the  eye. 
Through  which  it  gathers  knowledge  by  degrees ; 

Whose  rays  reflect  not,  but  spread  outwardly ; 
Not  seeing  itself,  when  other  things  it  sees  ? 

No,  doubtless ;  for  the  mind  can  backward  cast 

Upon  herself  her  understanding  light ; 
But  she  is  so  corrupt,  and  so  defaced, 

As  her  own  image  doth  herself  afi&ight 

As  is  the  fable  of  the  Lady  fair, 

Which  for  her  lust  was  turned  into  a  cow ; 
When  thirsty,  to  a  stream  she  did  repair, 

And  saw  herself  transformed,  she  wist  not  how  : 

At  first  she  startles,  then  she  stands  amazed  ; 

At  last  with  terror  she  from  hence  doth  fly. 
And  loathes  the  wat'ry  glass  wherein  she  gaz*d, 

And  shuns  it  still,  although  for  thirst  she  die. 

For  even  at  first  reflection  she  espies 

Such  strange  chimeras  and  such  monsters  there  ; 

Such  toys,  such  antics,  and  such  vanities, 
As  she  retires  and  shrinks  for  shame  and  fear. 


NOTE  z.  557 

I  have  quoted  these  verses,  chiefly  because  I  think  it  uot  improbable  that  they 
may  have  suggested  to  Gray  the  following  very  happy  allusion  in  his  fine  Frag- 
ment De  Principiis  Coffitandi: — 

Qualis  Hamadryadum  quondam  si  forte  sororum 
Una,  novos  peragrans  saltus,  ct  devia  rura ; 
(Atque  illam  in  viridi  suadct  procumbere  ripa 
Fontis  pura  quies,  ct  opaci  frigoris  umbra) 
Dum  prona  in  latices  speculi  de  marginc  pendct, 
Mirata  est  subitani  venienti  occurrerc  Nympham : 
Mox  cosdem,  quos  ipsa,  artus,  eadem  ora  gerentem 
Vnh  inforro  gradus,  un^  succedcre  sylvse 
Aspicit  alludens ;  seseque  agnoscit  in  nndis. 
Sic  sensu  interne  rerum  simulacra  suarum 
Mens  cict,  et  proprios  observat  conscia  vultus. 

Note  Z,  p.  251. 

The  chief  attacks  made  in  England  on  Locke's  Ettat/^  during  his  own  lifetime, 
were  by  Edward  Stillingflect,  Bishop  of  Worcester;  John  Norris,*  Rector  of 
Bemcrton ;  Henry  Lee,  B.D. ;  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Lowde,  (author  of  a  Dis- 
course concerning  the  Nature  of  Man.)  Of  these  four  writers,  the  first  is  the 
only  one  whose  objections  to  Locke  are  now  at  all  remembered  in  the  learned 
world ;  and  for  this  distinction,  Stillingflect  is  solely  indebted  (I  speak  of  him 
here  merely  as  a  metaphysician,  for  in  some  other  departments  of  study  his  merits 
are  universally  admitted)  to  the  particular  notice  which  Locke  has  condescended 
to  take  of  him,  in  the  Notes  incorporated  with  the  later  editions  of  his  Estay. 
The  only  circumstance  which  renders  these  Notes  worthy  of  preservation,  is  the 
record  they  furnish  of  Locke's  forbearance  and  courtesy,  in  managing  a  contro- 
versy carried  on,  upon  the  other  side,  with  so  much  captiousness  and  asperity.  An 
Irish  bishop,  in  a  letter  on  this  subject  to  Mr.  Molyneux,  writes  thus  :  "  I  read 
Mr.  Locke's  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Worcester  with  great  satisfaction,  and  am 
wholly  of  your  opinion,  that  he  has  fairly  laid  the  great  bishop  on  his  back,  but  it 
is  with  so  much  gentleness,  as  if  he  were  afraid  not  only  of  hurting  him,  but  even 
of  spoiling  or  tumbling  his  clothes.*' 

[*  In  the  case  of  one  antagonist  alone,  Dr.  William  Sherlock,  (afterwards  Bishop 
of  London,)  Locke  seems  to  have  been  disposed  to  judge  somewhat  uncharitably.  In 
a  work  of  Sherlock's  with  which  I  am  unacquainted,  some  severe  strictures  having 
been  introduced  on  the  doctrine  which  rejects  connate  ideas  or  inbred  notions^ 
Locke  takes  occasion  thus  to  express  himself  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Mol3rneux.  "  A 
man  of  no  small  name,  as  you  know  Dr,  Sherlock  is,  has  been  pleased  to  declare 
against  my  doctrine  of  no  innate  ideas  from  the  pidpit  in  the  Temple,  but  as  I 
have  been  told,  charged  it  with  little  less  than  Atheism.  Though  the  Doctor  be 
a  great  man,  yet  that  would  not  much  fiight  me,  because  I  am  told  that  he  is  not 
always  obstinate  against  opinions  which  he  has  condemned  more  publicly  than  in 

1  or  this  person,  who  was  a  most  ingeiUoaa  and  orljpnal  thinker,  I  shall  have  ocoaaton  after- 
wards to  speak. 
*  Restored— J5^/. 


558    NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  II. 

a  harangue  to  a  Sunday's  auditory.  But  tliat  it  is  i>0B8ible  he  may  be  firm  here, 
because  it  is  also  said,  he  never  quits  his  aversion  to  any  tenet  lie  has  once  de- 
clared against,  till  change  of  times  bringing  change  of  interest,  and  fashionable 
opinions  open  his  eyes  and  his  heart ;  and  then  lie  kindly  embraces  what  before 
de8er\'ed  his  aversion  and  censure." — Locke's  Works,  vol.  ix.  p.  396.] 

The  work  of  Leo  is  entitled  "  Anti-scepticism,  or  Notes  upon  each  chapter  of 
Mr.  Locke's  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,  with  an  explanation  of  all 
the  particulars  of  which  he  treats,  and  in  the  same  order.  By  Henry  Lee,  B.D., 
formerly  Fellow  of  Emanuel  College  in  Cambridge,  now  Rector  of  Tichmarsh  in 
Northamptonshire." — London,  1702,  in  folio. 

The  strictures  of  this  author,  which  are  often  acute  and  sometimes  jnst,  are 
marked  throughout  with  a  fairness  and  candour  rarely  to  be  met  with  in  contnv 
vorsial  writers.  It  will  appear  remarkable  to  modem  critics  that  he  lays  par- 
ticular stress  upon  the  charms  of  Locke's  style,  among  the  other  excellences 
which  had  conspired  to  recommend  his  work  to  public  favour.  "  The  celehrated 
author  of  the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  has  all  the  advantages  desirahle  to 
recommend  it  to  the  inquisitive  genius  of  this  age ;  an  avowed  pretence  to  new 
methods  of  discovering  truth  and  improving  learning ;  an  unusual  coherence  in 
the  several  parts  of  his  scheme  ;  a  singular  clearness  in  his  reasonings ;  and, 
above  aU,  a  natiu'al  elegancy  of  style ;  an  unaffected  beauty  in  his  expressions ; 
a  just  proportion   and  tuneable  cadence  in   all  his  periods." — See  the  E^piUle 

Dedicatory. 

Note  A  A,  p.  257. 

For  the  information  of  some  of  my  readers,  it  may  be  proper  to  observe,  that 
the  word  influx  came  to  be  employed  to  denote  the  action  of  body  and  soul  on 
each  other,  in  consequence  of  a  prevailing  theory  which  supposed  that  this  action 
was  carried  on  by  something  intermediate,  (whether  material  or  immaterial  was 
not  positively  decided,)  ,/2oun7i^  from  the  one  substance  to  the  other.  It  is  in  this 
sense  that  the  word  is  understood  by  Leibnitz,  when  he  states  as  an  insurmountable 
objection  to  the  theory  of  influx,  that  "  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  either  material 
particles  or  immaterial  qualities  to  pass  from  body  to  mind,  or  from  mind  to  body." 

Instead  of  the  term  influx,  that  of  influence  came  gradually  to  be  substituted  by 
our  English  writers ;  but  the  two  words  were  originally  sjoionymous,  and  were 
used  indiscriminately  as  late  as  the  time  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale. — See  his  Primitive 
Origination  of  Mankind. 

In  Johnson's  Dictionary,  the  primitive  and  radical  meaning  assigned  to  the 

word  influence  (which  he  considers  as  of  French  extraction)  is  "  the  power  of  the 

celestial  aspects  operating  upon   terrestrial   bodies  and  affairs;"   and    in     the 

Encydopcedia  of  Chambers,  it  is  defined  to  be  "  a  quality  supposed  to  flow  firom 

the  bodies  of  the  stars,  either  with  their  heat  or  light,  to  which  astrologers  vainly 

attribute  all  the  events  which  happen  on  the  earth."    To  this  astrological  use  of 

the  word,  Milton  had  plainly  a  reference  in  that  fine  expression  of  his  L'AUegro, 

"  Store  of  ladies  whoAC  bright  eyen 
Rain  i^fliuncf."^ 

» The  explanation  of  the  word  ii^tunce,  given       reraarkK.    "  Vertu  qui,  suiT&nt  les  ABtndoguea, 
in  the  Dictionary  of  the  French  Academy,  ac-        drcoule  des  Astres  Rur  le*  corps  sublunaires." 
cords  perfectly  with  the  tenor  of  the  abore 


NOTE  BB.  559 

It  18  a  circumstance  worthy  of  notice,  tliat  a  word  thus  originating  in  the 
tlreanie  of  nHtrologcrs  and  schotdnicn,  should  now,  in  our  language,  be  appropriate*! 
almotit  exclusively  to  politics.  "  Thus,"  says  Blackstone,  *^  are  the  electors  of  one 
branch  of  the  legislature  secured  from  any  undue  influence  from.either  of  the  other 
two,  and  from  all  external  violence  and  compulsion ;  but  the  greatest  danger  is  that 
in  which  themselves  co-operate  by  the  infamous  practice  of  bribery  and  corruption." 
And  again,  "  The  crown  has  gradually  and  imperceptibly  gained  almost  as  much 
in  infltience  as  it  has  lost  in  prerogative.** 

In  all  these  cases,  there  will  be  found  at  bottom  one  common  idea,  the  existence 

of  some  secret  and  mysterious  connexion  between  two  things,  of  which  connexion 

it  is  conceived  to  bo  impossible  or  unwise  to  trace  wliat  Bacim  calls  the  latens 

pror(Ji»v8. 

Note  B  B,  p.  250. 

After  these  quotations  from  Locke,  addetl  to  those  wliich  I  have  already  pro- 
duced from  the  same  work,  the  reader  may  judge  of  the  ii\justice  done  to  him  by 
Leibnitz,  in  the  first  sentence  of  his  correspondence  with  Clarke. 

"  II  semble  que  la  religion  naturello  memo  s'afibiblit  extrememcnt.  Plusienrs 
font  les  amcs  corporelles ;  d*autrcs  font  Dieu  lui-meme  corporel. 

'*  M.  Locke  et  ses  sectatenrs,  douient  au  moins,  si  les  ames  ne  sont  mat^^rielles, 
ct  naturellement  perissables/* 

Dr.  Clarke,  in  his  reply  to  this  charge,  admits  that  "  iome  parts  of  Lockers 
writings  may  justly  be  suspected  as  intimating  his  doubts  whether  the  soul  be 
immaterial  or  no;  but  herein  (he  adds)  he  Iuls  been  followed  only  by  some 
Materialists,  enemies  to  the  mathematical  principles  of  philosophy,  and  who 
approve  little  or  nothing  in  Mr.  Locke's  writings,  but  his  errors.** 

To  those  who  have  studied  with  care  the  who^e  wTitings  of  Locke,  the  errors 
here  alluded  to  will  appear  in  a  very  venial  light  when  compared  with  the  general 
Hpirit  of  his  pidlosophy.  Nor  can  I  forbear  to  remark  farther  on  this  occasion, 
that  supposing  Locke's  doubts  concerning  the  immateriality  of  the  soul  to  have 
been  as  real  as  Clarke  seems  to  have  suspected,  this  very  circumstance  would  only 
reflect  the  greater  lustre  on  the  soundness  of  his  logical  views  concerning  the 
proper  method  of  studying  the  luind  ; — in  the  prosecution  of  which  study,  be  has 
adhered  much  more  systematically  than  either  Descartes  or  Leibnits  to  the  exercise  of 
reflection,  as  the  sole  medium  for  ascertaining  the  internal  phenomena;  describing, 
at  the  same  time,  these  phenomena  in  the  simplest  and  most  rigorous  terms  which 
our  language  affords,  and  avoiding,  in  a  far  greater  degree  than  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors, any  attempt  to  explain  them  by  analogies  borrowed  from  the  perceptions 
of  the  external  senses. 

I  before  observed,  that  Leibnitz  greatly  underrated  Locke  as  a  metaphysician. 
It  is  with  regret  I  have  now  to  mention,  that  Locke  has  by  no  means  done  justice 
to  the  splendid  talents  and  matchless  erudition  of  Leibnitz.  In  a  letter  to  his 
friend  Mr.  Molyneux,  dated  in  1697,  he  expresses  himself  thus :  "  I  see  you  and 
I  agree  pretty  well  concerning  Mr.  Leibnitz ;  and  this  sort  of  fiddling  makes  me 
hardly  avoid  thinking  that  he  is  not  that  very  great  man  as  has  been  talked  of 
him."  And  in  another  letter,  written  in  the  same  year  to  the  same  correspondent, 
after  referring  to  one  of  licibnitz's  Memoirs  in  the  Acta  Erudiiorum,  (De  Primie 
Philosnphiai  Emendatione,)  he  adds,  "  From  whence  I  only  <lraw  this  inference, 


560     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  IL 

that  even  g^at  parts  will  not  master  any  subject  without  great  thinking,  and  that 
even  the  largest  minds  have  but  narrow  swallows.** 

Let  me  add,  that  in  my  quotations  fi:t)m  English  writers,  I  adhere  scnipulomlj 
to  their  own  phraseology,  in  order  to  bring  under  the  eye  of  my  readers,  specnnens 
of  English  composition  at  different  periods  of  our  history.  I  must  request  thoir 
attention  to  this  circumstance,  as  some  expressions  in  the  former  part  of  this 
Dissertation,  which  have  been  censured  as  Scotticisms,  occur  in  extracts  fivm 
authors  who,  in  all  probability,  never  visited  this  side  of  the  Tweed. 

Note  C  C,  p.  270. 

Afler  studying,  with  all  possible  diligence,  what  Leibnitz  has  said  of  his  momadB 
in  different  parts  of  his  works,  I  find  myself  quite  incompetent  to  annex  any 
precise  idea  to  the  word  as  he  has  employed  it  I  shall,  therefore,  aim  at  nothing 
more  in  this  note,  but  to  collect,  into  as  small  a  compass  as  I  can,  some  of  his 
most  intelligible  attempts  to  explain  its  meaning. 

"  A  substance  is  a  thing  capable  of  action.  It  is  simple  or  compounded.  A 
simple  substance  is  that  which  has  no  parts.  A  compound  substance  is  an  aggr^ 
gate  of  simple  substances  or  o{  monads. 

"  Compounded  substances,  or  bodies,  are  multitudes.  Simple  substances,  lives, 
souls,  spirits,  are  units.^  Such  simple  substances  must  exist  ever3rwhere;  fbt 
without  simple  substances  there  could  be  no  compounded  ones.  AH  nature 
therefore  is  lull  of  life.'* — ^Tom.  ii.  p.  32. 

"  Monads^  having  no  parts,  are  neither  extended,  figured,  nor  divisible.  They 
are  the  real  atoms  of  nature,  or,  in  other  words,  the  elements  of  things.*' — ^Tom.  ii. 
p.  20. 

(It  must  not,  however,  be  imagined,  that  the  monads  of  I^eibnitz  have  any  le- 
semblancc  to  what  are  commonly  called  atoms  by  philosophers.  On  the  contrair, 
he  says  expressly  that  "  numttds  are  not  atoms  of  matter ^  but  atoms  of  sithatances  ; — 
real  units,  which  arc  the  first  principles  in  the  composition  of  things,  and  the  last 
elements  in  the  analysis  of  substances ; — of  which  principles  or  elements,  what  we 
call  bodies  are  only  ilie  phenomena.'^) — Tom.  ii.  pp.  53,  325. 

In  another  passage  we  are  told,  that  ''  a  monad  is  not  a  material  but  a  formal 
atom,  it  being  impossible  for  a  thing  to  be  at  once  material,  and  possessed  of  a  real 
unity  and  indivisibility.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,*'  says  Ijcibnitz,  "  to  reyive  the 
obsolete  doctrines  of  substantial  forms  ^  (the  essence  of  which  consists  in  forced 
separating  it,  however,  from  the  various  abuses  to  which  it  is  liable.** — Tbid.  p.  50. 

"  Every  monad  is  a  living  mirror,  representing  the  universe,  according  to  its 
particular  point  of  new,  and  subject  to  as  regular  laws  as  the  universe  itself." 

"  Ever}'  monody  with  a  particular  body,  makes  a  living  substance.*' 

"  The  knowledge  of  every  soul  (6me)  extends  to  infinity,  and  to  all  thin^  ;  but 
this  knowledge  is  confused.  As  a  person  walking  on  the  margin  of  the  sea,  and 
listening  to  its  roar,  hears  the  noise  of  each  individual  wave  of  which  the  whole 
noise  is  made  up,  but  without  being  able  to  distinguish  one  sound  frotn  another,  in 
like  manner,  our  confused  perceptions  are  the  result  of  the  impressions  made  upon 
us  by  the  whole  universe.     The  case  (he  adds)  is  the  same  with  each  montid.^* 

"As  for  the  reasonable  soul  or  mind,  {Vesprit^)  there  is  something  in  it  more 
1 "  L««  substances  simpler,  les  ries,  les  aroes,  let  esprits.  iiont  det  unlt^** 


NOTE  DI). 


rAW 


tlion  in  the  monadt^  or  even  than  in  those  souls  whieh  are  biniplc.  It  in  not  only 
«  mirror  of  the  universe  of  created  things,  but  an  image  of  the  Deity.  Such  minds 
are  capable  of  reflected  acts,  and  of  conceiving  what  is  meant  by  the  words  /,  sub- 
itaneCf  monads  aoul,  mind;  in  a  word,  of  conceiving  things  and  truths  unconnected 
with  matter ;  and  it  is  this  which  renders  us  capable  of  science  and  of  demonstra- 
tive reasoning. 

"  What  becomes  of  these  souJSf  or  forms^  on  tho  death  of  the  animal  ?  Tlierc 
is  no  alternative  (replies  Leibnitz)  but  to  conclude,  that  not  only  the  soul  is  pre- 
served, but  that  the  animid  also  vith  its  ortfouical  machine  continues  to  exist, 
although  the  de«tructioQ  of  its  grosser  parts  has  reduced  it  to  a  smalloess  as  invi- 
sible to  our  eycH  as  it  was  before  the  moment  of  conception.  Thiui  neither  animals 
nor  souls  perish  at  death  ;  nor  is  there  such  a  thing  as  deaths  if  that  woni  be  under- 
stood with  rigorous  and  metaphysical  accuracy.  The  soul  never  quits  completely 
the  body  with  which  it  is  united,  nor  docs  it  pass  from  one  body  into  another  with 
which  it  had  no  connexion  before ;  a  metamorphosis  takes  place,  but  there  is  no 
metempsychosis.^* — Tom.  ii.  pp.  51,  52. 

On  this  part  of  the  J/eibnitzian  sj-stem  D'AIcmbert  ntmarks,  that  it  proves  no- 
thing more  than  that  the  author  had  perceived  better  than  any  of  hia  predecessors, 
the  impossibility  of  forming  a  distinct  idea  of  tho  nature  of  matter;  a  subject,  how- 
I'ver,  (D'Alembert  adds,)  on  which  the  theory  of  tho  monads  does  not  seem  calcu- 
lated to  throw  much  light.  I  wouhl  rather  say,  (without  altogether  denying  the 
justness  of  D'Alembert  s  criticism,)  that  this  theory  took  its  rise  from  tho  author's 
vain  desire  to  explain  the  nature  of  forces ;  in  consequence  of  which  he  suffers 
himself  perpetually  to  be  led  astray  from  those  sensible  effects  which  are  exchwively 
tho  proper  objects  of  physics^  into  conjectures  concerning  their  efficient  c/iuses, 
which  are  placed  altogether  beyond  the  reach  of  our  reHearch. 

Note  D  D,  p.  276. 

Tlie  metaphysical  argument  advance<l  by  the  I>fibnitzians  in  proof  of  the  law  of 
continuity,  has  never  api»eared  to  me  to  lie  satisfiM'tory.  "  If  a  body  at  rest  (it  has 
been  said)  begins,  per  saltum,  to  move  with  any  finite  velocity,  then  this  body  must 
lye  at  the  same  indivisible  instant  in  two  different  states,  that  of  rest  and  of  motion, 
which  is  impossible."  ^ 

As  this  reasoning,  though  it  relates  to  a  jthysical  fact^  is  itself  wholly  of  a  meia- 
physic€U  nature  ;  and  as  the  inference  deduced  from  it  has  been  generalized  into  a 


1  "  8i  toto  tempore,"  Mja  Father  BoecoTlch, 
•peaking  of  the  Law  of  Continuity  in  the  Colli- 
don  of  Bodies,  "ante  oontactum  eabeeqaentlB 
enrporie  raperflcieeaiiteoedem  habalt  IS  gndos 
velodtalia,  et  neqaenti  9,  nlto  facto  momen- 
taaeo  ipso  initio  contactos :  in  ipeo  momento 
ea  tempora  dirimente  deboiMent  habere  et  12 
et  0  Bimul,  quod  e^t  abeordnin.  Duae  enlm 
velocitatee  aimal  habere  corpoe  non  potest" — 
Theoria  FhH.  yoL  ic 

BoecoTich,  howerer,  it  i^  to  be  obeenred,  ad- 
mite  the  existence  of  the  Law  of  Continuity  in 
the  phenomena  of  Motion  alone,  ((  143.)  and 
rejects  it  altogether  in  thingt  co-ezlMeat  with 

VOL.  I. 


each  other,  ((  142.)  In  ntheroaaes,  be  aayt.  Na- 
ture does  not  obeenre  the  Law  of  Continuity 
with  mathematical  accuracy,  but  only  tiJTtett  it; 
by  which  ezpreerion  be  eeemi  to  mean,  that, 
where  ibe  ia  guilty  of  a  saUut,  she  airoi  at 
making  it  ae  moderate  ae  poedble.  Theexpree- 
lion  is  certainly  deficient  in  metaphyseal  pre 
dslon:  but  it  is  not  unworthy  of  attention, 
inasmuch  as  it  affords  a  proof,  that  BoecoTidi 
did  not  (With  the  Leibnitxians)  conceive  Nature, 
or  the  Author  of  Nature,  as  obeying  an  im- 
tittiUe  nece$Ht0  In  obserring  or  not  obeerviag 
the  Law  of  Continuity. 

2  N 


562     NOTES  AND  ILLUHTRATIONli  TO  DISSERTATION. PABT  IL 

LAW,  auppuied  to  exUud  tu  all  the  variuUM  brancheo  uf  hiuDau  know  lodge,  it  IB  a 
nltogelher  fureign  to  our  present  eiiliject  briefly  tu  coniiider  how  Ikr  it  is  denim 
Btratively  concluiive,  in  thia  aimplegt  of  all  itB  poshible  applicatioaa. 

On  the  above  Hrguniunt,  then,  I  would  rem&rk,— 1.  That  the  ideaa  both  of  n 
auJ  oSmotiua,  tw  wuU  an  Ibe  mure  general  idea  coQvcjed  by  the  word  alate,  a]) 
tlivui  uei:caauri1)  iuvolvu  the  iili^a  i>f  (line  or  daralum;  uid,  conaequently,  >  hue 
vmiuiot  be  naii  tu  be  iu  u  $laU  either  of  rent  or  i>rmoliuri,  at  on  iTtdivisMt  iuitaii 
Wlwtber  the  bud}'  be  ouppuHvU  (nil  in  tbs  vase  of  mutiou)  to  dumge  its  pU 
frum  one  iuBtaat  to  Hiiother;  or  to  ranJiMue  (ati  in  that  uf  rcHt)  fur  an  iostuit  : 
tlie  name  {ilaui: ;  the  idea  uf  nuuie  finite  porliun  uf  time  will,  on  the  aligfatest  r 
flection,  be  found  to  uater  uis  au  eBseutial  element  into  our  conceptiou  of  the  pbj 
aical  fact. 

2,  Although  it  cvrijiinly  would  imply  ii  coDtradivlion  lu  mipputie  a  body  to  be  i 
Ivi'o  diflcrent  tUilet  at  the  name  inatant,  there  does  not  appear  to  be  uiy  iuamu 
tenc;  in  aBserting  that  an  indiTiBtble  iuBtaut  may  form  the  limit  between  a  ulai 
uf  rest  and  a  state  of  motion.  Suppuse  one  half  of  thia  page  to  be  painted  whit 
and  the  other  bUcli,  it  might,  I  apprehend,  be  said  with  the  most  ligarvaa  pp 
priety,  that  the  traoaition  from  the  one  colour  to  the  other  was  made  per  aaltaai 
nor  do  I  think  it  would  be  regarded  as  a  valid  abjection  to  this  phraseology,  I 
represent  it  an  ono  of  ita  implied  coiiaequences,  that  the  mathemAtick]  line  whic 
(umm  their  cammun  limit  must  at  once  be  both  hiock  and  white.*  It  seems  to  ni 
quite  impusBible  (o  elude  the  force  uf  this  reasoning,  without  having  recourse  1 
the  eiiHlence  of  mmething  iutcmieiUate  between  rtst  and  motuM,  which  doea  ui 
[lartakc  of  the  nature  of  either. 

In  It  cuneeivabtc  that  a  body  can  eiiat  in  any  tiaie  which  does  iiot  fall  nndt 
one  or  other  of  the  (wo  predicaments,  rest  or  motion  7  If  this  qneatioa  ohould  b 
miawcred  in  the  uegalive,  will  it  not  follow  that  the  transition  from  one  of  ihet 
ilaiea  to  the  otlier  muni,  of  neceesilj,  be  made  per  naltiim,  and  muat  coniicqueDtl 
violate  the  auppoacd  law  of  continuity  V  Indeed,  if  auch  a  law  exiatcd,  how  cutd 
a  body  at  rcat  btgtn  to  move,  or  a  body  in  motion  come  to  a  ntate  of  rest  ? 

But  farther,  when  it  is  said  that  "  it  ia  impoanible  for  a  body  to  have  its  stal 
changed  from  motion  to  rent,  or  from  rent  to  motion,  without  passing  through  a 
the  intermediate  degrees  of  velocity,"  what  are  we  to  underetand  by  the  tntenm 
tliate  degrttt  of  vilodiy  hehnetn  ral  and  tnotifmi  la  not een^  velocity,  how  ama 
soever,  a jEnite  velocity ;  and  does  it  not  differ  as  eesentially  from  a  stAte  of  rvs 
HH  Iho  velocity  of  light? 


It  in  ulnerved  by  Mr.  Ilaylair,  {DisterMioa  on  ike  ProgreM  of  1 

and  Fhi/iicil  Science,  Part  i.  sect,  iii.],  that  Galileo  was  the  fint  who 

the  eiislence  of  the  Inw  of  continuitg,  and  who  made  use  of  it  as  a  principle  in  hi 

1  [■  In  tepLjlolhi"  rmiiuli.llliMljeinonitii       t»  niil  In  point."— iJii/diJiij^  Mogax4tu  latO 


uphttfal/uct  sutjocl 


NOTK  1)  1>. 


563 


reasonings  on  the  phenomenn  of  motion.  Mr.  Playfair,  however,  with  his  usual 
(liHcrimination  and  corrcctneHH,  ranks  this  among  the  mechanical  discoveries  of 
Galileo.  Indeed,  it  does  not  appear  that  it  was  at  all  regarded  by  Galileo  (as  it 
avowedly  was  by  Leibnitz)  in  the  light  of  a  metaphysical  and  necessary  2atr,  which 
could  not  by  any  possibility  bo  violated  in  any  of  the  phenomena  of  motion.^  It 
was  probably  first  suggested  to  him  by  the  diagram  which  he  employed  to  demon- 
strate,  or  rather  to  illustrate,  the  unifonnly  accelerated  motion  of  falling  bodies  ;* 
and  the  numberless  and  beautiful  exemplitications  of  the  same  law  which  occur  in 
pure  geometry,  sufficiently  account  for  the  disposition  which  so  many  mathemati- 
cian h  have  shewn  to  extend  it  to  all  those  branches  of  physics  which  admit  of  a 
mathematical  consideration. 

My  late  illustrious  friend,  who,  to  his  many  other  great  and  amiable  qualities, 
added  the  most  perfect  fairness  and  candour  in  his  inquiries  after  truth,  has  (in  the 
Second  Part  of  his  Dissertation)  expressed  himself  with  considerably  greater  Bcei>- 
ticism  concerning  the  law  of  continuity,  than  in  his  Outlines  of  Natural  Philosophy, 
In  that  work  ho  pronounced  the  metaphysical  argument,  employed  by  Leibnitz  to 
I)n)ve  its  necessity,  "  to  be  conclusive."  (Sect,  vi.  §  99,  b.)  In  the  Second  Part 
of  his  Dissertation,  (Sect,  ii.),  he  writes  thus  on  the  same  subject : — 

"  Leibnitz  considered  this  principle  as  known  a  priori,  because,  if  any  saltus 
were  to  take  place,  that  is,  if  any  change  were  to  happen  without  the  intervention 
of  time,  the  thing  changed  must  be  in  two  different  conditions  at  the  same  indi- 
vidual instant,  which  is  obviously  impossible.  Wlicthcr  this  reasoning  be  quite 
satisfactory  or  no,  the  conformity  of  the  law  to  the  facts  generally  observed  cannot 
but  entitle  it  to  great  authority  in  judging  of  the  explanations  and  theories  of 
natural  phenomena." 


The  phrase,  fjaw  of  Continuity,  occurs  repeatedly  in  the  course  of  the  corre- 
spondence between  Leibnitz  and  John  Bemonilli,  and  appears  to  have  been  first 
useil  by  Leibnitz  himself.  The  following  passage  contains  some  interesting  par- 
ticulars concerning  the  history  of  this  law :  "  Lex  Continuitatisj  cum  usque  adeo 
sit  nitioni  et  natune  consentanea,  et  usum  habeat  tarn  late  patentem,  minim  tanien 
est  cam  a  nemiue  (quantum  recorder)  untca  adhibitam  fuisse.    Mentionem  ejus 


1  [*  A  learned  and  ingenious  writer  hM  lately 
cxprertted  himwlf  to  tlio  laine  porpoce  with 
Leibnitz.  "  A  body  does  not  ttcquire  itt  c«lerity 
in  an  initant.  Nothing  material  can  exist  but 
what  is  finite :  and  Ui6  beanUftd  law  of  conti- 
nuation^ by  which  changes  are  produced  by 
imperceptible  shades,  Oin  nfver  be  viotatcd." 
(t^$e  a  very  raluable  Ksnay  by  Mr.  Leslie,  On  thr 
Onulnu-tion  and  FJffct  of  Maehinet,  in  the 
second  volume  of  Dr.  Brewster's  edition  of  Fer- 
}{usou's  Lo'lurcf,  p.  333.)  To  myself,  I  own  it 
appears  that  the  first  clauKe  of  this  sentence 
loads  to  a  conclusion  directly  opposite  to  what 
is  here  inferred  in  the  second !] 

^  DoKautes  seems,  firom  his  correspondence 


with  Menenne,  to  hare  been  much  puzzled  with 
Galileo's  reasonings  concerning  the  detoent  of 
telling  bodies:  and  In  alluding  to  it,  has,  on 
different  occasions,  expreswd  himself  with  an 
indecision  and  inconslsteney  of  which  few  in- 
stances occur  in  his  works.  (Vide  Gartesii 
KpUL  Pars  iL  Epbt.  xxxiv.  xxxt.  xxxtU.  xci.) 
His  doubts  on  this  point  will  appear  less  sur- 
prising, if  compared  with  a  passage  in  the  article 
M^tanique  in  D'Alembert's  EUmtna  de  Phiio- 
sophie.  "  Tous  les  philosophes  paroissent  con- 
Tonir,  que  la  vitosso  avec  laquelle  les  corps  qui 
tombcut  commencont  k  se  mouvoir  est  absolu- 
ment  nulle,"  Ac.  Ac — Bee  his  Mdlanifci,  torn.  iv. 
pp.  219.  220. 


*  Restored.— IsTd. 


564      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

• 
a]i(iuam  feceraiu  olim  in  Novellis  ReipuMicie  Literarin  (Juillet,  16S7,  p.  744,)  occa- 
nione  coUatiunculae  cum  Malebmnchio,  qui  idco  nieis  considerationibas  perauasiu, 
8uam  de  legibiis  motiis  in  Inquisitiono  VeritatiB  expositam  doctiinam  poetea  mu- 
tavit ;  quod  brcvi  libello  cdito  testatus  CBt,  in  quo  ingooue  occasionem  mutatioma 
cxponit.  Sed  tamcn  paullo  promptior,  qiuun  par  crat,  fuit  in  novis  legibus  consti- 
tuondis  in  eodem  Hbello,  aniequam  mecum  communicaaset ;  nee  tantmn  in  Teri- 
tatem,  sod  etiani  in  illam  ipiiam  Ijegem  Continuitatia,  ctsi  minuB  aperte,  denno 
tamen  iropegit ;  quod  nolui  viro  optinio  objicere,  nc  viderer  ejus  exiatixnatiom  de- 
trahere  voile." — EpUt.  Leibnit  ad  Job.  Bemouilli,  1697. 

From  one  of  John  Bernouilli*8  letters  to  Jioibnitz,  it  would  appear  that  he  had 
bimsolf  a  conviction  of  the  trutli  of  this  law,  before  he  had  any  commanication  with 
Iieibnitz  upon  the  subject. 

"  Placet  tuum  criterium  pro  examinandis  regulis  motuum,  quod  letfem  coniinui- 
iatU  vocas ;  est  cnim  per  se  evidens,  et  vehit  a  natura  nobis  inditum,  quod  eran- 
escente  insDqualitatc  hypothesium,  evanesccre  quo<}ue  debeant  iniequalitates  even- 
tuum.  Hinc  niultoties  non  satis  mirari  potui,  qui  fieri  potuerit,  ut  tam  incongraaB, 
tarn  absonas,  et  tam  manifesto  inter  se  pugnantes  regulas,  excepta  aoU  prinm, 
potuerit  condere  Cartesius,  vir  alias  summi  ingenii.  Mihi  videtur  vel  ab  infiuite 
falsitatcm  illarura  palpari  posse,  eo  quod  ubique  saltus  ille,  natune  adeo  inimicua, 
manifeirte  nimis  elucet.** — EpUt.  Demouilli  ad  Leib.  1696.  Vide  Leibnitzii  et  Jo. 
Bemouilli  Comm.  EpUt.    2  vols.  4to.    Ijausannro  et  Oenevse,  1745. 

[*  Tlie  reasoning  of  John  Bemouilli  in  support  of  the  Ixiw  of  Continmiyt  strikes 
me  as  obviously  inconsequcntiHl.  "  Tons  ceux  qui  sent  convaincus  que  toua  Ics 
genres  do  quantito  sent  divisibles  h  Tinfini,  auront-ils  de  la  i)eine  &  diriser  la  ploa 
insensible  duree  en  un  nombre  infini  de  pctites  parties,  et  fl  y  placer  tous  lea  deg^r^a 
possibles  de  vitosse,  depuis  le  rcpos  jnsqu*i\  un  monvement  determine."  They 
who  hold  the  infinite  divisibility  of  extension  would  be  the  last,  I  should  conceive, 
to  admit  the  force  of  this  arjijiiment.  If  the  loast  conceivable  mathematical  line 
l>e,  in  idea,  as  much  susceptible  of  an  endless  diviKion  as  the  diameter  of  the  earth's 
orbit,  dmis  it  not  follow  that  the  t/ap  which  separates  an  indivisibU  part  from  the 
former,  is  of  the  same  kind,  however  inferior  in  degree,  to  that  which  separates  the 
point  from  the  latter?  Is  there  anything  intennediute  between  a  point  and  a 
lino,  to  aNsiHt  the  imagination  in  conceiving  what  is  meant  by  "tow*  /!ft»  degr^  pon- 
tiblps  (le  rit^Me,  depuiM  le  rejxnt  junqna  nu  mouvenwnt  d^t^rminf.  t'^'\ 

Note  K  E,  p.  270 

Mais  il  rcHtoit  encore  la  plus  gmnde  question,  de  ce  que  cos  ameN  ou  ces  formes 
deviennent  par  la  mort  de  I'nnimal,  ou  par  la  destrmition  de  Tindividu  de  la  sub- 
stance organise.  Kt  cVst  re  <]ui  t>mbarras8n  1p  plus ;  d'aiitant  qu'il  paroit  pen 
raisonnable  quo  les  umes  restent  inutilement  dans  lui  chaos  de  matiere  confuse, 
(ela  m'a  fait  juger  enfin  qu'il  n'y  avoit  qn'un  scnl  parti  raisonnable  A  prendre  ;  et 
c'est  celui  de  la  conservation  non  seulemont  de  IVimo,  mais  encore  de  Tanimal 
meme,  et  de  la  machine  organique  ;  quoique  lu  destruction  des  parties  grossidres 
I'ait  reduit  K  une  pctitesse  qui  n'echappe  pas  moins  K  nos  sens  que  cello  ou  il  etoit 
avant  que  de  naitre. — Leib.  Op.  t<»m.  ii.  p.  61. 

.    .    .   Des  personnes  fort  exactes  aux  experiences  se  sent  dejA  a|>en;nies  de  notrf^ 

*  Il«iitore<1.— £r/. 


NOTE  F  F.  565 

teoiv,^  qu^OD  peut  douter,  si  jamais  un  animal  tout  k  fait  nouveau  est  prodait,  et  si 
les  animaux  tout  en  vie  ne  sont  dej&  en  petit  avant  la  conception  dans  les  semenoes 
aussi  bien  que  les  plantes.  Gette  doctrine  6tant  pot^,  il  aera  raisonnable  de  juger, 
que  ce  qui  ne  commence  pas  de  yivre  ne  cesse  pas  de  vivre  non  plus  ;  et  que  la 
mort,  comme  la  g^n^ration,  n'est  que  la  transformation  du  memo  animal  qui  est 
tantot  augmente,  et  tantot  diminu^. — Thid,  pp.  42,  43. 

.  .  .  Et  puisqu*  ainsi  il  n*y  a  point  de  premiere  naissance  ni  dc  gC'n6ration  en- 
tierement  nouyoUe  dc  Panimal,  il  s'ensuit  qu*il  n*y  en  aura  point  d'extinction  finale, 
ni  de  mort  enti^rc  prise  &  la  rigueur  mctaphysique ;  et  que,  par  consequent,  au  lieu 
de  la  transmigration  dcs  limes,  il  n'y  a  qu*une  transformation  d^in  meme  animal, 
selon  que  les  organes  sont  pli68  difiSremment,  et  plus  ou  moins  developp^s. — Ibid. 
p.  52. 

Quant  (i  la  M^tempsjcosc,  je  crois  que  Tordre  ne  Tadmet  point ;  il  vent  que  tout 
soit  explicable  distinctement,  et  que  rien  ne  se  fasse  par  saut.  Mais  le  passage  de 
I'ame  d\in  corps  dans  Tautre  seroit  un  saut  etrange  et  inexplicable.  II  se  fait 
toujours  dans  Panimal  ce  qui  se  fait  pr^sentement :  Cest  que  le  corps  est  dans  un 
changement  continuel,  comme  un  fleuvc,  et  ce  que  nous  appellons  generation  ou 
mort,  n'est  qu*un  changement  plus  grand  et  plus  prompt  qu'&  rorcUnairo,  tel  que 
seroit  le  saut  ou  la  cataracte  d'une  rividre.  Mais  ces  sauts  ne  sont  pas  absolus  et 
tels  que  je  desaproure ;  comme  seroit  celui  d*un  corps  qui  iroit  d*un  lieu  h  un  autre 
sans  passer  par  le  milieu.  Et  de  teU  sauts  ne  sont  pas  seulement  difendus  dans 
Us  mouvemenSf  nuns  encore  dans  tout  ordre  dee  chases  ou  des  viritis. — The  sen- 
tences which  follow  afford  a  proof  of  what  I  have  elsewhere  remarked,  how  much 
the  mind  of  Leibnitz  was  misled,  in  the  whole  of  this  metaphysical  theory,  by 
liabits  of  thinking  formed  in  early  life,  amidst  the  hypothetical  abstractions  of  pure 
geometry ;  a  prejudice  (or  idd  of  the  mathematical  den)  to  which  the  most  import- 
ant errors  of  his  philosophy  might,  without  much  difficulty,  be  traced. — Or  comme 
dans  uno  Kgiie  de  geometric  il  y  a  certains  points  distingu^,  qu*on  appelle  som- 
mets,  points  d'infiexion,  points  de  rebroussement,  ou  autrement ;  et  comme  il  y  on 
a  dcs  lignes  qui  en  ont  une  infinite,  c*est  ainsi  qu^l  faut  concevoir  dans  la  vie  d*un 
animal  ou  d'une  peraonne  les  tems  d*un  changement  extraordinaire,  qui  ne  laissent 
pas  d'etre  dans  la  regie  generate  ;  de  meme  que  les  points  distingu^s  dans  la  courbe 
se  peuvont  determiner  par  sa  nature  gen^rale  ou  son  Equation.  On  peut  toujours 
dire  d'un  animal  c'est  tout  comme  ict,  la  difference  n'est  que  du  phis  on  moins. — 

Tom.  V.  p.  18. 

NoTB  F  F,  p.  282. 

The  praise  which  I  have  bestowed  on  Uiis  Memoir  renders  it  necessary  for  mc 
to  take  some  notice  of  a  very  exceptionablo  proposition  which  is  laid  down  in  the 
first  paragraph  as  a  fundamental  maxim, — that  "  all  proper  names  were  at  first 
appellatives  ;"  a  proposition  so  completely  at  variance  with  the  commonly  received 
opinions  among  later  philosophers,  that  it  seems  an  object  of  some  curiosity  to  in- 
quire, how  far  it  is  entitled  to  plead  in  its  favour  the  authority  of  Leibnitz.  Since 
the  writings  of  Condillac  and  of  Smith,  it  has,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  universally 
acknowledged,  that,  if  there  be  any  one  truth  in  the  Theoretical  Iliatory  of  Lan- 
guage, which  we  arc  entitled  to  assume  as  an  incontrovertible  fact,  it  is  the  direct 

I  The  exptriments  her?  referred  tn  are  the  obcerr«tinns  of  SirKnimerdam,  Ma]pighi.  nn<l 
Lewenhoeck. 


566     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  IL 

contrary  of  the  above  proposition.  Indeed,  to  assert  that  all  proper  names  were  at 
first  appellatives,  wonld  appear  to  be  nearly  an  absardity  of  the  same  kind  as  to 
maintain,  that  classes  of  objects  existed  before  individual  objects  had  been  brouglit 
into  being. 

When  Jjeibnitz,  however,  comes  to  explain  his  idea  more  fully,  we  find  it  to  be 
something  very  different  from  what  his  words  literally  imply  ;  and  to  amount  only 
to  the  trite  and  indisputable  observation,  that,  in  simple  and  primitive  langaaget, 
all  proper  names  (such  as  the  names  of  persons,  mountains,  places  of  residence, 
&c.)  are  descriptive  or  significant  of  certain  prominent  and  characteristical  features, 
distinguishing  them  from  other  objects  of  the  same  class ; — a  fact,  of  which  a  large 
proportion  of  the  surnames  still  in  use,  all  over  Europe,  as  well  as  the  names  of 
mountains,  villages,  and  rivers,  when  traced  to  their  primitive  roots,  aflford  numer- 
ous and  well  known  exemplifications. 

Not  that  the  proposition,  even  when  thus  explained,  can  be  assumed  as  a  general 
maxim.  It  holds,  indeed,  in  many  cases,  as  the  Celtic  and  the  Saxon  languages 
abundantly  testify  in  our  own  island ;  but  it  is  true  only  under  certain  limitations, 
and  it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  doctrine  delivered  on  this  subject  by  the 
greater  part  of  philologers  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

In  the  history  of  language,  nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  averaioQ  of 
men  to  coin  words  out  of  unmeaning  and  arbitrary  sounds ;  and  their  eagerness  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  stores  already  in  their  possession,  in  order  to  give  utterance 
to  their  thoughts  on  the  new  topics  which  the  gradual  extension  of  their  experience 
is  continually  bringing  within  the  circle  of  their  knowledge.  Henoe  metaphors, 
and  other  figures  of  speech ;  and  hence  the  various  changes  which  words  nndergo^ 
in  the  way  of  amplification,  diminution,  composition,  and  the  other  transformalifias 
of  elementary  terms  which  fall  under  the  notice  of  the  etymologist.  Were  it  not, 
indeed,  for  this  strong  and  universal  bias  of  our  nature,  the  vocabulary  of  every 
language  would,  in  process  of  time,  become  so  extensive  and  unwieldy,  as  to  render 
the  acquisition  of  onc\s  mother  tongue  a  task  of  immense  difficulty,  and  the  acqui- 
sition of  a  dead  or  foreign  tongue  next  to  impossible.  It  is  needless  to  observe, 
how  immensely  these  tasks  are  facilitated  by  that  etymological  system  which  runs, 
more  or  less,  through  every  language ;  and  which  everywhere  proceeds  on  certain 
analogical  principles,  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  practical  gramnuurian  to  reduce 
to  general  rules,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  wish  to  speak  or  to  write  it  with  cor- 
rectness. 

In  attempting  thus  to  trace  backwards  the  steps  of  the  mind  towards  the  com- 
mencement of  its  progress,  it  is  evident,  that  we  must  at  last  arrive  at  a  set  of 
elementary  and  primitive  roots,  of  which  no  account  can  be  given,  but  the  arbitraiy 
choice  of  those  who  first  happened  to  employ  them.  It  is  to  this ^rt<  stage  in  the 
infancy  of  language  that  Mr.  Smith's  remarks  obviously  relate  ;  whereas  the  pro- 
positiun  of  Leibnitz,  which  gave  occasion  to  this  note,  as  obvionsly  relates  to  its 
subsequent  stages,  when  the  language  is  beginning  to  assume  somewhat  of  a  re- 
gular form,  by  compositions  an<l  other  modifications  of  the  materials  previously 
collected. 

From  these  slight  hints  it  may  be  inferred,  1«/,  That  the  proposition  of  I/eilmitx, 
although  it  may  Hccni,  from  the  very  inaccurate  and  equivocal  terms  in  which  it 
is  expressed,  to  stand  in  direct  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  Smith,  was  reallv  meant 


NOTES  G  G — H  H.  567 

by  the  author  to  Htate  a  fact  totally  unconnected  with  the  question  under  Smith'fl 
consideration.  2dltfy  That  even  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  understood  by  the 
author,  it  fails  entirely,  when  extended  to  that  first  stafce  in  the  infancy  of  language, 
to  which  the  introdurt/>ry  paragraphs  in  Mr.  Smith's  discourse  are  exclusively 
^onfine<l. 

NoTK  G  G,  p.  285. 

"  Je  viens  de  recevoir  une  lettre  d'un  Prince  Regnant  de  TEmpire,  oii  S.  A.  me 
marque  avoir  vu  deux  fois  ce  printems  h  la  demidre  foire  de  Leipsig,  et  examine 
avec  soin  nn  chion  qui  parle.  Ce  chien  a  prononcu  distinctement  plus  de  trente 
mots,  repondant  memo  assoz  h  propos  k  son  maitre:  il  a  aussi  prononce  tout 
Falphabet  excepte  les  lettres  m,  n,  x." — Leib.  Operas  tom.  v.  p.  72. 

Thus  far  the  fact  rests  upon  the  authority  of  the  German  prince  alone.  But 
from  a  passage  in  the  History  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences^  for  the  year  1706,  it 
appears  that  Leibnitz  had  himself  seen  and  heanl  the  dog.  What  follows  is  tran- 
scribed from  a  report  of  the  Academy  upon  a  letter  from  Leibnitz  to  the  Abbe  de 
8t.  Pierre,  giving  the  details  of  this  extraordinary  occurrence. 

"  Sans  un  garant  tcl  que  M.  Leibnitz,  temoin  oculairc,  nous  n'aurions  pas  la 
hanliesse  de  rapporter,  qu'auprus  de  Zeitz  dans  la  Misnie,  il  y  a  un  chien  qui 
parle.  C'est  nn  r nTim^<1h"l^|mj| u ,  d'une  figure  des  plus  communes,  et  de  gran- 
tleur  meditx:re.  Un  jeune  enfant  \xa  eritWfirHfr  pouswr  quelqucy  wms  quil  crut 
ressembler  il  des  mots  AUemands,  et  sur  cela  sc  mit  en  tote  de  lui  apprendre  li 
parler.  Ije  maitre,  qui  n'avoit  rien  de  mieux  a  faire,  n'y  epargna  pas  le  tems  ni 
ses  peines,  et  heureusement  le  disciple  avoit  des  dispositions  qu41  eut  etc  difficile 
de  trouver  dans  un  autre.  Enfin,  au  bout  de  quelqucs  annees,  le  chien  S9tit  pro- 
noncer  environ  une  trentaine  de  mots :  de  ce  nombre  sent  Th^^  Cajfi,,  ChoctAatt 
AssetnbUtj  mots  Franyois,  qui  out  passe  dans  I'Allemand  tels  qu'ils  sont.  Tl  est  a 
rcmarquer,  que  le  chien  avoit  bien  trois  ans  qnand  il  fut  mis  h  T^cole.  II  ne  parle 
que  par  echo,  c'est  a  dire,  apri^s  que  son  maitre  a  prononcc  un  mot ;  et  il  semble, 
([u'il  ne  repctp  que  par  force  et  malgre  lui,  quoiqu'on  ne  le  maltraitc  pas.  Encon' 
une  fois,  M.  Leibnitz  I'a  vu  et  entendu." 

(Expose  d'une  lettre  de  M.  Leibnitz  i\  TAbbo  do  St.  Pierre  sur  un  chien  qui 
parle.)  "  Cet  exjKme  de  la  lettre  de  M.  Leibnitz  so  trouve  dans  PHistoire  de 
TAcailemie  des  Sciences,  annee  1706.  Ce  sont  les  Auteurs  de  rilistoire  de 
I'Acailemie  qui  parlent." — lioib.  Operas  vol.  ii.  p.  180,  Part  ii. 

May  not  all  the  circumstances  of  the  above  story  bo  accounted  for,  by  supposing 
the  master  of  the  dog  to  have  possessed  that  peculiar  species  of  imitative  power 
which  is  called  VeiUriloqutsm  f  Matthews,  I  have  no  doubt,  would  find  little  diffi- 
culty in  managing  such  a  deception,  so  as  to  impose  on  the  senses  of  any  person 
who  had  never  Iwfore  witnessetl  any  exhibition  of  the  sam*»  kind. 

Note  H  H,  p.  285. 

AXTien  I  speak  in  favourable  terms  of  the  Philosophical  Spirit^  I  hope  none  of 
my  rca<lei-H  will  confound  it  with  the  spirit  of  that  false  i)hilosophy,  which,  by 
unhinging  every  rational  principle  of  belief,  seldom  fails  to  unite  in  the  same 
rharacters  the  extremes  of  scepticism  and  of  credulity.  It  is  a  \ory  reniarkabh- 
fact,  that  the  same  |)eriod  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  same  part  of  Europe 


568      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  II. 

which  were  most  diBUnguished  by  the  triumphs  of  AtheiBm  and  Mateiialism,  were 
also  distiDgnished  by  a  greater  number  of  visionaries  and  impostors  than  had  ever 
appeared  before,  since  the  revival  of  letteirs.  Nor  were  these  follies  confined  to 
persons  of  little  education.  They  extended  to  men  of  the  highest  rank,  and  to 
many  individuals  of  distinguished  talents.  Of  this  the  most  satisfiictory  pnofe 
might  be  produced ;  but  I  have  room  here  only  for  one  short  quotation.  It  is 
from  the  pen  of  the  Due  de  Levis,  and  relates  to  the  celebrated  Mai^schal  de 
Richelieu,  on  whom  Voltaire  has  lavished  so  much  of  his  flattery.  ^*  Ce  dont  je 
suis  positivement  certain,  c'est  que  cet  homme  spirituel  (le  Mar^schal  de  Bidie- 
lieu)  etoit  supers titieux,  et  qu'il  croyoit  &ux  predictions  des  astrologues  et  antres 
sottises  de  cet  esp^ce.  Je  I'ai  vu  refusant  k  Versailles  d'aller  faire  sa  conr  as 
fils  aine  de  Louis  XVJ.  en  disant  s^rieusement,  qu^U  aavoit  que  cet  enfant  n*etoit 
point  destine  au  trone.  Cette  credulite  superstitieuse,  genenUe  pendant  la  ligne, 
etoit  encore  trcs  commune  sous  la  regence  lorsque  le  Due  de  Kiciiekiea  entra  dans 
le  monde ;  par  la  plus  bizarre  des  incons^uences,  elle  8*allioit  tres  bien  avec  la 
plus  grande  impiete,  et  la  plupart  des  materialistes  croyoient  aux  eapriia ;  anjoor- 
d'hm',  ce  genre  de  folie  est  tres  rare  ;  mais  beaucoup  de  gens,  qui  sc  moquent  des 
Astrolognes,  croient  k  des  predictions  d'une  autre  espece." — SouvetUrg  et  Ihriraiis, 
par  M.  do  Levis  ;  a  Paris,  1813. 

Some  extraordinary  facts  of  the  same  kind  are  mentioned  in  the  Memoirs  of  At 
Marquis  de  BouiUi.  According  to  him,  Frederic  the  Great  himself  was  not  free 
from  this  sort  of  superatition. 

A  similar  remark  is  made  by  an  ancient  historian,  witli  respect  to  the  manners 
of  Rome  at  the  period  of  the  Gothic  invasion.  "  There  are  many  who  do  not  pre- 
sume either  to  bathe,  or  to  dine,  or  to  appear  in  public,  till  they  have  diligently 
consulted,  according  to  the  rules  of  astrology,  the  situation  of  Mercurjy  and  the 
aspect  of  the  Moon.  It  is  singular  enough  that  this  vain  credulity  may  oft^n  be 
discovered  among  the  profane  sceptics,  who  impiously  doubt  or  deny  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Celestial  Power." — Gibbon,  from  Ammianus  Marcellinns,  DecUme  cmd 
Fall  of  (he  Boman  Empire^  vol.  v.  p.  278. 

Note  1 1,  p.  286. 

The  following  estimate  of  Leibnitz,  considered  in  comparison  with  his  most  dis- 
tinguished contemporaries,  approaches,  on  the  whole,  very  nearly  to  the  truth : 
although  some  doubts  may  be  entertained  about  the  justness  of  the  decision  in  the 
last  clause  of  the  sentence.  "  Leibnitz,  aussi  hardi  que  Descartes,  aussi  subtil  que 
Bayle,  peut-ctre  raoins  profond  que  Newton,  et  moins  sage  que  Liocke,  mais  seal 
universel  cntrc  tons  ces  grands  hommes,  paroit  avoir  embrass^  le  domaine  de  la 
raison  dans  toute  son  6tcndue,  et  avoir  contribue  le  plus  a  r^pandre  cet  esprit 
philosophique  que  fait  atyourd'hui  la  gloire  de  notre  si^cle.** — ^Bailly,  Slogeds 
Leibnitz. 


I  have  mentioned  in  the  text  only  a  ^mrt  of  the  learned  labours  of  Leibnitz.  It 
remains  to  be  added,  that  he  wrote  also  on  various  subjects  connected  with 
chemistry,  medicine,  botany,  and  natural  history  ;  on  the  philosophy  and  language 
of  tlie  Chinese  ;  and  on  numberless  other  topics  of  subordinate  importance.  The 
philological  discussions  and  ctyuKtlogical  collections,  which  occupy  so  large  a  space 


NOTE  II.  569 

auioug  liiB  workB,  would  (wen  if  he  had  produced  nothing  elite)  have  been  no  iu- 
conHiderable  memorials  of  the  activity  and  industry  of  his  mind. 

Manifold  and  heterogeneous  as  these  pursuits  may  at  first  appear,  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  trace  the  thread  by  which  his  curiosity  was  led  from  one  of  them  to 
another.  I  have  already  remarked  a  connexion  of  the  same  sort  between  his 
different  metaphysical  and  theological  researches ;  and  it  may  not  be  altogether 
uninteresting  to  extend  the  observation  to  some  of  the  subjects  enumerated  in  the 
foregoing  paragraph. 

The  studies  by  which  he  first  distinguished  himself  in  the  learned  world  (I 
pa8s  over  that  of  jurisprudence,*  which  was  imposed  on  him  by  the  profession  for 
which  he  was  destined)  were  directed  to  the  antiquities  of  his  own  country ;  and 
more  particularly  to  those  connected  with  the  history  of  the  House  of  Brunswick. 
With  this  view  ho  ransacked,  with  an  unexampled  industr}',  the  libraries,  monas- 
teries, and  other  archives,  both  of  Germany  and  of  Italy ;  employing  in  this 
ungrateful  drudgery  several  of  the  best  and  most  precious  years  of  his  life.  Moi^ 
tified,  however,  to  find  how  narrow  the  limits  are,  within  which  the  range  of 
written  records  is  confined,  he  struck  out  for  himself  and  his  successors  a  new  and 
unexpected  light,  to  guide  them  through  the  seemingly  hopeless  darkless  of 
remote  ages.  This  light  was  the  study  of  etymology,  and  of  the  affinities  of  dif- 
ferent tongues  in  their  primitive  roots  ; — a  light  at  first  faint  and  glimmering,  but 
which,  since  his  time,  has  continued  to  increase  in  brightness,  and  is  likely  to  do 
HO  more  and  more  as  the  world  grows  older.  It  is  pleasing  to  see  his  curiosity  on 
this  subject  expand,  from  the  names  of  the  towns,  and  rivers,  and  mountains  in  his 
neighbourhood,  till  it  reached  to  China  and  other  regions  in  the  east ;  leading  him, 
in  the  last  result,  to  some  general  conclusions  concerning  the  origin  of  the  difibrent 
tribes  of  our  species,  approximating  very  nearly  to  those  which  have  been  since 
drawn  from  a  much  more  extensive  range  of  data  by  Sir  William  Jones,  and  other 
philologers  of  the  same  school. 

As  an  additional  light  for  illustrating  the  antiquities  of  Germany,  he  had  re- 
course to  natural  history :  examining,  with  a  scientific  eye,  the  shells  and  other 
marine  bodies  everywhere  to  be  found  in  Europe,  and  the  impressions  of  plants 
and  fishes  (some  of  them  unknown  in  this  part  of  the  world)  which  are  distinctly 
legible,  even  by  the  unlettered  observer,  on  many  of  our  fossils.  In  entering  upon 
this  research,  as  well  as  on  the  former,  he  seems  to  have  had  a  view  to  Germany 
alone  ;  on  the  state  of  which,  (he  tells  us,)  prior  to  all  historical  documents,  it  was 
his  purpose  to  prefix  a  discourse  to  his  History  of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  But 
his  imagination  soon  took  a  bolder  flight,  and  gave  birth  to  his  Protogcoa; — a  dis- 
sertation which  (to  use  his  own  words)  had  for  its  object  **  to  ascertain  the  original 
face  of  the  earth,  and  to  collect  the  vestiges  of  its  earliest  history  from  the  monu- 
ments which  nature  herself  has  left  of  her  successive  operations  on  its  surface.  It 
is  a  work  which,  wild  and  extravagant  as  it  may  now  be  regarded,  is  spoken  of  by 

1  BaUly.  in  his  BU)f/e  on  Leibnitz,  tpeaki  of  bJa  chancteriftical  origbiaUky.  than  wber«  he 

hiiD  in  tormi  of  the  most  enthofiaBUo  prahM,  m  profoMei  to  treat  of  the  law  of  nature.     On 

a  philoiophical  Jurist,  and  as  a  man  fitted  to  these  occasions,  how  inferior  does  he  appear  to 

become  the  legislator  of  the  human  race.    To  Orotius,  not  to  speak  of  Montesquieu  and  his 

roe.  I  must  own.  it  appears,  that  there  i»  no  disciples! 
part  of  his  writings  in  wliich  he  discoTexs  less  of 


570     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  11. 

RnlTon  with  much   respect ;    and  is  considered  hy  Cnvier  an  the  groniidwork  of 
Bnfibn'R  own  svRtem  on  the  same  subject. 

In  the  connexion  which  I  have  now  pointed  out  between  the  Hii!to>ri<»1,  the 
Philological,  and  the  Geological  speculations  of  lieibnitz,  Helvetins  might  bare 
fancied  that  he  saw  a  new  exemplification  of  the  law  of  continuity ;  but  the  true 
light  in  which  it  ought  to  be  viewed,  is  as  a  faithful  picture  of  a  philosophical 
mind  emancipating  itself  from  the  trammels  of  local  and  conventional  details,  and 
gradually  rising  from  subject  to  subject,  till  it  embraces  in  its  snrvej  those  noUer 
inquiries  which,  sooner  or  later,  will  be  equally  interesting  to  creiy  portion  of 
the  human  race.' — [*  With  this  unparalleled  range  of  knowledge  treasured  up  in 
a  mind  peculiarly  fond  of  combining  the  most  remote  affinities,  it  is  not  wondeHul 
tluit  Leibnitz  should  have  conceived  the  idea  of  compiling  an  Ehtcydopedia,  The 
groundwork  of  his  undertaking  was  to  be  the  Encyclopedia  published  in  1620  bv 
Ahtedim;  a  work,  of  which  he  seems  to  have  thought  more  highly  than  most  of 
the  learned  have  done.  There  is,  I  should  think,  but  little  reason  to  regret  that 
this  design  proved  abortive  ; — when  we  consider,  first,  that  he  proposed  to  insert, 
entire^  in  his  Dictionary,  the  tracts  of  Hobbes  De  Jure  and  De  Corpore;  and, 
secondly,  that  in  one  of  his  letters  to  a  friend,  he  has  suggested  the  advantages  of 
composing  an  Encyclopedia  in  verse.  How  vast  the  distance  of  these  imperfect 
glimmerings  from  the  views  opened  in  the  preliminary  discourse  of  D'Alembert, 
and  what  a  proof  does  this  contrast  furnish  of  the  astonishing  progreas  of  the 
human  mind  during  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  !] 

Note  K  K,  p.  296. 

Of  Locke's  ofiectionate  regard  for  Collins,  notwithstanding  the  contrariety  of 
their  opinions  on  some  questions  of  the  highest  moment,  there  exist  many  pToo& 
in  his  letters,  publiHhed  by  M.  Des  Maizeaux.  In  one  of  these,  the  following 
passage  is  remarkable.  It  is  dated  from  Oates  in  Essex,  1703,  abont  a  year  before 
Ix)cke*H  death. 

"  You  complain  of  a  great  many  defects ;  and  that  very  complaint  is  the  highest 
recommendation  I  could  desire  to  make  mc  love  4ind  esteem  you,  and  desire  your 
friendship.     And  if  I  were  now  setting  out  in  the  world,  I  should  think  it  my 


1  In  the  abore  note,  I  hare  said  nothing  of  Leib- 
nitx'8  project  of  a  philocophical  language,  found- 
ed on  an  alphabet  of  Human  Thoughts,  as  he 
han  nowhere  given  us  any  hint  of  the  prindpleH 
on  which  he  intended  to  proceed  in  Iti  forma- 
tion, although  he  ha.s  frequently  alluded  to  the 
practicability  of  such  an  iuTention  in  terms  of 
extraordinary  confidence.  (For  some  remarks 
on  these  paangee  in  his  works,  see  PMlotophjf 
of  the  Human  Mind,  vol.  ii.  p.  143,  et  ttq.) 
In  some  of  Leibnitz's  expressions  on  this  sub- 
ject, there  is  a  striking  re«ierablance  to  tho.fe  of 
Descartes  in  one  of  his  letters.  See  the  pre- 
liminary discourse  prefixed  to  the  Abb^  Emery's 
/V«JhV#  de  DescttrUf,  p.  14,  et  *«/. 

In  the  ingenious  essiy  of  Michailis.  On  the 


inffuenee  of  Opiniona  on  Langue^e,  and  of 
Language  on  Opinioni,  (which  obtained  tibe 
prize  from  the  Royal  Soeie^  of  Berlin  In  1759j 
there  are  some  very  acttte  and  Jndieioiu  reflec- 
tions on  the  impofldbility  of  carrying  into  effiBcl, 
with  any  advantage,  such  a  project  aa  these  phi- 
loeophers  had  in  view.  Hm  anth<n^  ai^Koroeot 
on  this  point  seems  to  me  deciaiTe,  in  the  pr»- 
ient  state  of  human  knowledge :  bai  who  eaa 
pretend  to  fix  a  limit  to  the  poaaible  attain- 
ments of  our  posterity  ! 

[This  Essay,  which  obtained  the  prize  from 
the  Royal  Academy  of  Berlin,  originally  i^pear- 
ed  in  German,  but  has  been  Texy  well  translated 
into  French  by  an  anonymous  writer.  TIm 
translation  was  printed  at  Bremen  in  1761.] 


*  Restored.— £(/. 


XOTELL.  571 

great  ImppinoBs  to  have  such  a  companion  aa  yon,  who  had  a  tnie  relish  for  tmth ; 
would  in  eamcRt  seek  it  with  mc ;  from  whom  I  might  receive  it  nndiBguiRc<l ; 
and  to  wliom  I  might  communicate  wliat  I  thought  true  freely.  Believe  it,  my 
good  friend,  to  love  truth  for  truth-R  sake,  is  the  principal  part  of  human  perfection 
in  this  world,  and  the  seed-plot  of  all  other  virtues ;  and,  if  I  mistake  not,  you 
have  as  much  of  it  as  ever  I  met  with  in  anyhody.  'WHiat,  then,  is  there  wanting 
to  make  you  equal  to  the  best ;  a  friend  for  any  one  to  be  proud  of?**  ....  The 
whole  of  Ixx^ko's  letters  to  Collins  are  highly  interesting  and  curious;  more 
particularly  that  which  he  desired  to  be  deliverc<l  to  him  after  his  own  death. 
From  the  general  tenor  of  these  letters,  it  may  be  inferred,  that  Collins  had  never 
let  I/)cke  fully  into  the  secret  of  those  pernicious  opinions  which  he  was  aderwanlH 
at  HO  much  pains  to  disseminate. 

NoTK  L  L,  p.  290. 

In  addition  to  the  account  of  Spinoza  given  in  Bayle,  some  interesting  particu- 
lars of  his  history  may  be  learnt  from  a  small  volume,  entitled  La  Vie  tie  B.  de 
Spinoza,  tir^e  (lea  6criU  de  ce  I'^ameux  Philosopher  ei  du  ifynoignage  de  ptuaienra 
perwnnea  ditptes  de  foi,  qui  Vont  cotinu  jxirticuliPrement :  par  .Iran  Colrrus, 
Ministre  de  VEyUie  Luth^ienne  de  la  ITaye:  1706.*  The  book  is  evidently 
written  by  a  man  altogether  unfit  to  appreciate  the  met  its  or  demerits  of  Spinoza 
as  an  author ;  but  it  is  not  without  some  value  to  those  who  delight  in  the  study 
of  human  character,  as  it  supplies  some  chasms  in  the  narrative  of  Bayle,  and  has 
every  appearance  of  the  most  p<^rfect  impartiality  and  candour. 

According  to  this  account,  Spinoza  was  a  person  of  the  most  quiet  and  inoffen- 
sive manners ;  of  singular  temperance  and  moderation  in  his  passions ;  contented  and 
happy  with  an  income  which  barely  supplied  him  with  the  necessaries  of  life  ;  and 
of  too  independent  a  spirit  to  accept  of  any  addition  to  it,  either  from  the  favour  of 
princes,  or  tlie  liberality  of  his  friends.  In  conformity  to  the  law,  and  to  the 
customs  of  his  ancestors,  (which  he  adhered  to,  when  ho  thought  them  not  unreason- 
able, even  when  under  the  sentence  of  excommunication,)  he  resolved  to  learn 
some  mechanical  trade  ;  and  fortunately  selected  that  of  grinding  optical  glasses,  in 
which  ho  acquired  so  much  dext«;rity,  that  it  furnished  him  with  what  he  conceived 
to  be  a  sufficient  maintenance.  He  acquired  also  enough  of  the  art  of  designing, 
to  produce  good  portraits  in  chalk  and  china-ink  of  some  distinguished  persons. 

For  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  he  lodged  in  the  house  of  a  respectable  and 
religious  family,  who  were  tenderly  attached  to  him,  and  from  whom  his  biographer 
collected  various  interesting  anecdotes.  All  of  them  are  very  creditable  to  his 
private  chanicter,  and  more  particularly  show  how  courteous  and  amiable  he  must 
have  l>een  in  his  intercourse  with  his  inferiors.  In  a  bill  presented  for  payment 
after  his  death,  he  is  styled  by  Abraham  Reveling,  his  barlnir-surgeon,  Benedict 
Spiiioza  of  blessed  memory;  and  the  same  compliment  is  paid  to  him  by  the 
tradesman  who  furnished  gloves  to  the  mourners  at  his  funeral. 

Those  particulars  are  the  more  deserving  of  notice,  as  they  rest  on  the  authority 
of  a  very  zealous  member  of  the  Lutheran  communion — [*  a  man  certainly  not  of 

1  The  Life  of  Bplnocn  by  Golems,  with  some  reprinted  In  the  complete  edition  of  Spinora*!» 
other  curious*  pieces  im  the  mine  Mibject,  is       Worics.  puhlinhed  at  Jena,  in  18<i2. 

•  Bttitored.— Ai. 


572      NOTES  AND  ILLU8TRAT10N8  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

very  superior  powers,  but  who  seems  to  have  felt  more  than  most  divines  either 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  or  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  tlio  force  of  the  Scripture 
precept — "  not  to  violate  the  truth  even  in  the  cause  of  God."  The  manifest 
pleasure  with  which  he  records  the  numerous  testimonies  in  favour  of  Spinoza^s 
moral  qualities  does  honour  to  his  own  heart ;  and  adds  weight  and  dignity  to  the 
severity  with  which  he  reprobates  his  theological  tracts.]  They  coincide  exactly 
with  the  account  given  of  Spinoza  by  the  learned  and  candid  Mosheim.  "  This 
man  (says  he)  observed  in  his  conduct,  the  rules  of  wisdom  and  probity  much 
better  than  many  who  profess  themselves  Christians ;  nor  did  he  ever  endeavour 
to  pervert  the  sentiments  or  to  corrupt  the  morals  of  those  with  whom  he  lived ; 
or  to  inspire,  in  his  discourse,  a  contempt  of  religion  or  virtue.**  ....  Eodes. 
History^  translated  by  Dr.  Maclaine,  vol.  iv.  p.  252. 

Among  the  various  circumstances  connected  with  Spinoza's  domestic  habits, 
Colerus  mentions  one  very  trifling  singularity,  which  appears  to  me  to  throw  a 
strong  light  on  his  general  character,  and  to  furnish  some  apology  for  his  eccentri- 
cities as  an  author.  The  extreme  feebleness  of  his  constitution  (for  he  was  con- 
sumptive from  the  age  of  twenty)  having  unfitted  him  for  the  enjoyment  of  con- 
vi^al  pleasures,  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  day  in  his  chamber  alone  ;  but 
when  fatigued  with  study,  he  would  sometimes  join  the  family  party  below,  and 
take  a  part  in  their  conversation,  however  insignificant  its  subject  might  be.  One 
of  the  amusements  with  which  he  was  accustomed  to  unbend  his  mind,  was  that 
of  entangling  flies  in  a  spider's  web,  or  of  setting  spiders  a-fighting  with  each 
other ;  on  which  occasions  (it  is  added)  he  would  observe  their  combats  with  so 
much  interest,  that  it  was  not  unusual  for  him  to  be  seized  with  immoderate  fits  of 
laughter.  Does  not  this  slight  trait  indicate  very  decidedly  a  tendency  to  insanity ; 
a  supposition  by  no  means  incompatible  (as  will  be  readily  admitted  by  all  who 
have  paid  any  attention  to  the  phenomena  of  madness)  with  that  logical  acumen 
which  is  BO  conspicuous  in  some  of  his  writings  ? 

His  irreligious  principles  he  is  supposed  to  have  adopted,  in  the  first  instance, 
from  his  Latin  preceptor,  Vander  Endo,  a  physician  and  classical  scholar,  of  some 
eminence ;  but  it  is  much  more  probable  that  his  chief  school  of  atheism  was  the 
synagogue  of  Amsterdam,  where,  without  any  breach  of  charity,  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  more  opulent  class  of  the  assembly  may  be  reasonably  presumed  to 
belong  to  the  ancient  sect  of  Saddvcees.  (This  is,  I  presume,  the  idea  of 
Heincccius  in  the  following  passage :  "  Quamvis  Spinoza  Cartesii  principia 
metluKlo  niathcmaticA  domonstrata  dederit ;  Panthcismum  tamen  ille  non  ex 
Cartesio  didicit,  sed  domi  hahtit,  qtws  aequeretur.^  In  proof  of  this,  he  refers 
to  H  book  entitled  Spinozismus  in  Judnismo^  by  Wachterus.)  The  blasphemous 
curses  pronounced  upon  him  in  the  sentence  of  excommunication  were  not  well 
calculated  to  recall  him  to  the  faith  of  his  ancestors ;  and  when  combined 
with  his  early  and  hereditary  prejudices  against  Christianity,  may  go  far  to 
account  for  the  indiscriminate  war  which  he  afterwards  waged  against  priests  of 
all  denominations. 

The  ruling  passion  of  Spinoza  seemH  to  have  been  the  love  of  fame.  *'  It  is 
owned,"  says  Bayle,  "  that  ho  had  an  extreme  desire  to  immortalize  his  name,  aiid 
would  have  Rucrificed  his  life  io  that  glory,  though  he  should  have  l)cen  torn  t<> 
pieces  by  the  mob." — Art.  Spinoza. 


NOTE  M  M.  573 

Note  M  M,  p.  307. 

In  proof  of  the  impossibility  of  Liberty,  Collins  argues  thus : — 

'*  A  second  reason  to  prove  man  a  necessary  agent  iH,  Itecause  all  his  actions 
have  a  beginning :  for,  whatever  has  a  beginning  must  have  a  cause ;  and  every 
cause  is  a  necessary  cause. 

"  If  anything  can  have  a  beginning,  which  has  no  cause,  then  nothing  can  pro- 
duce Bonietliing.  And  if  nothing  can  produce  something,  then  the  world  might 
have  hatl  a  beginning  without  a  cause ;  which  is  an  absurdity  not  only  charged  on 
atheists,  but  is  a  real  absurdity  in  itself.  .  .  .  Liberty,  therefore,  or  a  power  to  act 
or  not  to  act,  to  do  this  or  another  thing  under  the  same  causes,  is  an  impossi- 
bility ami  atheistical} 

"  And  as  Liberty  stands,  and  can  only  be  groun<led  on  the  absurd  principles  of 
Epicurean  atheism,  so  the  Epicurean  atheists,  who  were  the  most  popular  and 
most  numerous  sect  of  the  atheists  of  anticjuity,  were  the  great  assertors  of  liberty ; 
as,  on  the  other  side,  the  Stoics,  who  were  the  most  popular  and  numerous  sect 
among  the  religionaries  of  antiquity,  were  the  great  assertors  of  fate  and  necessity'^ 
— Collins,  p.  64. 

As  to  the  above  reasoning  of  Collins,  it  cannot  bo  expected  that  I  should,  in 
the  compass  of  a  Note,  "boult  this  matter  to  the  bran."  It  is  sufficient  hero  to 
remark,  that  it  derives  all  its  plausibility  from  the  unqualified  terms  in  which  tho 
maxim  (^nft*  k^Mtn)  has  frequently  been  statetl.  "  In  the  idea  of  every  change^ 
(says  Dr.  Price,  a  zealous  advocate  for  the  freedom  of  the  will,)  is  included  that  of 
its  being  an  effect.'' — {Review,  <£•<?.,  p.  30,  3d  edition.)  If  this  maxim  be  literally 
admitted  without  any  explanation  or  restriction,  it  seems  difficult  to  resist  tho 
conclusions  of  the  Necessitarians.  The  proper  statement  of  Price's  maxim  evi- 
dently is,  that  "  in  every  change  we  perceive  in  inanimate  matter,  the  idea  of  its 
being  an  effect  is  necessarily  involved  ;**  and  that  he  himself  understood  it  under 
this  limitation  appears  clearly  from  the  application  he  makes  of  it  to  tho  point  in 
dispute.  As  to  intelligent  and  active  beings,  to  affirm  that  they  possess  the  power 
of  self-determination,  seems  to  me  to  be  little  more  than  an  identical  proposition. 
Upon  on  accurate  analysis  of  the  meaning  of  words,  it  will  be  found  that  the  idea 
of  an  efficient  cause  implies  the  idea  of  Mind;  and,  consequently,  that  it  is  absurd 
to  ascribe  the  volitions  of  the  mind  to  tho  efficiency  of  causes  foreign  to  itself.  To 
do  so  must  unavoidably  involve  us  in  the  inconsistencies  of  Spinozism  by  forcing 
us  to  conclude  that  everything  is  passive,  and  nothing  active  in  the  universe,  and, 
consequently,  that  the  idea  of  a  First  Cause  involves  an  impossibility. — But  upon 
these  hints  I  must  not  enlarge  at  present,  and  shall,  therefore,  confine  myself  to 
what  falls  more  immediately  within  the  scope  of  this  Discourse,  CoUins's  Histori- 
cal Statement  with  respect  to  the  tenets  of  the  Epicureans  and  the  Stoics. 

In  confirmation  of  his  assertion  concerning  the  former,  he  refers  to  the  following 
well-known  lines  of  Lucrotius : — 

"  Doniqne  si  Mmp«r  motu*  oonnecUiur  omnia,"  he.  kc. 

LuereL  Lib.  2.  t.  2^1. 

On  the  obscurity  of  this  passage,  and  the  inconsistencies  involved  in  it,  much 

1  To  the  nme  pnrpose  Bdwurds  altempta  to  Mnse  which  refen  ereiy  erent  to  a  cause)  would 
show,  (bat  "  th«  sdieme  of  free-wH!  (bjr  afford-  detirojr  the  proof  a  patteriori  for  the  being  of 
inf  an  exception  (o  that  dictate  of  common       Ood." 


574    NOTES  AND  ILLD8TKATI0NS  TO  DI8SERTAT10N. — PART  II. 

might  be  said ;  but  it  is  of  more  importance,  on  the  present  occasion,  to  remark  its 
complete  repugnance  to  the  w^iole  strain  and  spirit  of  the  Epicurean  philosophy. 
This  repugnance  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  Cicero,  who  justly  considers  Epicu- 
rus as  having  contributed  more  to  establish,  by  this  puerile  subterfuge,  the  auth(»- 
rity  of  Fatalism,  than  if  he  had  lefl  the  argument  altogether  untouched.  "  Nee 
vero  quist^uaro  magis  confirmare  mihi  videtur  non  modo  fiituro,  vermn  etiam  ne- 
cessitatem  et  vim  omnium  rorum,  sustidisscque  motus  animi  voluntarios,  quam 
hie  qui  aliter  obsistere  fato  fatotur  so  non  ]>otui86e  nisi  ad  has  commenticias  docH- 
nationes  confngisset." — Liber  de  Fato^  cap.  20. 

On  the  noted  expression  of  Lucretius  {fatia  avoha  voluntas)  some  acute  remarkw 
are  made  in  a  note  on  the  French  translation  by  M.  de  la  Grange.  They  are  not 
improbably  from  the  pen  of  the  Baron  d'Holbach,  who  is  said  to  have  contributed 
many  notes  to  this  translation.  Whoever  the  author  was,  he  was  evidently  strongly 
struck  with  the  inconsistency  of  this  particular  tenet  with  the  general  principles  of 
the  Epicurean  system. 

"  On  est  surpris  qu*  Epicure  fonde  la  liboi'tc  humaine  sur  la  declinaison  dcH 
atomcs.  On  demande  si  cettc  declinaison  est  nccessairc,  ou  si  elle  est  simple- 
ment  accidcntelle.  N6ce8Baire,  comment  la  liberte  pent  elle  en  etre  le  rcsultat  ? 
Accidentelle,  par  quoi  est  elle  determinee  ?  Mais  on  devrait  bicn  plutot  etre  sur- 
pris, qu*il  lui  soit  venu  en  idee  de  rendre  lliomme  iibre  dans  un  systcme  qui 
suppose  un  enchainement  necessaire  de  causes  et  d*efiets.  C'etoit  uno  recherche 
curieuse,  que  la  raison  qui  a  pu  faire  d^Epicure  I'Apdtre  de  la  Liberty."  For  the 
theory  which  follows  on  this  point,  I  must  refer  to  the  work  in  question. — See 
Trwluction  Nouvelle  de  LucrhXf  avec  des  Notes f  par  M.  de  la  (i range,  vol.  i.  pp. 
218-220:  A  Paris,  17(J8. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  doctrines  of  some  of  the  ancient  Atheists  about 
mnn'H  free-agency,  it  will  not  be  denied,  that  in  the  History  of  Modern  Philo- 
sophy, the  schemes  of  Atheism  antl  of  Necessity  have  been  hitherto  always  con- 
nectotl  together.  Not  that  I  would  by  any  means  bo  understood  to  say,  that  every 
NecesKitarian  must  ipso  facto  be  an  Atheist,  or  even  that  any  presumption  is 
nffoiiled  by  a  man's  attachment  to  the  former  sect,  of  his  having  the  slightest  bias 
in  fav«)ur  of  the  latter ;  but  only  that  every  modern  Atheist  I  have  heard  of  has 
been  a  XcceRsitarian.  I  cannot  help  adding,  that  the  most  consistent  Nocessita- 
riaiiM  who  have  yet  appeared,  have  been  those  who  followed  out  their  principles 
till  they  ended  in  Spinoziwi,  a  doctrine  which  differs  from  Atheism  more  in  wordn 
than  in  reality. 

In  what  Collins  suys  of  the  Stoics  in  the  above  quotation,  he  plainly  proceeds  on 
the  supposition  that  all  Fatalists  are  of  course  Necessitarians,*  and  1  agree  with 
him  in  thinking,  that  this  would  be  the  case  if  they  reasoned  logically.  It  is  cer- 
tain, however,  that  a  great  proportion  of  thoKC  who  have  belonged  to  the  first  sect 
have  disclaimed  all  connexion  with  the  second.  The  Stoics  themselves  furnish 
one  very  remarkable  instance.  I  do  not  know  any  author  by  whom  the  liberty  of 
the  will  is  stated  in  strong<!r  and  more  explicit  tenns,  than  it  is  by  Epietetus  in 

»  Collioi  Btatefl  this  more  Ktrougly  In  what  ho  nnd  conHtHiucntly,  thoy  could  not  anert  a  tnir 

nayi  of  the  Pharisee*.     "  The  Pharisees,  who  lihcrty  when  ihcy  assorted  a  liberty  to(;cther 

were  a  relij^ious  sect,  ascribed  all  thin^  t«i  faio  with  this  fittaliiy  and  iiete$ntif  of  all  things." — 

or  to  God's  appointment,  and  it  was  tlie  first  Collins,  \*.  •)4. 
article  of  their  creed,  that  Fate  and  God  do  all. 


NOTE  MM.  575 

the  ver}'  tirst  sentence  of  the  Enchiridiou.  Indeed,  the  iStuics  tKrem,  with  their 
usual  passion  for  exaggeration,  to  have  carried  their  ideas  about  the  freedom  of 
the  will  to  an  unphilosophical  extreme. 

If  the  belief  of  man's  free-agency  has  thus  maintained  its  ground  among  pro- 
fessed Fatalists,  it  need  not  appear  surprising  that  it  should  have  withstiKxl  the 
strong  arguments  against  it,  which  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  decrees  of  ( rod,  and 
even  that  of  the  Divine  prescience,  appear  at  first  sight  to  furnish.  A  remarkable 
instance  of  this  o<:curs  in  St.  Augustine,  (distinguished  in  ecclesiastic^  history  by 
the  title  of  the  Doctor  of  (Jrace,)  who  has  asserted  the  liberty  of  the  will  in  tenns 
as  explicit  as  those  in  which  ho  has  announced  the  theological  dogmas  with  which 
it  is  most  difficult  to  reconcile  it.  Kay,  he  has  gone  so  far  as  to  ai'knowledge  tlu* 
essential  importance  of  this  belief,  as  a  motive  to  virtuous  conduct.  "Quociua 
uuUo  modo  cogimur,  aut  retenta  praescientia  Dei,  tollere  voluntatis  arbitrium,  aut 
retonto  voluntatis  arbitrio,  Deum,  quod  nefas  est,  negare  prtesi'ium  futurorum,  sed 
utrumque  amplectimnr,  utnimque  fideliter  et  veraciter  confitemur :  illud,  ut  bene 
credamus  ;  hoc  vt  bene  vivamus.^*  [^  In  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland,  (the  Articles  of  which  are  strictly  Calvinistic,)  the  freedom  of  the 
human  will  is  asserted  as  strongly  as  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  decrees  of  God. 
"  God  (it  is  said.  Chap,  iii.)  from  all  eternity  did,  by  the  most  wise  and  holy  counsel 
of  his  own  will,  freely  and  unchangeably  ordain  whatsoever  comes  to  pass.  Yet 
so  as  thereby  neither  is  God  the  author  of  sin,  nor  is  violence  offered  to  tfie  will 
of  his  creaiureSj  nor  is  the  liberty  or  contingency  of  second  causes  taken  away,  but 
rather  established."  And  still  more  explicitly  in  Chap.  ix. ;  "  God  hath  endued 
the  will  of  man  with  that  natural  liberty,  that  it  is  neither  forced,  nor  by  any 
absolute  necessity  of  nature  determined  to  do  good  or  evil.'"] 

Descartes  has  expressed  himself  on  this  point  nearly  to  the  same  purpose  with 
St.  Augustine.  In  one  |)assage  he  asserts,  in  the  most  unqualified  terms,  that  G(hI 
is  the  cause  of  all  the  actions  which  dei)eud  on  the  Free-will  of  Man ;  and  yet,  that 
the  Will  is  really  free,  he  considers  us  a  fact  perfectly  established  by  the  evidence 
of  coiiBciouHnesH.  "  Sed  quemadmodum  existentiic  divine  cognitio  uon  debet  liberi 
uostri  arbitrii  certitudincni  tollere,  quia  illud  in  nobismet  ipsis  experimur  et  seu- 
timiis ;  ita  neque  liberi  uostri  arbitrii  cognitio  existcntiam  Dei  apud  nos  dubiam 
faccre  debet.  Independentia  enim  ilia  quam  experimur,  atque  in  nobis  persentis- 
cimus,  et  que  actionibus  nostris  laude  vel  vituperio  dignis  efficiendis  sufficit,  non 
pugnat  cum  dependcntia  alterius  generis,  secundum  quam  omnia  Deo  subjiciuntur.'* 
— (Cartesii  EpistoliP,  Epist.  viii.  ix.  Pars  i.)  ITiese  letters  form  part  of  his  cone- 
si>ondcnce  with  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Frederick,  King  of  Bohemia, 
and  Elector  Palatine. 

We  are  told  by  Dr.  Priestley,  in  the  very  interesting  Memoirs  of  his  own  Lifv, 
that  he  was  educated  in  the  strict  principles  of  Calvinism  ;  and  yet  it  would  appear, 
that  while  he  remained  a  Calvinist,  he  entertained  no  doubt  of  his  being  afree-ugent. 
"  The  doctrine  of  Necessity,"  he  also  tells  us,  "  hejirst  learned  from  Collins  ;*  and 

*  Restored. — Kd.  of  the  aigument*  in  fiiTour  of  rhilumiphicnl 

1  We  are  ebewhere  informed  by  Prieeaey.  Liberty :  thooKh  ihe  nddn)  I  wa*  much  more 

that  "  it  was  in  conaequence  of  reading  and  confirmed  in  thii*  principle  by  my  acquaintance 

studying  the  Inquiry  of  ColUns,  he  wan  first  with  Hartley's  TVory  nf  tkt  Human  Mind ;  a 

convinced  of  the  trulh  of  the  doctrine  of  Neces-  work  to  which  I  owe  much  more  than  I  am  able 

sity,  and  was  ena))led  to  see  the  iUlaey  of  most  to  expresa"-  Fn/acf,  kc.  Ac  p.  zxvii. 


576     NOTEft  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

was  established  in  the  belief  of  it  by  Hartley's  Obaervations  on  3ian."—(Ibul. 
p.  19.)  Ho  farther  mentions  in  another  work,  that  "  he  was  not  a  ready  convert 
to  the  doctrine  of  Necessity,  and  that,  like  Dr.  Hartley  himself,  he  gare  up  fain 
liberty  with  great  reluctance." — Preface  to  the  Doctrine  of  PhUoiophical  Neeessiiy 
lUuatratedf  2d  edit.  Birmingham,  1782,  p.  xxvii. 

These  instances  afford  a  proof,  I  do  not  say  of  the  compatibility  of  roan*8  free- 
agency  with  those  schemes  with  which  it  seems  most  at  variance,  but  of  this  com- 
patibility in  the  opinion  of  some  of  the  profoundest  thinkers  who  have  turned  thcii: 
attention  to  the  argument  No  conclusion,  therefore,  can  be  drawn  against  a  man's 
belief  in  his  own  free-agency,  from  his  embracing  other  metaphysical  or  theolcMpcal 
tenets,  with  which  it  may  appear  to  ourselves  impossible  to  reconcile  it. 


As  for  the  notion  of  liberty,  for  which  Ck>llins  professes  himself  an  advocate,  it 
is  precisely  that  of  his  predecessor  Hobbes,  who  defines  a  free>agent  to  be,  "  he 
that  can  do  if  he  will,  and  forbear  if  he  will.'* — (Ilobbcs's  Work$j  p.  484,  fol.  ed.) 
'I1ie  same  definition  has  been  adopted  by  Leibnitz,  by  Gravesande,  by  Edwards,  by 
Bonnet,  and  by  all  our  later  Necessitarians.  It  cannot  be  U^tter  expressed  than 
in  the  wonls  of  Gravesande  i  "  FacvUa$  faciendi  quod  ItbuerUj  quaxunqve  fiterit 
voluntatis  deierminatio." — Introd.  ad  PhUoiojih.  sect.  115. 

Dr.  Priestley  ascribes  this  peculiar  notion  of  free-will  to  Hobbes  as  its  author  ^ 
but  it  is,  in  fact,  of  much  older  date  even  among  modem  metaphysicians ;  coin- 
ciding exactly  with  the  doctrines  of  those  scholastic  divines  who  contended  fur  the 
ZAberty  of  JS^xmianeiti/f  in  opposition  to  the  Liberty  of  Indifference.  It  is,  how- 
ever, to  Hobbes  that  the  partisans  of  this  opinion  arc  indebted  for  the  happiest  and 
most  popular  illustration  of  it  that  has  yet  been  given.  "  I  conceive,*'  says  he, 
"  liberty  to  be  rightly  definetl, — The  absence  of  all  the  impediments  to  action  that 
arc  not  contained  in  the  nature  and  intrinnical  quality  of  the  agent.  As,  for  ex- 
ample, the  water  is  8ai<l  to  dcHccnd  freely,  or  to  have  lilnTty  to  descend  by  the 
channel  of  the  river,  because  there  is  no  impcdimimt  that  way :  but  not  across, 
because  the  banks  arc  impedimcutH.  And,  though  water  cannot  ascend,  yet  men 
never  say,  it  wants  the  liberty  to  ascend,  but  the  faadty  or  power,  because  the 
impediment  is  in  the  nature  of  the  water,  and  intrinsical.  So  also  we  say,  he  that 
is  tied  wants  the  liberty  to  go,  becauHe  the  impediment  is  not  in  him,  but  in  his 
hands  ;  whereas  we  say  not  so  of  him  who  is  sirk  or  lame,  because  the  impediment 
is  in  himself." —  Treatine  of  TMperiy  and  Neressity. 

Acconling  to  Bonnet,  "  moral  liberty  is  the  power  of  the  mind  to  ol»ey  without 
conntraint  the  impulse  of  the  motives  which  act  upon  it."     This  definition,  which 


1  "  The  doctrine  of  phlloeophical  neoetdty.*' 
mys  Prieatley.  "  U  in  reality  a  modem  thing, 
not  older.  I  bellere,  than  Mr.  Hobbes.  Of  the 
Calrinlfts,  I  beliere  Mr.  Jonathan  Edwards  lo 
be  the  tr>^''—IUustratUmt  of  PMlotophUxil  Ife- 
ctuUjf,  p.  195. 

Bupposing  tbLi  statement  to  be  correct,  does 
not  the  very  modem  date  of  Ilobbes'i  alleged 
dUcovfrjf  furnish  a  very  strong  presumption 
against  it? 


[*  The  question  to  which  it  relates  is  sub- 
jected to  the  examination  of  every  penon  capa- 
ble of  reflection ;  and  it  is  a  question  (according 
to  the  acknowledgment  of  all  parties)  so  deeply 
interesting  to  human  happiness,  tlutt  no  person 
able  to  com[>rehend  itn  import  can  be  lupposed 
to  twTe  pasted  through  life  without  forming 
some  opinion  concerning  it.  It  would  t>e  strange 
indeed,  If  Hobbes  should  hare  been  the  first  to 
place  %frtet  of  thii  nature  in  its  trae  light] 


•  Restored— Kti 


NOTE  NN.  577 

iH  obYiously  the  same  in  substance  with  that  of  Hobbes,  is  thus  very  justly,  as  well 
as  acutely,  animadverted  on  by  Cuvier  :  "  N*admettant  aucune  action  sans  motif, 
comme  dit-il,  il  n'y  a  aucun  offet  sans  cause,  Bonnet  definit  la  liberU  morale  le  pou- 
voir  de  Tame  de  suivre  sans  contrainte  Ics  motifs  dont  cllo  6prouve  Timpulsion  ;  et 
resout  ainsi  les  objections  que  Ton  tire  de  la  provision  de  Dicu ;  mais  pent-ctre 
aussi  detoument-t-il  Tidee  qu'on  se  fait  d'ordinaire  do  la  liberte.  Malgr6  ces  opi- 
nions que  touchent  au  Materialisme  et  au  Fatalismc,  Bonnet  fut  tr^s  religioux." — 
jBwgraphie  UniverseUe^  K  Paris,  1812. — Art.  Bonnet. 

From  this  passage  it  appears,  that  the  very  ingenious  writer  was  as  completely 
aware  as  Clarke  or  Reid  of  the  unsoundness  of  the  definition  of  fnoraZ  liberty  given 
by  Hobbes  and  his  followers  ;  and  that  the  ultimate  tendency  of  the  doctrine  which 
limits  the  free-agency  of  man  to  (what  has  been  called)  the  liberti/  of  $pontaneity, 
was  the  same,  though  in  a  more  disguised  form,  with  that  of  fatalism. 

For  a  complete  exposure  of  the  futility  of  this  definition  of  l^terty,  as  the  word 
is  employed  in  the  controversy  about  man*s  free-agency,  I  have  only  to  refer  to  Dr. 
CIarke*s  remarks  on  Collins,  and  to  Dr.  Bcid*s  Euayt  on  the  Active  Poteen  of 
Man.  In  this  last  work,  the  various  meanings  of  this  very  ambiguous  word  are 
explained  with  great  accuracy  and  clearness. 

Ilie  only  two  opinions  which,  in  the  actual  state  of  metaphysical  science,  ought 
to  be  stated  in  contrast,  are  that  of  Liberty  (or  free-will)  on  the  one  side,  and  that 
of  Necessity  on  the  other.  As  to  the  Liberty  of  Spomtaneiiy^  (which  expresses  a 
fact  altogether  foreign  to  the  point  in  question,)  I  can  conceive  no  motive  for  in- 
venting such  a  phrase,  but  a  desire  in  some  writers  to  veil  the  scheme  of  necessity 
from  their  readers,  under  a  language  less  revolting  to  the  sentiments  of  mankind  ; 
and  in  others,  an  anxiety  to  banish  it  as  far  as  possible  from  their  own  thoughts, 
by  substituting,  instead  of  the  terms  in  which  it  is  commonly  expressed,  a  circum- 
locution which  seems,  on  a  superficial  view,  to  concede  something  to  the  advocates 
for  liberty. 

If  this  phrase  (the  Liberty  of  Spontaneity)  should  fall  into  disuse,  the  other 
phrase,  (the  Liberty  of  Indifference, y  which  is  commonly  stated  in  opposition  to  it, 
would  become  completely  useless ;  nor  would  there  be  occasion  for  qualifying  with 
any  epithet,  the  older,  simpler,  and  much  more  intelligible  word,  Free-wUL 

ITie  distinction  between  physicxd  and  moral  necessity  I  conceive  to  be  not  less 
frivolous  than  those  to  which  the  foregoing  animadversions  relate.  On  this  point 
I  agree  with  Diderot,  that  the  word  necessity  (as  it  ought  to  be  understood  in  this 
dispute)  admits  but  of  otie  inteqirctation. 

Note  N  N,  p.  307. 

To  the  arguments  of  Collins,  against  man*s  free-agency,  some  of  his  successors 
have  added,  the  inconsistency  of  this  doctrine  with  the  known  efffcts  of  education 
(under  whi(rh  phrase  they  comprehend  the  moral  cffVvts  of  all  the  external  cir- 
cuniHtanccs  in  which  men  are  involuntarily  placed)  in  forming  the  characters  of 
individuals. 

1  Both  phnuieiiar«faTourit«expre«ion«  with  Kstay  on  Libert f/  and  IitetM$Uy,  in  the  but 
I/ord  KamM  fai  his  dlacunionii  on  this  rob-  edition  of  his  Esta^  on  MoralUy  and  Natural 
ieci.     bee  in  fMurticular  the  Appendix  to  bis       JUligion. 

VOL.  I.  2  0 


578      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  II. 

Tlie  plausibility  of  this  argament  (on  whicL  mncli  stress  Las  been  laid  bj 
Priestloy  and  others)  arises  entirely  from  the  mixture  of  truth  which  it  involves ; 
or,  to  express  myself  more  correctly,  from  the  evidence  and  importance  of  the/arf 
on  which  it  proceeds,  when  that  fact  is  stated  with  due  limitations. 

That  the  influence  of  edueaHony  in  this  comprehensive  sense  of  the  word,  was 
greatly  underrated  by  our  ancestors,  is  now  universally  acknowledged  ;  and  it  is  to 
Locke's  writings,  more  than  to  any  other  single  cause,  that  the  change  in  public 
opinion  on  this  head  is  to  be  ascribed.  On  various  occasions  ho  has  expressed 
himself  very  strongly  with  respect  to  the  extent  of  this  influence ;  and  has  more 
than  once  intimated  his  belief,  that  the  great  msgority  of  men  continue  through 
life  what  early  education  had  made  them.  In  making  use,  however,  of  this  strong 
language,  his  object  (as  is  evident  from  the  opinions  which  he  has  avowed  in 
other  parts  of  his  works)  was  only  to  arrest  the  attention  of  his  readers  to  the 
practical  lessons  he  was  anxious  to  inculcate ;  and  not  to  state  a  metaphysical  fact, 
which  was  to  be  literally  and  rigorously  interpreted  in  the  controversy  about  liberty 
and  necessity.  The  only  sound  and  useful  moral  to  be  drawn  from  the  spirit  of 
his  observations,  is  the  duty  of  gratitude  to  Hearen  for  all  the  blessings,  in  respect 
of  education  and  of  external  situation,  which  have  fallen  to  our  own  lot:  the  im- 
possibility of  ascertaining  the  involuntary  misfortunes  by  which  the  seeming 
demerits  of  others  may  have  been  in  part  occasioned,  and  in  the  same  proportion 
diminished ;  and  the  consequent  obligation  upon  ourselves,  to  think  as  charitably 
as  possible  of  their  conduct,  under  the  most  unfavourable  appearances.  The  truth 
of  all  this  I  conceive  to  be  implied  in  these  words  of  Scripture,  **  To  whom  much 
is  given,  of  him  much  will  bo  required ;  *'  and,  if  possible,  still  more  explicitly  and 
impressively,  in  the  parable  of  the  Talents. 

Is  not  the  use  which  has  been  made  by  Necessitarians  of  Lockers  Treatise  os 
Education,  and  other  books  of  a  similar  tendency,  only  one  instance  more  of  that 
disposition,  so  common  among  metaphysical  Sciolists,  to  appropriate  to  themselves 
the  conclusions  of  their  wiser  ahd  more  sober  predecessors,  under  the  startling  and 
imposing  disguise  of  universal  maxims,  admitting  neither  of  exception  nor  restric- 
tion ?  It  is  thus  that  Locke's  judicious  and  refined  remarks  on  the  jissocuUion  of 
Ideas  have  been  exaggerated  to  such  an  extreme  in  the  coarse  caricatures  of 
Hartley  and  of  Priestley,  as  to  bring,  among  cautious  inquirers,  some  degree  of 
discredit  on  one  of  the  most  important  doctrines  of  modem  philosophy.  Or,  to 
take  another  case  still  more  in  point ;  it  is  thus  that  Locke's  reflections  on  the 
effects  of  education  in  modifying  the  intellectual  faculties,  and  (where  sldUiilly 
conducted)  in  supplying  their  original  defects,  have  been  distorted  into  the  puerile 
paradox  of  Helvetius,  that  the  mental  capacities  of  the  whole  human  race  are  the 
same  at  the  moment  of  birth.  It  is  sufficient  for  me  hero  to  throw  out  these  hints, 
which  will  be  found  to  apply  equally  to  a  large  proportion  of  other  theories  started 
by  modem  metaphysicians. 

Before  I  finish  this  note,  I  cannot  refrain  from  remarking,  with  respect  to  the 
argument  for  Necessity  drawn  from  the  Divine  prescience,  that,  if  it  be  conclusive, 
it  only  affords  an  additional  confirmation  of  what  Clarke  has  said  concerning  the 
identity  of  the  creed  of  the  Necessitarians  with  that  of  the  Spinozists.  For,  if 
God  certainly  foresees  all  the  future  volitions  of  his  creatures,  he  must,  for  the 
same  reason,  foresee  all  hia  oinn  future  volitions ;  and  if  this  knowledge  infers  a 


NOTE  00.  579 

necessity  of  volition  in  the  oik*  case,  how  is  it  iiossibic  to  avoid  tlic  ntimo.  inforencc 

in  the  other  ? 

NoteOO,  p.  309. 

A  similar  application  of  St.  Paul's  comparison  of  the  potior  is  to  be  found  both 
in  Hobbes  and  in  Collins.  Also,  in  a  note  annexed  by  Cowley  to  his  odo  entitled 
Destiny ;  an  odo  written  (as  wc  are  informed  by  the  author)  "  upon  an  extrava- 
gant supposition  of  two  angels  playing  a  game  at  chess ;  which,  if  they  did,  the 
spectators  would  have  reason  as  much  to  believe  that  the  pieces  moved  them- 
selves, as  wo  have  for  thinking  the  same  of  mankind,  when  we  see  them  exerciso 
so  many  and  so  diflcront  actions.  It  was  of  old  said  by  Plautus,  Dii  nos  quasi 
pUas  homines  habenty  '  Wo  are  but  tennis-balls  for  the  gods  to  play  withal, 
which  they  strike  away  at  hist^  and  still  call  for  new  ones ;  and  St.  Paul  says, 
*  We  are  but  the  day  in  the  hand  of  the  potter '  " 

For  the  compariscm  of  the  potter,  alluded  to  by  these  different  writers,  sec  the 
Epistle  to  the  Bomans,  chap.  ix.  verses  18,  19,  20,  21.  Upon  these  verses  the 
only  comment  which  I  have  to  offer  is  a  remark  of  the  apostlo  Peter,  that  "  In 
the  epistles  of  our  beloved  brother  Paul  arc  some  things  hard  to  be  understood, 
which  they  that  are  unlearned  and  unstable  wrest  unto  their  own  destniction.** 

[*  May  I  be  permitted,  at  the  same  time,  without  being  accused  of  trespassing 
on  the  province  of  the  theological  critic,  to  request  my  readers  to  compare  the 
above  passage  from  St.  Paul  with  the  sixth  and  following  versos  of  the  second 
chapter  of  the  same  epistle ;  recommending  to  their  attention  as  a  canon  of  Biblical 
criticism,  which,  although  the  reverse  of  that  commonly  adhered  to  in  practice,  I 
presume  will  not  be  disputed  by  the  most  orthodox  divines ; — that  when  two  pas- 
sages of  Scripture  have  the  appearance  of  being  somewhat  at  variance  with  each 
other,  the  darker  ought  to  be  interpreted  by  the  clearer,  and  not  the  clearer  by  the 
darker.  To  which  canon,  it  may,  by  way  of  supplement,  be  added,  that  when  one 
passage  is  in  unison  with  the  conclusions  of  our  own  reason,  and  with  the  dictates 
of  our  own  moral  feelings,  while  another,  when  literally  understood,  offers  equal 
violence  to  both,  the  former  is  justly  entitled  to  be  preferred  to  the  latter,  as  a  rule 
of  faith  and  of  practice.] 

The  same  similitude  of  the  potter  makes  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  writings  of 
Hobbes,  who  has  availed  himself  of  this,  as  of  many  other  insulated  passages  of 
Holy  Writ,  in  support  of  principles  which  are  now  universally  allowed  to  strike  at 
the  very  root  of  religion  and  morality.  The  veneration  of  (!!owley  for  Hobbes  is 
well  known,  and  is  recorded  by  himself  in  the  ode  which  immediately  precedes 
that  on  Destiny.  It  cannot,  however,  be  candidly  supposed,  that  Cowley  under- 
stood the  whole  drift  of  Hobbes'  doctrines.  Tlie  contrar}',  indeed,  in  the  present 
instance,  is  obvious  from  the  ode  before  us ;  for  while  Cowley  supposc^d  the  angels 
to  move,  like  chess-men,  the  inhabitants  of  this  globe,  HoblMiB  (along  with  Spinoza) 
plainly  conceived  that  the  angels  themKclves,  and  even  that  Being  to  which  he 
impiously  gave  the  name  of  OW,  were  all  of  them  moved,  like  knights  and  pawns, 
by  the  invisible  hand  of  fate  or  necessity. 

Were  it  not  for  the  serious  and  pensive  cast  of  Cowley's  mind,  and  his  solemn 
appeal  to  the  authority  of  the  apostle,  in  support  of  the  doctrine  of  destiny,  on« 
would  be  tempted  to  consider  the  first  stanzas  of  this  ode  in  the  light  of  a  jeii 

*  R4JStOf«d.~i?rf. 


580      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

d'espritf  introdactory  to  the  very  cliaracteristical  and  interesting  picture  of  him- 
eolf,  with  which  the  poom  concludes. 

NotePP,  p.  312. 

"  Tout  ce  qui  est  doit  etrc,  par  cela  mcme  que  cela  est.  Yoilik  la  seule  bonue 
philosophic.  Aussi  longtemps  que  nous  ne  connaitrons  pas  cet  univers,  comme  on 
dit  dans  I'dcole,  a  priori,  tout  est  n^cessite.  La  libertc  est  on  mot  ride  de  sens, 
comme  vous  allez  voir  dans  la  lettre  de  M.  Diderot.*' — Lettre  de  Orimm  au  Due 
de  Saxe-Ootha. 

**  C'est  ici,  mon  cher,  que  je  vais  quitter  le  ton  de  prcdicateur  pour  prendre,  n 
je  peux,  cehii  de  philosophe.  Regardoz-y  de  pr^s,  et  vous  verrez  que  le  mot 
liberty  est  un  mot  vide  de  sens ;  qu*il  n*y  a  point,  et  qu'il  ne  pent  y  avoir  d*etrefl 
libres ;  que  nous  ne  sommes  que  ce  qui  convient  k  Tordre  general,  k  rorganisatioDi 
h  PeducAtion,  et  k  la  chaine  des  6v^nemcns.  YoilA  ce  qui  dispose  de  nous  invinoi- 
blemcnt.  On  ne  con9oit  non  plus  qu*un  ctrc  agisse  sans  motif,  qu'un  dee  bras 
d'une  balance  agisse  sans  Paction  d*un  poids,  et  le  motif  nous  est  to^jour8  ezterieur, 
Stranger,  attache  on  par  unc  nature  on  par  une  cause  quelconque,  qui  n'est  pas 
nous.  Ce  qui  nous  trompe,  c'est  la  prodigicuse  varietc  de  nos  actions,  jointe  k 
rhabitude  que  nous  avons  prise  tout  en  naissant,  do  confbndre  le  volontaire  avec  le 
libre.  Nous  avons  tant  lone,  tant  repris,  nous  I'avons  6tS  tant  de  fois,  que  c'est  un 
prvjuge  bien  vieux  que  celui  de  croire  que  nous  et  les  autres  voulons,  ag^ssons 
librement.  Mais  sMl  n*y  a  point  de  liberty,  il  n*y  a  point  d'action  qui  mSrite  la 
louange  ou  le  blAme ;  il  n'y  a  ni  vice,  ni  vertu,  rien  dont  il  faille  r6compenser  on 
chatier.  Qu*ost  ce  qui  distingue  done  Ics  hommes?  La  bienfaisance  ou  la  mal- 
faisance.  Le  malfaisant  est  un  homme  qu'il  faut  detruire  et  non  punir ;  la  bien- 
faisance est  une  bonne  fortune,  et  non  une  vertu.  Mais  quoique  I'homme  bien  ou 
malfaisant  nc  soit  pas  libro,  Thomrae  n'cn  est  pas  moins  un  etre  qu'on  modifie ; 
c'est  par  cettc  raJKon  qu'il  faut  detruire  le  malfaisant  sur  une  place  publique.  De 
\i  les  bons  cffets  dc  I'exemplo,  des  discours,  de  I'education,  du  plaisir,  de  la  dou- 
leur,  des  grandeurs,  do  la  miserc,  &c.  ;  de  \k  un  sorto  dc  philosophie  pleine  de 
commiseration,  qui  attache  fortcment  aux  bons,  qui  n'irritc  non  plus  centre  le 
mechant,  quo  contro  nn  ouragan  qui  nous  remplit  les  yeux  de  poussiere.  II  n'y  a 
qu'une  sorte  de  causes  k  proprement  parler ;  ce  sont  les  causes  physiques.  II  n'y  a 
qu'une  sorte  de  necessite,  c'est  la  mome  pour  tons  les  etres.  Voil4  ce  qui  me  re- 
concilie  avec  le  genre  humain  ;  c'est  pour  cette  raison  que  je  vous  exhortais  k  la 
philanthropie.  Adoptcz  cos  principes  si  vous  les  trouvez  bons,  ou  montrez-moi 
qu'ils  sont  mauvais.  Si  vous  les  adoptez,  ils  vous  reconcih'eront  aussi  avec  les 
autres  ct  avec  vous-menic ;  vous  ne  vous  saurez  ni  bon  ni  mauvais  gr6  d'etre  ce 
qui  vous  etcs.  Ne  rien  reprochcr  aux  autres,  ne  so  rejKjntir  de  rien  ;  voiU  les  pre- 
miers pas  vers  la  sagesse.  Ce  qui  est  hors  de  \k  est  prejuge,  faussc  philosophie." — 
Corres})ondance  Litt^ratre,  Pfiilosophique,  et  Critique,  addressie  au  Due  de 
Saxe-Gotha,  par  le  Baron  de  Grimm  ct  par  Diderot  Premiere  Partie,  torn.  i.  pp. 
300,  304,  306,  306.    Londrcs,  1814. 

Note  Q  Q,  p.  323. 

See  iu  Baylc  the  three  articles  Luther,  Knox,  and  Buchanan.     Tlic  following 
passage  concerning  Knox  may  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the  others.     It  is  quoted  by 


NOTE  R  R.  581 

Bayle  from  the  Cosmographie  UniveneUe  of  Thcvet,  a  writer  wlio  has  long  sunk 
into  the  contempt  he  merited,  but  whose  zeal  for  legitimacy  and  the  Catholic  faith 
raised  him  to  the  dignity  of  almoner  to  Catherine  de  Modicis,  and  of  historiogra* 
pher  to  the  King  of  France.  I  borrow  the  translation  from  the  English  Historical 
Dictionary. 

"  During  that  time  the  Scots  never  left  England  in  peace  ;  it  was  when  Henry 
Vin.  played  his  pranks  with  the  chalices,  relics,  and  other  ornaments  of  the 
English  churches ;  which  tragedies  and  plays  have  been  acted  in  our  time  in  the 
kingdom  of  Scotland,  by  the  exhortations  of  Noptz,*  the  first  Scots  minister  of  the 
bloody  Gospel    This  firebrand  of  sedition  could  not  be  content  with  barely  follow- 
ing the  steps  of  Luther,  or  of  his  master,  Calvin,  who  had  not  long  before  delivered 
him  from  the  galleys  of  the  Prior  of  Capua,  where  he  had  been  three  years  for  his 
crimes,  unlawful  amours,  and  abominable  fornications ;  for  he  used  to  lead  a  dis- 
eolute  life,  in  shameful  and  odious  places,  and  had  been  also  found  guilty  of  the 
parricide  and  murder  committed  on  the  body  of  the  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrew^s, 
by  the  contrivances  of  the  Earl  of  Rophol,  of  James  Lescle,  John  Lescle,  their 
uncle,  and  William  du  Coy.    This  simonist,  who  had  been  a  priest  of  our  church, 
being  fattened  by  the  benefices  he  had  enjoyed,  sold  them  for  ready  money  ;  and 
finding  that  he  could  not  make  his  cause  good,  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  most  ter- 
rible blasphemies.     He  persuaded  also  several  devout  wives  and  religious  virgins 
to  abandon  themselves  to  wicked  adulterers.    Nor  was  this  all.    During  two  whole 
years,  he  never  ceased  to  rouse  the  people,  encouraging  them  to  take  up  arms 
against  the  Queen,  and  to  drive  her  out  of  the  kingdom,  which  he  said  was  elec- 
tive, as  it  had  been  formerly  in  the  time  of  heathenism.  .   .   .  The  Lutherans  have 
churches  and  oratories.    Their  ministers  sing  psalms,  and  say  mass  ;  and  though 
it  be  different  from  ours,  yet  they  add  to  it  the  Creed,  and  other  prayers,  as  we  do. 
And  when  their  ministers  officiate,  they  wear  the  cope,  the  chasuble,  and  the  sur- 
plice, as  ours  do,  being  concerned  for  their  salvation,  and  careful  of  what  relates 
to  the  public  worship.     Whereas  the  Scots  have  lived  these  twelve  years  past 
without  laws,  without  religion,  without  ceremonies,  constantly  refusing  to  own  a 
king  or  a  queen,  as  so  many  brutes,  suffering  themselves  to  be  imposed  upon  by 
the  stories  told  them  by  this  arch-hypocrite  Noptz,  a  traitor  to  God  and  to  his 
country,  rather  than  to  follow  the  pure  Gospel,  the  councils,  and  the  doctrine  of  so 
many  holy  doctors,  both  Greek  and  Lathi,  of  the  Catholic  Church." 

If  any  of  my  readers  be  yet  unacquainted  with  the  real  character  and  history  of 
this  distinguished  person,  it  may  amuse  them  to  compare  the  above  passage  with 
the  very  able,  authentic,  and  animated  account  of  his  life,  lately  published  by  the 
reverend  and  learned  Dr.  M'Crie. 

Note  R  R,  p.  336. 

Dr.  Blair,  whose  estimate  of  the  distinguishing  beauties  and  imperfections  of 
Addison's  style,  reflects  honour  on  the  justness  and  discernment  of  his  taste,  has 
allowed  himself  to  be  carried  along  much  too  easily,  by  the  vulgar  sneers  at  Addi- 
son's want  of  philosophical  depth.    In  one  of  his  lectures  on  rhetoric,  ho  has  even 

I  Thus  Tb«ret  imjt  Bajrte)  writn  the  name  of  Knox. 


582      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

gone  BO  far  aa  to  accuse  Addison  of  misapprehending,  or,  at  leasts  of  mUstatinff, 
Locke's  doctrine  concerning  secondary  qualttie$.  But  a  comparison  of  Dr.  Blair's 
own  statement  with  that  which  he  censures,  will  not  turn  out  to  the  advantage  of 
the  learned  critic  ;  and  I  willingly  lay  hold  of  this  example,  as  the  point  at  inauo 
turns  on  one  of  the  most  refined  questions  of  metaphysics.  The  words  of  Addiaon 
are  these : — 

"  Things  would  make  hut  a  poor  appearance  to  the  eye,  if  wo  saw  them  only  in 
their  proper  figures  and  motions.  And  what  reason  can  we  assign  for  their  ex- 
citing in  us  many  of  those  ideas  which  arc  different  from  anything  that  cxiata 
in  the  objects  themselves,  (for  such  are  light  and  colours,)  were  it  not  to  add 
supernumerary  ornaments  to  the  universe,  and  make  it  more  agreeable  to  the 
imagination  ?" 

Afler  quoting  this  sentence,  Dr.  Blair  proceeds  thus  : — 

"  Our  author  is  now  entering  on  a  theory',  which  he  is  about  to  illustrate,  if  not 
with  much  philosophical  accuracy,  yet  with  great  beauty  of  fancy  and  glow  of 
expression.  A  strong  instance  of  his  want  of  accuracy  appears  in  the  manner  in 
which  he  opens  the  subject.  For  what  meaning  is  there  in  things  exciting  in  u$ 
many  of  those  ideas  ichicJi  are  different  from  anything  thai  exists  in  the  objeeUf 
No  one,  sure,  ever  imagined  that  our  ideas  exist  in  the  objects.  Ideas,  it  ie  agroed 
on  ail  hands,  con  exist  nowhere  but  in  the  mind.  What  Mr.  Lockers  philosophy 
teaches,  and  wli.it  our  author  should  liave  said,  is,  exciting  in  u$  many  idea*  of 
qualities  which  are  different  from  anything  that  exists  in  the  objecUy 

Let  us  now  attend  to  Locke's  theory,  as  stated  by  himself : — 

"  From  whence  I  think  it  is  easy  to  draw  this  observation,  That  the  ideas  of 
primary  qualities  of  bodies  are  resemblances  of  them,  and  their  patterns  do  reaUy 
exist  in  the  bodies  themselves^  but  the  ideas  produced  in  us  by  these  secondary 
qualities  have  no  resemblance  of  them  at  all.  There  is  nothing  like  our  ideas 
existing  in  the  bodies  themselves.  Tliey  are  in  the  bodies  we  denominate  from 
them,  only  a  power  to  produce  these  sensations  in  us.  And  what  is  sweet,  blue, 
or  wann  in  idea^  is  but  the  certain  bulk,  figure,  and  motion  of  the  insensible  parts 
in  the  bodies  themselves,  which  we  call  so." 

The  inaccuracy  of  Locke  in  conceiving  that  our  ideas  of  primary  qualities  arc 
resemblances  of  these  qualities,  and  that  the  patterns  of  such  ideas  exist  in  the 
bodies  themselves,  has  been  fully  exposed  by  Dr.  Reid.  But  the  repetition  of 
Locke's  inaccuracy  (supposing  Addison  to  have  been  really  p^lty  of  it)  should 
not  bo  charged  upon  him  as  a  deviation  from  his  master's  doctrine.  To  all,  how- 
ever, who  understand  the  subject,  it  must  appear  evident,  that  Addison  has,  in  this 
instance,  improved  greatly  on  Ix^cke,  by  keeping  out  of  \'iew  what  is  most  excep- 
tionable in  his  language,  while  he  has  retained  all  that  is  solid  in  his  doctrine. 
For  my  own  part,  I  do  not  see  how  Addison's  expressions  could  be  altered  to  the 
l>etter,  except,  perhaps,  by  substituting  the  words  unlike  to,  instead  of  different 
from.  But  in  this  last  phrase  Addison  has  been  implicitly  followed  by  Dr.  Blair, 
and  certainly  would  not  have  been  disavowed  as  an  interpreter  by  Locke  himself. 
Let  me  add,  that  Dr.  Blair's  proposed  emendation,  ("  exciting  in  us  many  ideas  of 
qualities,  which  are  different  from  anything  that  exists  in  the  objects,")  if  not 
wholly  unintelligible,  deviates  much  farther  from  Ijocke'e  meaning  than  the  cor- 
respondent clause  in  its  original  stat*?.     The  additional  words  of  qualities  throw  an 


NOTE  Rll. 


583 


obscurity  over  the  whole  proposition,  which  was  before  sufficiently  precise  and 
IKirspicuous.^ 

My  principal  reason  for  offering  these  remarks  in  vindication  of  Addison^s  ac- 
count of  secondary  qualities,  was  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  sequel  of  the  passage 
animadverted  on  by  Dr.  Blair. 

"  We  are  everywhere  entertained  with  pleasing  shows  and  apparitions.  We 
discover  imaginary  glories  in  the  heavens  and  in  the  earth,  and  see  some  of  this 
visiouary  beauty  poured  out  upon  the  whole  creation.  But  what  a  rough  un- 
sightly sketch  of  nature  should  we  be  entertained  with,  did  all  her  colouring  dis- 
appear, and  the  several  distinctions  of  light  and  shade  vanish  ?'  In  short,  our  souk 
are  delightfully  lost  and  bewildered  in  a  pleasing  delusion,  and  we  walk  about  like 
the  enchanted  hero  of  a  romance,  who  sees  beautiful  castles,  woods,  and  meadows, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  hears  the  warbling  of  birds  and  the  purling  of  streams ; 
but,  upon  the  finishing  of  some  secret  spell,  the  fantastic  scene  breaks  up,  and  the 
disconsolate  knight  finds  himself  on  a  barren  heath,  or  in  a  solitary  desert." 

In  this  passage  one  is  at  a  loss  whether  most  to  admire  the  author's  depth  and 
refinement  of  thought,  or  the  singular  felicity  of  fancy  displayed  in  its  illustration. 
The  image  of  the  enclunUed  liero  is  so  unexpected,  and,  at  the  same  time,  so 
exquisitely  appropriate,  that  it  seems  itself  to  have  been  conjured  up  by  an  en- 
chanter's wand.  Though  introduced  with  the  unpretending  simplicity  of  a  poetical 
simile,  it  has  the  effect  of  shedding  the  light  of  day  on  one  of  the  darkest  comers 
of  metaphysics.  Nor  is  the  language  in  which  it  is  conveyed  unworthy  of  the 
Attention  of  the  critic ;  abounding  throughout  with  those  natural  and  happy 
graces,  which  appear  artless  and  easy  to  all  but  to  those  who  have  attempted  to 
copy  them.* 


1  Another  paooge,  afterwards  quoted  by  Dr. 
B]nir,  might  have  natisfied  him  of  the  cleamen 
and  accuracy  of  Addison's  ideas  on  the  subject. 

"  I  have  here  supposed  that  mj  reader  is  ac- 
quainted with  that  great  modem  discovery, 
which  i«,  at  prewnt,  universally  acknowledged 
by  all  the  inquirers  into  Natural  Philosophy ; 
namely,  that  light  and  colour^  oi  apprehended 
bp  Ike  imatjimiUon,  are  only  ideas  in  the  mind, 
and  not  qualities  that  haro  any  existence  in 
matter.  As  this  is  a  truth  which  ban  been 
proved  incontestably  by  many  modem  philoso- 
phers, if  the  English  reader  would  see  the  notion 
explained  at  largo,  he  may  find  it  in  the  eighth 
book  of  Mr.  Locke's  Ei»ay  on  Human  Under- 
slandlnff." 

I  have  already  taken  notice  (Element s  (^  the 
Philatophp  0/  the  Human  Mind,  vol  i.  Note  P.) 
of  the  extraordinary  precision  of  the  above 
ftatcmeni.  arising  firom  the  clause  printed  in 
Italics.  By  a  strange  slip  of  memory,  I  ascribed 
the  merit  of  this  very  judicious  qualiflcation, 
not  to  Addison,  but  to  Dr.  Akenside,  who  tran- 
MTibed  it  from  the  Spectator. 

The  lARt  quotation  aflfords  mo  also  an  oppor- 
tunity of  remarking  the'corroctncss  of  Addison's 


information  about  the  history  of  this  doctrine, 
which  most  English  writers  hav«  conceived  to 
bo  an  original  speculation  of  Locke's.  From 
some  of  Addison's  expressions,  it  is  more  than 
probabld  that  he  bad  derived  his  flnt  knowledge 
of  it  from  Malebrancbe. 

'  On  the  supposition  made  in  this  sentence, 
the  fsoe  of  Nature,  instead  of  presenting  a 
"  rou^  unsightly  sketch,"  would,  it  is  evident, 
become  wholly  invisible.  But  I  need  scarcdy 
say,  tb\a  does  not  render  Mr.  Addison's  allusion 
less  pertinent. 

3  [*  ••  Ut  slbi  quivis 
Speret  idem ;  sudet  multum,  firu^traque  laboret 
AuBUS  idem." 

Dr.  Blair  objects  to  the  clause,  {Ihe  fanUuUc 
scene  kreakt  up ;)  remarking  that  "  the  expres- 
sion is  lively,  but  not  altogether  justifiable.* 
"  An  assembly,  (he  addr,)  breaks  up,-  a  scene 
closes  or  disappears." 

To  this  criticism  I  cannot  aesenk  One  of  the 
oldest  and  most  genuine  meanings  of  the  verb 
Intak  up,  i-«  to  dissolve  or  vanish;  nor  do  I 
know  any  word  or  phrase  in  our  language  which 
could  here  be  substituted  in  its  place,  without 


•  Restored.— £./. 


584      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  IL 


M 


li 


ii 


III 


! 


J 

t 
P^ 


Tbe  praise  which  I  have  bestowed  on  Addison  as  a  commentator  on  this  part 
Locke's  Ehsay,  will  not  appear  extravagant  to  those  who  may  take  the  trouble 
compare  the  conciseness  and  elegance  of  the  foregoing  extracts  with  the  prolixii 
and  homeliness  of  the  author's  text.     (See  Locke's  Essay,  book  ii.  chap,  lii 
sects.  17,  18.)     It  is  sufficient  to  mention  here,  that  his  chief  illostratioii  is  take 
from  "  the  effects  of  manna  on  the  stomach  and  guts.^* 

Note  S  S,  p.  349. 

For  the  following  note  I  am  indebted  to  my  learned  friend,  Sir  William  Hami 
ton,  Professor  of  Universal  History  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 

The  CUwis  Universalis  of  Arthur  Collier,  though  little  known  in  England,  lu 
been  translated  into  German.  It  is  published  in  a  work  entitled  "  Samlung,"  («m 
&c.  &c.,  literally,  "  A  Collection  of  the  most  distingnished  Authors  who  deny  tb 
existence  of  their  own  bodies,  and  of  the  whole  material  world ;  containing  tfa 
dialogues  of  Berkeley,  between  Hylas  and  Philonous,  and  Collier's  Universal  Ke 
translated,  with  Illustrative  Observations,  and  an  Appendix,  wherein  the  Existenc 
of  Body  is  demonstrated,  by  John  Christopher  Eschenbach,  Professor  of  Phik 


Impairing  tbe  effect  of  the  picture.    It  is  a 
Ikrourite  expreHion  of  Bacon't  in  this  veiy 


"  These  and  the  like  conceits,  when  men  have 
cleared  their  understanding  by  the  light  of  ex- 
perience, will  scatter  and  break  up  like  mist."— 
"The  speedy  depredation  of  air  upon  watery 
moisture,  and  version  of  the  same  into  air 
appeareth  in  nothing  more  visible  than  the 
sodden  discharge  or  vanishing  of  a  little  cloud 
of  breath  or  vapour  fh>m  glass  or  any  polished 
body;  for  the  miRtiness  scattereth  and  breaketh 
up  suddenly."  And  elsewhere,  "  But  ere  he 
came  near  it,  the  pillar  and  cross  of  light  brake 
up,  and  cast  itself  abroad,  as  it  were,  into  a  fir- 
mament of  many  stais." 

Of  the  charm  attached  to  such  appropriate 
or  specific  idioms,  no  English  writers  have  been 
more  aware  than  Addison  and  Burke ;  but,  in 
general,  they  are  employed  with  ftu*  greater 
taste  and  judgment  by  the  former  than  by  the 
latter.  The  use  of  ibem  is  indeed  hasardous  to 
all  who  have  been  educated  at  a  distance  fTom 
the  seat  of  government,  and,  accordingly,  the 
best  of  our  Scotch  writers  have  thought  it  safer 
to  lean  to  the  opposite  extreme.  F^n^Ion  has 
remariced  something  similar  to  this  among  the 
provtnclalt  of  his  own  country.  "  On  a  tant  de 
{Mur  d'Otre  has,  qu'on  est  ordinaire  see  et  vague 
dans  les  expressions.  Nous  avons  Ift-dessus  une 
Cftusse  polit^sse,  semblable  &  celle  de  certains 
provinciaux  qui  se  piquent  de  bel  esprit,  et  qui 
croiralent  s'abaiaser  en  nommant  les  chores  par 
leur  nom." 

In  applying,  however,  this  very  Judicious 
obserration,  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  that 


F6n61on  had  from  his  youth  moved  eschniTd 
in  that  privileged  circle  of  eocie^  which  givi 
law  to  speech ;  and,  of  consequence,  that  in  tli 
selection  of  his  idioms  be  might  trust  to  hi 
ear  with  a  confidence  which  fSew  of  our  mmA 
em  neighbours  (I  leeet  of  all,  except  Ihoi 
purists  whose  taste  has  been  formed  within  tk 
sound  of  Bcw-hfU)  are  entitled  to  feeL  Hoi 
many  of  these,  while  they  fancy  they  are  rival 
ling  the  easy  and  graosAil  Anglidam  of  Addisoc 
unconsciously  betray  the  secret  of  thoae  cai^ 
habits  and  inveterate  associatione  -whkdi  thsc 
are  so  anxious  to  conceal ! 

The  passage  of  Addison  which  soggeeted  thl 
note,  has  been  versified  and  expanded  by  Aksa 
side :  but  there  is  a  condseneee,  simplicity,  au 
Creshness  in  the  original,  which  it  is  impoaaibli 
to  preserve  in  any  poetical  version. 

"  So  fkbia  un : 

Th'  adventaroiu  hrro,  boan4  on  hanl  espMta, 
UeholOs,  with  glad  nrptiw,  liy  — ewt  qwll* 
or  Mm*  Uod  Mfe,  the  patroti  of  his  toUs. 
A  rWoiiarjr  pnnuliM  diaeloaed 
Amid  th«  dubioua  wild ;  with  ttrvama  ead 
And  airy  tonga,  th'  enchanted  tendampe  anile*, 
Cheen  hie  long  laboura  and  renew  hla 


The  reflection,  however,  of  the  phfloaopbical 
poet,  on  the  aocesrion  to  the  nun  of  oar  enjoy- 
ments, arising  fTom  this  arbitrary  adulation  of 
the  human  frame  to  tbe  constitution  of  external 
objects,  is,  so  for  as  I  know,  exduaively  hii 


own. 


"  Not  content 
With  every  fbod  of  life  to  nourish  man. 
By  liind  illuslont  of  Uie  womleHng  aposr 
Thou  mall 'ft  all  nature  beeu^  to  hia  cyw 

And  muiic  to  hi*  enr  I"] 


NOTE  T  T.  585 

■ophy  in  Rostock/*— (Rostock,  1756,  8vo.)    The  remarks  are  nnmeroas,  and  show 

much  reading.    The  Appendix  contains :— 1.  An  exposition  of  the  opinions  of  the 

Wealists,  with  its  grounds  and  arguments.    2.  A  proof  of  the  external  existence 

of  body.    The  argument  on  which  he  chiefly  dwells  to  show  the  existence  of 

matter  is  the  same  with  that  of  Dr.  Reid,  in  so  far  as  ho  says,  "  a  direct  proof 

must  not  here  be  expected ;  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  human 

natiu-e  this  is  seldom  possible,  or  rather  is  absolutely  impossible."    Ho  argues  at 

length,  that  the  Idealist  has  no  better  proof  of  the  existence  of  his  soul  than  of 

the  existence  of  his  body  :  "  When  an  Idealist  says,  lama  thinking  being;  of  this 

lam  certain  from  internal  conviction ,--^1  would  ask  from  whence  he  derives  this 

certainty,  and  why  he  excludes  from  this  conviction  the  possibility  of  deception  ? 

He  has  no  other  answer  than  this,  I  feel  it.    It  is  impossible  that  lean  have  any 

representation  (  VorsteUung^  presentation)  of  self  without  the  consciousness  of  being 

a  tliinking  being.     In  the  same  manner,  Eschenbach  argues  (right  or  wrong)  that 

the  feeling  applies  to  the  existence  of  hotly,  and  that  the  ground  of  belief  is  equally 

strong  and  conclusive,  in  respect  to  the  reality  of  the  objective^  as  of  the  subjective 

in  perception." 

NoteTT,  p.  377. 

"  And  yet  Diderot^  in  some  of  his  lucid  intercaUy  seems  to  have  thought  awl  felt 
very  differently.'* 

The  following  passage  (extracted  from  his  JPstm^cs  FhUosophiques)  is  pro- 
nounced by  La  Harpe  to  be  not  only  one  of  the  most  eloquent  which  Diderot  has 
written,  but  to  be  one  of  the  best  comments  which  is  anywhere  to  be  found  on  the 
Cartesian  argument  for  the  existence  of  God.  It  has  certainly  great  merit  in  point 
of  reasoning ;  but  I  cannot  see  with  what  propriety  it  can  be  considered  as  a 
comment  upon  the  argument  of  Descartes  ;  nor  am  I  sure  if,  in  point  of  eloquence, 
it  be  as  well  suited  to  the  English  as  to  the  French  taste. 

*'  Convenez  qu'il  y  auroit  do  la  folie  h  refuser  &  vos  semblables  la  faculty  de 
penser.  Sans  doute,  mais  quo  s'ensuit-il  de  U?  II  s'ensuit,  que  si  Tunivers, 
que  dis-je  Tuniveru,  si  I'aile  d*un  papillon  m'offre  des  traces  mille  fois  plus 
distinctcs  d'une  intelligence  que  vous  n'aves  d'indices  que  votre  semblable  a  la 
faculty  de  penser,  il  est  mille  fois  plus  fou  de  nier  qu'il  existe  un  Dicu,  que  de 
nier  que  votre  semblable  pcnse.  Or,  quo  ccla  soit  ainsi,  c'est  k  vos  lumieres, 
c'est  &  votre  conscience  que  j'en  appello.  Avez-vous  jamais  remarqu^  dans 
les  raisonnemens,  Ics  actions,  et  la  conduite  de  qnelque  homme  que  ce  soit, 
plus  d*intelligencc,  d'ordre,  de  sagacite,  de  consequence,  que  dans  le  mecanisme 
d'un  insecte  ?  La  divinite  n'est  elle  pas  aussi  clairement  empreinte  dans  Tceil 
d'un  ciron,  que  la  faculto  de  penser  dans  lea  ecrits  du  grand  Newton  ?  Quoi !  le 
monde  forme  prouverait  moins  d'intelligenco,  que  le  monde  explique?  Quelle 
assertion !  rintelligenco  d'un  premier  etre  ne  m'cst  pas  mieux  demontrec  par  sos 
ouvrages,  que  la  facultu  de  penser  dans  un  philosophe  par  scs  cents  ?  Songez 
done  que  jc  ne  vous  objecte  que  I'aile  d'un  papillon,  quand  jc  pourrais  vous  ccraser 
du  poids  de  I'univers." 

This,  however,  was  certainly  not  the  creed  which  Diderot  professed  in  his  more 
advanced  years.  The  article,  on  the  contrary,  which  immediately  follows  the  fore- 
going quotation,  there  is  every  reason  to  think,  expresses  his  real  sentiments  on 
the  subject.     I  transcribe  it  at  length,  as  it  states  clearly  and  explicitly  the  same 


686     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. ^PABT  II. 


IV  i 


1  I 


I 


argument  which  is  indirectly  hinted  at  in  a  late  publication  by  a  far  more  illuj 
trioua  author. 

"  J'ouvre  les  cahrars  d'un  philosophe  oelebrc,  et  je  lis :  *  Athees,  jo  voua  accord 
que  le  mouvement  est  essentiel  si  la  matiere ;  qu'en  concluez-vous  ?  que  le  mond 
resulte  du  jet  fortuit  d'atomes?  J'aimcrois  autant  que  vous  me  dimes  qa 
riliade  d'Hom^re  ou  la  Henriade  de  Voltaire  est  un  resultat  de  jets  fortuits  d 
caracteres  ?*  Jo  me  garderai  bien  de  foire  ce  raisonnemeot  H  un  athee.  Cett 
comparaison  lut  donneroit  beau  jeu.  Selon  les  lois  de  Taaalycie  des  sorts,  m 
diroit-il,  je  ne  dois  etre  surpris  qu'nne  chose  arrive,  lonqu*elle  est  possible,  et  qn 
la  difficulte  de  Tevenement  est  compentee  par  la  quantito  des  jets.  II  y  a  tc 
nombre  de  coups  dans  leaqnels  je  gagerois  avec  avantage  d'amener  cent  mille  si 
A  la  ibis  avec  cent  mille  des.  Quelle  que  fut  la  somme  finie  de  caracteres  are 
laquelle  on  me  proposcroit  d'engendrer  fortuitement  Tlliade,  il  y  a  telle  somme  fini 
de  jets  qui  me  rendroit  la  proposition  avantageusc ;  mou  avantage  seroit  uieme  infin 
si  la  quantite  de  jets  accordec  etoit  infinie. — [*Vou8  voules  bicu  convenir  avec  mo 
<K)ntinueroit-il,  que  la  matii^re  existe  de  toute  ^temite,  et  que  le  mouvoment  lui  e< 
essentiel.  Pour  repondre  h  cette  favour,  je  vais  supposer  avec  vous  que  le  mond 
n'a  point  de  homes,  que  la  multitude  des  atomes  est  infinie,  et  que  cet  ordre  qui  not 
etonne  ne  se  dement  nuUe  part.  Or,  de  ces  aveux  reciproques,  il  ne  s*ensuit  anti 
chose,  si  non  que  la  possibilite  d'engendrer  fortuitement  Tunivers  est  tres  petit 
mais  que  la  quantite  de  jeta  est  infinie ;  c'est-ardire,  que  la  difiSculte  de  I'^veni 
ment  est  plus  que  suffieamment  compensce  par  la  multitude  des  jets.  Done  si  qnelqi 
chose  doit  repugner  k  la  raison,  c'est  la  supposition  que  la  matiere  s^etant  mue  c 
toute  Petemit^,  et  qu'ayant  peut-ctre  dans  la  somme  infinie  de  combinaisoi 
possibles,  un  nombre  infini  d*arrangcmcns  admirables,  il  ne  se  soit  rencontre  aacu 
de  ces  arrangemens  admirables  dans  la  multitude  infinie  de  ceux  qu*elle  a  pris  Bn< 
cessivement.  Done  Tesprit  doit  etre  plus  Etonne  de  la  duree  hjpothetique  du  chao 
que  de  la  naissance  reclle  de  I'univers."] — Penates  PhilasopiUqueSy  par  Diderot,  xs 

My  chief  reason  for  considering  this  as  the  genuine  exposition  of  Diderot's  ow 
creed  is,  that  he  omits  no  opportunity  of  suggesting  the  same  train  of  thinking  i 
his  other  works.  It  may  be  distinctly  traced  in  the  following  passage  of  h: 
Traits  du  Beau,  the  substance  of  which  he  has  also  introduced  in  the  article  Bea 
of  the  Encyc^opidie. 

**  Le  beau  n*est  pas  toi\jours  Touvrage  d'une  cause  intelligente ;  le  mouvemei: 
etablit  souvent,  soit  dans  un  etre  consid^ro  solitaircment,  soit  entre  plusieoi 
etres  compares  entr*eux,  unc  multitude  prodigieuse  de  rapports  surpreuans.  Lc 
cabinets  d'histoire  naturelle  en  offrent  un  grand  nombre  d'exemplcs.  Lies  rapporl 
sent  alors  des  resultats  de  oombinaisons  fortuites,  du  moins  par  rapport  b,  noui 
La  nature  imite  en  se  jouant,  'dans  cent  occasious,  les  productions  d'art ;  et  ]*o 
pourroit  demander,  je  ne  dis  pas  si  ce  philosophe  qui  fut  jcte  par  une  tompete  si] 
les  herds  d'une  He  inconnue,  avoit  raison  de  se  crier,  a  la  vuo  de  quclque  figure 
de  geometric ;  '  Courage^  mcs  timM^  void  des  pas  d^hommes ;'  mais  combien  : 
faudroit  rcmarquer  de  rapports  dans  un  etre,  pour  avoir  une  certitude  complet 
qu'il  est  I'ouvrage  d'un  artiste*  (en  quelle  occasion,  un  seul  defaut  de  symmetri 


♦  Restored.— K*/. 

1  Is  not  this  prcciMely  the  sophistical  mode  of 


questioning    lioown 


funon;* 


Logicians   hy  the 


nanio  of  Sorites  or  Accrvus?  "  Vitiosum  nane 
says  Cicero,  "et  captiosum  genus." — Actu 
Qu(tst.,  lib.  ir.  xrL 


NOTE  TT. 


587 


proaveroit  plus  que  toute  sonimo  iIonn(:c  de  rapports ;)  comment  sont  cntr  eux  Ic 
temps  de  I'action  do  la  cause  fortuitc,  et  IcB  rapports  observes  dans  Ics  effots  pro- 
duits ;  et  si  {h.  Texception  des  oeuvres  du  Tout-Puissant)  *  il  y  a  des  cas  ou  le 
nombre  des  rapports  ne  puisse  jamais  etre  compcnse  par  celui  des  jets." 

With  respect  to  the  passages  here  extracted  from  Diderot,  it  is  worthy  of  obser- 
vation, that  if  the  atheistical  argument  from  chances  be  conclusive  in  its  applica- 
tion to  that  order  of  things  which  we  behold,  it  is  not  less  conclusive  when  applied 
to  every  other  possible  combination  of  atoms  which  imagination  can  conceive,  and 
affords  a  mathematical  proof,  that  the  fables  of  Grecian  mythology,  the  tales  of  the 
genii,  and  the  dreams  of  the  Rosicrucians,  mai/f  or  rather  must^  all  of  them,  be 
somewhere  or  other  realized  in  the  infinite  extent  of  the  universe :  a  proposition 
which,  if  true,  would  destroy  every  argument  for  or  against  any  giyen  system  of 
opinions  founded  on  the  reasonableness  or  the  nnreasonablenoss  of  the  tenets 
involved  in  it ;  and  would,  of  consequence,  lead  to  the  subversion  of  the  whole 
frame  of  the  human  understanding.' 

Mr.  Hume,  in  bis  Natural  History  of  Bdigion^  (Sect,  xi.),  has  drawn  an  in- 
ference from  the  internal  evidence  of  the  Heathen  Mythology,  in  favour  of  the 
supposition  that  it  may  not  be  altogether  so  fabulous  as  is  commonly  supposed. 


1  To  those  who  enter  fully  into  the  iplrit  of 
the  foregoing  reetoniog.  It  is  unneceMary  to 
obflcnre.  that  thin  parenthetical  clauM  i«  nuthing 
better  than  an  ironical  mIvo.  If  the  argument 
proves  anything.  It  leads  to  this  general  con- 
clusion, that  the  apparent  order  of  the  uniTerae 
affords  no  evidence  whatever  of  tiie  existence 
of  a  designing  cause. 

s  Tlic  atheistical  argument  here  quoted  from 
Diderot  is,  at  least,  as  old  as  the  time  of  Ei4- 
curus. 

Nnm  cert«  ncque  condlio  pritnonlln  rmim 
Online  m  qiueque,  mtque  ugael  mviite  locarunt 
N*fC  quoa  qiueque  tUrent  motui  pcpi^fre  profi-cto ; 
S«<l  quia  muUinioilU,  multia,  inut*ta,  per  otiin* 
Kx  iiifluico  T«xAiilur  petvita  plofU, 
Oinn«  genua  motut,  et  c«rUu  ekprriumlo, 
Taralem  deveniunt  in  talda  ditputntunia, 
Qualitnu  bac  ivbua  OMMktit  •unima  cnnta. 

LvciiBT.  lib.  i.  1. 1090. 

And  Still  more  explicitly  in  the  following 
lines  : — 

Vavn  rum  m^iriM  intmenkl  trtnporic  onine 
rrwterltum  ■paiium  ;  turn  motu*  material 
Multimodi  qujim  tint ;  fiicilv  hoc  adomlen-  powie, 
Bemliia  Mt-pe  in  eodem,  ut  nunc  nmt.  online  pteta. 

Ibki.  lib.  ill.  1.  887. 

[*  The  whole  of  this  reasoning  (if  it  deserves 
that  name)  proceeds  evidently  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  atoms,  or  aemina,  considered  by 
Epicurus  as  the  Primordia  Rerum,  areylnito  in 
their  number ;  and  that  this  was  aLw  the  idea 
of  Diderot  in  the  passage  kul  quoted,  appears 
from  the  concluding  words,  in  which  he  speaks 


of  tho  possibility  of  the  number  of  rapportt 
being  compensated  by  the  number  of  jdi.  If 
we  suppose  the  number  of  atoms  to  be  infinite, 
the  whole  of  this  Eiiicurean  speculation  fbUs  at 
once  to  tho  ground.  Dr.  Dentloy  seems,  in- 
deed, to  have  thought,  that  this  last  supposition 
involves  a  contradiction  in  terminit,  inasmuch 
as  it  implies  the  possibility  of  an  innumerable 
number  or  a  eumkts  sum ;  but  this  cavil  is,  I 
think,  obviated  in  a  very  satisfactory  manner 
by  Sir  iMaac  Newton,  who  plainly  leaned  to 
the  opinion,  that  the  matter  of  the  universe  is 
scattered  over  the  immensity  of  space.  See  his 
Third  Letter  to  Dr.  Bentley. 

The  idea  of  t^  finite  univerte  presents,  to  my 
mind  at  least,  as  great  a  difficulty  as  that  which 
staggered  Dr.  Dentley.  But  to  what  purpose 
employ  our  faculties  on  subjects  so  far  above 
their  reach  as  all  those  manifestly  are  in  which 
the  notions  of  infinity  or  of  eternity  are  con- 
cerned? 

I  have  said,  that  if  we  suppose  the  number 
of  atoms  to  be  infinite,  the  whole  of  thb  Epi- 
curean speculation  falls  at  once  to  the  ground. 
This,  however,  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
attended  to  by  Lucretius,  who  expressly  teaches, 
that  the  universe  is  without  bounds,  and  that.tbe 
number  of  atoms  is  infinite. — Lucret,  lib.  t.  v. 
057.  ft  $eq.  Diderot  also  thinks,  Uiat  he  may 
safely  make  this  concession,  without  weakening 
his  argimient :  "  Pour  rdpondre  il  cette  faveur 
Je  vais  suppoHcr  aveo  vous  que  le  monde  n'a 
point  de  homes  et  'ine  la  multitude  des  aUmes 
est  iitfinie."^ 


*  ResUtrcd  — E<i. 


S88      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  II. 

"  The  whole  mythological  system  is  so  natural,  that  in  the  vast  variety  of  planets 
and  worlds  contained  in  this  universe,  it  teems  more  tJumprobable,  that  somewhere 
or  other  it  is  really  carried  into  execution.*'  The  argument  of  Diderot  goes  much 
farther,  and  leads  to  an  extension  of  Mr.  Hume's  conclusion  to  all  conceivahls 
systems,  whether  naiural  or  not. 

But  further,  since  the  human  mind,  and  all  the  numberless  displays  of  wisdom 
and  of  power  which  it  has  exhibited,  are  ultimately  to  be  referred  to  a  fortuitous 
concourse  of  atoms,  why  might  not  the  Supreme  Being,  such  as  we  are  commonly 
taught  to  regard  him,  have  been  Himself  (as  well  as  the  Gods  of  Epicams)  ^  the 
result  of  the  continued  operation  of  the  same  blind  causes  ?  or  rather,   §nuti  not 
such  a  Being  have  necessarily  resulted  from  these  causes  operating  from  all 
eternity,   through  the  immensity  of  space? — a  conclusion,  by  the  way,  which, 
according  to  Diderot's  own  principles,  would  lead  us  to  refer  the  era  of  his  origpo 
to  a  period  indefinitely  more  remote  than  any  given  point  of  time  which  imagina- 
tion can  assign ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  a  period  to  which  the  epithet  eternal  may 
with  perfect  propriety  be  applied.    The  amount,  therefore,  of  the  whole  matter  is 
this,  that  the  atheistical  reasoning,  as  stated  by  Diderot,  leaves  the  subject  of 
natural,  and,  I  may  add,  of  revealed  religion,  precisely  on  the  same  footing  as 
before,  without  invalidating,  in  the  very  smallest  degree,  the  evidence  for  any  one 
of  the  doctrines  connected  with  either ;  nay  more,  superadding  to  this  evidence,  a 
mathematical  demonstration  of  the  possible  truth  of  all  those  articles  of  belief 
which  it  was  the  object  of  Diderot  to  subvert  from  their  foundation. 

It  might  be  easily  shown,  that  these  principles,  if  pushed  to  their  legitimate 
consequences,  instead  of  establishing  the  just  authority  of  reason  in  our  constitu- 
tion, would  lead  to  the  most  unlimited  credulity  on  all  subjects  whatever ;  or  (what 
is  only  another  name  for  the  same  thing)  to  that  state  of  mind,  which,  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Hume,  "  does  not  consider  any  one  proposition  as  more  certain,  or  even  as 
more  probable,  than  another.^ 

The  following  curious  and  (in  my  opinion)  instructive  anecdote  has  a  sufficient 
connexion  with  the  subject  of  this  note,  to  justify  me  in  subjoining  it  to  the  fore- 
going observations.  I  transcribe  it  from  the  Notes  annexed  to  the  Abbe  de 
Lille's  poem,  entitled  La  dmversation :  h  Paris,  1812. 

*'  Dans  la  socictc  du  Baron  d'Holbach,  Diderot  proposa  un  jour  de  nommer  un 
avocat  de  Dieu,  et  on  choisit  I'Abbli  Galiani.    II  s'assit  et  d^buta  ainsi : 

"  Un  jour  &  Naples,  un  homme  de  la  Basilicute  prit  dcvant  nous,  six  des  dans 
im  comet,  et  paria  d'amener  rafle  de  six.  Je  dis  cette  chance  ctoit  possible.  11 
Tamena  sur  le  champ  une  seoonde  fois ;  je  dis  la  mcme  chose.  H  remit  les  des 
dans  le  comet  trois,  quatre,  cinq  fois,  et  toujours  rafle  de  six.  Sangue  di  3aeeo, 
m'ecriai-je,  les  dis  sont  pipis ;  et  ils  Tetoicnt. 

"  Philosophes,  qnand  je  consid^re  Tordrc  toujours  renaissant  de  la  nature,  sea 
lois  immuablcH,  ses  revolutions  toujours  constantes  dans  une  variete  infinie ;  cette 
chance  unique  et  conservatrice  d'un  univers  tel  que  nous  le  voyons,  qui  revient 
sans  cesse,  malgre  cent  autres  millions  de  chances  de  perturbation  et  de  destruc- 
tion possibles,  je  m'ecrio :  certes  la  nature  estpipieP^ 

The  argument  here  stated  strikes  me  as  irresistible;  nor  ought  it  at  all  to 
weaken  its  effect^  that  it  was  spoken  by  the  mouth  of  the  Abbe  Galiani. 

*  Cic.  <*<•  Nat  Dear.  lib.  1.  xxir. 


NOTE  U  U.  589 

Whatever  his  own  profesBcd  principles  may  have  been,  this  theory  of  the 
loaded  die  appears  evidently,  from  the  repeated  alhisions  t*  it  in  his  familiar  cor- 
respondence, to  have  produced  a  very  deep  impression  on  his  mind. — See  Corretpon- 
dance  inidite  de  TAbbe  Qaliani,  &c.,  vol.  i.  pp.  18,  42,  141,  142  :   k  Paris,  1818. 

As  the  old  argument  of  the  atomical  atheists  is  plainly  that  on  which  the  school 
of  Diderot  are  still  disposed  to  rest  the  strength  of  their  cause,  I  shall  make  no 
apology  for  the  length  of  this  note.  The  $ceptieal  suggestions  on  the  same  sub- 
ject which  occur  in  Mr.  Hume's  Essay  on  the  Idea  of  Necessary  Connexion^  and 
which  have  given  occasion  to  so  much  discussion  in  this  country,  do  not  seem 
to  me  to  have  ever  produced  any  considerable  impression  on  the  French  philo- 
sophers. 

[*  M.  Daunon  observes,  that  Galiani  is  so  celebrated  for  his  Dialogues  on  the 
Com  Trade,  published  at  Paris  in  1770,  that  his  correspondence  cannot  but  excite 
the  curiosity  of  men  of  letters.  But  though  these  letters  contain  some  interesting 
passages,  especially  remarks  on  the  dramatic  art,  which  he  had  particularly  studied, 
on  fatalism,  religion,  incredulity,  ambition,  ennui,  education,  on  Cicero,  Louis  XIV., 
and  other  celebrated  persons,  yet  these  two  volumes  are  on  the  whole  very  futile  ; 
and  if  any  service  has  been  done  by  their  publication,  it  is  certainly  not  to  the  me- 
mory of  Galiani,  who  paints  himself  in  colours  that  do  him  little  honour ;  an  ego- 
tist by  character  and  system ;  actuated,  in  all  the  reUtions  of  life,  by  the  grossest 
self-interest ;  laughing  at  his  own  doctrine  and  those  who  think  ii profound^  whereas, 
says  he,  "  it  is  hoUoWf  and  there  is  nothing  in  it,"  yet  foaming  with  rage  against 
those  who  contradicted  it,  loading  them  with  insults  and  calumnies,  denouncing 
them  as  seditions,  and  seriously  complaining  that  they  are  not  sent  to  tho  Bastille ; 
exercising  himself,  beyond  all  bounds,  in  freedom  of  ideas,  and  sometimes  of  ex- 
pression, yet  recommending  the  most  rigid  intolerance ;  and  who,  when  charged 
at  Naples  with  the  censure  of  the  drama,  beginning  by  prohibiting  the  performance 
of  Tartuffe ;  lastly,  boasting  of  admitting  no  other  policy  than  **pure  Machiavelism, 
sans  mSlange,  cruj  vert^  dans  toute  saforce^  dans  toute  son  apreiS.^* 

The  inedited  Correspondence  of  Abb^  Ferd.  Galiani  with  Madame  d*Epinay, 
Baron  d'UoIbach,  &c.  (from  the  Journal  des  Savons,  January,  1819).] 

Note  U  U,  p.  378. 

Among  the  contemporaries  of  Diderot,  the  author  of  the  Spirit  of  Laws  is  en- 
titled to  particular  notice,  for  the  respect  with  which  he  always  speaks  of  natural 
religion.  A  remarkable  instance  of  tliis  occurs  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Warburton,  occa- 
sioned by  the  publication  of  his  Viev  of  Bclinghroke's  Philosophy.  The  letter,  it 
must  be  owned,  savours  somewhat  of  the  political  religionist ;  but  how  fortunate 
would  it  have  been  for  Franco,  if,  during  its  late  revolutionary  governments,  such 
sentiments  as  those  here  expressed  by  Montesquieu  had  been  more  generally  pre- 
valent among  his  countrymen  I  "  Celui  qui  attaque  la  religion  rcvelce  n'attaque 
que  la  religion  rev^lce ;  mais  celui  qui  attaque  la  religion  naturelle  attaque  toutes 
les  religions  du  monde.  ...  II  n'est  pas  impossible  d*attaquer  une  religion  re- 
v^lce,  parce  qu*elle  existe  par  des  faits  particuliers,  et  quo  Ics  faits  par  lour  nature 

*  At  the  end  of  the  Tolume,  Mr.  Stewart  had  inierted  the  foUowing  extract,  written  by  a  strmngar- 
haud.— £(/. 


590     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

|)Giivcnt  etre  uno  matidre  dc  diHpatc  ;  mais  il  n*oii  est  pas  de  m^me  do  la  religion 
naturello ;  olio  est  tiive  do  la  nature  do  rhonimo,  dont  on  ne  pent  pas  dispnter 
encore.  J^tyoute  k  ceci,  quel  peut-etre  lo  motif  d*attaquer  la  reh'gion  rcy61ec  en 
Anglcterro  ?  On  I'y  a  tollcmcnt  purge  de  tout  pr£jug6  destructeur  qu*clle  n'y  peat 
faire  de  mal  et  qu'ulle  y  pout  fairc,  an  contruire,  une  infinite  de  bien.  Jo  sals, 
qu'un  hommo  en  Espagnc  ou  en  Portugal  que  Ton  va  bruler,  ou  qui  craint  dV'tre 
bnile,  parce  qn*il  nc  croit  point  de  certains  aiticlcs  depcndons  ou  non  de  la  religion 
r^veloe,  a  un  juste  si\jct  dc  I'attaquer,  parce  qu'il  pent  avoir  quclque  csp6rance  dc 
pourroir  k  sa  defense  naturclle  :  mius  il  n*en  pas  de  mvroe  en  Angleterro,  ou  tout 
homme<pii  attaquo  la  religion  ri-vcloe  Tattaque  sans  intcret,  et  oii  cct  hommo, 
quand  il  rvussiroit,  quand  niomo  il  auroit  mison  dans  le  fond,  ne  feroit  quo  dvtruiro 
une  infinite  de  bicns  pratiques,  pour  (-tablir  une  veritfi  purement  speculative." — 
For  the  whole  letter,  see  the  4to  edit,  of  Montesquicu*s  Worh.  Paris,  1788. 
Tome  V.  p.  S91.  Also  Warburton's  WorkSf  by  Hurd,  vol.  vii.  p.  553.  London, 
1758. 

In  the  foregoing  passage,  Montesquieu  hints  more  explicitly  than  could  well  have 
been  expected  from  a  French  magistrate,  at  a  consideration  which  ought  always  to 
be  taken  into  the  account  in  judging  of  the  works  of  his  countrymen,  when  they 
touch  on  the  subject  of  religion  ;  I  mean,  the  corrupted  and  intolerant  spirit  of  that 
system  of  faith  which  is  immediately  before  their  eyes.  The  eulogy  bestowed  on 
the  Church  of  England  is  particularly  deserving  of  notice,  and  should  Bcr\'e  as  a 
caution  to  Protestant  writers  against  making  common  cause  with  the  defenders  of 
the  Church  of  Rome. 

With  respect  to  Voltaire,  who,  amidst  all  his  extravagances  and  impieties,  is 
well  known  to  have  declared  op<*n  war  against  the  principles  maintained  in  the 
Sjfsthne  (le  la  Naturey  it  is  remarked  by  Madame  de  Sthcl,  that  two  diflfercnt 
ep(>chs  may  bo  diHtinguished  in  his  literary  life ;  the  one,  while  his  mind  was  warm 
from  the  philusophical  IcHsons  he  had  imbibed  in  England  ;  the  other,  after  it  Ix;- 
came  infected  with  thoKc  extravagant  prinriplcH  which,  soon  after  his  death,  brought 
a  temporary  reproach  on  the  name  of  Philosophy.  As  the  ol)scrvation  is  extrnde<l 
by  th(!  V(jry  ingenious  writer  to  the  French  nation  in  general,  and  draws  a  lino 
bctwijcn  two  elusKes  of  nntli(>i*s  who  are  frequently  confounded  together  in  this 
country,  I  shall  transerilK'  it  in  her  own  wonls. 

*'  II  mc^  Hcnibh;  <iu'on  pourroit  marqner  dans  le  dix-huitiemo  sieclc,  en  France, 
deux  ep<w|ueH  parfnitcment  distinctes,  cclle  dans  laquelle  rinfluenccde  I'Angleterre 
s'est  fait  sentir,  et  cellc  ou  Ics  csprits  se  sent  precipites  dans  la  destmction  :  Alors 
les  lumiores  se  sont  ehangees  en  incendie,  et  la  philosophic,  magicienne  irritec,  a 
consume  le  i)al(us  oii  clle  avoit  t'tale  Kes  prodiges. 

"  En  politicpie,  Mt)ntcs(|nieu  appartient  li  la  premiere  epoque,  Raynal  h  la  so- 
condc ;  en  relij^aon,  les  ecrits  de  Voltaire,  qui  avoit  la  tolerance  pour  but,  sont 
inspires  par  resprit  de  la  premiere  moitie  du  siecle  ;  mais  sa  miserable  et  vaniteuse 
irreligion  a  fli'tri  la  sccontle." — De  VAlUmnf/net  tom.  iii.  pp.  37,  38. 

Nothing,  in  truth,  can  l>o  more  striking  than  the  contrast  lietwccn  the  spirit  of 
Voltaire's  early  and  of  his  later  productions.  From  the  former  may  be  quoted  some 
of  the  sublimest  HcniimcntH  anywhere  to  be  ft)un(l,  both  of  religion  and  of  morality. 
In  some  of  the  latter,  he  appears  irrecoverably  sunk  in  the  ubyfiH  of  fatalism.  Kx- 
amples  of  both  are  so  numerous,  that  one  is  nt  a  loss  in  the  selertion.     In  making 


NOTE  U  U. 


591 


choice  of  the  following,  I  am  giii<lcd  chiefly  hy  tho  comparative  BhortncsK  of  the 

passages. 

"  Consulte  Zoroastre,  ct  Minos,  et  Solon, 
Et  Ic  sage  Socratc,  et  le  gnind  Ciceron  : 
lis  ont  ailor^  tons  un  mutrc,  un  juge,  nn  pcrc  ;- 
Ce  systcme  sublime  &  Thomme  est  nccessaire. 
C'est  le  sacre  lien  tic  la  societo, 
Jje  premier  fondement  de  la  saintc  ('quite  ; 
IjO  frein  du  sct'lcrat,  l'e8|H'rance  du  juste. 
Si  les  cicux,  depouilles  dc  leur  empreinto  augustc, 
Pouvoieut  cesser  jamais  dc  Ic  manifester, 
Si  Dicu  n*existoit  pas,  il  faudroit  I'invcnter."  ^ 

Nor  is  it  only  on  this  fundamental  principle  of  religion  that  Voltaire,  in  his 
better  days,  delighted  to  enlarge.  The  existence  of  a  natural  law  engraved  on  the 
human  heart,  and  the  liberty  of  the  human  will,  are  subjects  which  he  has  repeat- 
edly enforced  and  adorned  with  all  his  philosophical  and  poetical  powers.  What 
can  be  more  explicit,  or  more  forcible,  than  tho  following  exposition  of  the  incon- 
sistencies of  fatalism  ? 

*'  Vois  de  la  liberte  cet  cnnemi  mutin, 
Aveugle  partisan  d'un  aveugle  dcstin  ; 
Entends  comme  il  consulte,  approuve,  ou  delibt'ri!, 
Entends  de  quel  reproche  il  couvrc  un  adversaire, 
Vois  comment  d'un  rival  il  chercho  il  se  venger, 
Comme  il  punit  son  fils,  et  le  veut  corriger. 
II  le  croyoit  done  libro  ? — OuV,  sans  doute,  et  lui-mome 
Dement  ft  chaqnc  pas  son  funcste  systemo. 
II  mentoit  ft  son  coeur,  en  voulant  expliquer 
Ce  <logmc  absurde  ft  croire,  absurde  ft  pratiquer. 
II  reconnoit  en  lui  le  sentiment  qu'il  brave, 
II  agit  comme  libre  ct  parlo  comme  esclave."* 

Tliis  very  system,  however,  which  Voltaire  has  hero  so  severely  reprobated,  he 
lived  to  avow  as  tho  creed  of  his  more  advanced  years.  The  words,  indeed,  arc  put 
into  the  mouth  of  a  fictitious  personage  ;  but  it  is  plain  that  the  writer  meant  to  be 
understoo<l  as  speaking  his  own  sentiments.  "  Je  vois  uno  chaino  immense,  dont 
tout  est  chainon  ;  elle  embrasse,  elle  serre  ai\jourd'hui  la  nature,**  &c.  &c. 


*  A  thought  approaching  rery  nearly  to  this 
occurs  in  one  of  Tillotson's  Sermons.  "  The 
being  of  Qod  is  so  comfortable,  so  conrenient, 
so  necewary  to  the  felicity  of  mankind,  that  (aa 
Tully  admirably  wi3'8)  DU  immortaU*  ad  usum 
hvminuihfabricaUitfnf  fid*'antiir. — If  God  were 
not  a  necessary  being  of  himself,  he  might 
almost  be  said  to  be  made  for  the  use  and 
benefit  of  Man."  For  some  ingenious  remarks 
on  this  <iu(>tatilon  Arom  Cicero,  see  Jortin's 
Tract f,  vol.  I.  p.  371. 

2  The^  ver«M  form  part  of  a  Ditcourst  on  the 


Liberty  of  Man,-  and  the  rest  of  the  poem  is  in 
the  same  strain.  Tet  so  very  imperfectly  did 
Voltaire  even  then  understand  the  metaphyyical 
argument  on  this  subject,  that  he  prefixed  to  his 
Discourse  Uie  follutring  advertisement :—"  On 
cntend  par  ce  root  liberty,  le  pouroir  de  fhire 
ce  qu'on  rent.  II  n'y  a,  et  ne  peul  y  avoir 
d'autre  IQxrU.'*  It  appears,  therefore,  that  in 
maintaining  Uie  Ultrty  qf  tpontan€U»/,  Voltaire 
conceived  himself  to  be  combating  the  scheme 
of  Necessity ;  whereas  this  sort  of  liberty  no 
Noceaiitarian  or  Fatalist  was  ever  hardy  enough 
to  dispute. 


592      NOTES  AND  ILLU8T11AT10N8  TO  DIB8E11TATI0N. — PABT  II. 

"  Je  f  nis  done  rainon^  inalgru  moi  k  cette  ancienne  ideo,  que  jo  vois  etre  la  bane 
de  toas  Ics  syst^meB,  dans  laquelle  tous  les  philosophev  retombont  apres  mille  de- 
tours, et  qui  m'est  demontre  par  toutes  les  actions  des  homines,  par  les  miennes, 
par  tons  les  cvunemcns  que  j*ai  lus,  que  j'ai  vus,  et  aux-quelles  j*ai  eu  part ;  c'est 
Je  Fatalismc,  c'cst  la  Necessity  dont  je  vous  ai  deji  parte.** — Lettres  de  Memmins 
h  Cicinm.  See  (Euvres  de  Voltaire,  MHangei^  tome  iv.  p.  358.  4to  edit.  Ge- 
neve, 1771. 

"  En  effet,  (says  Voltaire,  in  another  of  his  pieces,)  il  scroit  bien  singulier  qua 
toute  la  nature,  tous  les  astres,  obeissent  k  dcs  lois  ctemelles,  et  qu*il  y  eut  un 
petit  animal  haut  de  cinq  picds,  qui  an  ra^pris  de  cos  lois  pfit  agir  toiyours  comme 
il  lui  plairoit  au  scul  grc  de  son  caprice.** 

....  To  this  passage  Voltaire  adds  the  following  acknowledgment : — "  L*ig* 
norant  qui  pcnse  ainsi  n*a  pas  toujours  pcn86  de  memo,'  mais  il  est  anfin  contraint 
de  se  rendre." — Ijc  Philotophe  Ignorant, 

Notwithstanding,  however,  this  change  in  Voltaire's  philosophical  opiuious,  ba 
continued  to  the  last  his  zealous  opposition  to  atheism.'  But  in  what  reapecta  it 
is  more  pernicious  than  fatalism,  it  is  not  esHy  to  discover. 

A  reflection  of  La  Harpo*s,  occasioned  by  some  strictures  of  Voltaire's  upon  Mon- 
tesquieu, applies  with  equal  force  to  the  numberless  inconsistencies  which  occur  in 
his  metaphysical  speculations :  "  Les  objcts  de  meditation  etoicnt  trop  Strangers  ii 
^excessive  vivacite  de  son  CKprit.  Saisir  fortemcnt  par  Timagination  les  objets 
qu*elle  ne  doit  montrer  que  d*un  cote,  c*est  ce  qui  est  du  Po^te ;  les  embrasser  sous 
toutes  les  faces,  c'est  co  qui  est  du  Philoeophc,  et  Voltaire  ctoit  trop  exclusivcment 
Tun  pour  etre  I'autre.'' — Cottrs  de  LitUraL  torn.  xv.  pp.  46,  47. 

A  late  author*  has  very  justly  reprobated  that  spiritual  deification  of  nature 
which  has  been  long  faMliionable  among  the  French,  and  which,  according  to  his 
own  account,  \h  at  prcHcnt  not  unfuHhionable  in  (Jerniauy.  It  in  proper,  however, 
to  obBcrve,  that  this  mode  of  HjMjakiiig  has  been  used  by  two  very  different  classes 
of  writers ;  by  the  one  with  an  intention  to  keej)  as  much  as  possible  the  Deity 
out  of  their  view,  while  studying  his  works ;  by  the  other,  as  a  convenient  and  well 
under8t(KKl  metaphor,  by  means  of  wliich  the  frequent  and  irreverent  mention  of 
the  name  of  (fod  is  avoided  in  philosophical  arguments.  It  was  with  this  last 
view,  undoubtedly,  that  it  was  so  often  employed  by  Nei^ion,  and  other  English 


>  In  proof  of  this  he  refers  to  hiu  Trfatitf  of 
Mrtaphfftics,  written  forty  years  before,  for  the 
use  of  Madame  du  Ch^telet 

*  See  the  DUt.  PMlotoiihiipu,  Art.  AthHtiM. 
See  also  the  Strictures  on  the  Sj/stenu  df.  la 
Naturt  in  the  Quatiani  tur  V Eneyclopedk ; 
the  Tery  work  fn)m  which  the  abore  quotation 
is  taken. 

[*  The  same  work  contains  the  following  ob- 
servations on  Final  Cauws  : — 

"  Je  sab  bien  que  pludeurs  philo'ophes,  et 
surtout  Lucrfce  ont  nii  Ich  causes  finales ;  et  Je 
sain  que  LucrOoe,  qu(»ique  peu  chati^,  est  un  trOs 
grand  po(t«  dans  ses  d«bcripti(»ns,  et  dans  son 
morale ;  mais  on  philoiophie  il  mc  jiarait,  je 


Tavoue.  fort  au  dessous  d'on  portier  de  eollifRe 
et  d'un  bedeau  do  {laroisse.  Alfermir  que  ni 
r<sil  n'est  fait  pour  roir,  ni  I'oreiUe  pour  en- 
tendre, ni  Testoraac  pour  dig^rer,  n'est  ce  pas 
1^  la  plus  (^norme  absurdity,  la  plus  r^roltante 
folio  qui  soit  Jamais  tomb^a  dans  I'esprit  bu- 
mainc  ?  Tout  doutcux  que  Je  suls ,  oeite  d<^- 
mencc  me  iiarait  dvidente,  et  Je  le  dia. 

"  Pour  moi  Je  ne  vols  dans  la  nature  comme 
dans  les  arts,  que  des  causes  finales ;  et  Je  crois 
un  pommier  fait  pour  porter  des  pommea, 
commo  Je  vols  un  montre  finite  pour  marquer 
nieuro."] 

*  Frederick  Schlogel.  Uclures  on  the  Hittorp 
of  Litcralure,  vol  ii.  p.  169.    Edinburgh,  1819. 


•  Rost«»rfd.— iiV/. 


NOTE  XX.  593 

philoBopherH  of  the  Hamc  school.  In  gencnil,  when  we  find  a  writer  speaking  of 
the  tcise  or  of  the  henevolent  intentions  of  nature,  we  should  be  slow  in  imputing  to 
him  any  leaning  towards  atheism.  Many  of  the  finest  instances  of  Final  Causes, 
it  is  certain,  which  the  eighteenth  century  has  brought  to  light,  have  been  first  re- 
marked by  in<[uircrs  who  seem  to  have  been  fond  of  this  phraseology ;  and  of  these 
inquirers,  it  is  possible  that  some  would  have  been  less  forward  in  bearing  testi- 
mony to  the  truth,  had  they  been  forced  to  avail  themselves  of  the  style  of  theolo- 
gians. These  speculations,  therefore,  concerning  the  intentions  or  designs  of 
Nature^  how  reprehensible  soever  and  even  absurd  in  point  of  strict  logic  the  lan- 
guage may  be  in  which  they  are  expressed,  may  often  be,  nay,  have  often  been,  a 
step  towards  somctliing  higher  and  better ;  and,  at  any  rate,  are  of  a  character 
totally  different  from  the  blind  chance  of  the  Epicureans,  or  the  conflicting  prin- 
ciples of  the  Manichcans. 

NotbXX,  p.  406. 

*'  In  the  attemptf  indeed^  which  Kant  has  made  to  enumerate  the  general  ideas 
which  are  not  derived  from  experience^  but  arise  out  of  the  pure  understanding^ 
KarU  may  well  lay  claim  to  the  praise  of  originality.'^  The  object  of  this  problem 
is  thus  stated  by  his  friend,  Mr.  Schula,  the  author  of  the  Synopsis  formerly 
quoted.    The  following  transition  is  by  Dr.  Willich,  Elements^  &c.  p.  45. 

"  To  investigate  the  whole  store  of  original  notions  discoverable  in  our  under- 
standing, and  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  our  knowledge ;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  to  authenticate  their  true  descent,  by  showing  that  they  are  not  derived  from 
experience,  but  are  pure  productions  of  the  understanding. 

"  1 .  The  perceptions  of  objects  contain,  indeed,  the  matter  of  knowledge,  but  are 
in  themselves  blind  and  dead,  and  not  knowledge ;  and  our  soul  is  merely  passive 
in  regard  to  them. 

"2.  If  these  perceptions  are  to  furnish  knowledge,  the  understanding  must  think 
of  them,  and  this  is  possible  only  through  notions,  (conceptions,)  which  are  the 
peculiar  form  of  our  understanding,  in  the  same  manner  as  space  and  time  are 
the  form  of  our  sensitive  faculty. 

"  .3.  These  notions  are  active  representations  of  our  understanding  faculty  ;  and 
as  they  regard  immediately  the  perceptions  of  objects,  they  refer  to  the  objects 
tliomselves  only  mediately. 

"  4.  They  lie  in  our  understanding  as  pure  notions  hpriori^  at  the  foundation  of 
all  our  knowledge,  lliey  are  necessary  forms,  radical  notions,  categories,  (predica- 
ments,) of  which  all  our  knowledge  of  them  must  be  compounded :  And  the  table 
of  them  follows. 

'*  Quantity;  unity,  plurality,  totality. 

'*  Quality;  reality,  negation,  limitation. 

"  Relation ;  substance,  cause,  reciprocation. 

'*  Modality ;  possibility,  existence,  necessity. 

"  5.  Now,  to  think  and  to  judge  is  the  same  thing ;  consequently,  every  notion 
contains  a  particular  form  of  judgment  concerning  objects.  There  are^ur  prin- 
cipal genera  of  judgments :  They  are  derived  from  the  above  four  possible  func- 
tions of  the  understanding,  each  of  which  contains  under  it  three  species ;  namely, 
with  respect  to — 

VOL.  1.  2  V 


r)l)4     XOTKS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

"  Quantity^  they  arc  universal,  particular,  wnpular  judjnncnts. 

••  Quality,  tliey  are  affirmative,  negative,  infinite  judgments. 

"  JRetaHon,  they  are  categorical,  hypothetical,  disjunctive  judgments. 

"  Modality,  they  are  problematical,  asscrtor}*,  apodictical  judgments." 

These  tables  speak  for  themselves  without  any  comment. 

Note  Y  Y,  p.  408. 

Kant's  notions  of  Time  are  contained  in  the  following  seven  ppopoaitions : 
"  1.  Idea  temporis  non  oritur  aed  supponitur  a  seruibus.  2.  Idea  temporis  est 
sinffularts,  non  generalis.  Tempns  cnim  quodlibet  non  cogitatur,  nisi  tanquam 
pars  unius  ejnsdem  temporis  immensi.  3.  Idea  itaque  temporis  est  iniuitvs,  et 
quoniam  ante  omnem  sensationem  concipitur,  tanquam  conditio  respeciuiun  in 
■ensibilibuB  obviorum,  est  intuitus,  non  sensualis,  sed  purus.  4.  Thmpvs  est 
quantum  continuum  et  legum  continui  in  mutationibus  universi  principiani. 
6.  Tempus  non  est  objectivum  altquid  et  reale,  nee  substantia,  nee  accidens,  nee  re- 
latio,  sed  subjectiva  conditio,  per  naturam  mentis  hnmanie  necessaria,  qnelibet 
sensibilia,  ccrta  lego  sibi  co^rdinandi,  et  intuitus  purus.  6.  Tempus  est  conccp- 
tus  verissimus,  et,  per  omnia  possibilia  sensuum  objecta,  in  infinitum  pAtens,  in- 
tuitivsB  repra^sentationis  conditio.  7.  Tempus  itaque  est  principium  formale 
mundi  sennbilis  absolute  primnm." 

With  respect  to  Space,  Kant  states  a  series  of  similar  propositions,  ascribing  to 
it  very  nearly  the  same  metaphysical  attributes  as  to  ISme,  and  ninning  as  far  as 
possible  a  sort  of  parallel  between  them.  "A.  Conceptus  spatii  non  abstrakitur 
a  sensationibus  extemi$.  B.  Conceptus  spatii  est  aingularia  repra;sentatio  omnia 
in  se  comprehendens,  non  std)  .ne  continens  notio  abstracta  et  communis.  C.  Con- 
ceptus spatii  itaque  est  intuitus  punis;  cum  sit  conceptus  singularis ;  sensationibus 
non  conflntus,  sed  omnis  scnsationis  extemie  forma  fundamentalis.  D.  Spatium 
non  est  aJiquid  ohjectivi  ct  rcalis,  nee  substantia,  ncc  ac<idcns,  nee  relatio ;  sed 
subje£iivum  et  idtjalc,  e  natura  nicntis  stabili  lope  pmficiscena,  veluti  schema, 
omnia  oninino  externe  sensa  sibi  co-ordinandi.  E.  Qnanquara  conceptus  spatii,  ut 
objectivi  alicujus  et  realis  entis  vel  affectionis,  sit  imaginarius,  nihilo  tamen  secius 
respective  ad  sensibilia  queecnnque,  non  solum  est  verissimus^  sed  et  omnis  vcrita- 
tis  in  sonsualitate  externa  fundamentuni." 

These  propositions  arc  cxtrart<»d  from  a  Dissertation  written  by  Kant  himself 
in  the  Latin  language.*  Their  obscurity  therefore,  cannot  be  ascrilKjd  to  any  mis- 
apprehension on  the  part  of  a  translator.  It  was  on  this  account  that  I  thought  it 
l>etter  to  (juote  tliom  in  his  own  unaltered  wonls,  than  to  avail  myself  of  the  cor- 
responding passage  in  IWn's  I^tin  version  of  the  Critique  of  Pure  lieason. 

To  each  of  Kant's  propositions  concerning  Time  and  Space  I  shall  subjoin  a 
short  comment,  foll(»wing  the  same  order  in  which  these  propositions  are  arranged 
above. 

1.  That  the  i<lea  of  Time  has  no  resemblance  to  any  of  our  sensations,  and  that 
it  is,  therefore,  not  derived  from  sensation  immediately  and  directly,  has  been  very 
often  observed ;  and  if  nobody  had  ever  observed  it,  the  fact  is  so  very  obvious, 

1  Dt  Mundi  Sensibilis  atque  Intellifjibil'm  Tindicando  ;  qu&m,  exigentibtu  statutis  Acade- 
fitrma  et  prinHpiis.  Dissertatio  pro  loco  pro-  micli".  publice  tucbitur  Immanuel  Kant — lU- 
fcMinnii  Log.  ct  M«taph.  Orlinarlse  rite  ilbl        giomonii,  1770. 


XUTE  Y  Y.  f)*.).") 

tliat  tlt4)  eiiiiiiciutiuii  uf  it  cuuld  not  entitle  tlio  author  tu  the  praise  of  mui.h  iii- 
gcuuity.  Whether  "  thiH  idea  be  supposed  in  all  our  HenuationH/'  or  (as  Kant  ex- 
plains himself  more  clearly  iu  his  third  proposition,)  "be  conceived  by  tho  mind 
prior  to  all  sensation,"  is  a  question  which  seems  to  me  at  least  doubtful ;  nor  do  I 
think  the  opinion  we  form  concerning  it  a  matter  of  the  smallest  importance.  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  this  idea  is  an  inseparable  concomitant  of  every  act  of  me- 
mory with  respect  to  past  events  ;  and  that,  in  whatever  way  it  is  acquired,  we  are 
irresistibly  led  to  ascribe  to  the  thing  itself  an  exibtencc  indi>|)endent  of  the  will  of 
any  being  whatever. 

2.  On  the  second  proposition  I  have  nothing  to  remark.  The  following  is  the 
most  intelligible  trantilation  of  it  that  I  can  give.  "  The  idea  of  Time  is  singular, 
not  gi*neral ;  for  any  particular  length  of  Time  can  be  conceived  only  as  a  part  of 
one  and  the  same  immense  whole." 

3.  From  these  premises  (such  as  they  are)  Kant  concludes,  that  the  idea  of 
Time  is  intuitive;  and  that  this  intuition,  being  prior  to  the  exercise  of  the  senses, 
18  not  empirical  but  pure.  The  conclusion  here  must  necessarily  partake  of  the 
uncertainty  of  the  premises  from  which  it  is  drawn ;  but  the  meaning  of  the  author 
does  not  seem  to  imply  any  very  erroneous  principle.  It  amounts,  indeed,  to  little 
more  than  an  explanation  of  some  of  his  peculiar  terms. 

4.  That  Time  is  a  continued  quantity  is  indisputable.  To  the  latter  clause  of 
tho  sentence  1  can  annex  no  meaning  but  this,  that  Time  enters  as  an  essential 
element  into  our  conception  of  the  law  of  continuity,  in  all  its  various  applications 
to  the  changes  that  take  place  in  Nature. 

5.  In  this  proposition  Kant  assumes  the  truth  of  that  much  contested,  and,  to 
me,  incomprehensible  doctrine,  which  denies  the  objective  reality  of  Time.  He 
seems  to  consider  it  merely  as  a  subjective  condition,  inseparably  connected  with 
the  frame  of  the  Human  Mind,  in  consequence  of  which  it  arranges  sensible  pheno- 
mena, according  to  a  certain  law,  in  the  order  of  succession. 

ti.  What  is  meant  by  calling  Time  a  true  conception^  1  do  not  profess  to  under- 
stand ;  nor  am  I  able  to  interpret  the  remainder  of  the  sentence  iu  any  way  but 
this,  that  we  can  find  no  limits  to  the  range  thus  opened  in  our  conceptions  to  tho 
succession  of  sensible  events. 

7.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  Time  is  "  absolutely  tho  first 
formal  principle  of  the  sensible  world."  I  can  annex  no  meaning  to  this ;  but  I 
have  translated  the  original,  word  for  word,  and  shall  leave  my  readers  to  their 
own  conjectures. 

A.  It  appears  from  this,  that,  in  the  opinion  of  Kant,  tho  idea  of  Space  is  con- 
nate with  the  mind,  or  at  least,  that  it  is  ])rior  to  any  information  received  from 
tho  senses.  [*  Mr.  Smith,  from  some  passages  in  his  Essny  on  the  External  Senses, 
uj)pears  to  have  had  a  notion  somewhat  similar,  lie  repeatedly  hints,  that  some 
confused  conception  of  Externality  or  Outness,  is  prior  to  the  exercise  of  any  of 
our  perceptive  powers.]  But  this  doctrine  seems  to  me  not  a  little  doubtful.  In- 
deed, I  rather  lean  to  the  common  theor}',  which  supposes  our  first  ideas  of  Space 
or  Extension  to  be  formed  by  abstracting  this  attribute  from  the  other  qualities  of 
matter,    llie  idea  of  Spa?e,  however,  in  whatever  manner  formed,  is  manifestly 

*  Bestorcd.— frf. 


596      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

accompanied  with  an  irrosisiible  conviction,  that  Space  iH  necessarily  exist^^nt,  anil 
iliat  its  annihilation  is  impossible  ;  nay,  it  appears  to  me  to  be  also  acconapanied 
with  an  irresibtible  conviction,  that  Space  cannot  possibly  be  extended  in  more 
than  three  dimensions.  Call  either  of  these  propositions  in  question,  and  you  open 
a  door  to  nnivcrsal  scepticism. 

B.  I  can  extract  no  meaning  from  this,  but  the  nugatory  proposition,  tliat  onr 
conception  of  Space  leads  us  to  consider  it  as  tJie  place  in  which  all  things  are  com- 
prehended. 

C  "  The  conception  of  Space,  therefore,  is  aj^ire  tntvition"  This  follows  as  a 
ne<'essary  coiwllary  (according  to  Kant*s  own  definition)  from  Prop.  A.  What  is 
to  be  understood  by  the  clause  which  asserts,  that  Space  is  the  fundamental  ybrm 
of  every  external  sensation,  it  is  not  easy  to  conjecture.  Docs  it  imply  merely 
that  the  conception  of  tSjxtce  is  neccsRarily  involved  in  all  our  notions  of  things 
external  ?  In  this  case,  it  only  repeats  over,  in  different  and  most  inaccurate 
terms,  the  last  clause  of  Prop.  B.  What  can  be  more  loose  and  illogical  than  the 
phrase  external  sensation  f 

I),  lliat  Space  is  neither  a  gitbatance,  nor  an  accident,  nor  a  rdation^  may  Ik.* 
safely  granted ;  but  does  it  follow  from  this  that  it  is  nothing  objective^  or,  in  other 
words,  that  it  is  a  mere  creature  of  the  imagination?  This,  however,  would  seem 
to  1)6  the  idea  of  Kant ;  and  yet  I  cannot  reconcile  it  with  what  ho  says  in  Prop. 
E.,  that  the  conception  of  Space  is  the  foundation  of  all  the  truth  we  ascribe  to  our 
perceptions  of  external  objects.  (The  author's  own  words  are — "  omnis  veritatis 
in  sensualitate  externa  fundamentum  !")* 

l^pon  the  whole,  it  appears  to  me,  that,  among  these  various  propositions,  there 
are  some  which  are  quite  imintclligible ;  that  othera  assume,  as  first  principles, 
doctrines  which  have  been  dinpiited  by  many  of  our  most  eminent  philosophers  ; 
that  others,  again,  seem  to  aim  at  involving  plain  and  obvious  truths  in  darkness 
nnd  mystery ;  and  that  not  one  is  expressed  with  Himplicity  and  precision,  which 
arc  the  natural  results  of  clear  and  accurate  thinking.  In  conaidering  time  and 
space  as  thc/orwwr  of  all  sensible  phenomena,  does  Kant  mean  any  thing  more  but 
this, — that  we  necessarily  refer  every  sensible  phenomenon  to  some  point  of  space, 
or  to  some  instant  of  time?  If  this  was  really  his  meaning,  he  has  only  repeated 
over,  in  obscurer  language,  the  following  pn)positions  of  Newton  :  "  Ut  ordo  par- 
tium  tcmporis  est  immutabilis,  sic  etiam  ordo  partiuni  spatii.  Moveantur  hajc  de 
locis  suis,  ct  movebuntur  (ut  ita  dicani)  do  seipsis.  Nam  tempora  et  gpatia  $ttnt 
ani  tpsontm  et  rentm  omnium  quasi  loca.     In  tempore,  quoad  ordinem  sttccea- 


»  Mr.  Nitfcb  has  remarked  this  diffic  Ity. 
and  has  attempted  to  remove  it.  "  The  most 
eiventiiil  objection  (he  obsenros)  to  Kant's  sys- 
tem b.  that  it  leads  to  scepticism  ;  be&iuse  it 
maintains,  that  the  figures  in  which  we  see  the 
external  objects  clothed  are  not  inherent  in 
thoM  objects,  and  that  consequently  space  is 
something  within,  and  not  without  the  mind," 
— {pp.  144,  1 4  >.)  "It  may  be  further  objectwl, 
(he  adds,)  that,  if  there  be  no  external  space, 
there  is  also  no  external  world.  But  this  is 
concluding  by  far  too  much  fToro  these  pre- 


mises. If  there  be  no  external  space.  It  will 
f(»lIow,  that  we  are  not  authorised  to  assign  ^j  - 
Unsion  to  external  things,  but  there  will  follow 
no  more,"— (p.  149.)  Mr.  Nitsch  then  proceeds 
to  obviate  these  objections  ;  but  his  reply  Is  Ikr 
from  satisfactory,  and  is  indeed  not  less  appli. 
cable  tt>  the  doctrine  of  Berkeley  than  to  that 
of  Kant  This  point,  hoT^ever,  I  do  not  nacdn 
to  argue  here.  The  concessions  which  Nitsch  has 
made  are  quite  sufficient  for  my  present  porpoM. 
Tliey  serve  at  least  to  satisfy  my  own  mind, 
that  I  have  not  misrepresented  Kant's  meaning 


NOTE  YY.  5Ii7 

siow's;  in  sputio,  quoad  ordhiein  situs  locatitur  universa.     Dc  illurtim  CKHciitia  cmI 
lit  sint  locA :  et  loca  priiuaria  moveri  absurdum  est." 

I  bave  quoted  this  passap*,  not  frum  any  desire  of  dittpluying  the  sui>criority  uf 
Newton  over  Kant,  but  chiuHy  to  show  how  very  nearly  the  powers  of  the  fonner 
sink  to  the  same  level  with  those  of  the  latter,  when  directed  to  inquiries  un- 
fathomable by  the  human  faculties.  Wliat  abuso  of  words  can  be  greater  than  to 
say,  That  neither  the  parts  of  time  nor  the  parts  of  space  can  be  moved  from  their 
places  /*  In  the  Principia  of  Newton,  however,  this  incidental  discussion  is  but  a 
spot  on  the  sun.  [*  The  same  thing  may,  in  particular,  bo  said  of  various  pas- 
sages in  the  general  scholium  at  the  end ;  amongst  others  of  the  following  sen- 
tence : — "  Cum  unaqna^que  spatii  particula  sit  semper,  et  unumquodque  dura- 
tionis  indivisibile  momentum  ubifjue,  ccrte  rerum  omnium  fabricator  ac  dominus, 
non  erit  numjuam,  nusquam.**]  In  the  Critique  of  Pure  Heason,  it  is  a  fair  speci- 
men of  the  rest  of  the  work,  and  forms  one  of  the  chief  pillars  of  the  whole  system, 
both  metaphysical  and  moral. 

[*  "  Plus  d'un  hommo  de  lettres  (says  M.  Prevost)  s'occupe  en  co  moment  A 
faire  connaitre  en  notre  langue  les  principes  de  la  philosophic  Kantietme.  Mais 
Tentrcprisc  est  fort  difficile,  son  langage  est  obscur ;  et  avant  tout  le  lecteur  Fran- 
9oiB  demande  une  clartc  parfaite.  Telle  est  la  dificrence  des  gouts  et  des  habitudes 
intellectuellcs  des  deux  nations,  que  les  ouvragos  de  KafU,  qui  ont  eu  en  AUemagne 
un  succt^B  si  prodigieux,  Merits  en  Franyais  du  memo  style,  n'auroicnt,  je  crois,  pus 
trouve  de  Iccteurs. 

"  La  langue  Allemande,  forte  dc  sa  richesse  et  dc  scs  tours  hardis  et  varies,  s'est 
accoutum6e  &  supporter  des  violences  qui  effrayent  une  langue  plus  s^v^re  et  plus 
dcfiante.  Celle-ci  rcpousserait  des  neologismes  etranges,  qui  tantot  se  rapprochcnt 
du  jargon  de  Tecoloi  tantot  se  rapportent  k  des  conceptions  particuli^res,  meme 
bizarrcs.  Ellle  fuit  un  langage  fatiguant  par  son  obscurite  ;  tel  memo  qu*il  faut,  dc 
Taveu  de  ceux  qui  I'emploient,  une  assez  longue  etude  pour  I'entendrc. 

"  Si,  malgr6  ces  difficultcs,  jo  voulais  anticiper  sur  les  travaux  entrcpris  par 
d'autres,  et  tracer  Tesquisse  do  cctto  nouvelle  philosophic,  j'insisterai  surtout  sur 
la  distinction  ^  faire  entre  co  qui  lui  est  propre,  et  ce  qu'elle  s'est  approprie.  Cer- 
tainement  il  doit  y  avoir  dans  le  genie  de  son  auteur  de  quoi  justificr  Tenthousiasmo 
d'une  nation  eclairee  et  judicieuse,  et  les  61oges  do  quelques  savans  profonds  et 
ingcnieux.  Mais  ces  richesses  naturclles,  n*ont  ellcs  pas  etc  grossies  impercep- 
Ublement  d'autres  richesses  cmpruntces  ?  Et  ccllcs-ci  nc  font-olles  point  quclque- 
fois  le  principal  mcrite  de  cette  doctrine  qu'on  admire  ?  Je  m*expliqucrais  mieux 
|>iir  un  cxcmple. 

'*  M.  Kant,  apr^s  avoir  distingue  la  scnsibilitc  de  rintelligence,  observe  que  les 
notions  de  tems  et  d'espace  sont  commo  les  formes  naturclles  de  la  faculty  sensible 
de  I'dme  ;  que  ces  notions  ne  peuvent  venir  de  I'exti'rieur  ;  que  co  sont  des  dispo- 
sitions primitives ;  qu'en  consequence  do  cette  structure  de  I'esprit  humain,  toutc 
iniprcHsion  fiiite  sur  lui  vicnt  neccssaircnicnt  se  logcr  a-la-fois  dans  I'une  et  I'autre 

1  Was  it  not  to  avoid  tho  palpable  Incongruity  ble  as  the  latter  to  time  and  Kpoce  In  cninninn ; 

of  thi«  language  that  Kant  was  led  to  subttituto  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  being,  from  its  ex- 

the  word  /arms  instead  of  placet;  the  former  treme  vagueneiis,  eqwdljr  unmeaning  when  »p- 

wiird  not  xecming  to  bo  so  obriously  inapplica-  plied  t«i  both  ? 

•lle«t«»re<L-  FM. 


598     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  11. 

de  ces  formes ;  et  ceci  fait  ime  partie  importante  de  sea  principcB.     Mais  en  nouii 
bornant  un  instant  h,  Tespacc,  Locl-e  avant  M.  Kani,  avoit  obeen-c  que  Tctendue 
est  une  qnalite  primaire,  c'est-A-dirc,  que  I'ame  la  juge  u^essairemcnt  exterieure 
et  independante  de  la  sonsation.^    Cc  memo  philosophc  et  see  succeHseura,  en  par- 
ticulicr  CondillaCf  avaicnt  benucoup  insiste  sur  ce  point,  que  nous  ne  coDnaiasoiiB 
Ics  choscH  ext^rieurcs  que  relativemont  k  la  constitution  particulicre  de  notro  esprit ; 
que  la  nature  intime  et  absolue  dcs  substances  nous  est  inconnue.'    Si  noire  ame 
rcconnait  I'etendue  commc  cxterioure  et  toi^jours  cxistanto,  si  cette  conception  est 
purement  relative  &  sa  constitution,  elle  est  done  une  forme  constante  et  qni  depend 
de  sa  nature.    iFusqucs-l^  les  deux  philosophies  semblent  ne  difierer  que  par  I'ex- 
pression.*    II  nV  a  de  proprc  h  cellc  do  Kant  que  cette  remarque  par  laqucUe  il 
represente  I'ame  coromo  rapportant  necessairement  tous  les  phcnomdnes  k  quelque 
point  de  I'cspace.     Remarque  plutot  negligee  qu'inaper^ue.     II  y  a  des  assertions 
plus  nouvcllcs  sans  doute  dans  cette  partie  de  la  doctrine  Kantienne,  qui  s^occupe 
de  la  division  dcs  notions  ct  de  jugemens,  ou  des  formes  de  I'intclligcnce,  mais 
aussi  des  assertions  plus  disputablcs.^    En  voyant  s'elever  sur  ces  principes  des 
theories  nouvelles  de  morale,  on  d'autres  relatives  k  des  objets  importans,  main 
comnie  epuises,  on  ne  pent  s'cmpecher  de  concevoir  quelque  defiance.     Les  conse- 
quences d(;pendent-elles  bicn  des  principes  ?    La  liaison  du  systeme  est  elle  aussi 
r6€llo  et  aussi  solide  quo  ses  dcfcnseurs  Ic  supposont  ?*    N'y  a-t-il  point  lieu  de 
soup9onner  que  les  deconvcrtes,  ou  les  recherches  du  moins  qu^on  rassemble  ailleurs 
sans  pretention,  vienuent  ici  B'enchasser  dans  nn  cadre  ou  elles  prcnnent  un  air 
de  nouveauto  ?    Ces  doutes,  ou  ces  indications,  ont  pour  but  de  donner  un  interet 
particulier  aux  traductions  projetees  des  ouvrages  relatifs  &  la  philosophie  Kant- 
ienne.    Si  les  auteurs  de  ses  traductions  parvicnnent  k  demeler  co  qui  est  propre 
li  cette  philosophie,  de  ce  qui  est  commun  k  toutes  ;  si  dans  cc  qui  lui  est  propre, 
ils  fncilitcnt  le  choix  k  fairc,  ils  auront  contribuo  sans  doute  aux  progres  de  I'esprit 
hunmin  ;  et  ceux  qui,  comnie  moi,  sont  imparfaitemcnt  instniits  de  cette  nouvelle 
iloctrine,  chorcheront  avec  avidite  des  lumieres  degagres  de  fausses  ombres,  et  n- 


'  Kfsai  sur  FEntendrment  Ilumain,  llv.  11. 
chap.  Till.  Vojres  auMi  la  Diflaertation  de  Smith 
•ur  loii  lens  exlerneR. 

'  Ibid.  Ut  It.  chap.  rl.  |  11,  ot  suivans.  Art 
de  Prti9er,  chap,  xl  &c. 

*  On  dUiait  du  chef  des  StoYciens :  Zenonem 
ii'iu  turn  rcrum  inre ntorem  fuisse,  quair  iiuto- 
ruin  verborura  — Cic.  dc  Fin.  Hsin«*  a[ipliquer  co 
Jugoment  au  philoenpho  niodcme.  on  doit  au 
moiiifl  t'effbrcer  de  dlHtinguor  ce  qui,  dans  la 
doctrine,  est  enti^rcmont,  de  ce  qui  est  seulc- 
ment  revCtu  d'un  nouvel  appareil  dc  roots. 

*  Voye*  entr'autres  le  mdroolre  de  M.  Selle. 
•ur  la  HaliU  et  VidMWif  de*  obJeU  de  tum 
connai$SHures.  insdrd  dans  les  M^molrex  de 
I'Acaddinie  de  Berlin  pour  17B6  et  1787.  en 
I»articulier  si  la  page  001  ct  suivantes. 

«  C'est  en  cffet  cette  liaison,  cet  enchalncniont 
indissoluble  qu'ils  semblent  le  plus  admirer,  en 
particulier  dans  cetle  faroeuse  Critufuv  de  Ui 
Raison  Purr,  qui  est  le  premier  ct  le  principal 
corps  de  d(.H.'trine  tie  cette  scito  phiIo>«>pbique 


VoilA  oomme  sen  exprime  an  do  ses  profSB<'seurs 
le  plus  z^lds.  "  Ab  hisce  enim  capitibus  fluoie 
necesse  est  omnero  phUosophin  crlticaB  ratioob 
puree  rim  atque  virtuteni :  naroque  in  ea  con- 
textus  remm  prorsus  mirabllis  est,  ita  ut  ex- 
trema  primis  media  utrisque,  omnia  omnibui 
respondeant ;  si  prima  dederis  danda  mnt  om- 
nia."—(Frid.  GotUob  Bomii  De  Scientia  et  Con- 
Jt'iftira,  p.  01.)  No  worse  account  could,  in  my 
opinion,  hare  been  giren  of  a  philosophical  work 
on  such  a  subject,  nor  could  any  of  its  charac- 
teristic features  have  been  pointed  out  more 
prophetic  of  its  ephemeral  reputation.  Sup- 
posing the  praise  to  be  just,  it  represmted  the 
system,  howcTer  fair  and  imposing  in  its  first 
aspect,  as  not  only  vulnerable,  but  vitally  and 
mortally  vulnerable  in  every  point;  and,  accord- 
ingly, it  was  fast  approaching  to  its  dissolution 
before  the  death  of  its  author.  Its  rapid  decline 
and  untimely  end  are  recorded  by  the  same  pen 
from  Hlilc'h  I  borrowo'l  the  f^Let.'h  of  its  first 
rise  and  pr<»|:reh.*. 


NOTES  Z  Z — A  A  A.  5DJ> 

(MindueB  avec  dittceruement." — Historical  Appendix  to  M.  Fr€vo$V§  TramUUion 
of  tJie  PosihumouM  Works  of  Adam  Smithy  p.  262,  et  seq.] 

Note  Z  Z,  p.  409. 

The  fullowing  quotation  will  account  for  the  references  which  I  have  made  to 
Mr.  Nitsch  among  the  expounders  of  Kunt's  l^iilosophy.  It  will  also  serve  to  shew 
that  the  Critique  of  Pure  Beason  has  still  some  admirers  in  England,  not  less 
enthusiastic  than  those  it  hod  f4)rmcrly  in  Germany. 

"  In  submitting  this  fourth  Treatise  on  the  Philosophy  of  Kant  to  the  reader," 
(says  the  author  of  these  articles  in  the  Encyciopcedia  LondiiiensiSy)  "  I  cannot 
deny  myself  the  satisfaction  of  publicly  acknowledging  the  groat  assistance  which 
I  have  derived,  in  my  literary  pursuits,  from  my  excellent  and  highly  valued  friend, 
Mr.  Henry  Kichtcr.  To  him  I  am  indebted  for  the  clearness  and  perspicuity  with 
wliich  the  thouglits  of  the  immortal  Kant  have  been  conveyed  to  the  public.  In- 
deed, his  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  system,  as  well  as  his  enthusiastic  admi- 
ration of  its  general  truth,  render  him  a  most  able  and  desirable  co-operator. 
Should,  therefore,  any  good  result  to  mankind  from  our  joint  labours  in  the  display 
of  this  vast  and  profound  system,  ho  is  justly  entitled  to  his  share  of  the  praise.  It 
is  with  sincere  pleasure  that  I  reflect  upon  that  period,  now  two-and-twenty  years 
ago,  when  we  first  studied  together  under  the  same  master,  Frederic  Augustus 
Nitsch,  who  originally  imported  the  seeds  of  Tbaitscendertal  Puilosopht  from 
its  native  country,  to  plant  them  in  our  soil ;  and  though,  as  is  usually  the  case, 
many  of  those  seeds  were  scattered  by  the  wind,  I  trust  that  a  sufficient  number 
have  taken  root  to  maintain  the  growth  of  this  vigorous  and  flourishing  plant,  till 
the  time  shall  come  when,  by  its  general  cultivation,  England  may  be  enabled  to 
enrich  other  nations  with  the  most  perfect  specimens  of  its  produce.  Professor 
Nitsch,  who  thus  bestowed  upon  our  country  her  first  attainments  in  the  depart- 
ment of  Pure  Science f  has  paid  the  debt  of  nature.  I  confess  it  is  some  reflection 
upon  England,  that  she  did  not  foster  and  protect  this  immediate  disciple  of  the 
father  of  philosophy ;  but  the  necessities  of  this  learned  and  illustrious  man  unfor- 
tunately compelled  him  to  seek  that  subsistence  elsewhere  which  was  withheld  from 
him  here.  At  Rostock,  about  the  year  1813,  this  valuable  member  of  society,  and 
perfect  master  of  the  philosophy  he  undertook  to  teach,  entered  upon  his  immortal 
career  as  a  reward  for  his  earthly  services.  It  is  with  the  most  heartfelt  satisfac- 
tion that  I  add  my  mite  of  praise  to  his  revered  memory.  But  for  him,  I  mighl 
ever  have  remained  in  the  dark  regions  of  sophistry  and  uncertainty.** — [Mr.  Wirg- 
man. — Ed.] 

NoTK  AAA,  p.  421. 

Among  the  secondary  mis<-hicfs  resulting  from  the  temporary  popularity  of 
Kant,  none  is  more  to  be  regretted  than  the  influence  of  his  works  on  the  habits, 
both  of  thinkiug  and  of  writing,  of  some  very  eminent  men,  who  have  since  given 
to  the  world  hintories  of  philos<»phy.  That  of  Tenncmann  in  particular  (a  work 
said  to  possess  great  merit)  would  appear  to  have  been  vitiated  by  this  unfortunate 
bias  in  the  views  of  its  author.  A  very  com|>ctent  judge  ha.s  said  of  it,  that  "  it 
affords  as  far  a^  it  is  completed,  the  most  accurate,  the  most  minute,  and  the 
iiioHt  rational  view  wo  yet  possess  of  the  difTorent  systems  of  philosophy ;  but  that 
th*-  rrilical  phil*  bopln   being  chosen  as  the   vantage  ground  from  whence  the 


600     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

survey  of  former  systems  is  taken,  the  continual  reference  in  Kant*8  own  Isnguage 
to  his  peculiar  doctrines,  renders  it  frequently  impossible  for  those  who  have  not 
studied  the  dark  works  of  this  modem  Heraclitus  to  understand  the  strictures  of 
the  historian  on  the  systems  even  of  Aristotle  or  Plato." — (See  the  Article  Brucker 
in  the  JBncydopcedia  Britannica^  7th  edition.)  We  are  told  by  the  same  writer, 
that  "  among  the  learned  of  Germany,  Brucker  has  never  ei\joyed  a  very  dis- 
tinguished reputation.**  This  I  can  very  easily  credit ;  but  I  am  more  inclined  to 
interpret  it  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  German  taste,  than  to  that  of  the  histotian. 
Bnicker  is  indeed  not  distinguished  by  any  extraordinary  measure  of  depth  or  of 
acuteness ;  but  in  industry,  fidelity,  and  sound  judgment,  he  has  few  superiors — 
qualities  of  infinitely  greater  value  in  the  undertaker  of  a  historical  work,  than 
that  passion  for  systematical  refinement,  which  is  so  apt  to  betray  the  best  inten- 
tioncd  writers  into  false  glosses  on  the  opinions  they  record. 


When  the  above  passage  was  written,  I  had  not  seen  the  work  of  Buhle.  I 
have  since  had  an  opportunity  of  looking  into  the  French  translation  of  it,  pub- 
lished at  Paris  in  1816 ;  and  I  must  frankly  acknowledge  that  I  have  seldom  met 
with  a  greater  disappointment.  The  account  there  given  of  the  Kantian  system,  to 
which  I  turned  with  peculiar  eagerness,  has,  if  possible,  involved  to  my  apprehen- 
sion, in  additional  obscurity,  that  mysterious  doctrine.  From  this,  however,  I  did 
not  feel  myself  entitled  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  author's  merits  as  a  philoso- 
phical historian,  till  I  had  read  some  other  articles  of  which  I  considered  myself 
better  qualified  to  judge.  The  following  short  extract  will,  without  the  aid  of  any 
comment,  enable  such  of  my  readers  as  know  anything  of  the  literary  history  of 
Scotland  to  form  an  opinion  upon  this  point  for  themselves. 

"  Reid  n'attaqua  Ics  systi^mes  de  ses  prC'd^esseurs  ct  notamment  celui  de  Hume, 
que  parco  qu*il  bc  croynit  convaincu  de  luur  defaut  de  fondement.  Mais  un  autre 
untagonistc,  non  moins  celebre,  dn  sccpticisme  de  Hume,  fut,  en  outre,  guide  par  la 
haino  qu'il  avoit  vouee  a  son  illustre  compatriotc,  leqttel  Im  rSponJit  avee  beau- 
cou2>  d'aigreitr  et  d'animositd.  James  Bcattie,  professeur  de  morale  a  Ed'mi- 
bonrg,  puis  ensuitc,  dc  logique  et  de  morale  A  I'Universite  d'Aberdeen,  obtint  la 
preference  sur  Hume  lorsqxiil  fiit  question  de  reinplir  la  chaire  vacante  h  EdUn- 
hourg.  Cettc  circonfitancc  devint  sane  doute  la  principale  source  de  Tinimiti^  que 
les  deux  Havana  conr;uront  Tun  pour  I'autre,  et  qui  influa  meme  sur  Ic  ton  quMls  em- 
ployerent  daiiB  les  nusonncmens  jwir  lesqucls  ils  se  combat ti rent." — Tom.  v.  p.  235. 

To  this  quotation  may  I  be  pardoned  for  adding  a  few  sentences  relative  to  my- 
self? "  Jj'ouvrago  de  Dugald  Stewart,  intitulo,  Elements  of  die  Philosophy  of  the 
Human  Mindj  est  un  syucritisnic  dee  opinions  de  llurtley  et  do  Reid.  Stewart 
borne  absolument  la  coimoishancc,  tant  de  I'nme  que  des  choses  exterieures,  h  ce 
que  Ic  sons  conimun  nous  en  apprend,  et  croit  pouvoir  ainsi  mettrc  I'etude  de  la 
metaphysique  a\  I'abri  du  rcproche  do  roulcr  sur  des  choses  qui  d<''pa88ent  la  sphere 
de  notre  intelligence,  on  qui  sont  tout-a-fait  inutiles  dans  la  pnitique  do  la  vie.  .  .  . 
1a»h  chapitrcs  suivans  rcnfemient  le  devclop|)enicnt  dn  principe  dc  Tassociation  des 
ideos.  lis  sont  presqu'  entiercment  ecrits  d'apres  Hartley.  Stewart  fait  deriver 
do  ce  principe  toutes  les  facultes  intcllectuelles  et  pratiques  de  rhonime." — Tom.  v. 
pp.  :yM\  XU. 

Ol'tln'  discrimination  ilisplaycd  l»y  Bidilc  in  the  tlassijitation  of  systems  and  of 


NOTE  BBB.  601 

authoro,  the  title  prefixed  to  his  19th  chapter  may  serve  as  a  specimen :  *'  PhUo- 
tophy  of  CondUlaCj  of  HdveUus,  of  Baron  tPIIoihach,  of  JiobiikU,  of  Bonnet,  of 
Montesquieu,  of  Burlematiui,  of  VaUei,  and  of  Jieid^ 

But  the  radical  defect  of  Buhle's  work  is  the  almost  total  want  of  references  to 
original  authors.  We  are  presented  only  with  the  general  results  of  the  author's 
reading,  without  any  guide  to  assist  us  in  confirming  his  conclusions  when  right, 
or  in  correcting  them  when  wrong.  This  circumstance  is  of  itself  sufficient  to 
annihilate  the  value  of  any  historical  composition. 

8ismoudi,  in  mentioning  the  history  of  Modem  literature  by  Bontcrwek,  takes 
occasion  to  pay  a  compliment  (and,  I  have  no  doubl,  a  very  deserved  one)  to  (tor- 
man  scholars  in  general;  observing  that  ho  has  executed  his  task — "avec  une 
etendue  d'cmdition,  et  une  loyauti  dans  la  manierc  d'en  faire  profiler  ses  lecteurs, 
qui  scmblont  proprcs  anx  savans  Allcmands." — {De  la  LiU.  du  Midi  de  V Europe, 
turn.  i.  p.  13 :  &  Paris,  1813.)  I  regret  that  my  ignorance  of  the  German  language 
has  prevented  me  from  profiting  by  a  work  of  which  Sismondi  has  expressed  so 
fiivourable  an  opinion ;  and  still  more,  that  the  only  history  of  philosophy  from 
the  pen  of  a  contemporary  German  scholar,  which  I  have  hail  access  to  consult, 
should  form  so  remarkable  an  exception  to  Sismondi's  observation. 

The  contents  of  the  preceding  note  lay  me  under  the  necessity,  in  justice  to 
myself,  of  taking  some  notice  of  the  following  remark,  by  an  anonymous  critic,  on 
the  first  part  of  this  Dissertation,  published  in  1815. — See  Quarterly  Review ^  vol. 
xvii.  p.  42. 

"  In  the  plan  which  Mr.  Stewart  has  adopted,  if  ho  has  not  consulted  his 
Btrenyth,  he  hiu)  at  least  consulted  his  ease ;  for,  sup])osing  a  person  to  have  the 
requisito  talent  and  information,  the  task  which  our  author  has  |)erformed,  is  one 
which,  with  the  historical  abstracts  of  Buhle  or  Tcnnemann,  cannot  be  supposed  to 
have  required  any  very  laborious  meditation." 

On  the  insinuation  contained  in  the  foregoing  passage,  I  abstain  from  oficriiig 
any  comment.  I  have  only  to  say,  that  it  was  not  till  the  summer  of  1820  that  I 
saw  the  work  of  Buhle ;  and  that  I  have  never  yet  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
that  of  Tcnnemann.  From  what  I  have  found  in  the  one,  and  from  what  I  have 
heard  of  the  other,  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  suspect,  that  when  the  anonymous 
critic  wrote  the  above  sentence,  he  was  not  less  ignorant  than  myself  of  the  works 
of  these  two  historians.  Nor  can  I  refrain  from  adding,  (which  I  do  with  perfect 
confidence,)  that  no  person  c(mipetent  to  judge  on  such  a  subject  can  read  with 
attention  this  Historical  Sketch,  without  perceiving  that  its  merits  and  defects, 
whatever  they  may  be,  arc  at  least  all  my  own. 

Note  BBB,  p.  428. 

Of  the  Scottish  authors  who  turned  their  attention  to  metaphysical  studies, 
prior  to  the  union  of  the  two  kingdoms,  I  know  <f  none  so  eminent  as  Goorge 
Dalgamo  of  Aberdeen,  author  of  two  works,  both  of  them  strongly  marked  with 
wound  philosophy,  as  well  as  with  origiual  genius.  The  one  publishctl  at  London, 
1660,  is  entitled,  ^^  Ars  siffnonnn,  viOyo  rhnrncter  vnirersuHs  et  Ufujua  philoio- 
phica,  qua  iwtcrunt  homines  diver$is9imorum  idiomnttim,  spatio  dntrrum  srjdi- 
itMiiannn,  oinnyi  animi  sui  sense  {in  rebus  fnnHiarihus)  non  minus  iiUcUiyibiliter, 


C02      NOTES  AND  ILLU8TUAT10NS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  if. 

she  tcribejulo,  sive  loquendo^  mutuo  communicare^  qtuim  linffuia  propriis  vemacu- 
lU.  Prceterea,  kinc  etiam  poterutU  juvenea,  phUotophUe  principia^  et  verean  loffiae 
praxin^  cUius  et  facUitu  mtUto  imhibere^  quam  ex  vtilgaribv$  philotophorum  tcrip- 
tis."  The  other  work  of  Dalgamo  is  entitled,  "  DidatceUocopkut,  or  the  Deaf  and 
Dumb  Man'' 8  Tutor:''  Printed  at  Oxford,  1680.  I  have  given  some  account  of 
the  former  in  the  notes  at  the  end  of  the  first  volume  of  the  PhUo8ophy  of  the 
Human  Mind;  and  of  the  latter,  in  a  Memoir  published  in  vuL  vii.  of  the  Trane- 
adume  of  the  Jioi/al  Society  of  Edinburgh.  As  they  are  now  become  extremely 
rare,  and  would  together  form  a  very  small  octavo  volume,  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  a  bookseller  who  should  reprint  them  would  be  fully  indemnified  by  tho  sale. 
The  fate  of  Dalgamo  will  be  hard  indeed,  if,  in  addition  to  the  unjust  neglect  he 
experienced  from  his  contemporaries,  tho  proofs  he  has  left  of  his  philosophical 
talents  shall  be  sufiered  to  sink  into  total  oblivion. 

liord  Stair's  Phyeiologia  Nova  Experimentali$  (published  at  Leyden  in  1686) 
is  also  worthy  of  notice  in  the  literary  history  of  Scotland.  Although  it  bears  few 
marks  of  the  eminent  talents  which  distinguished  the  author,  both  as  a  lawyer 
and  as  a  statesman,  it  discovers  a  very  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  meta- 
physical as  well  as  with  the  physical  doctrines,  which  were  chiefly  in  vogue  at 
that  period ;  more  particularly  with  the  leading  doctrines  of  Gassendi,  Descartes, 
and  Malebrancho.  Many  acute  and  some  important  strictures  arc  made  on  the 
errors  of  all  the  throe,  and  at  the  same  time  complete  justice  is  done  to  their 
merits ;  the  writer  everywhere  manifesting  an  independence  of  opinion  and  a  spirit 
of  free  inquiry,  very  uncommon  among  the  phih>sophers  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  work  is  dedicated  to  the  Royal  Society  of  London,  of  the  utility  of 
which  institution,  in  promoting  experimental  knowledge,  he  appears  to  have  been 
fully  aware. 

The  limits  of  a  note  will  not  permit  me  to  enter  into  farther  details  concerning 
tho  state  of  philosophy  in  Scotland,  during  the  interval  between  the  union  of  the 
Crowns  and  that  of  the  Kingdoms.  The  circumstances  of  the  country  were  in- 
deed peculiarly  unfavourable  to  it.  But  memorials  still  exi»t  of  a  few  individuals, 
sufliciont  t^  show,  that  the  philosophical  taste,  which  has  so  remarkably  dis- 
tinguished our  countrymen  during  tho  eighteenth  century,  was  in  some  measure 
an  inheritance  from  their  immediate  predecessors.  Leibnitz,  I  think,  somewhere 
mentions  the  number  of  learned  Scotchmen  by  whom  he  was  visited  in  the  course 
of  their  travels.  To  one  of  them  (Mr.  Burnet  of  Kemney)  he  has  addressed  a 
most  interesting  letter,  dated  in  1697,  on  the  general  state  of  learning  and  science 
in  Europe ;  0{)ening  his  mind  on  the  various  topics  which  he  introduces,  with  a 
freedom  and  confidence  highly  honourable  to  tho  attainments  and  character  of  his 
correspondent.  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  who  was  born  about  the  thue  t»f  the  Restoration, 
may  serve  as  a  fair  specimen  of  the  very  liberal  education  which  was  then  to  be 
had  in  some  of  the  Scottish  Universities.  The  large  share  which  he  is  allowed  to 
have  contributed  to  the  Memoirs  of  Martinns  JScriblerM,  abundantly  attests  llu^ 
variety  of  his  learning,  and  the  just  estimate  he  had  formed  of  the  philosophy  of 
the  schools;  and  in  one  or  two  passages,  where  he  glances  at  the  errors  of  bin 
contemporaries,  an  attentive  and  iutelligent  reader  will  trat^c,  amid  all  his 
pleasantry,  a  motaphysieal  depth  and  soundness  which  .seem  to  belong  to  a  later 
period. — \h  there  no  Arbuthn<»t  now,  to  chastise  the  follie.s  of  our  craniologistfi  ? 


NOTE  CCC.  003 


Note  C  C  C,  p.  449. 

The  letter  which  gives  uccasiou  to  this  note  wau  written  twenty  yvMs  alter  tho 
publication  of  the  TrtaiUe  of  Human  Nature.  As  it  relates,  however,  to  the 
history  of  Mr.  Hume's  studies  previous  to  that  publication,  1  connider  this  as  tho 
proper  place  for  introducing  it.  The  Dialogue  to  which  the  letter  refers  was 
plainly  that  which  appeared  afler  Mr.  Hume's  death,  under  the  title  of  Dialogue* 
on  Natural  MeVajion* 

"N1NEWELL.S,  March  10,  ITf)!. 

"  Dear  Sik, — You  would  perceive  by  the  sample  1  have  given  you,  that  1  make 
(.'lonnthes  the  hero  of  the  Dialogue.  Whatever  you  can  think  of  to  strengthen 
that  side  of  the  argument  will  bo  most  acceptable  to  me.  Any  propensity  you 
imagine  I  have  to  the  other  side  crept  in  upon  me  against  my  will ;  and  it  is  not 
long  ago  that  I  burned  an  old  manuscript  book,  wrote  before  1  was  twenty,  which 
contained,  page  after  page,  the  gradual  progress  of  my  thoughts  on  that  head.  It 
begun  with  an  anxious  search  ailer  arguments  to  confirm  the  conmion  opinion ; 
doubts  stole  in,  dissipated,  niturned,  were  again  dibsipated,  returned  again,  and  it 
wiM  a  per})etual  struggle  of  a  rostless  imagination  against  inclination,  perha|»s 
against  reason. 

*'  1  have  often  thought  that  the  best  way  of  composing  a  dialogue  would  be  for 
two  persous  that  are  of  different  opinions  about  any  question  of  im[K>rtance,  to  write 
alternately  the  different  parts  of  the  discourse,  and  reply  to  each  other.  By  this 
means  that  vulgar  error  would  be  avoided  of  putting  nothing  but  nonsense  into 
the  mouth  of  the  adversary ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  variety  of  character  and 
genius  being  upheld,  would  make  the  whole  loi»k  more  natural  and  unaffected. 
Had  it  been  my  good  fortune  to  live  near  you,  I  Khould  have  taken  on  me  the 
character  of  Thilo  in  the  Dialogue,  which  you'll  own  1  could  have  supported 
naturally  enough ;  and  you  would  not  have  been  averse  to  that  of  Cleanthen.  I 
believe,  too,  we  could  both  of  us  have  kept  our  tempers  very  well ;  only  you  have 
not  reached  an  absolute  philosophical  indifference  on  these  points.  What  danger 
can  ever  come  from  ingenious  reasoning  and  inquiry?  llje  worst  speculative 
sceptic  ever  I  know  was  a  much  better  man  than  the  best  superstitious  devotee 
and  bigot.  I  must  inform  you  too,  that  this  was  the  way  of  thinking  of  the 
ancients  on  this  subject.  If  a  man  made  profession  of  philosophy,  whatever 
his  sect  was,  they  always  expected  to  find  more  regularity  in  his  life  and  manners 
than  in  those  of  the  ignorant  and  illiterate.  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  of 
Appian  to  this  purpose.  That  historian  observes,  that,  notwithstanding  the 
established  pre{M)hsession  in  favour  of  learning,  yet  some  philosophers  who  have 
bocn  trusted  with  absolute  (M)wer  have  ver}'  much  abused  it ;  and  he  instances  in 
C'rilitts,  the  most  violent  of  the  Thirty,  and  Arihiion,  who  governed  Athens  in  the 
time  of  Sylla.  But  I  find,  u|K)n  inquiry,  that  Critios  was  a  profeshcd  Atheist,  and 
Aristion  an  Epicurean,  which  is  little  or  nothing  different ;  and  yet  Appian  wonders 
at  their  corruption  as  much  as  if  they  had  been  Stoics  or  Platonists.  A  modem 
7.(;alot  would  have  thought  that  comiption  unavoidable. 

"  I  could  wish  that  Cleanthcs'a  argimient  could  be  so  analyzed  as  to  Ihj  rcntlere<f 
quite  formal  and  regular.  Tlio  projvensity  of  the  mind  towanls  it,  unlens  that 
propensity  were  as  strong  and  univcrsiU  as  that  to  believe  in  our  ncumck  anil  ex- 


6()4    NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

]>cncnce,  will  still,  I  am  afraid,  be  eMtcemed  a  suspicious  foundation.  'Tis  here  I 
wish  for  your  assistance.  We  must  endeavour  to  prove  that  this  propensity  is 
somewhat  different  from  our  inclination  to  find  our  own  figures  in  the  clouds,  our 
face  in  the  moon,  our  passions  and  sentiments  even  in  inanimate  matter.  Such 
an  inclination  may  and  ought  to  be  controlled,  and  can  never  be  a  legitimate 
ground  of  assent. 

"  The  instances  I  have  chosen  for  Cleanthes  are,  I  hope,  tolerably  happy ;  and 
the  confusion  in  which  I  represent  the  sceptic  seems  natural.  But,  $i  quid  novisii 
redius,  &c. 

"  You  ask  me,  if  the  idea  ofcavse  and  effect  is  nothing  hut  vicinity  f  (you  should 
have  said  constant  vicinity  or  regular  conjunction) — /  would  gladly  know  whence 
is  that  farther  idea  of  causation  against  which  you  argue  f  The  question  is  per- 
tinent ;  but  I  hope  I  have  answered  it.  We  feel,  after  the  constant  conjunction, 
an  easy  transition  from  one  idea  to  the  other,  or  a  connexion  in  the  imagination ; 
and,  as  it  is  usual  for  us  to  transfer  our  own  feelings  to  the  objects  on  which  they 
are  dependent,  wo  attach  the  internal  sentiment  to  the  external  olrjects.  If  no 
single  instances  of  cause  and  effect  appear  to  have  any  connexion,  but  only  re- 
peated similar  ones,  you  will  find  yourself  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  this 
theory. 

"  I  am  sorry  our  correspondence  should  lead  ns  into  these  abstract  speculations. 
I  have  thought,  and  read,  and  composed  very  little  on  such  questions  of  late. 
Morals,  politics,  and  literature,  have  employed  all  my  time ;  but  still  the  other 
topics  I  must  think  more  curious,  important,  entertaining,  and  nseful  than  any 
geometry  that  is  deeper  than  Euclid.  If,  in  order  to  answer  the  doubts  started, 
new  principles  of  philosophy  must  be  laid,  are  not  these  doubts  themselves  rery 
UMeful  ?  Are  they  not  preferable  to  blind  and  ignorant  a(>scnt  ?  I  hope  I  can 
answer  my  own  doubts;  but,  if  I  could  not,  is  it  to  be  wondered  at?  To  give 
myself  airs  and  speak  magnificently,  might  I  not  observe  that  Columbus  did  not 
conquer  empires  and  plant  colonies  ? 

"  If  I  have  not  unravelled  the  knot  so  well  in  these  last  papers  I  sent  you,  as 
perhaps  I  did  in  the  former,  it  has  not,  I  assure  yon,  proceeded  from  want  of  good 
will.  But  some  subjects  are  easier  than  others ;  and  sometimes  one  is  happier 
in  one*8  researches  and  inquiries  than  at  other  times.  Still  I  have  recourse  to  the 
si  quid  novisti  rectlus ;  not  in  order  to  pay  you  a  compliment,  but  from  a  real 
philosophical  doubt  and  curiosity."* 

An  unfinished  draught  of  the  letter  to  which  the  foregoing  seems  to  have  been 
the  reply,  has  been  preserved  among  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot's  papers.  ITiis  careless 
fragment  is  in  his  own  handwriting,  and  exhibits  an  interesting  specimen  of  the 
progress  made  in  Scotland  among  the  higher  classes,  seventy  years  ago,  not  only 
in  sound  philosophy,  but  in  purity  of  English  style. 

[*  Wuit  follows  has  not  hitherto  (so  far  as  I  know)  Wen  urged  in  opposition  to 
]Mr.  Hume,  and  to  my  mind  is  more  satisfactory  than  any  view  of  the  subject  that 

>  The  ori);inal  i*  in  the  iHtit.<«oi»Kion  of  the  Karl  written  before  the  intention  of  publinhing  fully 

of  Minto.  in  this  Noi«  t!ic  preceding  letter  of  Hume,  and 

*  I  .'iin  nut  sure  thnt  tlii^  addition  Nh«»uM  it  wax  ilirown  in  nt  the  piige  comsepoading  to 

have  been  inwrlcd  here.  Iinpi»c«ni  to  have  Hcen  j»  .<77  nl»oTo,— prohaMv  for  consideration. — F^i. 


NOTE  ceo.  6()/> 

has  yet  been  tukcn  by  his  opponents.  It  is  however,  after  all,  little  more  than  a 
comment  on  some  concessions  made  in  the  courac  of  the  argument  by  the  sceptical 
Philo ;  of  which  I  think  Cleanthes  might  have  availed  himself  more  than  ho  has 
done.  It  must  always  be  remembered  that  the  latter  is  the  hero  of  the  Dialogue, 
and  is  to  be  understood  as  speaking  Mr.  Hume's  n>al  opinions.  (See  a  confidential 
letter  of  his  to  his  friend.  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  which  I  have  published  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  Note  C,  p.  532,  3d  edition,  [and 
more  fully  on  ppcce«ling  page. — Ed^  I  think  it  fair  to  recall  this  to  the  reader's 
memory,  as  the  reasonings  of  Philo  have  often  been  quoted  as  parts  of  Hume's 
philosophical  system,  although  the  words  of  Shy  lock  or  Caliban  might,  with  equal 
justice,  be  quoted  as  speaking  the  real  sentiments  of  Shakespeare.] 

"  Dear  Sir, — ^Inclosed  I  return  your  papers,  which,  since  my  coming  to  town,  I 
have  again  read  over  with  the  greatest  care.  The  thoughts  which  this  last  perusal 
of  them  has  suggested  I  shall  set  down,  merely  in  compliance  with  your  desire, 
for  I  pretend  not  to  say  anything  new  upon  a  question  which  has  already  been 
examined  so  often  and  so  accurately.  I  must  freely  own  to  you,  that  to  me  it 
appears  extremely  doubtful  if  the  position  wliich  Cleanthes  undertakes  to  main- 
tain can  be  supported,  at  least  in  any  satisfactory  manner,  upon  the  principles  he 
establishes  and  the  concessions  he  makes.  If  it  be  only  from  effects  exactly  simi- 
lar tliat  experience  warrants  us  to  infer  a  similar  cause,  then  I  am  afraid  it  must 
be  granted,  tluit  the  works  of  Nature  resemble  not  so  nearly  the  productions  of 
man  as  to  support  the  conclusion  which  Cleanthes  admits  can  be  built  only  on 
that  resemblance.  The  two  instances  he  brings  to  illustrate  his  argument  are  indeed 
ingenious  and  elegant — the  first,  especially,  which  seemingly  carries  groat  weight 
along  with  it ;  the  other,  I  mean  that  of  the  Vegetating  Library,  as  it  is  of  moro 
difficult  apprehension,  so  I  think  it  is  not  easy  for  the  mind  cither  to  retain  or  to 
apply  it.  But,  if  I  mistake  not,  this  strong  objection  strikes  equally  against  them 
both.  Cleanthes  does  no  more  than  substitute  two  artificial  instances  in  the  place 
of  natural  ones :  but  if  these  bear  no  nearer  a  resemblance  than  natural  ones  to 
the  effects  which  we  have  experienced  to  proceed  from  men,  then  nothing  can 
justly  be  inferred  from  them ;  and  if  this  resemblance  bo  greater,  then  nothing 
farther  oiufht  to  be  inferred  from  them.  In  one  respect,  however,  Cleanthes  seems 
to  limit  his  reasonings  more  than  is  necessary  even  upon  his  own  principles. 
Admitting,  for  once,  that  experience  is  the  only  source  of  our  knowledge,  I  cannot 
see  how  it  follows,  that,  to  enable  us  to  infer  a  similar  cause,  the  effects  must  not 
only  be  similar,  but  exactly  and  precisely  so.  Will  not  experience  authorise  me 
to  conclude,  that  a  machine  or  piece  of  mechanism  was  produced  by  human 
art,  unless  I  have  happened  previously  to  see  a  machine  or  piece  of  mechanism 
exactly  of  the  same  sort?  Point  out,  for  instance,  the  contrivance  and  end  of 
a  watch  to  a  peasant  w^ho  had  never  before  seen  anything  more  curious  than  the 
coarsest  instniments  of  husbandry,  will  he  not  immediately  conclude,  that  this 
watch  is  an  effect  produced  by  human  art  and  design  ?  And  I  would  still  further 
ask,  does  a  spailc  or  a  plough  much  more  resemble  a  watch  than  a  watch  does  an 
organized  animal  ?  The  result  of  our  whole  experience,  if  experience  indeed  be 
the  only  principle,  seems  rather  to  amount  to  this :  There  are  but  two  ways  in 
which  we  have  ever  observed  the  different  parcels  of  matter  to  be  thrown  together ; 
oither  at  random,  or  with  design  and  purpose.    By  the  first  we  have  never  seen 


GOT)      NOTES  AND  FLLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERT ATIOX. PART  II. 

produced  a  regular  complicated  effect,  correspondiug  to  a  certain   end ;  bv  tli^ 
second,  wc  uniformly  have.     If,  then,  the  works  of  nature,  and  the  prodnrtic^is  of 
man,  resemble  each  other  in  this  one  general  characteristic,  will  not  even  experi- 
ence suflSciently  warrant  us  to  ascribe  to  both  a  similar  tliougli  proportionable 
cause  ?     If  you  answer,  that  abstracting  from  the  experience  wc  acquire  in  this 
world,  order  and  adjustment  of  parts  is  no  proof  of  design,  my  reply  i»,  that  no 
conclusions,  drawn  from  the  nature  of  so  chimerical  a  being  as  man,  considered 
abstracted  from  experience,  can  at  all  be  listened  to.    The  principles  of  the  human 
mind  are  clearly  so  contrived  as  not  to  unfold  themselves  till  the  proper  objects 
and  proper  opportunity  and  occasion  bo  presented.     There  is  no  arguing  upon  the 
nature  of  man  but  by  considering  him  as  grown  to  maturity,  placed  in  society,  and 
become  acquainted  with  surrounding  objects.     But  if  you  should  still  farther  uige, 
that,  with  regard  to  instances  of  which  wc  have  no  experience,  for  aught  we  know, 
matter  may  contain  the  principles  of  order,  arrangement,  and   the  adjustment  of 
final  causes,  I  should  only  answer,  that  whoever  can  conceive  this  proposition  to  be 
true,  has  exactly  the  same  idea  of  matter  that  I  have  of  mind.     I  know  not  if  I 
have  reasoned  justly  upon  Cleanthes's  principles,  nor  is  it  indeed  very  material. 
The  purpose  of  my  letter  is  barely  to  point  out  what  to  me  appears  the  fair  and 
philosophical  method  of  proceeding  in  this  inquiry.    That  this  universe  ib  the 
effect  of  an  intelligent  designing  cause,  is  a  principle  which  has  heen  most  uni- 
versally received  in  all  ages  and  in  all  nations ;  the  proof  uniformly  appealed  to  is, 
the  admirable  order  and  adjustment  of  the  works  of  nature.     To  proceed,  then, 
experimentally  and  philosophically,  the  first  question  in  point  of  order  seems  to  be, 
what  is  the  effect  which  the  contemplation  of  the  universe,  and  the  several  parts  of 
it,  produces  upon  a  considering  mind  ?    Tliis  is  a  question  of  fact ;  a  popular  ques- 
tion, the  discussion  of  which  depends  not  upon  refinements  and  subtlety,  but  merely 
upon  impartiality  and  attention.     I  ask,  then,  what  is  the  sentiment  which  pre- 
vails in  one's  mind,  afrcr  having  considered  not  only  the  more  familiar  objects  that 
surround  him,  but  also  all  the  discoveries  of  Natural  Philosophy  and  Natural  His- 
tory ;  after  having  considered  not  only  the  general  economy  of  the  universe,  but 
also  the  most  minute  parts  of  it,  and  the  amazing  adjustment  of  means  to  ends 
with  a  precision  unknown  to  human  art,  and  in  instances  innumerable  ?     Tell  me, 
(to  use  the  words  of  Cleanthes,)  does  not  the  idea  of  a  contriver  flow  in  upon  yon 
with  a  force  like  that  of  sensation  ?    Expressions  how  just !  (yet  in  the  mouth  of 
Cleanthes  you  must  allow  me  to  doubt  of  their  propriety.)     Nor  does  this  conrir- 
tion  only  arise  from  the  consideration  of  the  inanimate  parts  of  the  creaUon,  but 
still  more  strongly  from  the  contemplation  of  the  faculties  of  the  understanding, 
the  affections  of  the  heart,  and  the  various  instincts  discoverable  both  in  men  and 
brutes :  all  so  properly  adapted  to  the  circumstances  and  situation  both  of  the 
species  and  the  individual.     Yet  this  last  observation,  whatever  may  be  in  it, 
derives  no  force  from  experience.     For  who  ever  saw  a  mind  produced?    If  we  are 
desirous  to  push  our  experiments  still  farther,  and  inquire,  whether  the  survey  of 
the  universe  has  regularly  and  uniformly  led  to  the  belief  of  an  intelligent  cause? 
Shall  we  not  find,  that,  from  the  author  of  the  l>ook  of  Job  to  the  preachers  at 
Boyle's  Lecture,  the  same  language  has  been  universally  held?     No  writer,  who 
has  ever  treated  this  subject,  but  has  either  applied  hiniBcIf  to  describe,  in  the  most 
emphatical  language,   the  Wauty  and  order  of  the  univense,  or  else  to  collect 


NOTE  DDI).  <>()^7 

tngether  and  place  in  the  most  striking  light,  the  many  instances  of  rontrivancn 
and  design  which  have  been  discovered  by  observation  and  experiment.  And 
when  they  have  done  this,  they  seem  to  have  imaginetl  that  their  task  was  finished, 
and  their  demonstration  complete  ;  and  indeed  no  wonder, — for  it  seems  to  me, 
that  we  are  scarce  more  assured  of  our  own  existence,  than  that  this  well-ordered 
universe  is  the  effect  of  an  intelligent  cause. 

"  This  first  question,  then,  which  is  indeed  a  question  of  fact,  being  thus  set- 
tled upon  observations  which  are  obvious  and  unrefined,  but  not  on  that  account 
the  less  satisfactory,  it  becomes  the  business  of  the  philosopher  to  inquire,  whether 
the  conviction  arising  from  these  observations  bo  founded  on  the  conclusions  of 
reason,  the  reports  of  experience,  or  the  dictates  of  feeling,  or  possibly  uiK)iiall 
these  together;  but  if  his  principles  shall  not  bo  laid  so  wide  as  to  account  for  the 
fact  already  established  upon  prior  evidence,  we  may,  I  think,  safely  conclude,  that 
his  principles  are  erroneous.  Should  a  philosopher  pretend  to  demonstrate  to  me, 
by  a  system  of  optics,  that  I  can  only  discern  an  object  when  placed  directly  oppo- 
site to  my  eye,  I  should  certainly  answer,  your  system  most  be  defective,  for  it  is 
contradicted  by  matter  of  fact." 

[*  In  another  letter  to  Mr.  Hume,  the  same  very  ingenious  and  accomplished 
person  expresses  himself  thus : — 

"  I  admit  that  there  is  no  writing  or  talking  of  any  subject,  which  is  of  import- 
ance enough  to  become  the  object  of  reasoning,  without  having  recourse  to  some 
degree  of  subtilty  or  refinement."] 

NoteDDD,  p.  401. 

[f  It  will  not,  I  hope,  be  considered  as  altogether  foreign  to  the  object  of  this  Dis- 
course, if  I  hazard  a  few  hints  of  my  own  towards  a  solution  of  the  same  difficulty. 

Inconsistency  remarked  by  Reid  and  others  in  Mr.  Hume's  reasoning  in  favour 
of  the  scheme  of  Necessity,  with  his  objection  to  the  argimicnt  for  the  existence  of 
God,  founded  on  the  maxim,  that  every  change  in  Nature  implies  the  operation  of  a 
cause.  The  same  charge  retorted  on  Reid,  by  a  very  ingenious  writer  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Meview : — "  Wo  may  be  permitted  to  remark,  that  it  is  somewhat  extraor- 
dinary to  find  the  dependence  of  human  actions  on  motives  so  positively  denied  by 
those  very  Philosophers  with  whom  the  doctrine  of  Causation  is  of  such  high 
authority." — Ediuburrfh  Jieview,  vol.  iii.  p.  284. 

Although  I  am  far  from  admitting  the  logical  justness  of  this  retort,  I  must  can- 
didly acknowledge,  that  it  possesses  a  sufficient  degree  of  plausibility  to  be  entitled 
to  a  careful  examination  ;  nay  farther,  I  admit,  that  too  much  ground  for  it  has  been 
afforded  by  the  unqualified  terms  in  which  the  maxim  (jtnitf  am/tiav)  has  frequently 
been  stated.  [Then  after  the  same  observations  in  regard  to  Price  which  appear 
on  p.  573,  and  as  far  as  the  word  "  impossibility,"  Mr.  Stewart  goes  on. — Ud.] 

It  would  perhaps  contribute  to  render  our  reasonings  on  this  subject  more  dis- 
tinct, if,  instead  of  speaking  of  the  influence  of  motives  on  the  Will,  we  were  to 
speak  (agreeably  to  the  suggestion  of  Locke)*  of  the  influence  of  motives  on  the 

*  Kestored.— AU  per.  whether  the  Will  be  free,  but  whether  a 

t  Restored— though  in  part  apparently  only  Man  be  free."— i&iJ.  S  21.     For  some  reraarkM 

memnmnila. — Ett.  on  the  yroTd^/acuUies  and  powers,  when  applied 

I  Euay  on  Human  Underttandin/j,  book  iL  to  the  mind,  see  the  mme  chapter,  f  20. 

chap.  2l,i\6,et$fiii.   "  The  qtMttion  is  not  pro- 


(>08     NOTKS  AND  FLLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  11. 

AfftitU.     \\\i  are  apt  to  fi)rget  wluit  the  UlU  m,  and  to  coiiHidcr  it  as  Bomctliiiig  inatii- 
niuto,  which  can  have  its  state  clianged  only  by  the  operation  of  some  foreign  calu^.•. 

Part  of  the  obscurity  in  which  this  question  has  been  involved  may  be  justly 
ascribed  to  the  inaccurate  use  that  has  been  made  of  the  words  active  and  activity. 
A  remarkable  instance  of  this  occurs  in  the  following  sentence  of  Lord  Karnes  : — 
"  Chemistry  discovers  various  powers  in  matter  of  the  most  active  kind ;  and 
every  man  who  is  conversant  with  the  operations  of  Chemistry,  must  have  a  strong 
impression  that  matter  is  extremely  active^ — {Eanay  on  Motion^  printed  in  the 
Essays  Physical  and  IJtcrary,  by  a  Society  in  Edinburgh,  vol.  i.  p.  0.)     Into  this 
mode  of  s])eaking  the  author  was  evidently  led  by  confounding  together  the  ideas 
of  action  an'I  of  motitm,  which  two  words  (he  afterwards  tells  us)  he  considers  an 
synonymous.*     The  amount,  therefore,  of  what  Kamos  has  observed  concerning 
the  phenomena  of  Chemistry,  is  merely  this,  that  in  the  processes  of  that  art,  sudden 
and  (to  the  novice)  unexpected  motions  often  take  place,  in  consequence  of  the 
mixture  of  substances  formerly  quiescent.    But  do  these  motions  take  place  in  that 
irregular  or  capricious  way  which  iniiicatcs  activity  and  t^lition  ?    On  tlio  con- 
trary, may  they  not  all  be  predicted  by  the  experienced  chemist,  with  a  confidence 
equal  to  that  with  which  the  astronomer  predicts  the  precise  moment  when  a 
solar  or  lunar  ocHpsc  is  to  happen  ?     Indeed,  if  matter  were  not  universally  re- 
garded in  this  light,  how  could  the  belief  of  the  permanency  of  the  course  of 
nature  have  been  so  firmly  established  in  the  human  mind  ?    Docs  not  this  belief 
obviously  proceed  on  the  supposition,  that  matter  never  changes  its  stato  but  in 
consequence  of  its  being  oct<'d  upon  ?    Were  the  fact  otherwise,  it  would  l>e  a 
vain  attempt  to  ascertain  those  general  conclusions  which  are  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Iaixcs  of  Motion.     Have  we  not,  therefore,  in  the  one  case  as  well  as  in  the 
other,  complete  evidence  that  these  motions*  arc  tlio  effects  of  powers  which  cannot 
belong  to  more  matti*r ;  or,  in  other  wonis,  that  in  the  phenomena  of  chemistr)',  as 
well  as  of  physics,  mutter  is  entirely  inert  and  pa*iHive  ? 

I  have  said  before,  that  the  idea  of  an  ejfirieiU  cause  implies  the  idea  of  mind  ; 
and  1  have  since  adde»l,  that  the  regnlarity  of  the  phenomena  exhibited  in  physics 
and  in  chemistry,  evinc<'s  the  operation  of  powers  which  cannot  belong  to  unin- 
t«;lligent  matter.  In  opposition  to  this  it  may  bo  argued,  (in  the  words  of  liord 
Karnes,  Kasay  on  3fotionf  p.  8,)  "  that  a  power  of  l)eginning  visible  motion  is  no 
more  connected  with  a  power  of  thinking,  than  it  is  with  any  other  projKirty  of 
matter  or  spirit."  The  remark  is  certainly  just,  if  understood  merely  to  assert  that 
the  power  of  the  mind  to  move  body  is  known  to  us  by  experience  alone  ;  and  that  it 
is  jK)S8iblc  for  us  to  conceive  intelligent  lacings  to  whom  this  power  does  not  belong. 
Ihit,  in  order  to  render  the  remark  applicable  to  the  present  argument,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  establish  the  converse  of  the  proposition,  by  shewing  that  a  power  of  l»c- 
ginning  motion  does  not  imply  a  power  of  thinking.  The  contrary  of  this  seems 
to  me  self-evident ;  for,  without  thought,  how  could  the  vel«K:ity  or  the  direction  of 
the  motion  be  determined  ?] 

Note  E  E  E,  p.  407. 

[*"  Under  the  general  title  of  the  doctrine  of  Prohnhilities,  two  vcr}-  diflTercnt  sub- 
jects are  confounded  together  by  Laplace,  as  well  as  by  many  other  writers  of  lui 
»  ••  Motion,  by  tbo  very  conception  of  It^  Ii  action.'— /fciV/.  p.  11).  *  Kontored. — Kd. 


NOTK  EEK.  GOD 

earlier  date.  Tlic  ono  is,  the  purely  mathematical  theory  of  chances  ;  the  other, 
the  inductive  anticipations  of  future  events,  deduced  from  observations  on  the  past 
course  of  nature.  The  calculations  about  dice  furnish  the  simplest  of  all  examples 
of  the  first  sort  of  theory.  The  conclusions  to  which  they  lead  are  as  rigorously 
exact  as  any  otlier  arithmetical  theorems ;  amounting  to  nothing  more  than  a 
numerical  statement  of  the  ways  in  which  a  given  event  may  happen,  compared 
with  those  in  which  it  may  not  happen.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  a  single  die,  (sup- 
posing it  to  be  made  with  mathematical  accuracy,)  the  chance  that  ace  shall  turn 
up  at  the  first  throw,  is  to  the  chance  against  that  event  as  one  to  five.  The  more 
complicated  cases  of  the  problem  all  depend  on  the  application  of  the  same  fimda- 
mcntal  principle.  This  principle,  as  Condorcct  has  well  remarked,  (Esmi  ttir 
VAppfieatioH  tie  VAua^yse^  &c.  p.  7,)  is  only  a  definition,  (uno  Veritc  do  definition ;) 
and,  therefore,  the  calculations  founded  on  it  are  all  rigorously  true. 

To  this  theory  of  chances  Laplace  labours,  through  the  whole  of  his  work,  to 
assimilate  all  the  other  cases  in  wliich  matliematics  are  applied  to  the  calculus  of 
probabilities ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  readily  siilwcribed  to  the 
following  pntposition  of  Condorcet,  although  I  do  not  rocolloct  that  lie  has  any- 
where sanctioned  it  expressly  by  his  authority.  "  Le  motif  de  croiro  quo  sur  dix 
millions  de  boules  blanches  melees  avec  une  noire,  ce  ne  sera  point  la  noire  que  je 
tircrai  da  premier  coup,  est  de  la  meme  nature  quo  le  motif  do  croirc  que  le  soleil 
ne  manqucra  pas  de  se  lever  domain ;  et  les  deux  opinions  no  difii^rent  eutrc  ell«fl 
que  par  le  plus  ct  le  moins  de  probabilite."— '.Bwai  sur  VAppUctUion  de  VAtialyte, 
ice,  Disc.  Prelim,  p.  11. 

According  to  Degernndo,  {If int.  Comp.  tom.  ii.  pp.  151,  152,)  Mendelsohn  was 
the  first  who  thought  of  opposing  Mr.  HumeVi  scepticism  concerning  cause  and 
effoct,  by  considerations  drawn  from  the  calculus  of  probabilities,  lliis  statement 
is  confirmed  by  I^iacroix,  who  refers  for  farther  information  on  tiie  subject  to 
Mendelsohn's  Treatise  on  Evidence,  which  obtained  the  prize  from  the  Academy 
of  Berlin  in  1763.  Degcrando  himself,  in  his  Treatise  Den  Sigiieset  de  VArt  de 
Pmner,  (published  I'an  viii.)  has  adopted  the  same  view  of  the  subject,  without 
being  then  aware  (as  he  assures  us  himself)  that  he  had  been  anticipated  in  this 
speculation  by  Mendelsohn,  {Hist.  Compar^e,  tom.  ii.  p.  155.)  I>acroix,  in  bis 
Traits.  Ef^merUaire  du  Calcul  de$  ProhabilUia,  remarks  the  coincidence  of  opinion 
of  these  diflferent  authors,  with  some  hints  suggested  by  Holvetius  in  a  note  on  the 
first  chapter  of  the  first  discourse,  in  his  work  entitled  D Esprit. 

ITie  only  foreign  writers,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  whom  this  doctrine  has  yet  bce« 
controverted,  are  MM.  Prevost  and  L'Uuillier  of  Geneva,  in  a  very  able  paper  pub- 
lished in  tlie  Memoirs  of  tlie  Royal  Academy  of  Berlin  for  the  year  1796.  After 
quoting  from  Condorcet  the  passage  I  have  transcribed  above,  thc«e  learned  and 
ingenious  philosophers  proceed  thus : — 

"  La  persuasion  Analogique  qu'eprouve  tout  homme  do  voir  se  repcter  un  ev^ne- 
ment  naturel  (tel  que  le  lever  de  soleil)  est  d'un  genre  different  de  la  persuasion 
representee  par  une  firaction  dans  la  theorie  des  probabilites.  Celle-ci  pent  lul 
etre  ajoutoe,  mais  Tune  pent  exister  sans  I'autro.  Ellcs  dependent  de  deux  ordres 
de  facultes  difierents.  Un  enfant,  un  animal  eprouve  la  premiere,  et  ne  forme 
aucun  calcul  explicite,  ni  memo  implicite :  il  n*y  a  aucune  dependance  necemaire 
entre  ces  deux  persuasions.     Celle  que  le  calcul  apprecie  est  raisonnee,  et  meme, 

VOL.  L  2  Q 


610      NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — PART  II. 

jasqu*^  un  certain  point,  artificielle.  L'antro  est  d'instinct  et  natnrelle.  Elle  d^ 
pend  de  quelques  facult^s  intollectuolles  dont  Tanalyse  n*eat  pas  facile,  ei  probable- 
ment  en  trvsgrande  partie  du  principe  de  la  liaison  des  idees." — M6m<nre$  de 
BerUnf  torn,  xxiii.  Classe  de  Philosophie  Sp^ulatiye,  p.  15. 

"Jo  veux  prouver  maintenant,  que  tout  cet  appareil  de  methodo,  si  beau  et  si 
utile,  par  lequel  on  arrive  k  calculer  la  probability  des  causes  par  les  effets,  suppose 
une  estimation  anterieuro  de  cette  memo  probabilite,  et  qu*en  particulier  dans  toutes 
les  applications  int^ressantes  qu'on  pent  faire  de  ce  calcul,  nous  sommes  toujours 
nccessairement  guides  par  un  instinct  de  persuasion,  inappreciable  on  degre,  et 
que  tons  nos  raisonnements  sur  cct  objct  dependent  de  notre  confiance  en  un  prin- 
cipe de  croyance  que  Ic  calcul  des  probabilites  no  peut  estimer." 

"  .  .  .  Jc  dis  done  qu*il  y  a  dans  rhomine  un  principe  (qu'on  peut  nomroer 
instinct  de  croyance)  que  suppose  toute  application  du  calcul  des  probabilites. 
Tant  qu'on  raisonne  dans  Tabstrait,  on  n'est  point  appele  k  se  rendre  compte  des 
raisons  sur  Icsquellcs  on  fonde  I'estimation  de  la  probabilite  d*un  cbance.  Mais 
dans  tons  les  cas  concrets  ou  particuliers,  on  ne  pent  determiner  cette  probabilite 
que  par  voie  d'cxpcrience.  Or  les  cas  passes  n*etant  pas  lies  aux  cas  &  veuir,  nous 
no  les  envisageons  comme  devant  donner  les  memos  resultats,  que  par  le  sentiment, 
soord  mais  irresistible,  qui  nous  fait  admettre  la  Constance  des  lois  de  la  naturo. 
Si  Pon  prend  Tcxemple  d'un  dc,  on  verra  que  pour  arrivcr  &  hii  donner  la  construc- 
tion que  lo  joucur  a  en  viie,  Tartistc  finalemcnt  n*a  pu  se  guider  que  par  quelques 
experiences  antericures  sur  dc  tels  instnimens  alvatoires,  et  sur  celui-l&  en  particu- 
lier. Lors  dune  qu'il  cspcre  les  memos  effets,  il  so  fonde  sur  une  prevoyance  dont 
la  raison  ne  peut  ctre  appreciee  par  le  calcul.  Et  c*est  en  vain  qu*on  voudroit 
sortir  de  co  ccrcle  en  remontant  de  cause  en  cause :  car  finalement,  toute  proba- 
bilite qu'on  voudra  estimer  Stochastiquement,  so  reduira  h.  cet  embleme.  On  de- 
termine la  probabilite  de  vie  par  des  tables  empiriqucs  :  il  en  est  de  meme  de  la 
probabilite  des  pbenomenes  meteorologiques,  et  antres.'' 

Dr.  Price,  in  liia  Dissertation  on  Jfiittorical  Evidence,  and  also  in  an  Essay  pub- 
lished in  vol.  liii.  of  the  Philosophiccd  Transactions,  \i'm  fullcn  into  a  train  of  tliink- 
ing  exactly  similar  to  that  quoted  above  from  Condorcet. — (See  Price's  Disserta- 
tions, p.  389,  et  seq.)  The  paHsago  hero  referred  to  is  well  worthy  of  perusal ;  but, 
on  the  slight^'st  examination,  it  must  appear  to  ever}-  intelligent  reader  to  be  liable 
to  the  very  Hanie  objections  which  have  been  so  strongly  urged  against  Condorcet's 
principle,  by  MM.  Prevost  and  L'lluillier. 

"  Wo  trust  experience,  (says  Dr.  Price,)  and  expect  that  the  future  should 
resemble  the  past  in  the  course  of  nature, /w  tlic  very  same  reason  that,  sup- 
posing ourselves  otherwise  in  the  dark,  wo  should  conclude  that  a  die  which  has 
turned  an  ace  oftenest  in  past  trials,  is  mostly  marked  with  aces,  and,  conse- 
quently, should  expect  that  it  will  go  on  to  tuni  the  same  number  oflenest  in 
future  trials." — (P.  392.)  "And  so  far  is  it  from  being  true  that  the  under- 
standing is  not  the  faculty  which  teaches  us  to  rely  on  exj>erience,  that  it  is 
capable  of  determining,  in  all  ciften,  what  conclusions  ought  to  bo  drawn  from  it, 
and  what  precise  degree  of  confidence  should  be  placed  in  it." — (P.  398.) 

Nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  this,  that  it  is  not  upon  any  reasoning  of  this 
ifrrt  that  children  proceed,  when  they  anticipate  the  continuance  of  those  laws  of 
nature,  a  knowledge  of  which  is  indisjxMisably  necessar)*  for  the  preservation  of 


KUTK  EEE.  Gil 

their  animal  existence.  Mr.  Uumo,  although  he  plainly  leaned  to  the  opinion 
that  this  anticipation  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  association  of  ideas,  has  yet, 
with  the  most  philosophical  propriety,  given  it  the  name  of  an  instinct;  inasmuch 
as  it  manifests  itself  in  infants  long  before  the  dawn  of  reason,  and  is  as  evidently 
the  result  of  an  arrangement  of  Nature,  as  if  it  were  implanted  immediately  in 
their  frame  by  her  own  hand.  It  is,  indeed,  an  instinct  common  to  man,  and  to 
the  brute  creation. 

That  we  are  able,  in  many  cases,  to  cidculate,  with  mathematical  precision,  the 
probability  of  future  events,  is  so  far  from  affording  an  argument  against  the 
existence  of  this  instinctive  anticipation,  that  all  these  calculations  take  for  granted 
(as  M.  Prevost  has  observed)  that  uniformity  in  the  course  of  nature  which  we 
are  thus  led  to  anticipate.  The  cakulatums^  it  is  true,  imply  at  every  step  the 
exercise  of  the  understanding ;  but  that  no  process  of  the  understanding  can 
account  for  the  origin  of  the  fundamental  assumption  on  which  they  proceed,  has 
been  shown  by  Mr.  Hume  (according  to  the  best  of  my  judgment)  with  demon- 
strative evidence. 

''  Att  milieu  (says  Laplace)  des  causes  variables  et  inconnues  que  nous  com- 
prenons  sous  le  nom  dc  hazard,  et  qui  rcndent  incertaine  et  irreguliere,  la  marcho 
des  ev^nemens;  on  voit  mutre  ft  mesure  qu'ils  se  nmltiphciit,  uno  regularity 
frappante  qui  semble  tenirtl  un  dossein,  ct  que  I'on  a  consideru  comme  uno  preuve 
de  la  providence  qui  gouveme  Ic  monde.  Mais  en  y  refl^'hissant,  on  recouroit 
bientot  que  cetto  regularite  n*est  quo  le  developpement  des  possibilites  rcspectivcs 
des  evenemens  simples  qui  doivcnt  se  presenter  plus  souvent,  lorsqu'ils  sont  plus 
probables.  Concevons,  par  cxemple,  une  ume  qui  rcnfcrme  des  boules  blanches  et 
des  boules  noires;  et  supposons  qu'ft  chaque  fois  que  Ton  en  tire  une  boule, 
on  la  remette  dans  I'ume  pour  proceder  ft  un  nouvcau  tiragc.  1a  rapport 
du  nombre  des  boules  blanches  extraitos,  au  nombrc  des  boules  noires  extraites, 
sera  le  plus  souvent  tr^s  irregulicr  dans  Ics  premiers  tirages;  mais  Ics  causes 
variables  do  cette  irregularite,  produiscnt  des  effets  altcmativcment  favorables  et 
contraires  ft  la  marche  regulierc  des  evenemens,  et  qui  se  detruisent  mutucUcment 
dans  I'ensemble  d'un  grand  nombrc  de  tirages,  laisscnt  de  plus  en  plus  apercevoir 
le  rapport  des  boules  blanches  aux  boules  noires  contcnues  dans  l*umc,  ou  les  pos- 
sibilites respcctives  d'cn  extraire  une  boide  blanche  ou  une  boule  noire  ft  chaque 
tirage.    Do  1ft  resulte  le  Thcoreme  suivant. 

"La  probabilito  que  le  rapport  du  nombre  des  boules  blanches  extraites,  an 
nombre  total  des  boules  sorties,  ne  s'ccarte  pns  au  delft  d'un  intervalle  donne,  du 
rapport  du  nombre  des  boules  blanches,  au  nombrc  total  des  boules  contenues  dans 
Vurne,  approche  indefiniment  dc  la  certitude,  par  la  multiplication  indefinie  des 
evenemens  quelque  petit  que  Ton  suppose  cct  intervalle.** 

"  On  pent  tirer  du  theor^me  precedent  cctte  consequence  qui  doit  etre  regard6e 
comme  uno  loi  generale,  savoir,  que  les  rapports  des  effets  de  la  Nature,  sont  ft  fort 
pen  pres  constans,  quand  ces  effets  sont  consideres  en  grand  nombre.  Ainsi, 
malgre  la  vnriete  des  aiinecs,  la  sommo  des  productions  pendant  un  nombre 
d*annces  considerable,  est  sensiblement  la  memo ;  en  sorte  que  I'homme  par  une 
utile  pr^voyance,  pent  se  mettre  ft  I'abri  de  rirrcgularite  des  saisons,  en  r^pandant 
(galement  sur  tons  les  temps  que  la  nature  distribue  d'une  mani^re  in%ale.    Je 


G12      NOTES  AND  ILLIIRTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. — FART  If. 

uV'xcepte  pas  de  la  loi  prucedenle,  lea  eiTeis  dus  aux  caiiACS  morales.  I/e  rapport 
des  naisfianccs  annuellos  k  la  population,  et  celui  dea  mariagea  anx  naiaaancea, 
n'^prouyent  quo  do  ti^s*pctitcs  Tariutions:  il  Paria,  le  nombro  dcs  naiaaancea 
aimuelles  a  toi^'ours  oto  le  memo  &  peu  pres ;  et  j*ai  oui  dire  qu'&  la  poate,  dana  le« 
temps  ordinaires,  le  nombre  des  lettres  mises  an  rebut  par  lea  defaata  dea  addreaaea, 
change  peu  chaquo  anuee ;  ce  qui  a  vtu  pareilloment  obsGnre  h  Londrea. 

"  II  suit  encore  do  ce  Theon^me,  quo  duns  une  seric  d'cvcnemena,  indtriinimeiit 
prolongcc,  Taction  des  causes  regulieres  et  constantes  doit  Tcmporter  k  la  looguc, 
Kur  ccUe  des  causes  irreguliercs 

"  Si  Ton  applique  co  Hieorcme  nu  rapport  des  naissances  dcs  garvona  k  cellea 
des  filles,  observe  dans  les  divcrses  parties  de  TEuropo ;  on  trouve  que  ce  rapport, 
partout  k  peu  pres  C^gal  k  celui  de  22  li  21,  indiqnc  avec  une  extreme  probability*, 
une  plus  grande  facilitu  dans  Ics  nnissances  des  gar9ons.  En  considerant  ensuite 
qu'il  est  le  memo  A  Naples  qu'ti  Petersbourg,  on  verra  qu'ii  cet  egard,  1  Influence 
du  climat  est  insensible.  On  pouvait  done  sonp9onnor  centre  ^opinion  commune, 
quo  cctto  Bupc'rioritc  dcs  naissances  masculines  subsiste  dans  Porient  memc.  J'avaia 
en  consequence  invite  Ics  savans  Fran^ais  envoyes  en  Egyptc,  k  s'occupcr  de  cctic 
question  interessautc  ;  mais  la  difficulte  d'obtcnir  des  renseignemens  precis  anr  les 
naissances,  ne  leur  a  pas  pcmiis  do  la  resoudre.  Heureusemcnt,  Humboldt  n*a 
point  neglige  cet  objet  dans  l*immensite  des  cboses  nouvclles  quMl  a  observees  et 
i*ecuei]lics  en  AmC'rique,  avec  tant  de  sagacite,  de  Constance,  et  de  courage.  II  a 
rctrouve  entre  Ics  tropiques,  le  menie  rapport  dcs  naissances  des  gar9on8  k  cclles 
des  filles,  que  I'on  observe  i\  Paris  ;  ce  qui  doit  /aire  recorder  In  ntpirioriii  dts 
rioissances  masculines,  comme  une  loi  g^Srale  de  Vesplce  humaine,  Les  loia  que 
Huivcnt  k  cet  i^ganl,  les  divcrses  especes  d'animaux,  me  paroissent  dignes  de  I'at- 
tcntion  des  naturalistes.'' — Essai  Philos.  p.  73,  et  seq. 

From  these  qnotntions  it  appears,  that  the  constancy  in  the  proportion  of  births 
to  the  whole  popuhition  of  a  country,  in  that  of  births  to  marriages,  and  in  that  of 
male  chiMreu  to  feiualus,  are  considcretl  by  I>aplace  as  facts  of  the  same  kind^ 
and  to  be  accounted  for  in  the  same  way,  with  the  very  narrow  limits  within  which 
tho  number  of  misdirected  letters  in  the  general  jwst-office  of  Vnnn  varies  frtmi 
year  to  year.  The  same  thing,  he  tells  us,  hiw  been  observed  in  the  dead-letter 
ylHc«  at  liondon.  But  as  he  mentions  Iwth  these  last  facts  merely  on  the  autho- 
rity of  a  hearsay,  I  do  not  know  to  what  degree  of  credit  they  are  entitled  ;  and  I 
Hhall,  therefore,  leave  them  entirely  out  of  our  consideration  in  the  present  argu- 
ment. The  meaning  which  Jjaploce  wished  to  convey  by  this  comparison  cannot 
be  mistaken. 

Among  the  ditferent  facts  in  Political  Arithmetic  here  alluded  to  by  l^iplacc, 
that  of  the  constancy  in  tho  j)roportion  of  male  to  female  biiihs  (which  be  himself 
pronounces  to  be  a  general  law  of  our  species)  is  the  most  exactly  analogous  to  the 
example  of  the  urn  containing  a  mixture  uf  white  and  of  black  balls,  from  which 
he  deduces  his  general  theorem.  1  slialJ,  accordingly,  select  this  in  preference  tt> 
the  others.  The  intelligent  reader  will  at  once  |H'rceive  that  the  wune  reasoning 
is  equally  applicable  to  all  of  them. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  the  white  balls  in  Laplace's  urn  ncpresent  male 
infants,  and  the  black  balls  femah*  infants  ;  ujion  which  supposition,  the  longer 
that  the  operation  (de8cnlM?d  by  Laplace)  of  drawing  an<l  returning  the  balls  in 


NOTE  EEE.  613 

coutiuu«d,  the  nearer  will  the  proportion  of  white  to  black  balls  approach  to  that 
of  22  to  21.  AVhat  inference  (according  to  Laplace*8«  own  thc«>rem)  ought  wo  to 
deduce  from  this,  but  that  the  whole  number  of  white  balls  in  the  uni,  is  to  tho 
whole  number  of  black  balls,  in  the  same  proportion  of  22  to  21 ;  or,  in  other  words, 
that  this  is  the  pmportion  of  the  whole  number  of  unborn  males  to  the  whole 
number  of  unborn  females  in  the  womb  of  futurity  ?  And  yet  this  inference  is 
regarded  by  Laphice  as  a  proof,  that  the  approximation  to  equality  in  the  numbers 
of  the  two  sexes  affords  no  evidence  of  design  and  contrivance. 

'*  Jm  Constance  de  la  superioritc  dcs  naissanccs  des  gar90U8  snr  celles  des  filles, 
a  Paris  et  h  Londrcs,  depuis  qu*on  lea  observe,  a  paru  ^  quelques  savans,  etre  une 
prcuve  fie  la  providence  sans  laquclle  ils  ont  pens^  que  les  causes  irr6gu1it^re8  qui 
troublcnt  sans  ccsse  la  marche  des  ev^nemens,  aurait  du  plusieurs  fois,  rendre  les 
naissanccs  anuuelles  des  filles,  superieures  d,  celles  des  gar9on8. 

'*  Mais  cette  preuvc  est  un  nouvel  exemple  de  Tabus  quo  Ton  a  fait  si  souvent 
(U'H  causes  finales  qui  disparoissent  toujours  par  un  examen  approfondi  des  ques- 
tions, lorsqu'on  a  les  donnces  nccessaires  pour  les  resoudre.  La  Constance  dont  il 
s'agit,  est  un  resultat  des  causes  reoulieres  qui  donnent  la  superiorite  aux  nais- 
sauces  des  gar^*ons,  et  que  Temportent  sur  les  anomalies  dues  au  hasard,  lorsque 
le  nombre  dcs  naissances  annuelles  est  considvrabk." — Ibid.  pp.  84,  85. 

With  the  proposition  announced  in  the  last  sentence,  I  perfectly  agree.  That 
(he  constancy  of  tlio  results  in  the  instance  now  in  question,  depends  on  regtdar 
causes^  (which,  in  this  case,  is  merely  a  synonymous  expression  with  general  lawe,) 
the  most  zealous  advocates  for  a  designing  cause  will  readily  admit ;  and  if  Laplace 
means  nothing  more  than  to  say,  that  the  uniformity  of  the  effect,  when  observed 
on  a  large  scale,  may  be  explained  without  supposing  the  miraculous  interference 
of  Providence  in  each  individual  hirth^  the  question  does  not  seem  worthy  of  a 
controversy.  If  the  person  who  put  the  white  and  black  bolls  into  the  urn,  had 
wished  to  secure  the  actual  result  of  the  drawing,  what  other  means  could  he  have 
employed  for  the  purpose,  than  to  adjust  to  each  other  the  relative  proportions  of 
these  balls  in  tlie  whole  number  of  bothf  Could  any  proof  more  demonstrative  be 
given,  that  this  was  the  very  end  he  had  in  view? 

Nor  do  I  think  that  the  authors  whom  Laplace  opposes  ever  meant  to  dispute 
the  operation  of  these  regular  causes.  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  certainly  one  of  the  earliest 
writers  in  this  countiy  who  brought  forward  the  regular  proportion  between  male 
and  female  births  as  an  argiiment  in  favour  of  providence,  not  only  agrees  in  this 
{N)int  with  La{>lace,  but  has  pn)i)Osed  a  physical  theory  to  explain  tliis  regularity. 
The  theory  is,  indeed,  too  ludicrous  to  descr\e  a  moment's  consideration  ;  *  but  it 
at  least  shews,  that  Laplace  has  advanced  nf>thiug  in  favour  of  his  conclusions 
which  had  not  been  previously  granted  by  his  adversaries.] 


[The  following  appears  only  in  the  First  Edition. — Ed.\ 

When  this  iJiJfsertation  was  nearly  ready  for  the  press,  the  posthumous  works 
of  my  late  very  learned,  ingenious,  and  amiable  friend,  Dr.  ITiomas  Brown,  wore 

1  "  There  »ccm»  (Kays  Dr.  Arbuthnoti  nuinorc  equal  number  of  both  sexw."— Abritl{;mi nl  of 

probable  cauM  to  bo  a£eignod  in  rh>Hicfl  for  thii«  thr  FhiUtsofftfcal  Tniniadicnf,  vol.  t.  part  II. 

equality  of  the  births,  than  that  In  our  first  |»p  210  243. 
parentt'  seed  there  were  at  first  fonn««l  an 


614     NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  DISSERTATION. PART  III. 

piiblished.  The  contribuUoiiB  which  the  philosophy  of  the  human  imnd  owei  to 
his  talents  and  indiutryi  belpng  exclusively  to  the  literary  history  of  the  niDeteexitli 
century ;  and  will,  I  doubt  not,  receive  ample  justice  from  the  pens  of  some  of  his 
numerous  pupils.  On  certain  points  on  which  we  difiered  in  opinion,  more  par- 
ticularly on  the  philosophical  merits  of  Lord  Bacon  and  of  Dr.  Reid,  I  should  have 
been  tempted  to  offer  some  additional  explanations,  if  the  circnmstance  of  his 
recent  and  much  lamented  death  had  not  imposed  silence  on  me,  upon  all  ques- 
tions of  controversy  between  us.  The  state  of  my  health,  besides,  has  been  such 
during  the  winter,  that  I  have  found  the  task  of  correcting  the  press  more  than 
sufficient  to  furnish  employment  both  to  my  mind  and  body ;  and,  in  fact,  I  have 
been  forced  to  deny  myself  the  satisfaction  of  reading  Dr.  Brown *8  Leeturetf  till 
my  own  performance  shall  be  in  the  hands  of  the  public. 

TO  DISSERTATION,  PART  THIRD.— NOTE  FFF. 

NoteFFF,  p.  491. 
The  well-known  lines  of  Claudian  on  the  Fall  and  Death  of  Rnfinus,  express  a 
train  of  thought  and  of  feeling  which  has  probably  passed  more  than  once  through 
every  contemplating  mind. 

"  Ssepe  mihi  dubiam  traxit  sententia  mentem, 

Curarent  superi  terras,  an  nullus  inesset 

Rector,  ct  incerto  flnerent  mortalia  casu.         ' 

Nam  cum  dispositi  quiesissem  foedcra  mimdi^ 

Prsescriptosque  man  fines,  annisquo  meatus, 

£t  lucis  noctisquc  vices  ;  tunc  omuia  rebar 

Consilio  firmata  Dei,  qui  lege  moveri 

Sidera,  qui  fruges  diverse  tempore  nasci. 

Qui  variam  Phoeben  alieno  jusscrit  igni 

Compleri,  Solemquc  suo :  porrexerit  undis 

Litora :  tellurcm  medio  libraverit  axe. 

Sed  cum  res  hominum  tanta  caliginc  volvi 

Adspicercm,  laetosque  diu  florere  nocentcs, 

Vexarique  pios  :  rursus  labc&cta  cadebat 

Rclligio.     .     .     . 

«  «  «  «  « 

Abstulit  huuc  tandem  Rufini  poena  tumultnm, 

Absolvitque  Decs." 

To  the  conclusiveness  of  this  inference  in  favour  of  Providence,  drawn  from  one 
particular  instance  of  retributive  justice,  some  strong,  and  in  my  opinion,  just  ob- 
jections, are  stated  by  Bayle,  in  a  long,  grave,  and  elaborate  argument.  I  am 
doubtful,  however,  whether,  on  the  present  occasion,  this  formidable  and  unsparing 
critic  has  fully  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  passage  which  he  censures.  The 
whole  poem  in  question,  it  ought  to  be  remembered,  is  professedly  an  invective 
against  the  memory  of  Rufinus ;  and,  therefore,  the  author  is  to  be  considered 
rather  in  the  light  of  a  declaimer  and  wit,  than  of  a  philosopher  anxious  to  explain, 


SUPPI^MENT.  fil5 

with  logical  precision,  the  grouDds  of  his  own  theological  creed.  In  the  passage 
quoted  above,  the  gravity  and  solemnity  of  the  introductory  lines  were  evidently 
meant  as  a  preparation  for  the  satirical  stab  at  the  close ; — the  poetic^  effect  of 
which  is  not  in  the  least  diminished  by  its  inconsistency  with  sound  and  enlarged 
views  of  the  order  of  the  universe.  It  is  sufficient,  in  such  cases,  if  the  poet  speak 
a  language  which  accords  with  the  natural  and  universal  prejudices  of  the  mul- 
titude. 

Let  me  add,  that  the  popular  error  (unjustly  as  I  conceive)  imputed  by  Bayle  to 
CUaudian,  arises  from  a  mistaken  expectation,  that  good  or  bad  fortune  is  always  to 
be  connected,  in  particular  instances,  with  good  or  bad  actions ;  an  expectation 
manifestly  incompatible  with  those  general  laws  by  which  both  the  material  and 
the  moral  worlds  arc  governed.  It  is  from  the  tendency  of  these  general  laws 
alone  that  any  inferences  <;an  fairly  be  deduced  with  respect  to  the  ultimate  designs 
of  Providence  ;  and  for  this  purpose  a  much  more  enlarged  and  prolonged  observa- 
tion of  the  course  of  events  is  necessary,  than  can  bo  expected  from  men  whose 
niinds  are  uncnlightene<l  by  science,  or  whose  views  are  circumscribed  within  the 
narrow  circle  of  their  own  personal  concerns.  This  consideration  will,  I  hope, 
apologize  for  the  space  allotted  in  the  text  to  the  present  discu4.sion. 


SUPPLEMENT. 


[The  following  letter,  addressed  to  Mr.  Stewart  by  his  illustrious  fncnd,  M. 
Prevost,  with  the  accompanying  observatious  on  Part  II.  of  the  Dissertation,  were 
inserted  at  the  end  of  his  own  copy  of  that  work,  and  merit  preservation.  This 
letter  is  in  some  parts  mutilated. — Ed. 

"  A  Gkneve,  23  Novetnbre,  1821. 

"  MoNsiEUs  ET  AKciEN  AMI, — Aucun  dou  litt^rairo  no  pouvait  m*etre  plus  agre- 
able  que  celui  de  votre  Dissertation.  La  2de  partie  rcpond  bien  h  I'attente  qu'- 
avoit  produite  la  Idre.  Je  I'ai  lue  avcc  une  attention  rocueillie,  et  un  interet  sou- 
tenu.  11  s'en  faut  bien  que  Ics  courtes  remarqucs  .  .  .  le  feuillet  joint  &  cetto 
lettre,  indiquent  tons  les  sujets  .  .  .  que  cctte  lecture  m'a  foumis,  et  je  me  suii 
interdis  d'y  .  .  .  Teffet  general  qu*elle  a  produit  chez  moi  et  les  sentiments  qu'elle  a 
provoques.  Indepcndamment  de  Pordre  et  de  la  clarto  qui  y  rdg^ent  de  I'union  si 
rare  d'une  vaste  6tendue  de  connoissances  et  d'une  saine  philosophic,  il  y  a  dans 
le  ton  et  dans  le  style  une  si  juste  mesure,  et  cependant  une  chaleur  et  une  eleva- 
tion, qui  captivent  et  cntraincnt,  au  milieu  de  quelques  discussions  en  apparence 
fort  arides.  Yous  avez  aussi  mis  dans  vos  jugements  une  6quitc  et  m6mo  une 
impartialite  remarquables.  Et  sous  plusieurs  de  ces  rapports,  ce  tableau  est  un 
beau  pendimt  k  celui  qu'a  trace  votre  illustre  ami  Playfair.  J*ai  ctS  touche  du 
Hoin  que  vous  avez  pris  de  me  donner  9a  et  \h  dans  cet  ouvrage  (comme  voos 
Tavicz  fait  dans  d'autres)  une  honorable  place. 

"  Conservez-moi,  Monsieur,  celle  que  vous  m'avez  accordce  dans  votre  amiti^,  et 
puisse  votre  snnte  se  soutenir  au  milieu  de  tant  de  penibles  et  utiles  travaux. — 
Votre  dcvoue,  P.  Prevost.'* 


6 1  (>  HUFPLEMENT. 

"  DlMBRTATlON,    ETC.,    PART  II. 

"P.  421.  CcB  mciuoircB  furent  inservs  dans  cenx  pour  1796  ct  1797.  Cent  k 
oenz  pour  1796|  que  se  rapporte  U  citation  des  pages  16  et  31  iudiqueea  dana 
ceite  note. 

"  Pp.  284-286.  A  Tappui  de  ces  rcmarquct,  jc  ne  peux  in*empecber  d*ijouter 
celle-ci :  comment  est-il  arrive  que  Leibnitz,  amie  aussitot  quo  Nc^iion  de  linttru- 
ment  du  calcul,  n*alt  rvellcment  ricn  fait  en  physique  ? 

**  P.  356, 1. 14.  But  I  muH — a  life  to  come.  Dien  que,  j'aic  vecu  dans  un  temps, 
dans  un  lieu  et  dans  uno  societe,  o^  Padmiration  pour  CL.  Bonnet  ctoit  nne  ospuoe 
de  religion,  je  n*ai  jamais  pu  goQtcr  beaacoup  sa  m6tapfaysiquc.  Je  dois  dire 
oepcndant,  en  reponsc  k  Taccusation  dans  laquclle  il  se  trouve  compris,  que  oe 
pbilosoplio  a  cru,  par  sa  Paliiujini$le^  y  avoir  ploincment  rvpondu.  £n  ce  point 
encore,  il  a  suivi  d'asscz  prus  bi  marcbo  de  Leibnitz ;  mais  il  mettoit  un  grand 
prix  au  trait  qui  distinguoit  son  opinion  de  celle  de  son  predecesseur.  Et  en  cffet 
(Mystomc  ponr  systvme)  cllo  CHt  plus  spvcieusc. 

"  P.  369,  1.  18.  IIU  thouglUs — atteiUioH.  J'ai  quclquo  regret  il  cct  clogc,  que  je 
ne  crois  pas  meritc.  Dus  lo  temps  oii  parut  ce  volume,  sous  le  titrc  asscz  iastucnx 
tVartthm^tifjue  morale^  ni*ulant  empress^  de  I'ctudiur,  j*y  rcconnus  un  tissu  dc 
I>uralogiHmes.  11  s'y  trouve,  il  est  vrai,  des  assertions  incontestablcs ;  ct  comment 
auroit  il  pu  ue  pas  enoncer  cu  conclusion  dos  veritcs  rcconnues  ?  Mais  ses  ridi- 
cules ex]H:ric'ii('eH  jl  un  jeu  frivole,  ct  les  consequences  absurdes  ou  mal  dcduitcti 
qu'il  en  dtrrivc,  n'ont  aucuno  valour.  Je  supposai,  dans  le  temps,  que  cct  autour 
(qui,  sans  otre  matbematicien,  n'ctoit  point  etranger  aux  matbcmatiqucs)  avoit, 
vers  la  fui  de  Ka  vie,  perdu  Tliabitudo  <lu  raisonnement  fcrmo,  qu'exige  le  gcurc 
il'application  (pi'il  avoit  entrcpris. 

"  V,  373,  1.  4.  .rcprouvc  ici  deux  surpriHOH :    !••  pourquoi,  si  les  Anpjlois  man 
queiit  (lu  mot  ennui,  ne  le  funt-ilH  paH?     *1^-  le  mot  Uuisitude  cut-il  done  en  Anglois 
un  synonyme  kVennui,  chose  en  Fnuiyois  si  difliTonte  V 

"  P.  690,  1.  31.  Farms  .  .  .  Vocs  KatU  fiiean,  &c.  !*•  I/j  mot  forme,  apjiliqui' 
A  la  scublbiliU',  est  explique,  tuni.  i.  p.  25,  dc  la  trad,  de  ])urn,  Jn  vUv,  &c. ;  ct 
d'une  inuniure  plus  gt'ncrale,  p^ir  leu  deux  cunictcres  de  la  conuoiHHancc  a  priori, 
().  3,  1.  (Icrn.  Jliiic  iUiqiie,  &c.  Ce  niot  ne  semblo  |)a8  tnip  mal  imagine,  iH>ur 
n^ptvKenter  cu  (jui  constitue  Ick  lois  de  notre  nature  spintuelle,  comme  Bacon 
reinploli'  i\  hi^niiier  Jch  luiu  de  la  nature.  A  la  vc-rite  cVst  nioins  de  Bacon  que 
d'AnHtote  que  Kant  me  semblo  I'avoir  eniprunte.  Quoitpril  en  soit,  ho  fuisant 
Kanticn,  il  convenoit  d'uvuir  un  mot  qui  ^'applitpiat  unx  troiH  facultes  dc  rt'K)>rit, 
lK>ur  exprimer  ce  qui  lui  cHt  propre,  cc  qui  n'est  point  acipiia  jwir  rexperiencc. 
2*'  A  la  (lUCNtion — Dons  Kant,  &c. ;  je  n'pondroit:  Kant  vcut  dire  que  le  concept 
do  I'cBpace  est  ntcttsairr,  c'cBt-a-tlire,  que  nous  ne  pouvons  puh  Ic  depouiller ;  et  df 
plus,  (pril  CKt  unira'sd,  e.d.  ({u'ii  H'applifiue  a  touH  Ich  pb('nomencs  den  Hcuh 
extcrnes.  PU  dcH  qu'une  toifi  il  a  coiiru  ce  quMl  a  couvu,  il  n'a  piis  tn>p  mal  fait 
de  subNlituer  le  mot  yi/z-mc  a  ce  duubk-  canictore.— (J  cHt  par  pure  justice,  (|Ue  ji- 
faJH  celte  remarque,  u'ctant  pa>  Kanticn  ;  et  en  parliculicr  ayunt,  dcH  long  temps, 
analyse  tout  autrement  les  idces  de  //•//*;>«  ct  d\spncc. 

*' P.  429,  note  1.  La  reflexion  finale  est  bien  juntc.  Jc  I'ai  8<>u\eut  fttil<!  sans 
avoir  eu  le  boubcur  de  voir  TEcosbe;  ct  j'ai  toiyourh  nttribue  a  lu  philosophie  de 


SUPPLEMENT.  617 

cette  ecule  une  partie  des  hoiiorables  traiUi  que  distiugueut  leu  bcntimeuts,  lea 
luocura  et  le  caractere  de  ccux  qui  en  sont  Ic  plus  rapproch68.  Je  ne  peux  parler 
ti  la  verite  quo  dcs  porsonnes  et  des  livros  h  moi  connus. 

"  P.  446,  1.  5.  Bui  to  whichf  &c.  J'adopte  avec  cmpresscment  cette  opinion.  Je 
I'etcnds  memo  un  peu  au  dcU,  ct  je  Papplique  volontiers  h  d'autrcs  hearts.  Cost 
un  principe  de  tolerance." 

There  is  also  annexed  by  Mr.  Stewart,  to  his  own  copy  of  the  DisscrtatioUi  a  long 
extract  against  chance,  from  the  work  of  Kepler,  De  Stella  Nova  inpede  Serpen- 
tnrii.  It  was  transcribed  by  the  late  Dr.  Nicoll,  from  a  copy  in  the  Bodleian 
Library,  in  1820.  The  edition  of  the  book  is  Pragae,  1606,  4to ;  and  the  extract 
commences,  p.  140,  "  Age  igitur,"  and  terminates  by  the  words  "  hoc  ordine." 
The  quotation  probably  had  reference,  in  the  author's  mind,  to  the  opinion  ol 
Diderot  and  Hume,  as  stated  in  Note  T  T,  pp.  586,  587 ;  but,  though  curious, 
it  has  been  thought  too  long  to  bo  here  appended. — Ed^ 


INDEX. 

Dissertation,  (Parts  I.  II.  III.)  from  beginning  to  page  528. 
Notes  and  Illustrations,  from  page  529  to  end. 


Addison,  beneficial  influence  exerted  by 
him  and  his  associates,  333-338 ;  on 
his  accuracy  and  power  of  philoso- 
phical exposition,  581-584. 

ibsthctic,  m  the  Kantian  Philosophy, 
399. 

Alembert,  fD',)  see  D*Alcmliert. 

Allamand,  whether  self-evident  proposi- 
tions be  simple  ideas  or  judgments, 
(and  his  approximation  to  Reid,)  551, 
552. 

Allied  Soverei^s,  their  manifesto  on 
entering  Pans  in  t815,  525. 

American  (North)  thinkers,  424,  425. 

Ancillon,  (lo  p^re,)  praised,  421. 

Ancillon,  (le  fils,)  quoted  as  contrasting 
the  French  ana  German  philosophies, 
387,  388. 

Arbuthnot,  (Dr.,)  favourably  noticed, 
602,  et  alibi;  as  one  of  the  earliest 
speculators  on  the  doctrince  of  pro- 
babilities, 614. 

Aristotle,  quoted,  109. 

Amauld,  (Anthony,)  a  practical  obser- 
ver of  men,  153 ;  in  his  book  On 
True  and  False  Idea$  an  opponent 
to  Malebranche,  162 ;  coincides  with 
Reid  in  respect  of  the  Ideal  Theory, 
162,  163;  principal  author  of  the 
Port-Royal  liOgiCf  163;  the  value  of 
that  work,  163,  164;  his  essential 
correspondence  with  J..ocke  in  regard 
to  the  origin  of  our  ideas,  225,  226. 

Association  of  Ideas,  great  importance 
of,  in  education,  522,  alibi. 

Atheism,  from  what  philosophical  opin- 
ions it  more  immediately  results,  376 ; 
directly  from  the  doctrine  of  Neces- 


sity, 876, 574 ;  prevalence  of,  in  Paris 
about  the  middle  of  last  century,  376, 
877 ;  absurd  imputation  of,  878,  879 ; 
irreligion  and  fanaticism  analogous  in 
their  political  effects,  379 ;  deification 
of  Nature  reprobated,  592  ;  but  to  be 
cautiously  interpreted,  593. 
Augustine,  on  Cicero,  48 ;  maintained 
the  doctrine  of  Free-will,  575. 


Bacoit,  on  his  arrangement  of  the 
sciences,  1,  seq.;  on  his  Philosophy  in 
general,  63-78;  on  his  Physics,  64; 
on  his  Psychology,  64-68 ;  two  errors 
noted,  69;  on  nis  Ethical  Disquisi- 
tions, 69 ;  on  his  Political  Philosophy, 
71-75  ;  on  his  views  of  Education,  75 ; 
on  his  Philosophy  of  Law,  189 ;  his 
maxim  that  Knovdedge  is  Ihwer, 
502,  524 ;  testimonies  touching,  538- 
540. 

Barrow,  his  learning  and  intellectual 
vigour,  90,  91 ;  his  rapidity  and  in- 
consistency, 92.     ^ 

Baxter,  (Andrew,)  his  Inquiry  into  the 
Nature  of  the  Human  obta  consider- 
ed, 429,  430. 

Bayle,  refutation  of  Spinoza,  300 ;  led 
the  way  in  the  misapplication  of  the 
term  Spinozism,  304  ;  on  his  genius, 
influence,  and  opinions  in  p^neral, 
313-324 ;  specimen  of  his  lives,  in 
that  of  Knox,  as  drawn  from  Catholic 
writers,  580,  581. 

Beattie,  praised  with  qualification,  463. 

Beaumarchais,  quoted  as  speaking  in  his 
comedy  the  doctrine  of  Necessity,  312. 


(520 


INDEX. 


Belsliani,  quoted  in  fnvour  of  NecctMity, 
312. 

Bcntham,  quoted  on  Grotius,  Pufien- 
dorf,  and  Burlamaqui,  184;  on  uni- 
vcreal  juriBprudence,  187 ;  on  the 
authority  of  our  ancestors,  192. 

Berkeley,  his  doctrine  of  visual  dis- 
tance, 131,  132  ;  on  his  doctrine  con- 
cerning the  indissoluble  connexion  of 
uur  notions  of  Colour  and  Extension, 
544,  545  ;  specially  on  his  New  Tlie- 
ory  of  Vision,  and  how  far  original 
therein,  340-348 ;  unknown  pamphlet 
of,  entitled  "  The  Theory  of  Vision, 
(C'c,  Vifultcate4  and  Exptaitietl,"  348 ; 
on  him,  in  general,  338-350 ;  his  cha- 
racter and  accomplishments,  339 ; 
gave  popularity  to  metaphysical  i)ur- 
suits  which  they  had  never  possessed 
in  England,  339 ;  on  his  doctrine 
touching  the  objects  of  general  tenns, 
349 ;  on  his  argument  against  the 
existence  of  the  material  world,  349  ; 
on  the  intention  and  defect  of  his 
Idealism,  350,  351. 

Berlin  Academy,  421. 

Bemouilli,  (John,)  on  the  Law  of  Con- 
tinuity, 275,  5(kJ,  564. 

Blair,  (liev.  Dr.,]  his  criticism  of  Addi- 
son considered,  581-583. 

IkxlinuH,  his  resemblance  to  Bacon,  53, 
55 ;  his  anticipation  of  Montcsouicu, 
53,  536;  liboralitv  of  his  political 
principles,  54,  55 ;  his  belief  in  witch- 
craft and  astn)logy,  only  the  usual 
belief  of  the  greatest  thinkers  bcifore 
and  aAer  him,  ns  Melanchthon,  Eras- 
mus, Luther,  Kepler,  Tycho  Brahe, 
&c.,  5(>,  57. 

l^)nald,  (M.  do,)  quote<l  touching  Kant, 
415;  holds,  that  philosophy  is  as  yet 
only  in  expectation,  481. 

Bondu'ill,  nee  Necessity. 

lionnet,  (Charles,)  a  follower  of  Ix'ib- 
nitz,  2(J5 ;  in  favour  of  the  IjAW  of 
Continuity,  277,  278;  quoted  as  an 
a»lvocatc  of  Necessity,  308,  309 ;  liis 
theory  of  vibrations  in  the  nerves, 
353,  354  ;  compared  with  Hartley 
generally,  355  :  his  coincidence  witli 
Condillac  in  the  hyiM)thesi8  of  an 
Rin'mated  statue,  359;  remark  on,  h\ 
IV'vost,  (HT). 

lioseovich,  praised,  42.'>,  424 ;  refuta- 
tion of  luH  mathematical  argument 
against  the  progress  of  nuuikind,  49S, 
499;  on  the  Law  of  Continuity,  561. 

FhejuUhless  Huch  as  realized  to  sense,  ix. 

Brown,  (L>r.  'J'homas,)  notice  of,  613. 


Buchanan,  his  political  doctrine,  Gl,  62. 

Budfeus,  58. 

Buffier,  on  the  Secondary  QualitieH  of 
matter,  127. 

Buffon,  on  his  contributions  to  meta- 
physical science,  his  merits  and  de- 
merits, 368-370;  notice  of,  by  Pre- 
vost,  616. 

Buhle,  his  blunders,  600,  601. 

Burnet,  (of  Kemney,J  noticed,  602. 

Butler,  (Bishop,)  notice  of,  in  relation  to 
Hume,  453,  454 ;  was  the  first  to 
detect  the  dangerous  consequeDcea 
from  Locke's  account  of  the  origin  of 
our  ideas,  if  literally  interpreted,  454, 
455;  on  the  art  of  printing,  511. 

Calvin,  on  usury,  30,  503;  on  some 
theological  tenets  of,  40  ;  opinion  on 
the  Popes,  44 ;  his  participation  in  the 
judicial  murder  of  Servetua,  54. 

CampaneUa,  an  original  speculator,  no- 
tice of,  50,  seq. 

Campbell,  (Principal,)  on  his  Nomen- 
clature of  the  Sciences,  17  ;  praised 
as  a  metaphysician,  460,  463,  467. 

Capo  of  Good  llope,  (passage  to  India 
by,)  34. 

Camnchael,  (Professor  Gershom,)  quot- 
ed, on  Grotius  and  PuffeudoH',  177, 
178. 

Cartes,  (Des,)  see  Descartes. 

CViise  and  hfiect,  according  to  Kant, 
402,  seq.;  to  Price,  405;  to  Cud- 
worth,  40G ;  notion  of  an  efficient 
cause  implies  the  notion  of  mind, 
573,  008. 

Character,  (varieties  of  intellectual,) 
works  delineating,  common  in  France, 
382. 

Charron,  friend  of  Montaigne,  105 ;  how 
he  has  attempted  to  supply  an  anti- 
dote to  Montaigne's  scepticism,  106 ; 
character  of  his  work  On  Wisdom, 
106. 

Chatelet,  (Matlamc  du,)  notice  of  her 
works  and  opinions,  385. 

Cicero,  48. 

Clarendon,  (Earl  of,)  his  testimonies  as 
to  llobbes,  541. 

Clarke,  (Dr.  S^miuel,)  on  his  opinitmn 
in  general,  287-298;  relation  to  New- 
ton, 287,  288 ;  on  his  controversy 
with  I/?ibnit/.,  288 ;  on  Space  and 
Time,  Immensity  and  Eternity,  291- 
294  ;  his  polemic  as  an  advocate  of 
Free-will,  295,  setf.;  his  controvcTKN 
with  Collins  on  this  question,  306, 


IKDEX. 


021 


9eq. ;  how  Iuh  heart  was  in  the  con- 
troversy of  liberty  and  neccBsity,  3(>8. 

(.'laudinn,  his  voises  on  the  fall  of  Ru- 
HnuR  critioiNed,  but  defended  against 
Baylo,  «514,  615. 

Cocceii,  (Henry  and  Samael,)  on  Gro- 
tins,  185. 

( 'oke,  (I/>rd,)  his  Baying,  that  to  trace  an 
error  to  its  orij^n,  is  to  refute  it,  102. 

Cdllier,  (Arthur,)  on  his  merits  aa  a 
speculator,  341) ;  see  355,  356  ;  notice 
of  his  ('/avis  Uiu'versalU,  of  its  Ger- 
man translntion,  and  translator's 
notes,  584^  585. 

< 'ollins,  (Anthony,)  272  ;  as  an  advocate 
for  Necessity,  297,  573-577 ;  on  his 
controversy  with  Clarke  on  this  opin- 
ion, 306,  seq.;  unknown  treatise  by, 
On  Liberty  and  Necessitt/,  1 729,  being 
a  vindication  of  his  Inquiry,  307  ; 
Ixx:ke'8  affection  for,  570,  571  ;  his 
notion  of  Liberty,  (as  that  of  Hobbes, 
Ixiibnitz,  S'Gravesande,  Edwards, 
Bonnet,  &c.  &c.,)  is  only  the  Liberty 
of  Sj)ontaneity — of  domg  what  we 
will,  576,  577. 

Condillac,  supposed  in  France  to  be  a 
genuine  disciple  of  Locke,  bnt  not  so, 
238,  239,  359 ;  on  his  philosophy  in 
general,  358,  seq.;  sternitv  of  inven- 
tion lH.>twecn  Descartes  and  Condillac, 

358  ;  preceded  Hartley  in  applying 
the  Association  of  Ideas  as  the  one 
explanatory  principle  in  Psychology, 
359 ;  his  coincidence  with  Bonnet  m 
the  hypothesis  of  an  animated  stAtuc, 

359  ;  probably  not  aware  of  the  logi- 
cal consequences  of  his  theory  of  the 
origin  of  our  knowledge,  359,  360 ; 
his  lucid  style  of  writing,  and  the 
U'.nor  of  his  philosophy,  peculiarly 
suited  to  the  taste  of  his  countrymen, 
360 ;  his  analysis  of  the  mental  phe- 
nomena often  very  successful,  360 ; 
especially  in  explaining  the  mutual 
action  and  reaction  of  thought  and 
language,  361 ;  in  his  theoretical  his- 
tory of  language  made  considerable 
advances,  361  ;  a  radical  error  in  his 
system  noticed,  366-368;  compared 
with  Kant  in  reganl  to  the  notion  of 
Space,  598. 

Condorcet,  erroneous  opinion  as  to  the 
foundation  of  our  belief  in  the  con- 
stancy of  nature,  609. 

Confession  of  Faith  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  asserts  the  Free-will  of  man, 
575. 

Continuity,  (Taw  of,)  501-564  ;  only  the 


old  and  common  law — that  nature 
docs  not  operate  per  saltum  on,  279. 

(.'Openiicus  and  his  system,  37. 

Cowley,  on  his  (kle  to  Destiny,  579. 

Crousaz,  his  merits,  218-220. 

Cud  worth,  an  antagonist  of  Hob))es,  85 ; 
his  ethics,  86-88 ;  his  plastic  me- 
dium, 89 ;  resemblance  to  Kant,  398- 
4(K);  an  advocate  for  Free-will,  401. 

Cumberland,  on  the  law  of  nature,  93. 

( 'uvier,  aware,  that  the  liberty  of  Rjwn- 
taneity  was  only  a  disguised  form  of 
Fatalism,  577. 


D'Alembert,  strictures  on  his  arrange- 
ment of  the  sciences,  or  touching  his 
Encyclopedical  Tree,  1-22 ;  on  Montes- 
quieu, 189 ;  blindly  follows  Condillac's 
interpretation  of  ijocke,  370. 

Dalgarno,  favourable  notice  of  his  works, 
601,  602. 

Darwin,  on  Instinct,  471-473,  alibi. 

Death,  I^ibnitian  theory  of,  664,  565. 

Definition,  words  expressing  notions  in- 
camblo  of  analysis  uiidetinable,  this 
held  by  Descartes,  124. 

Degerando,  praised,  381  ;  quoted  touch- 
ing Kant,  413,  416;  coincides  with 
Mendelsohn  in  refuting  Hume's  doc- 
trine of  ("ausation  by  the  calculus  of 
probabilities,  609,  610. 

Descartes,  on  his  Philosophy  in  general, 
112-141;  whether  he,  or  Bacon,  or 
Galileo,  Ixi  the  father  of  free  inquiry 
in  nKNlem  KuroiH),  112,  113;  father 
of  modern  ex{)erimental  Psychology, 
113;  pri(»r  to  I^cko  in  the  employ- 
ment of  Heflection,  113;  merit  in  as- 
serting the  immateriality  of  the  hnman 
nn'nd,  114-117;  whether  ho  had  read 
the  works  of  Bacon,  118,  543,  544; 
his  pn)ce8s  of  doubt  and  its  resnlts, 
118-121;  acconling  to  Stewart,  the 
first  who  recognised  that  our  know- 
ledge of  mind  is  only  relative,  121  ; 
how  great  his  merit  m  this  respect, 
122,  123 ;  his  Psychological  observa- 
ti(m8  made  when  very  young,  123 ; 
his  great  glory  is  to  have  pointed  out 
the  true  method  of  studying  mind, 
124,  543  ;  the  principal  articles  of  the 
Cartesian  Philosophy  arc, — 1*.  bis 
limitation  of  verbal  definition,  124  ; 
2*.  observations  on  our  prejudices, 
124 ;  3®.  the  paramount  authority  of 
consciousness,  125 ;  4*.  clear  distinc- 
tion of  the  Primary  and  Secondary 
qualities  of  matter,  125,  seq.;  esta- 


622 


INDEX. 


blished  the  great  principle,  that  ima- 
gination can  throw  no  light  on  the 
operations  of  thought,  136,  187;  his 
errors, — 1*.  in  rejecting  the  specula- 
tion about  Final  Causes,  138 ;  2^  in 
considering  the  brutes  as  mere  ma- 
chines, 138,  compare  375 ;  3^  his  doc- 
trine of  Innate  Ideas,  1 38 ;  4".  his 
placing  the  essence  of  mind  in  think- 
ing, 138;  6^  his  placing  the  essence 
of  matter  in  extension,  138 ;  6^  his 
new  modification  of  the  Ideal  Theory  of 

Krception,  adopted  by  Malobranche. 
K;ko,  Berkeley,  and  Hume,  138, 
646 ;  his  theory  of  the  communica- 
tion of  mind  and  body  groundless, 
139 ;  this  originated  the  nypothesis 
of  Hartley,  wnich  is  however  also  to 
be  traced  to  some  queries  of  Sir  Isaac 
Newton,  140;  how  far  the  sect  of  the 
£goists  is  a  legitimate  offshoot  of 
Cartesianism,  160;  his  meaning  of 
Innate  Ideas  commonly  misunder- 
stood, and  misunderstood  by  Locke, 
227,  236,  663-656;  defence  of  his 
rejection  of  Final  Causes,  377,  378 ; 
nses  thouaht  (cogitatio)  for  every 
thing  of  which  we  are  conscious,  381 ; 
holds  that  philosophy  is  as  a  tree  of 
which  metaphysics  aro  the  root,  &c., 
483 ;  his  use  of  the  term  iubstancef 
641-643 ;  thought  the  Meditations  his 
best  book,  543 ;  merit  in  rejecting  all 
explanation  of  the  mental  plicnoinona 
by  material  analogicH,  543  ;  misunder- 
standing of  his  doctrine  in  tluH  re- 
spect, 543 ;  on  his  opinion  touching 
sennible  ideas,  545,  546 ;  on  the  scut 
of  the  soul,  547  ;  falsely  charged  by 
Dr.  Henry  More  with  Nullibism,  547  ; 
on  his  genius  as  a  hel  esprit^  548  ; 
common  error  in  supposing  there  is 
no  medium  between  the  Innate  Ideas 
of  Descartes,  and  the  opposite  theorj' 
of  Gassendi,  548 ;  he  asserts  Free- 
will, 676. 

Determinism,  see  Necessity. 

Diderot,  quoted  as  an  advocate  of  Ne- 
cessity, 311,  580;  was  he  an  author 
of  the  Si/8thme  de  Ui  Nature?  377  ; 
inconsistent  in  his  philosophy,  585  ; 
his  ultimate  philosophy  rauK  atheism, 
585-589 ;  his  reasoning  inconclusive, 
688. 

Duclos,  as  a  delineator  of  character,  383. 


Economist!*,  their  opinions  and  merits, 
380. 


Edwards,  (Dr.  Jonathan,)  as  an  advocate 
of  Necessity,  307, 673 ;  noticed  as  the 
only  American  metaphysician,  424. 

Efficiency,  the  conception  of,  implies 
the  notion  of  mind,  673,  608. 

Egoism,  how  far  a  legitimate  develop- 
ment of  Cartesianism,  160. 

Elliot,  (Sir  Gilbert,)  remarkable  letter 
of,  in  regard  to  Hume,  606-607, 
compare  448. 

Empiriccd^  on  the  word,  396,  397. 

Encyclopedic,  authors  of,  their  tendency 
to  Materialism  blindly  derived  from 
Condillac's  comments  upon  Locke, 
370 

England,  rapid  progress  in  intellectnal 
cultivation  between  1688  and  1640, 
77. 

Epicureans^  error  of  the  statement, — 
that  their  Chance  involves  the  sup- 
position of  an  effect  without  a  cause, 
386,  387  ;  on  their  doctrine  of  Liberty, 
673,674. 

Erasmus,  noticed,  27 ;  his  temporizing 
liberality,  630. 

Ethics,  degraded  state  into  which  they 
had  fallen,  179 ;  ethical  and  political 
philosophy  during  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, slcetch  of,  intended  by  author, 
202. 

Experiment,  (sciences  of,)  33. 


Fearn,  (Mr.  John,)  his  attack  upon  the 
author,  groundless,  ix. 

Fenelon,  on,  in  general,  167-169  ;  bis 
doctrine  of  religious  toleration  and 
lil)crty  of  conscience,  168,  169. 

P^iclite,  on  his  opinions,  418,  419. 

Filaugieri,  (Chevalier  de,)  charges  Mon- 
tesquieu with  plagiarizing  from  Bo- 
dinus,  536. 

Final  Causes,  their  neglect  an  insuf- 
ficient proof  of  atheism,  377. 

Fontenelle,  on  his  influence  and  opin- 
ions, 324-332. 

Freedom  of  action,  set  Free-will. 

Free-will,  doctrine  of,  as  held  by  Augus- 
tine, 575;  by  Clarke,  295,  $eq»;  by 
Cudworth,  401  ;  by  Cuvier,  577  ;  by 
Descartes,  575 ;  by  the  Ejncureans, 
573,  574;  by  Kant,  408,  seq.;  by 
Law,  (Bishop,)  356 ;  by  Ix>cke,  296, 
207  ;  by  Price,  573  ;  a  dcceitfid  sense 
of,  asserted,  411. 

French  selfish  Philosophy  originated 
before  the  Regency,  110,  111 ;  French 
tongue,  its  peculiar  richness  in  the 
delineation  of  character,  384. 


moEz. 


623 


Galiani,  (Abb^J  anecdote  of,  in  defence 
of  theism,  588, 589 ;  his  character,  589. 

Galileo,  on  the  Law  of  Continuity,  562, 
563. 

Gassendi,  on  his  Philosophy  in  gen- 
eral, 141-149 ;  his  character,  141, 
142,  549,  550 ;  his  physics,  142,  143 ; 
an  advocate  for  the  investigation  of 
Final  Causes,  143 ;  his  Metaphysics 
and  Ethics,  144, 145  ;  his  attachnient 
to  Hobbcs,  145  ;  a  Sensationalist, 
145 ;  how  far  he  anticipated  Locke, 
146,  147  ;  his  doctrine  on  the  origin 
of  our  ideas,  224  ;  his  orthodoxy  and 
self-denial,  549,  550. 

General  terms,  are  they  prior  in  the 
order  of  knowledge  to  proper  names, 
565,  566. 

Genovesi,  TAntonio,)  422,  423. 

Gentilis,  (Albericus,)  50,  531. 

Gerard,  favourably  noticed,  463. 

Gcrdil,  (Cardinal,)  422. 

Ginguene,  on  Machiavel,  534. 

Glanvill,  79 ;  on  the  Secondary  Qualities 
of  matter,  127. 

Gley,  (G.,)  quoted  as  to  Fichte  and 
Schelling,  420. 

God,  the  soK^lled  Divinity  of  Hobbes, 
Spiuoza,  &c.,  subject  to  fate  or  neces- 
sity, 579. 

Goettingen  Royal  Society,  421. 

Greek  refugees,  27. 

Gregory,  (Dr.  John,)  his  views  on  the 
union  of  soul  and  body  favourably 
noticed,  469. 

Grimm,  (Baron  de,)  quoted  in  favour  of 
Necessity,  310. 

Grotius,  76 ;  influence  of  his  writings, 
93  ;  his  work  De  Jure  Belli  et  BacUf 
the  merits  and  defects  of  this  work, 
170-187. 


Hamiltoh,  (Sir  William,)  584. 

Harpe,  (La,)  quoted  against  Helvetius, 
371. 

Hartley,  his  theory  of  vibrations  to  be 
traced  through  a  query  of  Newton's 
to  Descartes  theory  of  animal  spirits, 
&c.,  140,  289,  353;  favourably  noti- 
ced, but  criticised,  237  ;  quoted  in 
favour  of  Necessity,  312  ;  Hartleian 
school,  352,  seq.;  adopts  from  Gay 
the  Association  of  Ideas  as  the  single 
explanatory  principle,  353;  in  what 
respect  his  theory  of  vibrations  differs 
from  Bonnet's,  853 ;  originally  a  Li- 
bortarian,  355,  576;  compared  with 
Bonnet  generally,  355. 


Helvetius,  110;  on  his  extension  of  the 
.  liEw  of  Continuity,  279,  280 ;  on  his 
doctrines  in  general,  371,  seq.;  main- 
tains that  all  our  ideas  are  derived 
from  the  external  senses,  and  that  the 
inferiority  of  the  brutal  to  the  human 
soul  lies  in  the  differences  of  organi- 
zation, 37 1-373 ;  this  opinion  refuted, 
373,  374;  this  crotchet  in  extreme 
contrast  to  the  paradox  of  the  Car- 
tesians, in  regard  to  the  brutes  as 
mere  machines,  375 ;  his  merit  as  a 
delineator  of  character,  384. 

Hobbes,  on  his  philosophy  in  general, 
79-85 :  his  pohtical  writings,  80-83 ; 
his  ethical  principles,  83  ;  a  Necessi- 
tarian, 84,  etplnries;  his  deity  sub- 
ject to  fate,  579 ;  his  Psychology,  84, 
85  ;  relation  to  the  Antinomians,  86 ; 
to  the  ancient  Sceptics,  89  ;  not  defi- 
cient in  reading,  89  ;  on  his  doctrino 
of  national  jurisprudence,  181 ;  con- 
trasted with  Locxe,  in  regard  to  the 
origin  of  our  ideas,  235 ;  herein  cor- 
responds with  Gassendi,  235 ;  on  his 
personal  character,  297  ;  his  paradoxi- 
cal bias,^  540,  541 ;  not  a  stickler  in 
his  political  opinions,  541. 

Holbach,  (Baron  d',)  as  author  of  the 
Sjftthne  de  la  Nature^  a  scheme  of 
Necessity  and  Atheism,  377. 

Home,  (Henry,)  see  Karnes. 

Hooker,  noticed,  78. 

Hopital,  (Chancellor  De  P,)  his  princi- 
ples of  toleration,  52. 

Horner,  (Mr.  Francis,)  on  Machiavers 
P/t'nce,  535 ;  character  of  Mr.  Homer 
himself,  by  the  author,  535. 

Huarte,  notice  of,  as  a  delineator  of  char- 
acter, 383. 

Huillier,  (M.  1',)  on  Probabilities,  praised, 
42 1 ;  he  and  Prevost,  against  Condor- 
cet's  (and  Laplace's)  theory  of  our 
anticipation  of  nature,  610,  611. 

Hume,  his  tendency  to  Materialism,  137; 
but  more  strongly  to  Idealism,  or  even 
Egoism,  437  ;  on  his  works  and  opi- 
nions, 431-456  ;  scope  of  his  specula- 
tion, 432-434 ;  his  merit  in  renouncing 
all  physiological  hypotheses  in  expla- 
nation of  the  phaenomenaof  mind,  434, 
435;  he  originated  various  inquiries 
which  he  himself  did  not  further  pur- 
sue, 435 ;  his  merit  in  regard  to  an  im- 
proved style  of  composition  in  Scotland, 
435,  436 ;  his  ^nuamental  principles 
nearly  the  same  as  those  of  nis  prede- 
cessors, 436 ;  his  scepticism,  437,  438 ; 
his  influence  perhaps  more  beneficial 


G24 


INDEX. 


than  peniicious,  439,  440,  4C'2,  463 ; 
his  doctrine  of  Causation,  441,  «eg.;  an- 
ticipationB  of  his  doctrine  on  thin  point, 
441,  442  ;  his  account  of  the  necessity 
we  arc  conscious  of  to  think  a  causo 
for  whatever  begins  to  be,  443,  444 ; 
he  fairly  disproved  the  reasonings  of 
Hobbes, Clarice,  and  Locke,  in  explana- 
tion of  this,  445;  to  him  wo  owe  Kant's 
fVitique  of  Pure  Jieason,  445;  bold 
attempt  to  expunge  every  iVfea  which 
was  not  derived  fR»m  a  preceding  im- 
presaion,  447  ;  he  was  fully  aware  of 
the  consequences  of  this  doctrine,  447, 
448 ;  how  he  was  led  into  his  sirepti- 
cal  speculation,  448,  449 ;  how  he  re- 
corded the  argument  from  (yommon 
§ensc,  450-452  ;  his  sincerity  in  re- 
gard to  the  sceptical  argument,  453  ; 
notice  of  his  correspondence  with  But- 
ler, 453,  454  ;  remarkable  coincitlence 
between  the  arguments  of  his  Scottish 
and  German  opponents,  460,  461 ; 
the  former  have  oeen  luiiustly  treated, 
461,  462 ;  in  favour  of  the  heathen 
mythology,  587,  588  ;  Clean thes,  in 
the  Dialogues  of  Natural  Religion, 
expresses  Hume's  own  opinions,  603  ; 
despised  mathematics,  604 ;  curious 
letter  to  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  upon 
Cause,  Effect,  &c.,  603,  604;  reply 
by  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  605-607. 
Hutchcson,  (Dr.  Francis,)  influence  of, 
428,  429. 


Idetditd,  on  the  word,  396. 

Ideas,  (Innate,)  in  what  scnHO  under- 
stood by  Descartes  and  the  philoso- 
phers, 553-556. 

Ideas,  (Sensible,)  theory  of,  what  is  the 
import  of,  as  held  by  Descartes  and 
other  philosophers,  545,  546. 

Id^oloffie,  the  French  doctriiMi  deHig- 
natcd  by  that  tenn  of  little  value, 
381 ;  founded  on  the  Ideal  Theory 
which  Koid  refuted,  460. 

Indian  (Hindoo)  IMiilosophy,  425-427. 

Inditfcrenec,  lil>erty  of,  hpc  Lib<.?rty. 

Influence  or  Influx,  their  suppcKsed  de- 
rivation in  a  philosophical  application, 
558,  559. 

Intercourse  between  nations,  36,  502, 
509. 

Italian  PhvKics,  Philosophy,  &c.,  195  ; 
philosopliers,  merits  ot,  424. 


JxroBi,  praised,  421 


Johnson,  (Ben,)  his  testimony  touching 
Bacon,  538. 


Kame0,  ^Ijord,)  A  Necessitarian,  asserts 
a  deceitful  sense  of  Free-will,  411 ;  the 
spirit  of  his  writings  praised,  4C3  ; 
holds  matter  to  be  most  active,  608. 

Kant,  a  Scotsman  by  descent,  393  ;  on 
his  philosophy  in  general,  389-418 ; 
his  Critupte  of  Pure  Reason^  393, 
seq. ;  fonned  an  epoch  both  in  Gcnnan 
literature  and  philosophy,  395 ;  a  I^i- 
bertarian  and  Non-Sensationalist,  396, 
»eq.;  analogy  to  Cud  worth,  398,  seq.^ 
406,  406,  »ea. ;  to  Price,  399,  400, 
405  ;  to  the  Cambridge  Platonists  in 
general,  400 ;  roused  to  speculation 
from  his  dogmatic  slumber  by  Hnme's 
theory  of  Causation,  401,  $€q.;  theory 
of  Space  and  Time,  408,  594>598  ; 
asserts  Free-will,  408,  »eq. ;  his  Prac- 
tical Reason,  410,  8eq.;  this  how  far 
analo^us  to  the  C-omroon  Sense  of 
Bcattie  and  Oswald,  412  ;  his  obscu- 
rity, 416, 417, 597  ;  table  of  his  notions 
a  priori^  or  Categories  of  the  Under- 
standing, 593,  594 ;  tendency  of  his 
doctrine  to  scepticism,  596  ;  contrast- 
ed with  Newton,  596,  597  ;  compared 
with  Ivocke  in  regard  to  the  notion  of 
Space,  598 ;  with  Condillac  in  respect 
of  the  same  notion,  .'>98  ;  on  his  ap- 
plication of  the  term  form,  596,  616. 

Kepler,  against  Chance,  noticed,  617. 


Lambekt,  on  his  philosophical  merits, 
392,  393. 

Ijampredi,  on  Qrotius  and  Puffcndorf, 
172. 

I^mguage,  (theoretical  history  of,)  Rous- 
seau's puzzling  objection,  361-365. 

Laplace,  pernicious  philosophy  of,  in 
fact,  a  Spiuozism,  386,  467,  46S,  586 ; 
his  mcnt  in  the  calculation  of  Prol»a- 
bilitios,  467,  468 ;  but  there  confounds 
the  mathematical  theory  of  chances 
and  the  inductive  anticipation  of  fii- 
tnrc  events,  deduced  from  an  observa- 
tion of  the  past,  609-614  ;  criticism 
of  his  argument  from  Probabilities  in 
the  superseding  of  Providence  and 
Final  ( 'auscs,  613,  614. 

I^w,  (Bishop  of  Carlisle,)  on,  352  ;  his 
speculations  on  Space  and  IMme,  352  ; 
contends  strongly  for  man's  Free- 
agency,  356;  yet  how  analogous  in 
some  respects  are  his  opinions  VfiXh 


IN1>KX. 


625 


those  of  Hartley  and  PricBtley,  360 ; 
Hhewn  to  depreciate  the  evidences  of 
Nfttnrol  Religion,  36(5,  357. 

liaw  of  Nature,  ahstruct  coile  of  the,  un- 
philosophical,  187,  188. 

Lee,  as  an  antagonist  of  Jjocke,  657, 
668. 

licibnitz,  his  superstitious  veneration  of 
the  Roman  Law,  186  ;  his  eminence 
as  a  thinker,  196;  Leibnitz  (with 
Locke)  opens  the  metaphysical  his- 
tory of  the  eighteenth  century,  2()4  ; 
to  correct  certain  misapprehension h 
t(»uching  the  opinions  ot  these  two 
philosophers  is  proposed  by  the  au- 
thor, 204, 206  ;  Leibnitz^s  injustice  to 
Locke,  233,  234,  569 ;  Leibnitz's  fa- 
mous reservation  (nisi  ipse  intellec- 
tits)  little  more  than  a  translation 
fVom  Aristotle,  234  ;  contrasted  with 
Locke,  262,  268,  269;  influence  in 
promoting  a  mutuid  communication 
of  intellectual  lights  and  moral  s\'m- 
pathies,  262,  263 ;  how  far  his  doc- 
trine touching  the  oridn  of  our  know- 
ledge coincides  with  the  Innate  Ideas 
of  the  Cartesians,  263,  264  ;  his  sys- 
tem of  Pre-esiablishsd  Hamwnv,  264, 
seq.;  this  scheme  more  untenable  than 
tho  doctrine  of  Occasional  Cavses, 
256,  266  ;  why  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
mutual  influence  of  soul  and  body  was 
rejected  by  the  Cartesians  and  Loib- 
nitians,  266,  267  ;  the  Prc-establisheil 
Harmony  involves  a  mechanism,  267, 
268 ;  his  Optimism,  260 ;  this  abol- 
ishes all  moral  distinctions,  261  ;  his 
zeal  in  maintaining  the  doctrine  of 
Necessitv,  263,  seq- ;  thou^^h  holding 
the  mind  to  be  a  mere  machine,  main- 
tains it  to  be  immaterial,  263,  264 ; 
the  identification  of  Materialism  and 
Necessitarianism  inaccurate,  266, 396 ; 
Leibnitz  trained  in  tho  school  of 
Plato,  266,  266 ;  regarded  the  New- 
tonian Physics  as  a  mere  romance, 
266 ;  evil  effects  of  his  Theodicaa  in 
propagating  Fatalism  throughout  Eu- 
rope, 267  ;  on  his  letter  to  Pfaff,  267, 
26iB ;  his  principle  of  the  SuMeient 
Season  discussed,  269-272 ;  m  the 
employment  of  this  ho  has  shewn 
great  dexterity,  272  ;  his  principle  of 
Uie  Law  of  CkmJtinuity  redargued, 
273-281,  see  also  661-664  ;  defects  of 
his  intellectual  habits  may  be  traced 
to  his  early  and  excessive  study  of 
Mathematics,  281,  666 ;  his  merits  in 
regard   to  the  study  of  Etymology, 

VOL.  I. 


281 ;  of  German  Antiuiiitii'ii,  of  Ro- 
man Jurisprudence,  ofTheolog)',  &c., 
282,  283 ;  defects  of  his  character, 
284;  remark  on,  bv  IVevost,  616; 
like  Locke,  his  credulity  too  great, 
286,  667  ;  on  Space  and  Time,  293, 
294 ;  as  a  delineator  of  character,  383 ; 
his  philosophy,  as  a  whole,  dianietri- 
collv  opposed  to  the  Sensationalist 
PhilosopW  of  France,  387  ;  liis  doc- 
trine of  Mimads,  660, 661 ;  his  theory 
of  death,  664,  567  ;  held  all  proper 
names  to  be  at  first  appellatives,  666, 
666 ;  general  estimate  of  Leibnitz, 
668-670. 

Leslie,  (Sir  John,)  on  the  Law  of  Con- 
tinuity, 663. 

Libert>%  see  Free-will;  Liberty*  of  Spon- 
taneity and  Liberty  of  Indifference,  or 
from  Necessity,  297,  306,  676,  677. 

Locke,  his  distnbution  of  the  sciences, 
16,  seq.;  one  of  the  first  speculators 
upon  Trade,  97 ;  Locke  and  Leib- 
nitz open  the  metaphysical  history 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  204;  to 
correct  certain  misapprehensions 
touching  tho  opinions  of^  these  two 
l)hiloso]^er8  is  proposed  by  the  au- 
thor, 204, 206;  Locke,  on  his  opinions 
in  general,  206-261 ;  his  study  of 
medicine,  effect  of  it  on  his  mind, 
207,  208;  his  attention  turned  to 
politics  by  his  intimacy  with  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury.  208  ;  how  tho  Essay 
on  Human  Understanding  originated, 
209,  210 ;  this  Essay  comiKwed  by 
snatches,  212 ;  appears  to  have 
studied  diligently  Iiobbes  and  Gas- 
sendi,  and  to  have  been  no  stranger  to 
Montaigne,  Bacon,  and  Malebranche, 
212;  familiar  also  with  the  Car- 
tesian system,  212  ;  but  in  his  Essay 
mentions  none  of  these  authors,  213  ; 
his  style,  that  of  a  man  of  the  world, 
213  ;  his  Essay,  how  received  at  the 
English  UniverHitics,  214,  216;  how 
in  Scotland,  216;  how  on  the  Conti- 
nent, 216-223  ;  how  his  philosophical 
acceptation  was  affected  by  his  poli- 
tical opinions,  216,  217  ;  his  letters  on 
Toleration,  217 ;  how  Locke  estimated 
by  Leibnitz  and  others,  218 ;  coinci- 
dence between  the  doctrines  of  Locke 
ond  Gassendi,  facilitated  tho  circula- 
tion of  Locke's  opinions  in  France, 
221,  222  ;  inculcates  always  a  free 
use  of  reason,  223  ;  his  opinion  as  to 
two  fundamental  doctrines,  lo,  (A« 
Origin  of  our  Ideas ;  2",  the  Intmu- 

2R 


626 


UiDEX. 


tabUUy  of  MoTixl  dUUncUons,  has 
beeu  grostfly  misapprehended,  223, 
224 ;  contrast  of  lxx:ke*8  real  doctrine 
concerning  the  Origin  of  our  Ideas 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Sensational- 
ists, as  Gasscndi,  Hobbes,  Condillac, 
Diderot,  Condorcet,  Hartley,  Tucker, 
Home  Tooke,  &c.,  224-237 ;  the  stress 
laid  by  him  on  Befledion^  as  a  source 
of  our  ideas  different  from  Sense,  dis- 
tinguishes him  from  the  mere  Sensa- 
tionalists, 227-233,  396  ;  Locke  mis- 
represented, among  others,  by  Leib- 
nitz, 233,  234,  559 ;  in  regaru  to  the 
inuuutability  of  moral  mstinctions 
and  power  of  moral  perception,  his 
real  opinion  vindicated,  238-243 ; 
Shaftesutuy  and  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
on  Locke's  Moral  d«)ctrine,  242-244 ; 
his  tracts  on  Education  and  on  the 
Conduct  of  the  Understanding,  244, 
245  ;  defects  in  his  intellectuiiJ  char- 
acter, 247-250;  his  writings  on 
Money,  Trade,  and  Government,  251 ; 
on  the  Scale  of  Beingt^  280 ;  as  a 
maiutainer  of  Free-will,  296,  297  ; 
slow  progress  of  Philosophy  afler  the 
publication  of  his  Essay,  462 ;  proof 
of  the  popularity  of  Locke's  philo- 
sophy in  France  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  552,  553 ;  Locke's  first  an- 
tagonists noted — Stillingfleet,  Norris, 
lieo,  I^wde,  also  Sherlock,  557,  558  ; 
compared  with  Kant,  in  regard  to  the 
notion  of  Space,  598 ;  notices  that 
we  nhould  not  say  the  Will  is  free,  but 
that  the  Man  is  free,  608. 

Logic,  want  of  a  competent  Manual  of 
Logic,  liational  or  Applied,  466,  467. 

Lowdo,  as  an  antagonist  of  Locke,  557. 

liower  Orders,  (rise  of,)  32. 

Luther,  29  ;  on  certain  of  his  theological 
opinions,  39  ;  examples  of  his  ci'cdu- 
hty  and  superstition,  536,  537. 

Maohiavel,  on  his  character  and  doc- 
trines, 41-48,  531-535. 

Maclaurin,  against  the  Law  of  Con- 
tinuity, 275. 

Malebranche,  on  the  Cartesian  doctrine 
of  the  Secondary  Qualities  of  matter, 
126, 129 ;  on  his  rhilosophy  in  general, 
149-161 ;  his  accomplishments,  149  ; 
his  ika/rch  after  2rtUh,  150 ;  dis- 
plays strong  imagination,  150;  blends 
theolopy  with  metaphysics,  151  ; 
mystical,  151  ;  otherwise  bold  and 
free  in  Kpcculation,  151  ;  remarkable 


in  his  generation  for  a  disbelief  of 
sorcery,  152 ;  an  acute  observer  of 
character,  153;  on  the  CartesiaD 
Theory  of  Vision,  156 ;  on  the  nature 
of  habits,  157  ;  his  doctrine  of  Occa- 
sional Causes,  and  making  the  Deity 
himself  the  efficient  and  immediate 
cause  unexclusively  of  every  effect, 
157-160;  objections  to  this  theory 
not  satisfactorv,  158,  160;  how  far 
followed  by  Berkeley,  160 ;  their  con- 
versation and  its  result,  161 ;  remarku 
on  it  by  Warburton,  162. 

Mathematics,  their  early  and  excetwive 
study  pervert  the  mind,  281,  498- 
500,565. 

Matter,  is  it  active?  608,  609. 

Melanchthon,  30,  38;  his  approbation 
of  the  execution  of  Servetus,  54. 

Mendehtohn,  an  opponent  of  Hume's 
scepticism  as  to  Causation,  by  reasoim 
drawn  from  the  calculus  of  Probabili- 
ties, 609. 

Metaphyna^  change  in  the  meaning  of 
the  word  since  the  publication  of 
Locke's  Essay,  475, 476 ;  coigunctioii 
of  the  sciences  of  Metaphysics,  of 
Ethics,  and  of  Politics,  vindicated, 
477,  478 ;  influence  of  metaphysical 
studies  on  historical  writing,  478 ;  ou 
poetry,  478 ;  on  criticism,  478 ;  ou 
education,  479 ;  on  the  style  of  com- 
position, 479-481 ;  what  is  the  amount 
of  truth  obtained  by  the  metaphysical 
speculations  of  the  eighteenth  century? 
481-484 ;  is  philosophy  only  in  expec- 
tation ?  481-483 ;  metaphysics  are  the 
root  of  the  tree  of  philosophy,  483. 

Metaphysical  and  Moral  Sciences,  38. 

Microscope,  (invention  of,)  36. 

Middle  Ages,  25. 

Montaigne,  on  his  opinions  in  eeneral, 
98-1^  ;  charactenstic  of  his  Essays, 
his  self-study,  98,  99 ;  severely  criti- 
cised in  the  Ihrt-Hoyal  Logtc^  99 ; 
his  scientific  knowleoge,  100 ;  his 
education  by  Buchanan,  100 ;  lively 
and  paradoxical,  100;  sceptical  on 
religion,  101 ;  but  a  bigot  towards 
the  close  of  hfe,  101 ;  character  of  his 
scepticism,  102 ;  his  Apology  for 
liaimond  do  Sebonde,  103,  104. 

Montesquieu,  his  historical  speculation 
as  to  the  origin  and  relations  of  laws, 
188-192  ;  the  popularity  of  his  Spirit 
of  Jjawi  was  fatal  to  the  stuay  of 
Natural  Jurisprudence,  193;  was  ho 
a  plagiarist  ?  536 ;  speaks  always 
respectfully  of  Natural  lieligion,  689. 


IND£X. 


627 


More,  ^l)r.  Henry,)  79 ;  quoted,  294. 
More,  (Sir  Thomas,)  his  liberality  and 

toleration,  529,  530. 
Motives,  as  identified  with  causes,  in 

support  of  the  scheme  of  Necessity, 

607,  seq* 


Napoleon,  saying  of,  that  "  nothing  in 
history  resemUes  the  close  of  tlie 
eighteenth  century,"  524. 

Nature,  on  thu  ground  of  our  expectation 
of  its  constancy,  609-614. 

Necessity  of  human  actions,  admits  but 
of  one  interpretation,  577 ;  leads  to 
Atheism,  376, 574;  according  to  Priest- 
ley is  a  merely  modem  opinion,  576;  as 
supposed  to  be  proved  by  the  influence 
of  education,  577,  578;  by  the  Divine 
prescience,  578  ;  by  the  scriptural 
comparison  of  the  potter,  309,  579 ; 
supersedes  remorse,  312  ;  as  held 
by  Beaumarchais,  312 ;  by  Belsham, 
312 ;  by  Bonnet,  308,  309 ;  by  Col- 
lins,  297,  573-577  ;  by  Diderot,  311, 
580;  by  Edwards,  807,  573;  by 
Grimm,  310 ;  by  Hartley,  312 ;  by 
Hobbes,  84,  et  pluries;  uy  Holbach, 
377;  by  Hume,  607;  by  Kames,  411 ; 
by  Leibnitz,  257,  258,  et  alibi,-  by 
Priestley,  575,  676 ;  bj  Spinoza,  298, 
579;  by  Voltaire,  (mconsistently,) 
591,  592  ;  by  Wolf,  391. 

Necessity,  (quality  of^  ».«.,  the  impossi- 
bility of  not  thinking  so  or  so,)  the 
criterion  of  native  cognitions,  406* 

New  World,  (Discovery  of,)  34. 

Newton,  (Sir  Isaac,)  made  no  research 
into  the  cause  or  Gravitation,  148 ; 
on  his  opinions  in  general,  287-294 ; 
affords  tnc  j^erm  of  Clarke's  a  priori 
argument  for  the  existence  of  God, 
290 ;  misrepresented  as  thinking  with 
Spinoza,  303;  his  philosophy  was 
taught  in  the  Scottish  Unversities 
before  it  was  admitted  into  the  Eng- 
lish, 551 ;  contrasted  with  Kant  and 
criticised,  596,  597. 

Nizolius,  f  Marius,)  an  original  specula- 
tor in  pnUosophy,  49. 

Nooumenon  in  the  Kantian  Philosophy, 
399. 

Norris,  on  his  merits  as  a  philosopher, 
349  ;  an  antagonist  of  liocke,  557. 


Obje(T1vk  and  Subjective  Truths,  407. 
Occam,  38. 


Paley,  an  exception  among  the  disciples 
of  Dr.  Law,  357 ;  on  his  opinions 
concerning  instinct,  470-473. 

Paracelsus,  33. 

Pascal,  on  his  character  and  doctrines, 
165-167. 

Patricius,  (Franciscus,)  a  philosophical 
reformer,  49* 

Philosophical  studies,  chief  use  of,  to 
cultivate  habits  of  generalization,  520. 

PUto,  revival  of  his  philosophy,  48;  his 
Optimism.  261. 

Playfair,  on  the  Law  of  Continuity, 
562,563. 

Politics,  Political  Ek;onomy,  among  ita 
earliest  cultivators,  English  mer- 
chants, 97;  Political  and  Ethical 
Philosophy,  sketch  of  their  progress 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  in- 
tended by  author,  202. 

Pope,  (Alex.)  a-  dangerous  vindicator  of 
the  ways  of  God,  262,  263;  on 
Clarke's  ari^ment,  apriori^  290. 

Prevost,  praised,  881,  421  ;  quoted 
touching  Kant,  415,  597-599 ;  touch- 
ing Hutcheson,  428  ;  and  L'Huillier. 
lu^ainst  Condorcet's  (and  Laplace's) 
theory  of  our  anticipation  of  tne  con- 
stancy of  nature,  610,  611 ;  Letter  to 
Mr.  Stewart,  615 ;  his  observation  on 
Leibnitz,  616;  on  Bonnet,  616;  on 
Buffon,  616 ;  on  the  words  ennui  and 
lassitude,  616;  on  the  Kantian  appli- 
cation of  the  term  form,  616 ;  on  the 
Scottish  philosophers,  617 ;  on  the 
principle  of  our  lielief  in  the  constancy 
of  nature,  617. 

Price,  resemblance  to  Kant,  399,  400  ; 
his  admission  that  the  idea  of  every 
change  supposes  it  to  be  an  effect^ 
573 ;  a  stout  advocate  for  Free-will, 
573;  coincides  with  Condorcet  ^and 
Laplace)  in  regard  to  the  ground  of  our 
confidence  in  tne  course  of  nature,  61 1 . 

Priestley,  a  Necessitarian,  but  originally 
a  Libiertarian,  575»  576 ;  he  supposes 
the  doctrine  of  philosophical  Necessity 
to  be  a  merely  modem  opinion,  676. 

Pringle,  (Sir  Jonn,)  referred  to  as  View- 
ing the  ^neral  state  of  Metaphysical 
speculation  in  Scotland,  485. 

Printing,  (Invention  of,)  80,  »eq. 

Prior,  (Matthew,)  quoted,  140. 

Probabilities,  calculation  of,  467,  468, 
609-614. 

Progress  of  Mankind  in  iUumination, 
humanity,  and  happiness,  upon  the 
whole  steady  and  accelerating,  487- 
527 ;  objection  considered,  488,  seq»  ,* 


628 


INDEX. 


circumataiK^es  contributing  to  this 
improvement — Kovival  of  Ijettorti — 
Invention  of  Printing— Geographical 
Discoveries  —  Intercourse  between 
NationB — Religious  Reformation,  489, 
»€q. ;  probability  of  such  a  progress, 
491,  tea.;  anticipation  from  the  char- 
acter or  the  Divine  Agency,  491,  uq.; 
counter  inference  refuted,  492,  9tq. ; 
true  nature  of  the  problem  stated, 
493,  494;  Turgot^s  opinion  relative 
to,  493-497 ;  fiulacious  doctrines  on 
the  question,  497,  498;  misapplica- 
tion of  mathematical  theoiy  in  oppo- 
sition to  this  progress  by  Boscovich, 
498,  499;  Sismondi,  his  opinion  in 
favour  of,  500, 601 ;  printing,  ita  effect 
specially  considered,  501,  seq.^  503, 
neq.;  8tay,  his  verses  on  this  effect, 
503;  effect  of  printing  in  securing 
and  accelerating  the  progress  of 
knowledge,  503,  se^. ;  by  the  multi- 
plication of  books,  503 ;  by  a  frue 
commerce  of  ideas,  504 ;  by  the  divi- 
sion of 'intellectual  labour,  and  a  com- 
bination of  all  powers  through  all 
ages,  505;  in  correcting  errors  and 
exploding  prejudices,  50(8,  se^^. ;  this 
assisted  by  the  diffusion  of  indepen- 
dence and  affluence,  509 ;  by  active 
intercourse  between  remote  regions, 
509,  seq. ;  the  ocean,  how  it  contri- 
butes to  this  end,  509 ;  effect  of  print- 
ing in  diffusing  knowledge  among  tlio 
great  body  of  a  people,  510 ;  inHtitu- 
tion  of  libraries,  510  ;  means  of  popu- 
lar instruction,  511,  512;  the  wide; 
circulation  of  pamphlets  and  jounialH, 
512,  513  ;  other  concurring  causes — 
multiplication  of  roads,  posts,  and 
couriers,  514  ;  objection  from  the  pos- 
sible circulation  of  error,  514,  neq. : 
freedom  of  the  press  supposed,  515  ; 
as  knowledge  advances  and  snron<lH, 
does  originality  decrease  ns  Voltaire 
supposed,  516 ;  oven  granting  the  ob- 
jection to  be  true,  the  difiusion  still 
beneficial,  517-519 ;  progress  of  know- 
ledge not  to  be  conibunded  with  the 
progress  of  scepticism,  519  ;  advance- 
ment of  philosophy  gives  as  an  in- 
controvertible result  tne  advancement 
of  human  happiness,  520 ;  nemicious 
zeal  of  some  modem  philosophers 
against  what  they  regard  as  preju- 
dice, 521  ;  defects  of  our  modem 
education,  522  ;  importance  of  the 
Association  of  Ideas  in  training  the 
mind,   522,  523 :    important   ailmis- 


uion  by  tlie  Emperor  NaiM>lcon,  524  ; 
and  by  the  Allied  Sovereigns  on  en- 
tering Paris,  525-527 ;  and  in  the 
British  Parliament,  525-527. 

Propositions,  self-evident,  Allamand'H 
doctrine  regarding,  551,  552. 

Puflendorf,  his  work  on  the  law  of  Na- 
ture and  Nations,  characteristics  of 
this  work,  172-187. 


QuALrriES,  Primary  and  Secondary,  din- 

tinction  of,  125,  teq. 
Quarterly  Review,  article  in,  on  Part  f . 

of  this  Dissertation,  noticed,  601. 


Ralvioh,  rSir  Walter,)  on,  78. 

Ramus,  of  nis  doctrine,  59,  60. 

Reflection,  Mr.  Stewart,  who  thinks  the 
philosophical  employment  of  the  word 
fte/UcAum  modern,  gives  examples  of 
its  use,  556. 

Refonnation,  (Protestant,)  28. 

Reid,  his  historical  statement  in  regartl 
to  the  distinction  between  Primary 
and  Secondary  Qualities  of  Matter, 
126;  his  apparent  inconsistency  in 
regard  to  colour,  131-134  ;  his  opmion 
quoted  as  to  Clarke's  Bpoculations 
concerning  Space,  Time,  &c.,  291  ; 
he  was  the  first  to  see  cleariy  the  pur- 
port of  llume*s  scepticism  touching 
Causation,  447  ;  on  his  opinions  in 
general,  450-466 ;  his  Inauiry  into 
the  Human  Mind  and  rciutation  of 
the  Meal  Theory,  456,  $eq.;  not  a 
mew  mistake  of  the  figurative  for  the 
real,  458,  459 ;  his  E$8ayi  on  the 
InteUedtud  and  on  the  Active  PcnoerM 
o/'J/rtn,  464-466. 

Reinhold,  on  his  merits,  394,  395,  421  ; 
quoted  touching  Kant.  417. 

Remorse,  fallacious  feeling  of,  super- 
seded by  the  doctrine  of  Necessity, 
312. 

Revival  of  Letters,  27. 

Robins,  against  the  Law  of  Continuity, 
275,  276. 

Rochefoucauld,  (Duke  of  La,)  character 
of  his  Maxims^  107  ;  holds  that  self- 
love  is  the  spring  of  all  our  actions 
and  thus  unfavourable  to  morality, 
108  ;  but  personally  a  model  of  pro- 
priety, 108 ;  not  to  be  forgotten  that  he 
wrote  within  the  vortex  of  a  court,  109. 

Roman  Law,  26. 

RouRseau,  his  nicritR  and  defects  as  a 
writer  on  iMlucation,  382. 


INDEX. 


629 


Ra>'al  Academy  of  Scicnoes,  Paria,  its 

influence,  94,  95. 
Royal  Society  of  London,  its  influence. 


Saoe,  (M.  Tje,)  against  the  Law  of  Con- 
tinuity, 278,279. 

Scepticism,  how  oaefnl,  439,  440,  462  ; 
scepticism  and  credulity  often  united, 
567,  56& 

Schelling,  on  his  doctrine,  419,  420. 

Schlegcl,  (Frederick,)  quoted  and  cor- 
rected in  regard  to  Locke,  396. 

Schub,  (not  Schulze,)  author  of  the 
Synopsis  of  the  Kantian  Philosophy, 
noticed,  593. 

Scotland,  resort  of  Scotsmen  to  the 
Continent  for  education,  550. 

Scottish  Confession,  see  Confession,  &c. 

Scottish  Metaphysical  Philosophy,  427- 
473,  601,  602;  objection  that  Scot- 
tish Metaphysicians  have  neglected 
Physiology  as  a  mean  of  Psycholo- 
^cal  explanation,  468,  469 ;  also  ob- 
jected tnat  they  have  multiplied  un- 
necessarily our  internal  senses  and 
instinctive  determinations,  470-473. 

Secondary  Qualities  of  Matter,  (^arte- 
sian  doctrine  of,  slowly  admitted  in 
England,  127,  seq. 

Seneca,  that  nothinK  necessary  for  our 
improvement  or  happiness  is  recon- 
dite, 295. 

Sherlock,  an  antagonist  of  Locke,  557, 
558. 

Signs,  merely  act  as  hints,  131-135. 

Sismondi,  his  opinion  in  favour  of  the 
continued  progress  of  mankind,  500, 
501 ;  on  tne  character  of  Machiavel 
and  scope  of  the  Prince,  531 ;  on  Ger- 
man accuracy  and  learning,  601. 

Smith,  (Adam,)  on  the  distribution  of 
the  Sciences,  17  ;  quoted,  174,  175, 
178 ;  evades  Rousseau's  puzzling  ob- 
jection touching  the  history  otlan- 
fuagc,  361,  362  ;  analogy  to  Kant  in 
is  doctrine  of  Space,  595. 

Smith,  (John,  of  Cambridge,)  79,  140; 
quoted,  122. 

Space  and  Time,  (theory  of,)  by  Clarke, 
291-294  ;  by  Kant,  408,  594-598  ;  the 
author  leans  to  an  empirical  genesis 
of  the  notion  of  Space,  595. 

Sjianish  criticism  ana  literature,  194, 1 95. 

Spinoza,  advocates  the  most  tenable 
Hyfitem  of  Necessity,  in  fact,  the  doc- 
trine of  Necessity  must  ultimately  re- 
sult in  the  Atheism  of  Spinoza,  298 ; 

VOL.  I. 


bis  Deity  rabjectto  late,  579 ;  history 
of  his  opinions,  299 ;  not  a  declared 
atheist,  but  a  real,  300,  301 ;  in  this 
respect  generally  misunderstood,  301- 
805 ;  his  political  doctrines,  302  ;  his 
life  and  character,  571,  572. 

Spontaneity,  gee  Liberty  of. 

Stael,  (Madame  de,)  quoted  on  the 
German  Philosophers,  392, 395,  419. 

Stair,  (Lord,)  notice  of  his  Physiolo^ 
Nova  Experimentdli9,  602,  et  alUn. 

Stay,  (Benedict,)  praised,  424;  his 
verses  on  the  effect  of  printing,  503. 

Stewart,  (Dugald,)  how  he  limits  the 
present  Dissertation,  23,  24 ;  Letter 
to  Rcid  about  our  perceptions  of 
colour  as  the  means  of  our  perception 
of  visible  figure,  138 ;  leans  to  an 
empirical  genesis  of  the  notion  of 
Space,  595 ;  holds  that  the  notion  of 
efficiency  supposes  mind,  608,  609. 

Stillingflcet,  as  antagonist  of  Locke, 
557. 

Stoics,  on  their  doctrine  of  Fatalism, 
574. 

Subjective  and  Objective  Truths,  407. 

System,  on  the  love  of,  416. 


Telescope,  (invention  of,)  36. 

Tenncniann,  on  his  History,  599,  600. 

Theoretical  History,  value  of,  384,  385. 

Thuanus,  his  liberality,  52. 

Tillotson,  (Archbishop,)  ouoted  in  con- 
trast to  Law  and  his  followers,  357. 

Toleration,  long  imperfectly  admitted, 
54,  217. 

Trade,  as  an  object  of  Political  Philoso- 
phy altogether  modem,  97. 

Tucker,  (Abraham,  =  Edwitfd  Search, 
Esq.,)  noticed,  236. 

Turgot,  his  doctrine  as  to  the  progress 
ofmankind,  493-497. 


Valla,  (Jjaurentius,)  an  independent 
thinker,  49  ;  quotation  from  nis  dia- 
logue on  Free-will,  261,  262. 

Vauvcnargues,  as  a  delineator  of  char- 
acter, 383. 

Vernacular  tongues,  (usage  of,  in  writ- 
^  ing,)  33. 

Vives,  (Ludovicus,)  anticipates  Bacon 
in  foreseeing  the  great  progress  of  the 
human  mind,  58. 

Voltaire,  quoted,  106,  107,  178,  etpoi- 
8im;  what  his  merits  in  making  known 
in  France  the  jphilosophy  of  Locke, 
220 ;  on  his  raiuery  of  the  Optimism 

28 


630 


INDEX. 


of  Leibnitz,  262;  quoted  as  to  the  In- 
nate Ideas  of  Deecartes,  653 ;  two 
epocIiB  to  be  distingiuBhed  in  his  phi- 
losophical life,  590,  591 ;  always  op- 
posed to  the  atheism  of  the  8y§Ume 
de  la  Nature^  590-592  ;  asserts  Final 
Causes,  592 ;  at  an  earlier  period  an 
advocate  of  Free-will,  at  a  later  of 
Necessity,  591,  592  ;  but  imperfectly 
informed  as  to  the  Metaphysical  argu- 
ments, 591. 


Wabburtok,  characteriJEed  and  ouoted, 
161,  162;  on  Machiavers  Prifux, 
583. 


Wilkins,  on  his  universal  language,  92. 

Will,  confounded  with  Desire  by  Priest- 
ley and  other  Necessitarians.  465 ; 
we  ought  not  to  say  that  the  WiU  is 
free,  but  that  the  Man  is  free,  608. 

Wirgman,  (Mr.)  quoted  as  to  Kant,  &c., 
599. 

Witt,  (John  de,)  earliest  writer  on  com- 
merce as  a  matter  of  Political  inter- 
est, 97. 

Wolf)  (Christian,)  as  a  systematizer  of 
the  Leibnitian  system,  and  on  his 
merits  in  genend,  389-391 ;  fbllows 
Leibnits  as  considering  the  soul  iu 
the  light  of  a  moe/uiM,  390,  891. 


IbllTBCaCB  :   T.  COVSTABIB.  PftlJITBK  TO  RBS  MA.JB8TT- 


PROSPECTUS. 


In  handsome  8tH>,  with  IhrtraitSf  dbc.,  price  12s,  per  Volume, 

COMPLETE  EDITION  OF  THE  WORKS 


or 


DUGALD  STEWART,  ESQ., 

COMPRISING,  AMONG  OTHER  LARGE  ADDITIONS,  A  CONCLUDING 

CHAPTER  OP  HIS  DISSERTATION,  LECTURES  ON 

POLITICAL  ECONOMY.  &c.  &c. 

WITH   A    BIOGRAPHICAL   MEMOIR   OF  THE   AUTHOR 

By  SIR  WILLIAM  HAMILTON,  Babt. 


After  the  death  of  Beid,  Duoald  Stewart  was  the  head  of  what 
hau  been  denominated  "  The  Scottish  School  of  Philosophy ;"  long 
before  his  death  he  was,  indeed,  universally  acknowledged  as  the  most 
distinguished  living  philosopher  of  Great  Britain,  and  likewise  as  one 
of  the  best  writers  in  the  language.  His  published  works  are  con- 
siderable, both  in  number  and  extent,  and  are  also  conversant  with 
the  most  important  parts  of  Philosophy, — historical,  speculative,  and 
practical.  Of  these  works,  the  earlier  have  been  frequently  re- 
printed ;  but  from  circumstances,  merely  private,  and  which  it  is  un- 
necessary to  specify,  new  editions  of  his  later  writings  have  been 
withheld,  and  a  collection  of  the  whole,  which  ought  long  ago  to  have 
appeared,  has  only  now  become  possible. 

This  Collection,  which  it  is  proposed  forthwith  to  publish,  will 
appear  in  handsome  8vo,  and  may  extend  to  nine,  perhaps  to  ten, 
volumes.  It  will  not  be  merely  a  uniform  re-impression  of  the  former 
Publications.  These  it  will  of  course  comprise, — following  the  most 
authentic  Edition,  with  the  Author's  Manuscript  Corrections,  and  his 
frequent  and  important  Additions ; — but  in  the  extensive  literary  re- 


mains  of  Mr.  Stewart,  bendes  the  WritiDgs  thus  left  prepared  for  the 
Press,  there  are  others  which  may  afibrd  valuable  extracts  to  be  in- 
corporated in  the  already  published  Treatises, — or  to  be  otherwise 
annexed  to  them. 

The  work  of  selecting  from  the  Ifanuscripts,  and,  in  general,  of 
editing  the  Collection,  has  been  undertaken  by  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
who  will  likewise  supply  a  Memoir  of  the  Author. 

The  contents  of  the  Publication  are  as  follows ;  and,  in  so  far  as  at 
present  appears,  they  will  occupy  Nine  volumes. 

1.   DlSSEBTATION,   EXHIBITINO   A  QbNBRAL  ViEW  OF  THE   PbOOBESS 

OP  Metaphtsical,  Ethical,  and  Political  PniLOsoPHr. 

This  wiU  comprise  numerous  and  extensive  Additions,  and  a  Chapter 
hitherto  unpublished,  exhibiting  a  concluding  yiew  of  **  Tendencies 
and  Results." 

2,  3,  4.  Elements  of  the  Philosopht  of  the  Human  Mind.    3  vols. 

To  this  will  be  prefixed  Part  I.  of  the  Outlines  of  Moral  PBiLoeopHT, 
containing  the  Outline  of  the  Philosophj  of  Mind.  The  first  Tolnma 
will  oontain  the  relative  Addenda  published  in  the  third,  which  are 
still  in  copyright  In  the  second  Tolume  will  appear  varions  Inser- 
tions  and  Corrections.    The  Outlxhes  also  have  some  additions. 

5.  Philosophical  Essays. 

This  Tolume  may  be  considered  as  almost  a  part  of  the  last  work. — ^Large 
additions. 

6,  7.  Philosophy  of  the  Active  and  Moral  Powers.     2  vols. 

There  wiU  be  prefixed  Part  11.  of  the  OuTLnras  of  Moral  Philobofht, 
containing  the  Outline  of  the  Ethical  Philosophy.  Considerable 
Additions. 

8.  Lectures  on  Political  Economy. 

That  is,  on  Political  Philosophy  in  its  widest  signification.  Now  first 
published.  Part  III.  of  the  Outlikes  of  Moral  PmLoeopHr,  con- 
taining the  Outline  of  the  Political  Philosophy,  will  be  prefixed. 

9.  Biographical  Memoirs  of  Smith,  Robertson,  and  Reid. 

Additions  ;  with  Memoir  of  the  Author  by  Sir  William  HAinLTOW,  which 
will  be  paged  by  itself,  and  may  be  prefixed  to  Tolume  first. 


INDICES   WILL    BE  ANNEXED. 


^  -"fi-o???? ■■■■■« 


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